THE MOST IMPORTANT HEAVYWEIGHT OF ALL TIME: A MEDITATION ON THE BOXERS JOE LOUIS AND MUHAMMAD ALI.

The tops, together: Louis (L) and Ali (R) in 1965

I am party to several abiding conversations about the categories “most important” and “greatest” as applied, for example, to writing, music, and sports, and have unveiled my findings at intervals in this sphere. Faithful readers might recall my reverence for the “breath-turning” poet Paul Celan, or my declaration of the top 25 (+5) (+1) most essential American musicians, crowned by Louis Armstrong. In this post, I will crane part of the debate —as it is portable—toward the top two heavyweight boxers of all time, Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali. Nobody, in my estimation, can declare a “greatest ever” among the two, thus I will stick to the scaffolding of “most important,” and in the process, perhaps create a definition-by-example of the category, “most important,” itself. There were many heavyweights, indeed, to choose from, and three others—Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, and Larry Holmes—rate a mention, but scholars and experts operating in a variety of media roundly establish Louis and Ali, in that order, or vice versa, as the most significant pugilists. The popularity of heavyweight boxing has evaporated, following the less notable careers of Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, and Evander Holyfield, and with the rise in popularity of Mixed Martial Arts; therefore, we can perhaps conclude that Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali will always be tops. 

NICKNAME:  “THE GREATEST.” A former Olympic gold medalist, Muhammad Ali dominated the so-called Golden Age of Heavyweight Boxing, decking several champions, including Liston and Foreman. He avenged losses in title bouts to Frazier, Norton, and Spinks, and triumphed over a set of lesser-known tough customers, such as Earnie Shavers and Ron Lyle, who might’ve been champions in other eras. Shavers fought Ali and Larry Holmes for the title, losing both matches; Lyle, who died recently, was ahead on two of three scorecards versus Ali, when Ali stopped him in the 11^th round of their championship fight. Despite losing many early years in prison, Lyle competed with a number of greats, including a wild win versus Shavers, and a brawling loss to George Foreman, who needed to rise off the canvas in order to prevail in five rounds. This is all to say that the second tier characters in the Golden Age were dangerous, and that, in many other eras, there was no second tier, to speak of, at all. Ali’s most important victory may have come versus then-champion Foreman, when the two clashed at the high-voltage Rumble in the Jungle of Zaire, an improbable win that cemented Ali’s return to the pinnacle of his sport, having lost three years, 1967-1970, in legal limbo. He didn’t fight during that stretch, and was stripped of his belts, of course, after he refused induction into the U.S. military, having articulated the sentiment of other blacks, at the time: “No Vietnamese ever called me nigger.” His defiance of Selective Service, and his brash, groundbreaking personality contributed to his international celebrity. To be sure, Ali was not the first black heavyweight champion to roil the white establishment—Jack Johnson married three white women and was prosecuted under the Mann Act, a law that prohibited the transport of a woman across state lines “for immoral purposes”—but Ali climbed to prominence in another era, and could project power with fewer (or alternative) consequences. His name change, from what he termed a “slave name”, Cassius Clay, to one of Muslim origins, would enable a new mythology, the script of slavery discontinued, demolished. Still, Ali found it necessary to taunt his black opponents, including Joe Frazier, with racially-tinged insults, and even slandered Joe Louis, himself, as an “Uncle Tom.” In 1980, Ali’s decisive loss to former sparring partner, Larry Holmes, would carry notoriety, for the protégé, Holmes, would assume control over the heavyweight division, arguably, for the third most dominant reign in the history of the class. Many of Ali’s exploits—matches, interviews—were broadcast via such television shows as ABC’s Wide World of Sports; nothing, for instance, was more worldly than Don King’s name for Ali-Frazier III: The Thrilla in Manilla. Ali’s gift for a photogenic code of oratory, rap, improv, and braggadocio would complement if not propel the turbulent age of jazz-rock, protest, and rocket travel. 

NICKNAME: “THE BROWN BOMBER.” A former Gold Gloves champ, Joe Louis began boxing professionally in the 1930s, and as his winning streak bulged, it became clear to Louis and his handlers that he would have to project anything but the likes of Jack Johnson (or other figures controversial to the establishment) in his public demeanor, should he ever hope for a bout with a white title holder. He would never gloat; never participate in a thrown fight; and never be photographed alone with a white woman. Thus began one of the most triumphant campaigns in U.S. history. Despite losing a disheartening non-title bout to the German boxer, Max Schmeling, the honest, soft-spoken Louis was maneuvered into a shot at the “Cinderella Man,” champion Jim Braddock. Whereas Ali would wrest the heavyweight title from another African American, Joe Louis had to carry himself just so, just to climb into the ring with Braddock. After he stopped the Cinderella Man, Louis engaged in the longest uninterrupted reign in the heavyweight class, nearly 12 years, with the most title defenses ever recorded in the division, 25 victories. Far from being an “Uncle Tom,” Louis humbled white adversaries in the ring, rather than taunt anybody, especially fellow blacks. He clobbered five former or future champions, including the huge, hulking Primo Carnera, Max Baer, and Jersey Joe Walcott, as well as a number of seasoned contenders such as Billy Conn. In all likelihood, he participated in the most important championship fight in the history of the sport, when Max Schmeling returned to New York in 1938, for a rematch, and for a chance to win the crown. Even though Schmeling, a symbol of Nazi Germany, was not, officially, a Nazi, the specter of the murderous, totalitarian regime accompanied him, amply, across the Atlantic. When Louis hurt Schmeling with a thundering blow to the ribcage, then finished the German in the first round, he became the first national African American hero celebrated by all Americans, as the United States had begun to mobilize, politically, against the Axis powers. Louis would enlist in the army during the war, bolstering morale for black and white soldiers alike. As with Ali, he would see nearly three years vanish from his fighting career, from 1942-1944, but return to the ring a winner. While in Europe, he joined the famous Liverpool Football Club as a stunt, but years later, after his boxing career had ended, he played golf at a PGA event in San Diego, the first black man to do so. He may have lacked Ali’s rhythmic verbiage, but Louis did mint the phrase, “He can run, but he can’t hide,” when Billy Conn, the light heavyweight champion, suggested that he could dodge and outbox Louis. Indeed, Conn was ahead on points, late, in the first of two fights between the men, when Louis, a fairly light heavyweight, toppled Conn with two rocketing blows to the jaw. He also said, on a separate occasion, “Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit.”

Both men suffered after their careers ended, Ali falling victim to Parkinson’s syndrome, and Louis tragically enduring a smothering and unforgivable crusade by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Louis’ post-boxing life would carry him through demeaning stretches as a professional wrestler, a “greeter” role at a casino in Las Vegas, drug addiction, bouts of paranoia, and hospitalization; he passed away in 1981. His final record, 66-3-0, included 52 knockouts, with 23 coming, stunningly, in title fights alone. Ali, for his part, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, and is currently 70 years old and prosperous. Oftentimes, when I think of Ali, I think of a split-decision loss, actually, in his first matchup with Ken Norton, who cracked Ali’s jaw at some point during the bout. Ali’s trainer, Angelo Dundee, claimed that Norton fractured it in the second round, suggesting that Ali fought at least 10 rounds with a broken jaw, nearly winning. That kind of storied grit circulates but in rare instances. Ali would finish his career at 56-5-0, with 37 wins by K.O. Still, for my money, the most important of the two fighters is Joe Louis. Long before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, Joe Louis dropped Schmeling, the ‘infallible specimen’ of the Aryan race, a result that would break the color barrier in national pride. 

DIAL S FOR STOUT.

This Be Averse!

You can't just dial "S" recklessly. If you do, you might wind up connected to the laissez faire rapper K Sirrah Sirrah & his album Straight Outta Compost. Drop the Que and you've got Sera Sera, an assassin a-sassin' your serum, or some other form of congenial defect. It's all equally worse. So much so, we're now, hereby, a Mistopia, replete with a Miss Utopia contest. When asked about how she would rescue the High Fructose Corn Syrup lobby, one contestant replied: "THNICKITH!" The reply drew Snickers from the audience, all card-carrying Mistopians. If your cousin, Tony Lemons, will sell me a used car, then will your other cousin, Two-Tony Lemons, do the paint job? Ray Milland dialed "M" for Murder but Grace Kelly ended up giving his hired strangler the Scissors, the "S", instead, murdering him, do you see? As if Ray Milland dialed S & M! Some men out there prefer to rob the cradle while some men out there prefer to rob the grave. All these men have attended UKFC, the University of Kentucky-Fried Chicken, where PBR was their go-to brew, Brah. There is a jellybean in the air // There is a jellybean in the brassiere. Too many simulations, these days, involve slapping sounds.  

MIDNIGHT IN THE OLIVE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVEL KNIEVEL.

At the famous "Jump Across 100 Starter Salads"

Yes, you can take my hoarder if I can hoarder some fries with that entrée nous. I usually prefer In-N-Out-Of-Africa-Burger -- where you hoarder a Colonial or Post-Colonial w/ a Lite Boer -- but either way, I'll be finishing up with A Clockwork Orange Julius, the refreshing beverage that, just, meters your mindfulness. It's at The Mall, I'm always at the kiosk, I'm all about the flicks, Slick, and I'm going to see that new movie, BEER HORSE, about a roan thoroughbred who runs, like, really fast, to and from the brewery. It's a double feature, though, and the second film is about an Irish-American leg-breaker boxer bum who gets a shot at the champ; it's called SHAMROCKY. Or, I dunno, it's about a guy, Rocky, who's not who he says. That kind of reminds me of the famous explorer, Ponce de Chameleon -- always changing his clothes, changing his mind, changing his vote from "Pro Romney" to "Leaning Romney." Swing voters, man; too promiscuous. The premise being that they Promise The Couscous, i.e., the whole antsy lotta. Let us now recite: Whose weed this is I think I know // His stash is in the village though // He will not see me copping here // To watch his weed fill up with snow. That's either from Frost's poem, "Stopping to Buy Weed on a Snowy Evening" or Dickens' novel, Little Dorritos, about the imprisonment of those who owe a snackchips debt to society. We can drink tequila; we can say, Goodnight, tequila; and we can dream what the agave dreams, a spiny, parched topography that offers a sappy denouement. The sun-rise brings Industry, it always brings Industry, we must complete a round of Industry, whether it be solemn or not. Come along, say your morning pleasantries with me: Good morning, Industry; Nice power-tie, Industry; You've lost a little paunch, Industry; I don't mind compromising my core values, Industry, just as long as I can provide some trans fat for my people; That's all right, Industry, I guess I don't need a level wage, after all. The Story of the Mendicant and the Fancy Woman always goes like this: The Beggar was a persistent bugger, for each time he saw the Lady, he would beg her and bug her.

BARBER & SMITH @ MICA WRITING STUDIO, THURS., MARCH 29TH, 5:00 P.M. IN BALTIMORE

Join us Thursday, March 29th, at 5:00 p.m., for LitLive at Maryland Institute College of Art, featuring poetry readings by Rod Smith and Stephanie Barber.

Rod Smith is the author of Deed (poetry, Univ. of Iowa Press) and other collections, publisher of Edge Books, and recent visiting faculty at the Iowa Writers' Workshops. Click here for more information about his writing.  

Stephanie Barber is a writer and artist living in Baltimore. Her book These Here Separated to See How They Standing Alone was published by Publishing Genius Press. Click here for more information about her work.

LitLive is a new literary reading series at MICA, with events held in the Writing Studio, Bunting Center, 1401 Mt. Royal Avenue, 4th Floor, Room 452. The series spotlights Baltimore & Washington, D.C. writers and is hosted by Dan Gutstein. All readings are free and open to the public.

Basic Directions / Parking: The Bunting Center can be found at the corner of West Lafayette Avenue and West Mt. Royal Avenue in Baltimore, and is one of three buildings at the center of MICA's campus. Exits 5, 6, or 7A from I-83. Light Rail to University of Baltimore/Mt. Royal (walk north on Mt. Royal). MARC Rail to Penn Station (Take W. Oliver St. to Mt. Royal, turn right). Garage parking at The Fitzgerald on Oliver Street between Maryland and Mt. Royal. Street parking on or around Mt. Royal.

We hope to see you at the Writing Studio!

THE TOP 25 MOST IMPORTANT AMERICAN MUSICIANS (+5) (+1 SPECIAL MENTION) TO WHOM YOU MUST LISTEN BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ME ABOUT MUSIC (played ca. 1870 to ca. 1970).

The only one for whom an instrument

—the Sousaphone (a tuba)—is named.

Consider the number of unrecorded musicians—like Buddy Petit—and the number of recorded musicians—such as Bunk Johnson—and the number of bandleaders—King Oliver, for example—who were important to Louis Armstrong, a Crescent City native who would become the most exceptional figure, indisputably, in the history of American music. Through cornet and trumpet playing that established his reputation as a soloist (and established the standing of the jazz soloist in general) and his swinging, gravel-sweet voice, Satchmo would eventually influence just about every musician on this list, but calling these men and women important doesn’t mean that they were first to play their instruments or first to hold a microphone close to their mouths. It doesn’t even mean that they were greatest in their genres, or sub-genres, although many of them, posthumously and otherwise, continue to be giants. (Only a few on the list live to play.) No, these musicians excelled at absorbing rich cultural threads and transforming them into performances, recordings, and inventions that attracted the attention of other musicians, or intensive critical acclaim, or the interest of a new and durable audience; or, of course, all three. Many of the artists on this list composed groundbreaking works of their own, but the list, alas, does not contain a host of seminal American composers—Arlen, Barber, Berlin, Bernstein, Brubeck, Cage, Carmichael, Cohan, Copland, Feldman, Gershwin Bros., Glass, Hammerstein, Ives, Q. Jones, S. Joplin, Kern, Porter, Reich, Rodgers, and Strayhorn, among others—who shaped a variety of American idioms, as well as the playing, at times, of these very 25 (+5) (+1) performers. Nor does this list necessarily contain the blogger’s personal favorites, such as the soprano saxophone jazz-man, Steve Lacy, for instance, who may have been a great musician, but whose greatness may have derived from the importance (and greatness) before him, of Thelonious Monk. This gathering of artists ends circa 1970, a point by which every musician contained herein had demonstrated his or her indispensable value to American music, but leaves off, more or less, before other acts—Captain Beefheart, Sonic Youth, Michael Jackson, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, et al.—would push into, stagger, and re-ramify the vessels of music and musical commerce. The writer Michael Ondaatje fantasized about the psychological undoing of legendary (and unrecorded, hardly celebrated) New Orleans trumpeter, Buddy Bolden, in his novel, Coming Through Slaughter, but Bolden’s contribution may have been to inspire a very young Louis Armstrong, ‘round about nineteen ought seven, who may have been, himself, offering brassy announcements on his cornet, in the same streets, as part of a job riding atop a junk cart. Undoubtedly, there have been numerous other isolations and obscurities in the development of American music—Appalachian banjo pickers, coal mine protest songs, funeral marches, marches, fife and drum corps, and migrant jug bands are just a few that come to mind—but we should offer thanks for the collective energy that has led us toward these 25 (+5) (+1) important musicians, in A, B, C order:

(Top 25)

Louis Armstrong

James Brown

Johnny Cash

Ray Charles

Ornette Coleman

John Coltrane

Bing Crosby

Miles Davis

Fats Domino

Bob Dylan

Duke Ellington

Dizzy Gillespie

Woody Guthrie

Jimi Hendrix

Billie Holiday

Robert Johnson

Thelonious Monk

Muddy Waters

Charlie Parker

Elvis Presley

Frank Sinatra

Bessie Smith

John Philip Sousa

Velvet Underground

Hank Williams

(+5)

Count Basie

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers

Coleman Hawkins

Sonny Rollins

Lester Young

(+ 1 Special Mention)

Roy Brown, for “Rockin’ at Midnight.” [For more on Roy Brown, and other musicians like him, please see the Jump Blues post.]

THREE WAYS TO REBUILD THE AMERICAN ECONOMY IN A HURRY.

Shall we avoid discrepancy & saddening silhouette.

I remind myself on occasion of my dormant bachelor's degree in economics, one that led me to work for the now-defunct and internationally disgraced Arthur Andersen & Co. for two years before I traded that dismal firm for A Life of Adventure. As I continue, perhaps I need to offer a brief disclaimer -- being: I am not a practicing economist, currently -- or perhaps you will count that circumstance in my favor. The country requires a few serious jolts, starting with this: (1) Green Manufacturing. Let's imagine, for a minute, that the ailing economy stabilizes and improves. The unemployment rate, presumably, would drop, but what would that mean? Mitt Romney likes to promise workers in Michigan that their jobs will return, but will they? Does it feel like the American automotive industry is poised to lead a major economic resurgence, full of well-paying, secure, assembly-line positions? In fact, it feels like America is becoming a nation of warehouses and strip-malls, where wholesale and retail drive our economic fortunes -- hence, the emphasis on consumer spending. Imagine, now, a second recession, one in which some of our retail and some of our wholesale don't survive, never mind our manufacturing, which many economists characterize as being in steep decline. What then? Instead of General Motors trying to be General Motors all over again, General Motors needs to become General Motors & Solar. Not only do we need to build electric cars -- to avoid punishing our environment and reduce our dependence on oil -- but we need to consider how we will produce the electricity that will juice the cars. We need to construct solar panels, and wind turbines, and fuel cells, and biomass facilities, among other going concerns -- and the infrastructure required to store and transmit the electricity we generate. The sun is probably going to shine for much of the next several million years, and last I checked, it was free; unless, of course, Comcast gets a-hold of it, in which case, you'll probably receive the sun on pay-per-view, with dreadful customer service. But I digress. A green energy conversion in this country would lead to a slew of new jobs, both in manufacturing, management, and maintenance. We would probably still mine, burn, and sell coal, and still generate some power through nuke-u-lar, but the green conversion, in principle, and in principal, would create skilled, well-paying jobs, and would tap energy sources, otherwise, for free. (2) A Level Playing Field on Labor Practices. It now appears -- doesn't it? -- that going to college makes little sense for quite a few Americans in their late teens and early twenties. For starters, college is expensive, and must be financed through equally expensive loans, but once a young adult has graduated, and enters the labor market, what kind of job is he or she likely to find? The answer is, in many cases, a job that did not require a college degree, and will not reward the student for taking out such costly loans. But according to many economists, even those jobs have fled the country in great numbers, since they can be sourced (or out-sourced) in countries where labor costs are -- horrifically -- detrimentally -- artificially low. If, for simplicity's sake, a Gadget Job in Country B pays $0.50 per hour, and in effect reinforces a poverty-level subsistence faced by the workers who produce the Gadget, then we should apply a tariff to the Gadget, as it enters port in the U.S., that would effectively render the Gadget at such a price as to make it competitive, were it produced in Country A, as in the U.S. of A. We, at least, offer something known as a minimum wage, and while that ain't much in every case, it's a reasonable law, and we should demand that our trading partners abide by similar practices. If they don't, then we should calculate all the costs that are not being fed into the price of the Gadget, and bill that country for said amounts. Maybe our "Captains of Industry" will therefore recognize an opportunity to produce the Gadget in our fair land, creating the varieties of jobs that might offer an alternative to those young adults who feel that they must, at any cost, attend college; our economy should present those alternatives. (3) National Service. Upon graduation from high school, the vast majority of American youth should serve a two year hitch in national service -- some in the military -- but most in what I'll call "Infrastructure." I don't know what, exactly, all of them would do, except that we need to build, rebuild, and restore quite a bit of our highways, bridges, tunnels, lakes, rivers, wildlife areas, et cetera, but also we may need entry level workers in factories and other settings. (Some cheap workers for our Green Energy Conversion, see #1, above.) "Of all the preposterous things you're saying, Gutstein," someone will think, "this is the most preposterous and expensive!" True, this may be costly, and in terms of financing it, I'm only prepared to say that our big-pocket corporations (and corresponding individuals) have to manage it, and finance it, in its entirety. The results, however, should benefit the very corporations that would be tasked with handling the system. I can't imagine that better highways and cheaper energy sources would be detrimental to the bottom lines of these corporations, and in any event, our federal, state, and local government agencies are broke, strained, and incapable, and if left up to them, it just won't happen. I would also like to imagine that young Americans could begin to have a valuable, shared experience in the rebuilding of their own republic, but let me not glow too roseate in my optimistic oratory. Okay? And that's all. Sure, there are other serious issues that trouble us Americans, but these three activities, in my estimation, would set the country toward an enthusiastic course, not seen, perhaps, since the exhilaration of V-E and V-J days in the 1940s. Leadership would have to come first. Someone who could unite the legislators of both major political parties, and also convince everyday Americans that we would all be entering a period of austerity and sacrifice. "Now's the time!" shouts Martin Scorcese before his character blams away at Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro) in Mean Streets, and that's about right, except for, you know, all the gunfire and violence. 

WE MUST, AS A SOCIETY REËXAMINE.

In a perfect world, it would dispense STOUT.

We must, as a society, reëxamine “Prophecy” if it should prefigure, No. 1, chronic wandering, and if, No. 2, to alleviate chronic wandering, the wanderer must arrive to the interior of a land where no man salts his meat, for there is such a land, and that land is Hypertension, but instead, what if the wanderer, owing to Prophecy, must drift about, oar slung across the sinew, and knot, and leather of his dorsum, until he discovers a land where no man beats his meat? Now that would be a journey. Should a street tough assault you with a dark red legume then he would be giving you “the beet down.” Did Beethoven compose “Fur Elise” during a confusing period of rental instability, and really meant to entitle his movement “Fur Lease”—or maybe he meant to offer pelts and foxpieces on layaway or through other creative financing? Whale = Whale, agreed, whereas Whales = Welsh, am I right? What the hell is the state jackrabbit, again? In the fourth book of the bible, Numbers, god administers to the Israelites a series of mathematics examinations, and it’s no wonder they dwelt in the house of the desert for forty years; you didn’t fail, exactly, but were smitten (with dyspepsia) (with Pepsi) (with Pepcid) (with pep rallies). I will dress for All Hollows Eve as a Hollows. I will dress for All Hollows Eve as a Guile Bladder or a Blind Boulder Test. The Eskimos, on the other hand, have 100 names for the Federal Debt, and for Obesity, and for Little Debbie Snack Cakes, as well. We may begin to suffer double dip influenza on account of double dip recession. One man, one half of a murderous duo, opted to don tights in prison, and so the esteemed duo were later known as Leotard & Loeb, even Neotard & Loeb after one in the duo adhered to progressive politics. Different haircuts will nowadays necessitate different shampoos; we will require pumice and petroleum shale to cleanse a mohawk. If we are serious about reducing the size of government, then we should send it, at long last, to a shrink.