You Hella Pretty

 

She was hella pretty so I told her. I wasn’t trying to harass her or make her feel less than what she is. I didn’t want her phone number and I didn’t want to send her pictures of me aroused in her DM’s. I didn’t want to marry her or one day take her home to my mother either. My statement was not a declaration of the ability of my gaze to validate her beauty because she would have been beautiful whether I told her or not. I was just a black man telling a black woman that she was pretty. I felt like she needed to hear it from me. I felt like I needed to tell her that and she needed to know that I was being sincere. I don’t think she felt that way. I think her day would have gone much better if I would have kept my comment to myself. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye as she walked in the opposite direction and said nothing, and what she said to me is exactly how she made me feel. Somehow I wanted to express to her in a three word ebonical phrase that I had suffered right alongside her and I still faced just as much resistance as she did and yet somehow we both were shinning and she was shining even brighter than me and that I acknowledged this fact, I appreciated her, I honored her, and I never gave up on her. But it didn’t go down that way.

Curse my arrogance for thinking that a complete stranger was obligated to respond to my compliment. Curse my sensitivity for being hurt when she didn’t. Curse my brooding ways for thinking that this non-exchange sums up the greatest problem facing black people in America right now, and that is the tragic hostility that drives the black man and the black woman to hate each other. I love that woman but I fear that all she saw in me was a man that had the power to hurt her. Or maybe she saw a man that was beneath her, or maybe…maybe nothing. Maybe I’m just thinking too hard but I doubt it.

-YB

The First Time

  The first time she feels comfortable enough to poot in your presence and you realize how difficult it must have been for her to suppress her humanity for all of those months. And then she looks at you with surprise but no hint of shame and the both of you begin to laugh hysterically. For you realize that she can never unbreak that wind and she will never again attempt to live up to society’s impossible expectations of what a woman should and should not do while being courted. From this moment forward you will regard her not merely as a love interest but as a human-being. As your potna. As your homie. You lean over and kiss her softly on her giggling cheek then breath in hard through your nose and you are almost overwhelmed because you know that if real love had a smell then this would undoubtedly be it.

Was

I think about her more now that she’s dead than I did when she was alive. I think about the disoriented look on her son’s face as he walked in and out of her funeral service. I think about how goofy she was a teenager. How annoying her laugh was, how pretty her face was…I think about the word was. How hurtful the past tense is when referring to young people that you love.

I did not think about her when she was alive. I had not seen her in at least 15 years. In fact even when we attended Junior High School together we were never super close but I never thought that death would reach her before her 35^th year. I never thought that I would have to use the word was when referring to her. And now I kind of want to see her. I want to tell her not to trip, that things will be ok, that she is loved. And then I’m torn because I feel really fake. If she were alive and I happened to see her I would never think to share anything beyond the exchange of basic pleasantries. I probably would have no idea that she was contemplating suicide but then again, I would never ask.

It’s shameful what death reduces us to. It’s shameful how a person has to die in order to be heard sometimes. Often times when a young man is murdered and waiting to be pronounced dead his cell phone is jumping. Everyone is calling, texting, and sending dozens of messages that all seem to say, “are you ok?” But he isn’t ok. He will never be ok again. Then they DM him and send him friend requests and favorite his tweets and finally they make a memorial on a street corner and everyone has a party in his memory—but he is dead. I could never understand why we disregard the living only to celebrate the dead. Yet here I am. Mourning the tragic death of a woman who I wasn’t even close enough to know was suffering.

I am somewhat obsessed with her now that she will be forever in the past tense.

I find myself becoming less approachable, less tolerable of other people. The memories that I have of her are ever present and I can’t stop thinking about what her future may have been. I post about her. I cherish memories of her that I didn’t even know I had when she was alive. Like that time in the 8^th grade when she was my girlfriend for two days and we broke up because I had hard rumors about her “going with” another boy (which were later revealed to be untrue). Little silly things come into my head that make me acknowledge once again to myself that she is dead. Her body has been reunited with the earth. And then I slowly attempt to rise out of bed, though I never seem to get enough sleep.

-YB

Notes on The Fire at 73rd and Macarthur

I sat in Eastmont Barbershop for hours as a young boy. Looking out of the window while waiting on the best fade in town. I stared out onto 73^rd and Macarthur Boulevard at all of the Cougars and Mustangs, Chevelles, Novas, and Cutlasses that were coming from the carwash on 90^th and Mac and gearing up to hit the Foothill strip. They would rev their engines up until the 73^rd light finally changed then they’d peel out down the block. This was back in the 90’s when the Foothill Strip was two lanes and everyone who had access to a car from all parts of the town would ride it every weekend all the way to Lake Merritt. It started right there on 73^rd and Mac. 73^rd and Macarthur is the gateway to Deep East Oakland going one way and the start of the Foothill strip going in the opposite direction. It lay right in the center of the largest black community in Northern California. It’s a major thoroughfare. It’s important. And now as of yesterday morning the whole block has been burned to the ground.

As I look at the changing demographics in the area right above Macarthur Boulevard and to a lesser extent below it I suspect, no I know, that it’s a blatant case of insurance fraud. A few blocks down on 77^th and Macarthur there were also a few businesses that were burned under mysterious circumstances. Someone is reaping the money from this destruction while local children must endure a neighborhood that looks like present day Damascus. These building will remain burned out until enough white people move into the neighborhood. Then they will buy it and then this community will go the way of West Oakland, the way of Brooklyn, the way of Brixton, and the way of D.C. And all things poor and black will be shipped off to a suburb 50 miles away.

To love a ghetto as much as I love mine may seem oxymoronical to an outsider. I love the way we struggle. I love the bluntness and the humility of hood life. I love the pride of the people even though it is far too often misplaced in street corners and cars and gang signs. I love the blackness. Much more significant and perhaps much more telling, however, is this fact: I love my hood because my hood is all that I know. I’ve gotten degrees and come back here. I’ve gone around the world and come back here. I’ve taken a chance with a woman or two but always I’ve come back here. And now as I look at 73^rd and Macarthur the only thing I see is my childhood all aflame and my heart in ashes. The invaders have made their move and indeed they have left their mark.

-YB

Millennial Heartbreak

When you’ve had the long talk about why the two of you can no longer be together

And you’ve unfriended her on Facebook and blocked her Instagram as well

When you’ve placed all the pictures of her that you have on your iPad into your digital wastebasket

When you’ve deleted her as a contact on your Facetime along with all the goofy emails exchanged during that blissful time when the two of you spoke of eternity as reality

And when you have taken the time to delete the profile picture on the Groupme account you shared with her

Then you can begin the process of forgetting the sound of her panting and the curl of her toes. The loudness of her snore and the fullness of her Afro. The way she used to beat you at every game you played with her; air hockey, tennis, wrestling, love etc. And the irony of her insatiable desire to listen to Donny Hathaway on vinyl because as it turns out, giving up really is hard to do

And then you can forget all of the ground you covered with her only to have more ground appear only to realize there lay a chasm between the two of you that your love alone could never bridge. It is only then that you can forget that you tried harder than ever before but you failed all the same. It is only then that you can begin to become reacquainted with how enormous the world can be for a person that must traverse it alone. Then you will finally come to terms with the truth. And that truth is that you were always alone and you will always be alone because alone is how god made you.

-YB

An Honest Woman

       

       He was the most promising thing that had ever happened to her nonexistent love life. He was marriage material, and it frightened her to think like that because she had never known anyone that had ever gotten married. Certainly not her mother who had her, and her sister by a former standout high school football player who eventually turned to cocaine and crystal-meth. Not her older sister who had gotten herself pregnant by a local hoodlum and want to be playboy who, when drunk, would send her pictures of his dick on snapchat. Not herself, she had never been proposed to by the boy who had impregnated her shortly after her 20^th birthday and she had never wanted him to. He was an aspiring rapper who ate with his mouth open and didn’t believe in keeping a job. He had shown an intense interest in her when he met her at the bus stop. She remembered thinking that he was kind of funny looking and had a very thin long face like a camel. She wasn’t attracted to him but she loved the way he wanted her, the smile that he had given her, the crass words about the shape of her hips came out sounding rather sweet. She was even charmed by the way he had to keep pulling his pants up because he had forgotten his belt and his skinny jeans were a few sizes too big. She gave him her number. He called, they fucked a few times, she got pregnant, she told him, he never called again, he blocked her on Facebook, deactivated his Instagram and disappeared. She didn’t really care. Honestly she didn’t. He wouldn’t have made much of a father anyway. Besides she would rather raise her child by herself with no interference.

            But now she met this promising brotha at a church function. He was with his family but his soul still wandered. He stood in the pulpit briefly to tell the congregation about the boy’s camp that he had started and how he needed their help. “Give me your boys” he orated “and I will do everything in my power to make men of them.” She thought this was very corny but she was still intrigued. Her son was far too young to attend the camp but she still got his business card after the service anyway. She emailed him the next day, and when he didn’t respond to her satisfaction she called him at his job and left a message with his secretary. The whole time she thought about his cream colored suit and matching tie. She ultimately became impressed by the dramatic nature in which he spoke and his extensive knowledge of scripture, not to mention his youth. He had to be the youngest settled man she had ever seen. She envied his wife and his daughter. She wanted him for her bedroom and she wanted him for her son. She didn’t feel like she was worthy of all of him just yet but she felt like she deserved a little piece. He should be able to spare that. So she continued to call him at his job, and she visited his home church, she helped out at the fundraiser for his camp, and she emailed him inspirational quotes.

            Finally he began to open up about everything that his marriage was not, and she listened. She began to talk about her son, and he listened. She began to laugh hardily at all of his jokes. Even the ones that weren’t funny—especially the ones that weren’t funny. She called him sexy and said, “If your wife ever slips up then you know who to call.” He ended that conversation abruptly. So abruptly that she just knew that she had lost him and she cursed herself for it. But the next day he called back from his job and after several minutes of small talk he asked in a nervous, secretive tone if she wanted to come and see him every now and then. She said ok. He then gave her a location to meet him and she told him that she was looking forward to it.

            She felt extremely accomplished when he finally reciprocated her lust. She never felt bad at all. She felt contented in knowing that she could have a piece of something great. She felt like his touch would raise her above the predetermined fate of all of her foremothers. That if he left work to be with her for an hour then that would elevate her consciousness. And that after enough hours he would come home to her and teach her little guy how to tie a tie, go fishing, and catch a football while she cooked dinner and ironed his clothes. With this young ambitious man she would be able to press the reset button on her womanhood. She had gotten his attention. She earned her hour and now she would submit to him and he would be hers for as long as it took for him to be hers.

-YB

Viewing happiness through my own lens

At some point you’re guaranteed to feel like a fool when you’re searching for something that may not even exist. Too many of us look outward for love instead of staring at our souls and preparing ourselves for whatever life may make of us. Just because you’re by yourself does not mean you have to feel lonely. And of course the inverse of this fact is also true, as my life has proven.

I’ve been in very large rooms full of people with alcohol flowing and music vibrating the walls and all I wanted to do was leave. I just wanted to be as alone as I felt. I’ve lain beside women that I find to be repulsive only because I didn’t want to sleep alone. And as they took up space in my room and marred my faith, I only wished that they would leave. Or better yet that I would have had the strength to never have invited them.

I have just recently begun asking myself if instead of looking for a life-partner I should be searching for spiritual contentment. Perhaps this contentment will include a wife and more offspring but then maybe it won’t. There are many forms of happiness just like there are many forms of misery. The question that resonates in my mind as I compose this piece is “If joy should come into my life in completely untraditional garb would I be able to recognize it?”

I need to care even less about what people say and how I may look. I need to be able to see positivity through my own lens and completely disregard how that may appear to someone else.

-YB

Who stole the soul?

Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Scarface?  

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si-Qn0FG2dQ&feature=share]

HerStory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-pAVMGrDs7A EPIC! That’s the first term that comes to mind when I think about the long journey of bringing “Herstory” to fruition. It was March 30, 2012 when I sat down to conduct my first interview with Niema Jordan in my shabby East Oakland living room. When we finished recording our conversation I thought the project, in its entirety, would be complete within two months. I was hella wrong.

So many bad things happened that my selective memory won’t even allow me to recall most of them. I do remember amicably parting ways with my original editor halfway through the project. I do remember at least two other people committing to the project only to back out once they were able to truly internalize the fact that I could not pay them. And well, everything else is a blank until I reconnected with a fellow Skyline High School graduate who possessed the skill set and the passion to bring Herstory back to life. It was February 11 when she committed to the project. Now seven weeks later it’s done.

I’m high right now. I mean I’m super elated. I’m glad that Herstory survived all of the abandonment that it was exposed to in its infantile stages. I’m glad that beauty still exists in this world and I am so grateful that I have crossed paths with three super dynamic black women that opened up to me and told me their stories. With no further ado this is Herstory:

A Brown Girl's Lips

I like the bottom one the best. I like the way it hangs and glistens. I like the fact that she can’t conceal it. I like the black mole that decorates the left side. I like it when she smiles and when she pouts and when she laughs. I like it when she bites it…

The top one is civilized. It’s conservative. She presses it down on the bottom one when she is trying to concentrate. It doesn’t curve as much when she smiles. Her top lip is somewhat ashamed of itself. It doesn’t portray her emotions but it compliments the bottom one rather well.

Together they bring balance. The lady meets the savage. They come together to bring her melody into the world. They come together to make sure she always gets her way. The girl is so spoiled.  I could run from her but I could never leave her. She plays the games that I like to play.  She likes the dances that I know how to do, and she always moves in my direction. She rotates around me as I spin on my axis facing her constantly. The light that I generate illuminates her and she gives me divine purpose. We understand one another and what we don’t understand we’re ok with.

I don’t love her at the moment but I find her energy to be very necessary. She isn’t one of the beautiful ones that I mistakenly let go while drunk with the hardships of my past—quite the contrary—she is the one that needed time to grow.

I don’t control her—can’t control her, but she wants me to think that I can. I like the games that she plays. It took me a long time to really confess it to myself but I do. I play games too. The truth is that I follow her lead and this is the one thing that I could never allow her to know.

YB

Lines From the Piedmont Rose Garden

I sit down at the Piedmont Rose Garden but the roses do not grow; they do not blossom, they do not bloom. My inspiration hath been circumcised, butchered for its own good. It is early February and very few things can grow in the cold. The grass grows more slowly and the soil clings to itself.

Behold for I am lost-

My heart groweth cold but at least it still grows. It bends toward a sun that hasn’t been seen in years. The water in the lake is cold but not frozen. My thoughts create steam. The steam dissipates, and then I have nothing. I have nostalgia like so many baseball cards hidden underneath my bed at night. If it can’t be seen then it can’t be stolen.

The roots of the tree before me plunge downward even further than my soul does. I see cowards in the darkness. I see the weak and I distance myself from them hoping that this will make me strong. My distance disallows me to follow people so it can’t be entirely bad.

I see the ugliest things in the world wrapped in the most beautiful skin imaginable. I touched her lips before I kissed her. I sinned with her long before we lay down. I got up first. With sweat beading on the tip of my nose and soaking my brow I opened the window and allowed the winter chill soothe my flesh.

-YB

SOULFUL II in Review

Last Saturday I got a chance to be the host of a phenomenal literary event entitled Soulful II: Telling Our Own Stories Our Own Way. It was an extremely powerful happening that was dedicated to raising money for Kim Glanville a youth advocate who on October 27 was shot three times in a tragic case of mistaken identity. She told her story in a manner that only she could tell it; with humor, passion, and depth. It was clear that she had been feeding off of the energy left on the stage by the other performers. Sean King blessed the audience with a poem about love and an always-relevant story about police harassment. Rami Margron who is the curator of www.theshoutstorytelling.com   told a very engaging tale about an encounter with a deer, Sayre Quevedo shared a few stirring poems about what it’s like to be 20 in the year 2012, and Jezebel Delilah X straight up ripped it. And then there was the Russian literary sensation Zarina Zabrisky. I could use a thousand fancy adjectives to describe how amazing her performance was but thanks to youtube I can just let you see it for yourself.

Enjoy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B7CVGpgA2qw]

So Surreal

It’s not that I miss her specifically; I only miss what she represented. It’s unhealthy to live your life from night to night not knowing where your next intimate moment will come from. I found myself at a museum a little while ago taking in some surrealism. I stared at the photographs as if they were living breathing beings from another planet and I looked at the paintings in the same way. I was moved by the art, like I have been so many times in the past, but this time I realized that the reason I looked at each painting for so long was because I didn’t want to go home—to no one.

One would think that I would be over the situation by now but it still bothers me. The way it ended bothers me and I sometimes become irritated by the things that she took with her. Not the material goods but the intangible things like my trust for women, my confidence, and my pride.

Women come and go but none of them stay for long enough. On a subconscious level I think I like that. There are so many things that I don’t have to face when my love life is constantly on the move. There are so many questions that I don’t have to answer and so many more questions that I don’t have to ask of myself. The single life can be very liberating but the single life can also cause a certain emotional retardation.

I worry that maybe I’ve forgotten how to treat a lady, or how to be accountable. I fear that my heart may have become obdurate from such a prolonged period of inactivity. At times I feel like I choose to be with women who only take up time and space but who aren’t essentially real. And then I fall for those who are incapable of receiving the love that I give which begs me to ponder the question: If you give a gift to someone and they do not accept it then did you truly give it to them?

My heart tells me no if it can still speak to me at all. My body continues to yearn for destruction and my soul craves for a sense of security that it has never had. My love life is so surreal.

-YB

We All Make Mistakes

I approached her skeptically fearing that she was the type of woman who was insanely in love with the idea of being in love thus reducing her man to some kind of weak representation of what she thought love should be like. I never made love to her. When we walked together I stepped very lightly because I was afraid that the conviction of my natural gait would draw too much attention to the reality of the situation. The reality being that our situation was hopeless. I took a chance on a woman from another planet because I have failed so many times here on Earth and in the end I still managed to be left alone. I would rather be enamored with an inanimate object than with someone who can grow to hate me so definitively.  I like acoustic guitars because I can’t figure them out and they slow down my spiritual tide. When I hear beautiful music playing I am able to forget about all the time I have wasted on unwholesome things. I have to remind myself that I am a good man but even still sometimes I do way too much. Unfortunately I make a lot of mistakes but then we all do. Don’t we?

YB

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f845_v41YFo]

Caves

Silence comes to me when I run from my own voice because I don’t want to be bothered with myself. I go deep to find peace. I once saw on a documentary that the first underground explorers of caves in America were black slaves because their master’s would send them down out of curiosity. The white men wouldn’t dare go themselves so they would send their slaves. On one occasion a slave was gone for a day and a half and his master assumed that he was dead however the man came back with a map that he had drawn which traced the route that he had taken and everything that he had seen while underground. Apparently that map is still used today.

I wouldn’t ever want to stay overnight in a cave because I’m terrified of bats but I’m sure I would get over that if my only other alternative was to work on a plantation. I think about how peaceful that day and a half must have been for that man. I wonder what he dreamed about at night and whether or not he contemplated ever coming back to Earth’s surface. Maybe while down there he yearned for all of the things that he thought he hated. Maybe he had children or a sweetheart that needed to return to.

I was once so bothered by the voices of others that I changed my phone number only to become immediately depressed because no one called me. I then forwarded everyone my new number. Misery is almost always a self-inflicted wound. Everyone can find happiness if you search hard enough for it. So many men women and children were enslaved but perhaps they were freer than their descendants. For they had one another and all we do is run.

-YB

Notes jotted down on the Milbrae Train

I fear that I may be some kind of chauvinist or sexist because I always seek women for the sole purpose of escapism, which instantly overwhelms any potential lover with an expectation that she can never permanently live up to. So when she first raises her voice to me, or tells me about my inconsiderate ways, or reminds me that I am flawed—when things essentially “get real” then I run.

I just want to be high on a woman, I want to be enamored, I want to be enraptured, I want her to conceal me from the rest of the world should I ever break down and cry. I want to be ensconced by the idea of love but I never want to be reminded of the reality that she is a human being. And I don’t want to deal with the fact that love requires a lot of work. My heart is obdurate, my body is weary, and my soul is jaded.

Alas I do not wish to work. I want to retire at the end of each day. I want to lay my burden’s down. I want to bury my head in her bosom. I do not want her to say the wrong thing. I do not want her to tell me that I have said the wrong thing. I want to break down all of the beautiful potent lies, roll them with cigar paper, and smoke them until I hallucinate.

In my hallucinations I believe I am running forever in a race with no distance or finish line. I am winning and I am not getting tired. She stands on the sidewalk and gives me nectar to drink in a small paper cup as I pass. I drink it fast and throw the cup on the ground beneath my fast-moving feet. I run for her so she cheers for me. We share the glory of our first place position and we appreciate the roles that we play in one another’s lives to keep us here. We love the fame that comes along with success and we love each other. She understands that if I ever stop then we stop. The nectar tastes heavenly and we are forever victorious.

-YB

Her Fairytale

March 19, 12

At this moment I find myself thinking about that point in life where fantasy and truth intersect. I know a woman who had a child by a man who was murdered over 10-years-ago. I knew both of them and I knew the dynamics of their relationship very well. I can honestly say that she was in love but I’m not sure that he loved her back. As a matter of fact if he were alive today I seriously doubt that they would even be on speaking terms.

But he did die. He was gunned down shortly after his son was born and his ex-girlfriend will never move on. It’s a tragic situation for multiple reasons. She has his name and the image of his face tattooed on her chest. Her son looks a lot like his slain father, and she keeps his memory alive via social media.

All of this brought me to the conclusion that one good thing about his unfortunate demise is that the young lady gets a chance to know a love that she probably never would have achieved if her man was still breathing. She gets to continue the relationship in her mind and design her own wedding cake. She gets to sleep with him every night and she only speaks positively of him. It’s kind of like a very hood fairytale and I suppose all girls want to have a fairytale love life, or at least that’s what I’ve been told.

She’s got his face permanently displayed on her bosom, and she’s got his child, so whose to say that she isn't living happily ever after?

-YB

An Ode to Individuality

March 11, 12

The human species is most beautiful when it is alone. When we have no political affiliation to taint our views, no educational institution to taint our thoughts, and no families to hand us identities at birth that we should be seeking to find for ourselves.

I don’t like crowded streets and I have an extreme disdain for people who cannot go out in public without being surrounded by a crew of other people. I can’t imagine being that openly insecure as an adult.

There is nothing more enticing than the sound of a woman’s voice that enjoys going to the movies alone and doesn’t need to gain the permission of five other women before she allows herself to become intimate with a man. There is no doubt in my mind that this woman loves herself. Even if the world does not appreciate her, she appreciates her own individual power to make moves in the world. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing more endearing than this brand of awareness.

-YB

I Can't Stay Away

3/10/12

This past Thursday, after nearly a year away, I found myself back in the boxing ring sparring with another fighter. The kid I was working with was very inexperienced. As a matter of fact it was only the 2^nd time he had sparred in his life. I took it easy on him but at the same time I didn’t patronize him. I landed a few good shots just to let him know that we weren’t having a tea party.

I was very sloppy. My timing was off and my distance was atrocious but it felt good to be back on the main stage. You can only hit the heavy bag for so long until it becomes extremely boring. You can only hit the mitts for so many rounds until it becomes a farce of what an actual fight is like. When it comes to training for a boxer nothing is more important than sparring and there is no greater adrenaline rush. I can remember the very first time I sparred I was dead tired after two rounds but I was high for about a week. Now two years and four amateur bouts later I suppose I’m still trying to chase that first high.

I’ve become a fight junky; a functional boxaholic. I guess we all have our things. I don’t smoke, rarely drink alcohol, I don’t drink coffee at all, and I refuse to take aspirin unless I feel like I’m about to die, but there is something about the boxing gym that I can’t stay away from. I feel like the gym is the realist place on Earth where people don’t engage in passive aggressive behavior, and everyone says what they mean, and if you got a problem with it then there is always the ring. If you think your bad you had better be able to prove it and if you say you can fight then you had better really know how because you will definitely get knocked out.

What I hate about adult life is you spend half of the time restraining yourself so that don’t wind up in prison for beating the hell out of your boss, significant other, coworker, annoying person on the train, etc. At the gym, on the other hand, you can try to smash a man's nose into his brain and when the round ends he’ll have no hard feelings because he was trying to do the same thing to you. Ahhh, if only life could always be so pure.

I love the craft of boxing. I love the smell of sweat and pine-solve that permeate the air (depending on what time it is) at my gym. I love having the ability to make a another trained fighter bleed, I love the pain in my neck after I’ve been caught with a clean shot, I love my “fight family” at the gym, and I love the way my hands look in my wraps as I shadowbox to the music being provided by KBLX. Boxing is my vice, boxing is my passion, and boxing is my love.

-YB

Notes on Muhammad Ali's 70th Birthday

February 26, 12

I was on the treadmill at the gym last night when I just happened to catch a scene from Muhammad Ali’s 70^th birthday celebration on one of the plasma screens. It was a star-studded event with everyone from Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, to Evander Holyfield in attendance. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. Everyone was jovial and lively everyone except for the birthday boy himself who was confined to a wheelchair due to pugilistic Parkinson’s.

A lot of people who claim to be boxing historians will swear that Ali is the greatest boxer of all time and I’m not here to dispute that. What I do have a problem with is people who have never set foot in a boxing ring holding Ali up on a pedestal as the type of fighter that young fighters should try to emulate.

Let’s face it Ali with all of his speed, charisma, power, and originality took way too much punishment in his career. It’s never cool for a heavyweight champion to invite 200-pound men to hit him at full strength until they themselves get tired. Muhammad Ali is a very intelligent man but that is a very poor strategy, which is evidenced by his inability to talk right now or walk on his own.

I know people loved Ali for what he did outside of the ring as much as what he accomplished within the ropes but it’s not OK for us to say that someone like Floyd Mayweather will never be as good as Ali because Floyd has a defensive style. It’s not ok for fight fans to criticize Andre Ward and Chad Dawson for their unwillingness to have their brains beat in to please a crowd that doesn’t even regard them as human beings.

As I looked at Muhammad Ali shaking in his wheelchair I saw a champion who gave all that he had to the sport that he loves so dearly. But I also saw a man who should serve as an example of what young fighters should avoid at all costs. Boxers need to keep their hands up in the ring, develop a solid defense, and once you retire then you need to stay retired. Remember that even when the crowd chants your name they do not love you, all they really want is blood.

When all the cake has been eaten, the stage has been cleared, and people take off their fancy tuxedos and elegant nightgowns to go back to everyday life the champ will still be in a wheelchair. Above everything else, I think that’s very sad.

-YB