Ali - Part IV...The Rumble in the Jungle.

Muhammad Ali throws the shot that knocks out George Foreman in 'The Rumble in the Jungle.'

Even after three long fights, Ali never quite figured out Ken Norton's awkward style of fighting.  Nonetheless, he took the immediate rematch (as soon as his jaw healed) and beat Norton in a unanimous decision in their second fight.  Again, it's not an exciting fight.  More so than most heavyweight contests, but still not one of the epic battles that Ali would be remembered for.  To this day, Norton claims to have won all three of the fights he had with Ali.  And to be fair, there's some merit to his objectives.  But I have scored the second fight several times myself and believe the fight is clearly Ali's. 

So the first hurdle is out of the way.  The second is a rematch with Frazier.  It is the only time the two met when neither was champion.  Again, of the three fights, it is the least exciting.  But again, I have scored the fight several times and clearly the night belongs to Ali.  In fact, there is a moment early in the fight when Ali has Frazier in deep trouble.  A possible knockout looms.  But referee Tony Perez mistakenly thinks he hears the bell a full minute early and separates the two fighters to check with the officials.  He realizes his mistake and waves the two fighers back together.  By then Frazier has had a chance to pull his wits together and the moment is gone.  It is the closest to an actual knockout we will ever see between the two fighters.

So now it is just George Foreman and Muhammad Ali at the top of the heap.  Both fighters are asking for two and a half million dollars for the fight and in 1974, that's a lot of money for a boxer.  Madison Square Garden passes, Yankee Stadium passes, even Las Vegas wants no part of that astronomical sum.  Finally, from the most unexpected place in the world, the fight is signed:  Zaire, Africa.  The former Belgian Congo.  The nation itself, is footing the bill.  This has never been done before or since for a heavyweight fight.

And so the second 'miracle fight' in Ali's career is set.  In my play, Bachelor's Graveyard, I describe the night.  And I think it's a pretty good round by round narrative.  Here is that excerpt from the play:

First round, everybody thinkin’ Big George was not only gonna win, he might HURT the man, fuckin’ MAIM Ali, maybe put him in a wheelchair. Ding, ding. After all the hype, all the words, all the ballyhoo, it’s finally on. It’s finally ON!  Ding, ding. Nobody’s ever come close to whuppin’ Big George, hasn’t gone past two rounds in YEARS. Big George is like this six foot four, two hundred twenty pound, walkin’GILA MONSTER. Beat the shit out of Smokin’ Joe, beat the shit out of Kenny Norton, hell, beat the shit out of EVERYBODY. Ding, ding. Ali’s 32, past his prime, not as fast, not as quick, not as sharp. Ding, ding. Been trainin’ for a year, lookin’ sleek, like a champion racehorse. And he’s mad, he wants his title back, he wants it ALL back. Ding, ding. Augh! Zaire. Africa. The Congo. A hundred and ten degrees in the shade. Witch doctors, voodoo, the heart of the black continent! Ding, ding. Rushes out, man, fucking RUNS to the center of the ring to meet Big George. SLAP. Right hand lead! NOBODY throws a right hand lead at Big George. Slaps the sweat right off his face. Swivels his neck around. Dances away. Back in. RIGHT HAND LEAD! Swap. Like a wet towel on your ass in the locker room. Hits Foreman right in the nose. Hits him harder than anybody’s ever DARED to hit him. Big George is furious. FURIOUS! Wants Ali’s blood, wants his head, wants his heart. Ali grabs him, pulls him in, ties him up. WHAT’S THIS? WHAT’S THIS? Nobody ever thought of it before, but there it is, right in
front of them, right in the middle of the ring, everybody’s mouth hangs open. What’s this? Ali and Big George are the SAME SIZE. Big George is no giant, he’s no Goliath, he’s no gila monster - he’s the same size as Ali. They go to the ropes, Big George throwin’ these big telegraph punches. None of ‘em gettin’ through. And Ali pushes him off, reaches up and puts his gloves on George’s shoulders and SHOVES him to the middle of the ring. MANHANDLES HIM!  What’s this? Ding, ding. The fuckin’ African crowd is goin’ crazy!  It’s three o’clock in the fuckin’ morning! What the fuck is going on? Ding, ding! Round two. George charges out, steam coming from his ears, got death in his eyes. NO ONE embarrasses big George in the ring. Gonna fucking KILL this man! And Ali, the old warrior, the poet-king, the poet-warrior: he . . . goes . . . to . . . the . . . ropes. The ROPES? Oh, no! Oh, no. Not Ali.  Not the king. Not Ali. The fix is in. He’s layin’ down. He’s a dead piece of meat. You can’t go to the ropes with Big George. He kills people on the ropes. That’s the killing zone. That’s where he takes people to butcher them. Oh, FUCK! Big George can’t believe it. He can’t believe it. The dancing master, the speed freak, Muhammad Ali, ON THE ROPES, where he’s always wanted him, where he tossed and turned in his sleep, DREAMING to get him. On the ropes. The place where old boxers go to die. And so he comes for him. Stomps, step by step, toward Ali leaning on the ropes. Big, heavy, awkward steps. Like an executioner wearily trudging up the steps of the gallows. Ali peaking through his gloves, staring at George like a rabbit stares at a hawk, like a mouse stares at a cat, like old, homeless, black men stare at cops. And George goes to work. This is his house, now. He’s home.  And Ali, twitching like the last kid on a dodge ball team, swaying and twisting on the ropes, taking those cannon shots on his arms, his elbows, his chest, his shoulders, everywhere but his head.  Twisting like a corpse hanging from a tree branch in the wind. It’s all over. An entire STADIUM of people gone quiet, an entire WORLD of underdogs watching the last car wreck they ever wanna see, can’t turn away, can’t stop the pictures, can’t make sense of it all anymore. (Beat. Quietly:) Ding, ding.  (Beat.)  Ali walks slowly to his corner. Refuses to sit on his stool. Head down. Looks up. Worry on his face. Sweat dripping off his chin. Eyes focused on George less than twenty feet away. And . . .and . . . smiles. And in that heartbeat, that eye blink, that moment of clarity, he knows. He KNOWS. And
for Ali, it’s the best-kept secret on the earth. He’s the ONLY one that knows. He’s smiling ‘cause he knows, deep in his heart, deep in his soul, so deep in himself only a handful of men have ever been there, he knows . . . it’s over. He knows the long fight is his. And like a book that repeats itself, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter, so predictable, so mind-numbing, so sad, and so the fight plays itself out.  Ding, ding. Ali leans on the ropes. Foreman follows. Ali protects his head. Foreman swings. And swings. And swings. And . . . Jesus Christ, swings. And Ali talks to Foreman, explaining things, teaches school, lessons of life, talks, pours out his philosophy, makes Foreman understand, recites, demands, scolds, pontificates, talks to him, puts his mouth right up to his ear, drags him into clinch after clinch and lectures quietly into his ear. He says, "My name is Muhammad Ali. You’ve been hearin’ about me since you was a scared, little boy. My name is Muhammad Ali. I been walkin’ in your dreams for years. My name is Muhammad Ali and, listen good, boy, I want it all BACK." Round five, round six, round seven. Ding, ding. Big George can’t even walk to his corner without staggering. He’s so tired of hittin’ on Ali. No man can hit something all night long. Doesn’t matter what it is: a pillow, a tree, a wall. Why won’t he go down?  Why won’t he fall? Why won’t he lay down, goddamnit. Who IS this man? And Big George is praying, oh, yes he is. Not big prayers, not even to win anymore. George is praying small now, just get me through another round. Oh, God, I’m so tired. (Beat.) Ding, ding. George pushes himself off his stool. God, I just want this to be over. I’m just so . . . so tired. Ali. To the ropes. Waves George in. C’mon. This is not over yet. You gotta finish me. If you want me to lay down, you gotta kill me, George. Can you do that? You got that in you? Can you kill me? Don’t you know that might isn’t always right? Don’t you KNOW that?  (Beat.) On the ropes. Always on the ropes. He looks like a man leaning out his bedroom window to see if there’s a cat on the roof. Big George stumbles toward him. This is all cosmically written. God’s puppets.  There’s nothing else for him to do. Just swing. Put his head down and swing. Just swing. (Beat.) And then. Like a flash of heat lightning in the middle of the blackest night in the middle of the loneliest field in the middle of nowhere. Ali starts punching. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight perfect shots to the face. Like a sniper, patient and blindingly fast, firing round after round of ammo. Each punch whips George’s head from left to right, from right to left, from east to west. Each punch hard enough to knock out most men alive. Each punch so fast George can only feel them, not see them. And he starts a slow spin, downward, arms twirling, like a man on a tightrope. He can’t feel his legs. All he can see are lights in his eyes. He’s in the queer room now. Where alligators play trombones and bats sing choruses of hallelujia and time slows to nothing. Stay down, George. Stay down. It never really belonged to you anyway. (Beat. Quiet.) Nine, ten. And Ali raises his hands high above him. Fists clenched. And walks leisurely around his fallen foe, the fallen despot, all the fallen ghosts, a fallen decade. (Whispers.) Ding . . . ding. And it was finished. (Pause.) And nobody knew it, not then, not right then anyway, that it was ALL finished, everything: the sixties, Vietnam, Watergate, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nixon, Kent State, The Beatles, Wounded Knee, Bobby Seales, Civil Rights, Truth, Justice and the American way. It was finished. The end of a fixed race. And for a few moments, a few days maybe, a few happy, happy moments, everything was as it should be. The crown had been returned to the king and we were a few and a happy band of brothers, the Holy Grail was close and God’s Grace was upon us. (Beat.) October 30, 1974. Three in the morning. (Beat.) And yes, sometimes, sometimes things worked out okay

See you tomorrow.

The Rope-a-dope is born...Ali versus Foreman, 10/31/74, Zaire, Africa

Ali - Part III...Foreman, Frazier and Norton.

Muhammad Ali lands a sharp right cross on the jaw of Ken Norton.

So suddenly Muhammad Ali found himself in a very foreign role, that of a contender.  It had been a long while since he had been cast in this role.  And Frazier was not about to give him a rematch until the public absolutely demanded it.  The first fight, in the Garden, had proved to be simply too costly.  For even though Ali had taken that gargantuan left hook late in the fight, Frazier had been horribly beaten about the head and eyes during the struggle.  In fact, unlike Ali, he'd spent nearly a week in the hospital recovering.  So unless his hand was forced, there would be no immediate rematch.  There were far easier pickings out there than another battle with Ali.

So Ali went on the road.  He fought everywhere.  He fought anyone.  He even took a world tour, of sorts, fighting other contenders in South Africa, Belgium, London, Tokyo, Berlin and even Tokyo.  And he, slowly, kept improving.  Getting his timing back after three and half years out of the ring.  He learned something about himself.  He realized he could no longer dance for twelve or fifteen rounds straight.  Age had taken that away from him.  He learned to 'sit back on his heels and punch' as Angelo Dundee said.  For the first time in his career he was forced to use a rusty talent he had rarely employed...he began to punch.  Most people forget that Ali was a very big and strong man.  They forget because Ali didn't show them that part of his arsenal.  He never needed to.  He was so fast and so unbelievably gifted as a lightning quick, defensive fighter that no one ever saw him simply sit down and do some toe-to-toe punching.  So we began to see that unexpected side of him.  He began to rack up KO after KO.  He went through every single major conternder in the world.  He beat everyone. 

In the meantime, Smokin' Joe Frazier had the great misfortune of stepping into the ring with someone he expected to handle with ease.  A very young Olympic champion named George Foreman.  Foreman was expected to be another easy payday for Frazier.  But instead, he was lucky to escape with his life.  Foreman gave Frazier one of the great beatings in modern pugilistic history.  He knocked him down seven times in two rounds.  One mammoth uppercut actually lifted Frazier nearly four feet off the mat.  It was a massacre.  And suddenly the world had a new champion, Sonny Liston reborn, a six foot four, two hundred twenty pound behemoth of a fighter.  George Foreman was an awesome figure.  In hindsight, probably the hardest puncher in the history of the game and that includes Dempsey, Louis, Marciano and Liston.  He damn near killed Joe Frazier that night in early '73.  And all of a sudden there was new sheriff in town.

So the continuing saga of the golden age of the heavyweights (the 1970s) began to unfold.  The stage was set with Foreman as the unbeatable world champion.  An awesome puncher.  Frazier was the number one contender.  And Ali sat behind Frazier.  The question was, who would Foreman agree to fight?  Give Frazier a rematch or take on Ali, whom he considered the less dangerous of the two fighters?  But again, like all great epic novels, another twist, another turn, another shocking develpment entered the chapters:  his name was Ken Norton.

Norton was a middle-of-the-road, crab-like fighter out of San Diego.  A former marine and college football player with a physique like Adonis.  Not a devastating puncher but not a powder puff, either.  Ali agreed to fight him as he continued to slash his way through the heavyweight ranks.  And in a twist-of-fate kind of fight, Ali took him on in what was thought to be just another training fight.

I've seen the fight many times.  It's not an especially exciting fight because Norton had a style, his cross-armed, shuffling, forward gait, that confused Ali.  But that wasn't the reason he upset the heavyweight apple cart.  Early in the second round, Norton connected with a quick right hand cross that gave Ali a hairline fracture of the jaw.  His cornermen immediately realized it.  Dundee wanted to stop the fight.  Ali refused to.  He fought the rest of the night with an unimaginably painful broken jaw.  And the fight, even then, was very close.  But Norton walked away with a split decision and suddenly Ali found himself once again in the role of struggling underdog.

Foreman was calling the shots by then and could afford to take his time with his next big fight.  So he decided to let Ali and Frazier scramble through the other heavyweights and take on the winner.  Suddenly, much to his chagrin, Ali found himself not one, but two fights away from recapturing the crown.  First he had to beat Norton in a rematch and then beat Frazier in a non-title fight.  A long road.  And after all that, should he succeed, he had to take on the most frightening fighter in the history of boxing, George Foreman.  Not until a decade later, when Mike Tyson first came onto the scene, had the sport seen anyone so completely dominate the heavyweight division.  Louis had dominatated to a point, but had been beaten early in his career so didn't have the same mystique as Foreman.  Marciano had dominated, too, but his time was filled with less than stellar heavyweights.  Only Foreman was considered invinceable.  As Red Smith, the venerated sports writer had written, "George Foreman will remain champion until he decides to quit.  Or the end of time.  Whichever comes first."

It was halfway through the great dramatic novel.  The protagonists and antagonists were set.  The plot had been a twisting, unexpected page-turner.  And, like all great fictional characters, Ali found himself in deep, deep trouble.  His chances were slim, at best.  And, like all great novels, the stage was about to explode with surprises.

See you tomorrow. 

 

Muhammad Ali, Part II...The Fight of the Century.

Joe Frazier knocks Muhammad Ali down, January, 1971, Madison Square Garden...The Fight of the Century.

In late October, 1974, Muhammad Ali pulled off perhaps his greatest inside-the-ring miracle when he knocked George Foreman to the ground for 10 seconds and became the only heavyweight champion to regain the title a second time. 

The pre-fight shenanigans were nearly as entertaining as the fight itself.  For the first time, a heavyweight championship fight was being held on the continent of Africa.  Kinshasa, Zaire, to be exact.  The Zaire government wanted desperately to be taken seriously as global entity and thought, oddly, the way to do that was to host a fight.  So they did.

To refresh, Ali had been stripped of his title, illegally, by the governing bodies of boxing when he refused to step forth for the draft saying, "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger."   Consequently, we never saw Ali at his best as a fighter.  We can only imagine how good he might have been.  For three and half years he was not allowed to fight professionally.  His license to fight was taken from him and immediately a round-robin tournament was arranged to find his successor.  The tournament was won by a mediocre fighter by the name of Jimmy Ellis who, earlier, had been Ali's sparring partner.  The best fighter in the world, outside of Ali, was a former Olympic champion by the name of Joe Frazier who, wisely, decided to sit out the tournament and just wait for the winner.  So after Ellis won the tournament Frazier set up a fight with him and ate him up and spit him out.  So by the time the United States Supreme Court ruled that Ali could not be prosecuted for his refusal to be drafted, Frazier had established himself as the best fighter around by a country mile.

Which set the stage for the first time two undefeated heavyweight champions have ever fought for the title.

Ali had two "warm-up" fights in preparation for his legendary night with Frazier.  The first against an underrated fighter by the name of Jerry Quarry.  After three and half years of inactivity, Ali beat the determined Quarry after cutting him deeply above the eye in the third round in his famous come-back fight in Atlanta, Georgia.  The fight was short and it proved nothing.  Could Ali still fight?  Hard to say after only three rounds.  So he set up another fight with a very tough Argentine fighter named Oscar Bonevena. 

This one went the full fifteen rounds and Ali looked terrible.  His timing was off, he wasn't dancing after the fourth round, his much anticipated pinpoint shots were sloppy, he looked, well, simply average.  But something strange happened in the fifteenth and final round of the fight.  Ali suddenly came out on his toes, dancing and moving like the old Ali.  He started throwing those razor sharp jabs and crosses.  He looked determined.  He began controlling the fight.  And Bonevena was overwhelmed.  Ali knocked him down three times and walked away with a technical knockout.  He felt, wrongly as it turns out, he was ready for Frazier.

Joe Frazier was never what might be called a gifted fighter.  But what he lacked in finesse he more than made up for in will power, hard work and total determination.  He was unable to fight a defensive fight.  Always moving forward, always charging in, head down, slinging his famous left hook like a scythe.  He was a guy who didn't know how to give up and wasn't afraid of anyone.  And he hated Muhammad Ali with a passion.  For even though Frazier was the official world champion, most of the public still considered Ali to be the real champion.  And most insulting, the black community recognized Ali as the one and true champion.

The pre-fight build-up got ugly fast.  Frazier was an easy target for Ali.  He didn't speak well, he said dumb things when he did, and worst of all, Ali painted him to be the 'white man's' champion.  The truth was, of course, Frazier was a far better example of the 'black experience' than Ali ever was.  But Ali was a publicist's dream and soon had the nation thinking the fight was racially motivated.  By the time the fight actually started in January of 1971 in Madison Square Garden, Frazier was completely consumed with his hatred for Ali. 

It's a very good fight.  I have watched it a dozen times or so.  The battle see-sawed back and forth for fourteen very brutal rounds.  Frazier, as it turns out, had a style of fighting that gave Ali fits; head down, in close, hard shots to the body, never giving Ali the chance to stand straight up and whip him with his long-range jabs.  Frazier never stopped moving forward. 

I have scored the fight several times, trying to objectively watch the fight as just two men in the ring, not blinded by the charisma of Ali.  And I, like all three of the judges on hand that night, have had the fight absolutely even going into the last round.  By that point both fighters are tired, Ali more so than Frazier.  But the last round was the the one that counted and Frazier landed a murderous left hook about a minute and fifty seconds into it.  It's a text-book shot.  Frazier's left hand nearly touches the floor as he launches it.  Ali, who always had a weakness for left hooks, never saw it coming and when it lands it takes him completely off his feet and his shoulders hit the mat before the rest of his body.  A titanic punch.  I can't imagine another fighter getting up after that shot but Ali does.  And almost immediately.  His jaw is instantly swelling.  A minute later when the bell rings it is the size of a grapefruit.  The round and consequently the fight go to Frazier. 

And for the first time, the world sees another fighter's hand raised in the ring at the end of an Ali fight. 

But more importantly, the greatest boxing rivalry in the sport is born that night.  Ali versus Frazier.  It was far from over.  It set the stage for two more no-holds-barred, grudge matches  The next occurred in 1973 and the final, and most savage of the three, in 1975.  But for the moment, Ali was out of the running.  White America was throwing a party.  The loud mouth and been briefly silenced.  Truth, Justice and the American Way had been upheld.  Ali had finally been defeated and defeated soundly.  The photo of Ali on his back in that terrible fifteenth round, eyes rolled up in his head, jaw swelling, was seen round the globe. 

And Smokin' Joe Frazier was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

And the perfect drama, the cosmic playwright's fondest dream was underway.  What could possibly top this?

See you tomorrow.

Muhammad Ali - A Look Back. Part I.

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) versus Sonny Liston.

Muhammad Ali served as a sort of touchstone for me in my formative years.  I was too young to appreciate first-hand a lot of his early fights, but his last few were well within my time.  The first that I remember being personally aware of was his fight with Jimmy Young in Landover, Maryland, in 1977.  A rather dull fight as it turned out but I watched it all hoping to see flashes of the old Ali.  There were, as I recall, very few flashes that night and Ali was lucky to escape with his title intact.  That wasn't entirely Ali's fault because I don't think Jimmy Young was ever involved in an exciting fight his entire career.  He was a backward shuffling counter puncher and forced Ali to do the one thing he was never really good at: fighting an offensively aggressive fight.

His second to last fight with Larry Holmes occurred in 1981 and I remember paying to see the fight on closed circuit along with my friend, the late Robert Fiedler, at some arena in downtown Springfield, MO.  It was a sad night.  Ali was never in the ball game and Holmes beat him mercilessly.  Robert and I quietly drank a lot of whiskey later that night.  I remember at one point, late in the fight, an older, white guy next to us, turning and saying, "Well, he's finally getting his ass kicked tonight." Rather than be angry I only said, "Ah, but you don't understand.  He was so beautiful when he was young." And I realized I was quoting my own father about Rocky Marciano.  And HIS own father about Joe Louis.  Age is the great equalizer.  The one and only thing that can strip someone of their deity.  The great dream killer.

His last fight was a unanimous decision loss to a journeyman named Trever Burbick.  I was an overnight DJ at the time at a radio station in Columbia, Missouri, called KFRU and followed the fight, round by round, from the AP and UPI wire services.  Another sad night.  Burbick couldn't carry Ali's jockstrap when he was in his prime, to steal an infamous quote from Larry Holmes about Rocky Maricano.

Since then, however, I've watched nearly every Ali fight on video and, later, DVD.  I've spent a great deal of time studying this remarkable fighter.

I dabbled myself in the 'sweet science' early in my adult life.  Boxing here and there, Golden Gloves, not especially good at it, but not especially bad, either.  But I learned enough about boxing to be able to watch a fight with a keen eye, seeing a great deal more than the uninitiated viewer.  And watching Ali in those fights is like a good golfer watching Tiger Woods at his best, or a good basketball player watching Michael Jordon at the peak of his game, or a decent artist watching Picasso paint.  Ali was quite possibly the best I've ever seen.  And by that I mean not the best heavyweight, but the best fighter, pound for pound, I"ve ever seen.

There were, of course, dozens of breathtaking fights, displays of skill simply remarkable in their scope.  But for the purposes of this blog I'll concentrate on the 'miracle fights.'

The first was against Sonny Liston in 1964.  Ali (then still Cassius Clay) was a 9-1 underdog.  Liston was fresh off of two, count them, TWO, one round knockouts of former champion Floyd Patterson.  He was, like George Foreman later in Ali's career, seemingly unbeatable.  Ali was 22 years old at the time of the fight.

While Ali controlled the fight from start to finish, the real drama came in the fifth round when Ali was blinded by the illegal stringent Liston's unsavory cornermen placed on his gloves.  One can see him clearly pulling Ali into clinch after clinch in the preceding round and rubbing his gloves over Ali's eyes as the referee separates them.  Liston, it comes as no surprise today, was firmly controlled by the mob and it became increasingly clear he was getting his ass handed to him as the night wore on.  He couldn't touch Ali.  He was swinging wildly and hitting nothing but air.  The young Ali was systematically picking him apart.  As the fifth round started Ali is seen asking his own cornermen to cut off his gloves because he is blind.  Angelo Dundee, his lifelong trainer, pushed him off his stool anyway, saying, "This one's for all the marbles, kid, just stay away from him." The astonishing part, the miracle part, is that Ali won that round anyway, fighting purely from instinct, unable to even see Liston.  Continually wiping his eyes and sort of pouting throughout the round.  Now, pouting is fine for a ten year old kid that's lost his baseball glove, but to pout while fighting the most dangerous fighter alive for a full three minutes, well, that's something else entirely.  And all the while doing it while moving counterclockwise at full speed and still peppering Liston with lightning jabs, that's bordering on madness. At the end of the fifth it became clear to Liston he couldn't beat this kid under any circumstances so at the end of the seventh round he just quit.  He spit out his mouthpiece and just quit.  Like most bullies, Liston just couldn't take it.  A new era of professional sports was born that night.

I have watched that fight many, many times on DVD.  Ali's best work against the likes of Liston or Foreman or Frazier were like one-act plays.  A beginning, a middle and an end.  Exposition with the theme introduced, the crux of the storyline and finally, the denoument.  Like the very best of sports there was drama, surprising devopments, unexpected turnarounds and, in the end, cartharsis and redemption.

Of the 231 reporters covering that fight, 230 predicted a Liston knockout, probably early in the fight.  The one dissenting opinion was from a young reporter covering the fight for a Cleveland, Ohio, paper named Howard Cosell.  The reporter, that is, not the paper. This young reporter had a good eye for boxing and said from the first day that Liston didn't stand a chance.  He was univerally looked upon as green, naive and quite possibly insane.  The following day he was given an exclusive interview with the young, new champion and another legend was born.

Ali himself later said about the fight that he doesn't even remember fighting the first round because he fought in sheer terror.  He, too, had believed the hype written about Liston and was fully prepared to be seriously hurt in the first round.  He was nearly beside himself with fear.  But, he later said, after the first round he realized Liston was just a man, like all the other fighters he'd disposed of before that night, and there was no reason to be afraid.  So in the second round we see him go to work.  And it is a sight to see.  At one point Ali throws a triple hook.  Now, I know that doesn't mean a lot to most people, but to a fighter or someone trained in the art of watching a fight, it's as impossible as a four and a half gainer from the diving board.  It's as improbable as a hole-in-one on a par four hole in golf.  It's as rare as an inside the park grand slam home run.  In short, it's damn near impossible at that level of professional fighting.  And yet, there it is, second round, Miami, Florida, 1964, Cassius Clay throws a triple hook and lands all three shots against the most dangerous fighter on the planet at the time.  On the tape even the referee is shocked.  You can see him looking at the judges for a brief moment as if to ask if they'd seen the same thing. 

Later, after the famous 'blind' round, in the sixth, Ali is hitting Liston at will.  There is quite simply nothing Liston can do to keep from being hit.  There is a huge welt under his left eye and Ali is focused on it.  He doesn't know Liston is about to quit on his stool so he's preparing for a long night and he's zeroing in on the welt like bombers over Dresden.  By now, he's throwing right hand leads, which is also unheard of at this level of professional fighting.  He's hitting Liston with either hand with equal ease.  And then, lo and behold, we see the fight for the first time for what it is: a supremely gifted young man beating the shit out of an old, tired, outclassed, former champion.  The arena is strangely quiet.  No one can quite grasp what is actually happening, least of all Liston and his gang of criminals in his corner.  One can see Ali, not excited, not contorted with anticipation, not out of control, but calmly going about the ugly task of dismantling a legend.  The sixth round of Ali versus Liston, Mami, Florida, 1964, may be the closest thing to perfect boxing I've ever seen. 

Ali was to dominate professional boxing, both as a champion and a contender, for the next nineteen years.  I suppose that's completely acceptable in a non-contact sport like tennis or bowling, but to do so in the ring is almost god-like.  It's difficult to comprehend.  Yet he did.  And he did it with the aplomb and charisma of a true champion, a true leader.  And I'm not talking about his exploits outside the sport.  I'm not referring to his history-changing stance on the Vietnam war.  I'm not talking about his shocking conversion to the nation of Islam.  I'm not even talking about his undeniable gift for selling a fight.  But rather his gifts as a professional athlete during the fighting itself, his actual performance in the ring.  All of that other stuff is gravy on the potatoes.  Take it all away, focus entirely on his skill, and aye, there's the rub.  There's the proof in the pudding. 

Tomorrow, miracle fight number two.  Ali versus Forman, ten years later, in Kinshasa, Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, The Rumble in the Jungle, the most exciting fight I've ever seen.

See you tomorrow.

Documentaries.

I've been on a documentary kick lately.  The other night I watched Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and last night I watched a remarkable new film called I Know What I Saw.  The latter of the two may be the best documentary on UFO's I've ever seen.  I've never been a conspiracy freak, really (although I am convinced there were at least two gunmen in Dallas in November of 63), but the documentary last night was difficult to dismiss.  Unlike other UFO documentaries, this one was quite convincing.  What's more, it didn't depend on eyewitnesses named Bubba that live in the woods of Kentucky or Mississippi who claim to have been anally probed.  It had some very compelling evidence from respected sources worldwide including France's equivilancy of NASA which went on record as saying, without any doubt, the planet had been visited by extraterrestrials. 

The photographic evidence was not as strong, of course, as the testimonials, including a rather convincing one from the actual governor of Arizona, who apparently along with half the city of Flagstaff witnessed a five minute UFO sighting a few years back that simply cannot, under any circumstances, be explained.  Another interesting moment came when former President Jimmy Carter said, "Well, we just don't know what they are.  But something's going on."

Stronger also than the photographic evidence were the unmistakable radar tracks that indicated an object "at least a mile wide" visited an area of Texas in 2008.  In one segment an entire military facility outside London not only had the radar evidence but at least 80 military observers seeing an alien spacecraft on the ground in 1997.  Even the C.O. of the facility, a now retired full-bird colonial, was in attendance and actually TOUCHED the spacecraft as it was hovering a foot off the ground for about a half hour in full view of an entire platoon of soldiers.

Fascinating stuff, really.  I, myself, have never seen an UFO.  Nor have I ever experienced anything the least bit paranormal in my life.  Although I wish I could say I had.  Not counting a few directors and theatre producers that didn't seem to be human.  But that's another story.

We also watched Supersize Me a few nights back.  Personally, I was really envious of that guy that ate at McDonald's for a full month even though he gained twenty pounds and had serious health issues over it.  Unlimited Big Macs for me, anyway, would be a slice of Nirvana.

And next week I start at the beginning of my favorite documentary ever, Ken Burns' The Civil War. 

I have been a Civil War nerd for many years.  I've visited a good number of the actual battlefields including Gettysburg twice.  I've spent dozens and dozens of entire weekends refighting many of the great battles with a group of like-minded nerds in Missouri, New York and Chicago.  We play the old board games. Not to be confused with Risk or Battleship, these are serious board games with instruction manuals roughly the size of a novel.  Games invented and sold by companies like Avalon Hill or Strategy and Tactics.  If you have never heard of these companies, you probably don't realize the complexity of these games.  I once refought The Battle of Shiloh for three non-stop days with four other nerds stopping only to eat and sleep briefly.  I loved every second.

So I'm mightily looking forward to seeing Ken Burns' The Civil War again.  I think the last time I watched the whole thing (it's about nine hours long, I think) was back in 1994.  It's an enormously detailed and moving account of that titanic conflict. 

One of my favorite documentaries ever (actually, one of favorite films of ANY sort ever) is called When We Were Kings about the 1974 fight between then champion George Foreman and the irrepressible Muhammad Ali.  A little piece of magic happened that night in late October in the sweltering jungles of the former Belgian Congo.  Muhammad Ali accomplished the impossible and beat a man seemingly unbeatable.  While not the best fight I've ever seen (that title goes to The Thrilla in Manilla between Frazier and Ali in The Phillipines in 1975) it is easily the most exciting.  It reveals the birth of the 'rope a dope,' conceived by Ali on the spot as the only way to defeat the savagely brutal Foreman, only 24 at the time as opposed to Ali's 31.  And in case you're wondering, in the big leagues of heavyweight fighting, 31 is considered ancient.  The entire fight was surrounded with the mystery, voodoo and uncivilized aura of the dark continent.  I would have given anything to have been there. 

In fact, a play of mine, Bachelor's Graveyard, has a passage in the middle of it, a three page monologue, that describes the fight in glorious detail.  It is one of my favorite pieces of writing.  I gotta get that play done someday.

The temperatures have soared again in The San Fernando Valley in The City of Angels.  We're expecting three digit temps for the next few days, in fact.  Just when I thought it was over. 

Off with Angie for our morning constitutional soon.  It's still cool enough to walk a bit at this early hour.  I find it helps to clear the head and separate the important from the unimportant, these early morning jaunts.  Plus my doctor says it's the thing to do since I've been diagnosed with 'The Silent Killer.'  But more than that, it helps me focus.  And God knows, I need all the focus I can get.

See you tomorrow.

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

Growing older is a pain in the ass sometimes.  Some days it's really difficult to reconcile the face in the mirror to the face one actually wears.  Perhaps I'm a tad delusional in this way of thinking, but it happens to me now and again.  Sometimes at the oddest moments.  "Who is that?"

I always know when a new play is foating around in my head by the amount of time I spend silently musing on the subject matter.  And it's probably true now.  Lately I've been spending a lot of time thinking about time.  Elapsed time, time lost, time badly spent, time fleeting.  And like a lot of people, I'm always a little confused by how it all happened. 

There are sign posts along the way that I can point to.  One is 1988.  I remember getting ready for work one morning (I was a lunch time bartender in a restaurant on Fifth Avenue in NYC) and I was shocked to see the beginning of some crow's feet in the mirror.  I stared at it for a long time, the small, uninvited wrinkles just beginning to take shape around the edge of my eyes.

Skip ahead to 1994.  I was getting made up before a show I was doing in Florida.  I noticed a bunch of grey hair in, of all places, my eyebrows.  I stared at them for a long time.

1997.  Doing a play in Pennsylvania.  The official photographer for the company was a close friend of mine and he was doing some preliminary shots from the balcony just to get the lighting and the lense and all that on an even keel.  The next night we were having beers in the local watering hole and he showed them to me.  And there, plain as day, was glaring proof that I had the beginnings of a bald spot, of male pattern balding.  I was appalled.  I stared at the pictures for a long time.

I was in Chicago in 2004 and was getting out of a car outside a big awards type thingee.  I was wearing a tuxedo.  Across the street a girl was getting out of a car at the exact same time.  As we both headed toward the door of the theatre, bumping into each other, she suddenly said, "Oh, my God, it is you.  I was just telling my friend that that guy looks like a fat version of someone I used to date."   I stared at her for a long time.

And recently.  I was having a ton of new pictures taken by a new headshot photographer here in Los Angeles.  The headshot procedure is considerably different now than when I started out in the business seemingly a hundred years ago.  All in all, I think I've had about eight or nine headshot sessions as I grew older.  Having pictures that look like the person who is actually auditioning is a big plus, I'm told.  In any event, the shots these days, having been digitally done, are immediately available.  So we transferred them right to my computer and took a look at them.  I thought at first there might be a mistake.  He'd somehow accidentally downloaded a bunch of pictures of an old guy.  I stared at them for a long time.

Aging milestones along the way, like dropping breadcrumbs we can never follow back home.  It's a seedy business, this aging thing.  And the most alarming part is the insidious and gradual element to it all.  For the life of me, I can't recall getting older. 

I have never been the kind of guy to make people do a double take in the first place.  While not 'stop the clocks' ugly, I've also never been exceedingly beautiful.  I have known, over the course of my life, some exceedingly beautiful people, however, male and female.  And I suspect the aging process for them is even more traumatic.  It certainly explains a lot of bizzare behavior from movie stars and well-known athletes as they approach middle age. 

But what does it all mean?

Years ago I used to play a little game on my calculator.  Remember calculators?  I would take the median age for a healthy male in this country, which I had read somewhere was 72, and then use my calculator to figure out what percentage of my life was over.  I did this periodically through the years.  I remember being a bit saddened to discover once that 29 percent of my life was over. 

"Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May."

There is a moment, and none of us can ever actually pinpoint the exact moment, when a paradigm shift occurs in our thinking.  One might expect it to be the day we get married, or perhaps the birth of our first child, or maybe even the day we make a spiritual conversion.  I don't think it is.  I think the most shattering moment we have in terms of our actual belief system, in terms of the way we live our lives, in terms of the simple choices we make from day to day, is not connected in any way with someone else.  I think it is the day we, without realizing it, grasp the overwhelming fact that we are mortal.  That immortality is a conceit of the young.  People, family and friends, pets, public figures, idols and mentors, just up and die on us.  They die on Mondays and Tuesdays they're not there.  They die on Saturdays and Sundays they're not there.  They just cease.

I don't think anyone can pinpoint that precise second of realization.  In fact, some never do.  The trick, I suppose, is to accept this moment of clarity with as much grace as one can muster.  The problem is, one can't prepare for that moment. 

I don't mean for today's blog to slip into the maudlin.  Because there is undeniable truth to the idea that happiness is not about what happens to us so much as it is about what we make happen.  An almost impossible concept to grasp while cavorting in the midst of youth.  Which is, indeed, often wasted on the young. 

Society, especially in the past fifty years or so, has become ingeniously adept at treating age as euphemistically as possible.  Golden years.  Senior Statesman.  Wisdom.  A good life.  Influential.  Retired.  Veteran.  An old lion.  Whatever.

My goal these days is try and see myself exactly as I am.  A question I often ask close friends is how old are you when you dream?  I am always, give or take, around thirty.  Maybe this is when I felt best about myself.  Who knows.  Oddly, the answer I get most often is mid-twenties.  It takes some thought.  Dreams are discarded quickly and some can never be remembered.  But over the years a pattern does start to emerge, I think.  And that pattern, for me anyway, indicates I'm more often than not around thirty years old in most of my dreams that I can remember.  It's a powerful age.  Still vigorous but no longer treated as a youngster.  Still physically attractive to some but not childishly so.  Ripe but not green.

I don't have a moral or a tidy paragraph to explain today's blog.  Except to muse that perhaps sometimes when trying to explain our behavior, it has nothing to do with what's happening immediately around us.  Sometimes it's just a way to tilt at some windmills.  Sometimes it's just an attempt to find all those breadcrumbs in the dark leading back to a home that's only in our memory.  Sometimes it just might be a futile rage against the dying of the light.  Sometimes all we can do is stare at it for a long time.

See you tomorrow.

"The Most Fascinating Actor On Stage"

Now that things have finally slowed down for me with regards to stage and film auditons, James Barbour and I have decided to go forth with our two-day, intensive workshop on November 6 and 7.  We'll only have room for about 20 to 25 students as it turns out.  A lot of actors have already contacted me about it.  So today I'll be putting together an hour by hour syllabus for that weekend (it's a Saturday and Sunday).

Our first thought, when we started tossing this idea around, was to bring some casting directors and agents and producers and playwrights and directors to see a finished scene at the end of the two-day workshop.  But everyone does that.  Also, it's a little cheap, I think.  Not cheap as in financially, but cheap as in holding that out as a carrot on a stick.  It sort of implies that if you take this workshop you just MIGHT get cast in a film or play or commercial or something.  Maybe even garner a new agent out of the deal.  I think, ultimately, that is A) misleading and B) not what should be the driving impetus behind the work.  Although, frankly, that's what everyone does out here when offering a 'workshop.'

We decided instead to be a bit purist about the whole thing.  How about offering the workshop and make it all about the work?  Now there's a novel idea.  Often times actors in LA don't really want the 'work' aspect of a workshop.  What they really want is a connection with someone that can do something for them.  Which is entirely understandable.  This city, even more than Chicago or NY, really is all about who you know rather than what you know.  It's just a simple fact of the business.  In that way, it's like any other business, be it restaraunt work or temping or construction or whatever.  People would rather hire someone they know.  It's human nature.  So I certainly don't hold that against anyone.  I, myself, have been temtped now and again to take a class not because I needed the class but because John Doe of John Doe's A Level Casting will be in attendance.  It's not a bad thing, it just sort of underminds the reason for holding the class in the first place.

So we're going out on a limb here and advertising the class as being entirely about the craft of acting and expecting nothing in return in the way of job-hunting.  A lot of my students have already verbally committed.  After all, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than working with me one on one.  I charge $100 an hour to work with students privately.  The class will be six hours long, spread over two days, for only $300 total.  So a number of my students have jumped at that alone.

The theme I'm using is one I often hammer home to my private students.  And that is, "How do I become the most fascinating actor on stage?" Because in the final analysis that's what it's all about.  Too often the work becomes masterbatory and it's all about how the actor feels at any given time rather than the audience (thank you Mr. Strasberg, Mr. Meisner, Mr. Lewis, Miss Adler and Miss Hagen.).  For many years I've thought this all a bunch of futile if not outright selfish work.

The bottom line is no one gives a good rat's ass how the actor feels about his own work while he's 'in the moment.'  This is a gargantuan myth started by the early Method teachers and perpetrated over the past five decades by thousands of substandard teachers in academia.  The first few months I was in LA I attended a class (actually it was called a 'meeting' so as not to, I suppose, offend the actor in any way) in NoHo and at the end of every scene or monologue or whatever, all the 'facilitator' asked was, "How did that feel?"  Who cares how it felt?  The question should have been, "Did that work?"

Moriarty, when he was at the top of his game as a teacher, was wonderful in this regard.  Michael was always a positive reinforcer, which I completely adhere to as a teacher myself.  Upon finishing a new piece of work or a scene or an original piece of writing, Michael would often start with saying, "Let me tell you what worked for me" and then go on to say exactly that.  And coming from an actor who had made his bones like Michael already had, the comments carried a ton of weight.  Then, in a variety of phrasing, Michael would gently move into what didn't work for him.  There was never a sense of condescension on his part.  One would often hear phrases like, "Suppose you did it this way, let's see what would happen then..."  I remember one night Michael saying, "My opinion is no more valid than your opinion.  This may not be the only or best way to do this." Never once did I ever hear Michael refer to his room full of Tonys, Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG Awards, NY Film Critic Awards, LA Film Critic Awards or Obie Awards.  Not to mention his dozens of nominations for said awards.  He was a classy teacher.  I remember one of the first nights I attended his class and afterwards I approached him and said, "You know, I've been a fan of yours since I saw a move a long time ago called Summer Without Boys on televison."  Michael said, "Oh, wow, I haven't thought about that one for ten years or so.  I'd almost forgotten I made it."  Like I said, classy guy.

So Jim and I have this hare-brained idea of making the workshop about THE WORK.  The e-flyers actually say that, in fact.  Here is a part of one:

*********************************************************************************

“The Most Fascinating Actor on Stage.”

A two-day, intensive workshop, 10am – 1:00pm, Saturday and Sunday.

November 6 and 7, 2010.

Screenland Studios, Burbank, California.

Master Class Teacher, award-winning playwright and Chicago Jeff Award winner Clifford Morts in association with veteran Broadway actor and Drama Desk, Drama League and Outer Critics nominee James Barbour will be holding a comprehensive, “nuts and bolts,” two-day-only workshop.

Limited enrollment, ten spots still available.

Cost: $300, two back-to-back, three hour classes. November 6 and 7, 2010.

Call 818 --- ---- to enroll now.

“This workshop is a throwback to my days as a private acting coach for a decade in Chicago. It’s about learning the nuts and bolts of a unique approach to the craft of acting. Let’s face it, there are thousands of really fine actors in the city of Los Angeles. And they all look exactly like you do, figuratively speaking. So what makes you the more interesting actor? It’s not complicated. It’s not about finding a more powerful truth than the next guy. It’s not about possessing a ‘secret trick.’ Sometimes, it is, granted, about looking exactly like what the director has in mind. But there’s nothing anyone can do about that, anyway. What it is about is being the most fascinating actor on stage. And that is far more attainable than one might think. Fascination is the key. And that’s what these two days are going to be about: making you the most fascinating actor on stage. I can guarantee these two days will change the way you view the craft of acting.


Although my colleague, James Barbour, is known for his work as a musical theatre artist, he has never approached musical theatre as such. He approaches each role, each song, each moment as an actor first. He treats every song as a short play, a monologue. His insight into musical theatre interpretation is second to no one working in this country today and his singular approach to the craft of acting has served him uncommonly well. It is hard to argue with success. And James is one of a handful of the most sought after Broadway leading performers today.


If you’re looking for pithy audition tips, what colors work best for you in an interview, what songs to sing to show off your range, what headshots to send to what agents…this is probably not a workshop in which you’d be interested. But if you want to discover something entirely new when approaching this craft, if you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and really work, this workshop might very well change your life.”

Clifford Morts and Tara Lynn Orr in PRAYING SMALL, NoHo Arts, Los Angeles

James Barbour on Broadway in A TALE OF TWO CITIES, New York

**********************************************************************************We're hoping for somewhere between twenty and twenty five students for the workshop.  Any more than that would make it too difficult to offer the necessary attention.

The emails will go out later this week and we will see what we will see.

A while back I stopped teaching larger classes.  I was in Chicago then and had my own private studio and after a bit simply decided I couldn't give enough one-on-one time to students in a large class environment.  I enjoyed doing it for the most part but I began to suspect students were feeling short-changed.  So I stopped.  When I teach I tend to get very passionate and focused.  I have difficulty letting something go until it's just right, until it's fascinating and eccentric and unpredictable and full of unexpected choices.  And that sometimes takes a while to do.  So many times in a large class situation I would find myself concentrating solely on one scene or one monologue for far too much time.  I couldn't help myself.  And that, eventually, led to my only working privately with students.  So this will be my first actual large class foray in about three years.  I'm looking forward to it.

A thousand errands to run today, a written syllabus for the workshop, choosing scenes for the students, the mandatory call to my agents and a long walk with the old ball and chain (smiling, smiling) and Franny and Zooey.  Another good day.  They're all good days.  All of them.  We make them good days.  We drive the boat.  That's a good lesson to learn in life AND on stage.

See you tomorrow.

 

Actors and Drinking.

Angie and I watched one of my favorite movies last night, Sideways.  Paul Giamatti is really quite wonderful in that film.  Actually, everyone is, and Sandra Oh is especially compelling in the smallest of the four leads.  I have always thought the film was one of the best of that year.  Beautifully written.

In any event, it got me thinking about some of the great 'drunk' performances in film.  Playing drunk is harder than one might expect.  Personally, I don't like to do it over a long period of time.  Stage time, that is.  It's tough to keep up that believable illusion for a couple of hours on stage.  Easier if it's just a scene or two, but an entire night of playing drunk is exhausting.  In Praying Small, my friend and wonderful actor, Rob Arbogast played drunk exquisitely.  Really subtle and precise work.  I, too, had a couple of drunk scenes in that play, but I think Rob really nailed it more than I did.  There was a sort of weariness underneath his drunk stuff.  It contained more pathos than my drunk stuff did.  Really great work and I hope he gets an Ovation nomination from it this winter.

I remember my first acting teacher in college, the ever irrascible Howard Orms, telling me, "The trick to playing drunk is trying not to play drunk."  Good advice from old Howard.  It doesn't always work that way but as a rule of thumb it's a good place to start.

There are a number that come to mind.  Dudley Moore's drunken Arthur in the movie of the same name is right up there as the funniest drunk on film.  Hollywood was still using alcoholism as a punch line back in those days and Moore really nailed it.  Plus it didn't hurt that the screenplay was so well written.  Angie and I still quote, to this day, lines from that film.  Just yesterday, in fact, something broke around here and I looked at her and said, "It's a goner."

Jack Lemmon, who publicly announced his own alcholism and his involvement with AA on television in the early eighties, took a mighty swing at playing a drunk in the landmark film Days of Wine and Roses.  He especially excelled at the wanton behavior of the relapsed drunk in the scene where he and Lee Remick are jumping on the bed.  It always makes me a little nervous watching that scene. 

Having had a few drinks here and there over my own life, I feel comfortable commenting on drunk acting. 

Peter O'Toole really nailed some of the characteristics of a lifelong drunk in My Favorite Year.  I particularly like the line he delivers after he has passed out on the conference table early in the movie and later repeats exactly what was said around his prone body.  "How can you remember that?  You were drunk." he is asked.  O'Toole replies, "My dear boy, there is drunk and then there is DRUNK."   Yep.

It's easy to write drunk.  That's why so many young playwrights set their plays in bars.  It allows them the freedom to have their characters say things without editing themselves.  Of course, as one matures as a writer, one realizes it's an easy and overused solution.  Young playwrights (myself included) always think earth-shattering dialogue is delivered in bars.  It's an easy trap to fall into but usually one gets past it with age and experience.  One of my early produced plays was called Closin' Time and it was set in a bar and the characters are always uttering the most profound, liquor-fueled truisms.  The truth is, of course, people get drunk in bars and say stupid things and act stupidly.  In Vino Veritas is highly overrated.

The best on-screen drunk performance I've ever seen, however, is Nick Cage's work in Leaving Las Vegas.  It was, for me anyway, so spot-on it was hard to even watch.  In fact, I couldn't sit though the film the first time I tried to watch it.  I left the theater half-way through.  I turned to my friend sitting next to me and said, "I just can't watch this yet."  A year or so later, I rented the film and got through it.  Cage is absolutely perfect in that film.  He doesn't take a false step.  Since then I've spoken to hundreds of ex-drinkers about it and the consensus is usually unanimous.  In the film Cage drinks like most alcoholics WANT to drink but often times don't have the cojones for it.  Of course, my play Praying Small is all about this but suffice to say real alcoholics don't drink, get funny, slur their words and then peacefully pass out.  That's a myth.  Real alcoholics get up the next day and do it all over again.  And the day after that.  And the day after that.  And pretty soon it ceases to be in the least amusing.  Real alcoholics, like Nick Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas, want to drink until they die.  Just lay in a dirty bed in a dirty hotel room surrounded by endless bottles of vodka and simply drink until they die.  For the non-alcoholic this is absolute madness.  Inconceivable.  And it is.  It is sheer insanity.  And it's a true and perfect depiction of the disease.

The thing that bothers me about film, television, stage and novel accounts of the life of the alcoholic is the conspicous absence of 'the day after.'  The scene is always a cut-away following the inebriated hi-jinx of the heavy drinker.  They forget to write the pain of the next morning.  The fear, rage, humiliation and shame of the following day.  The impetus to do it all again.  The actual horror of the disease.  Leaving Las Vegas does do that, however, and it's debilitating in its honesty. 

There are others that completely miss the boat.  Michael Keaton in Clean and Sober is not for a second believable.  The writing in that film is not bad but Keaton doesn't nail it.  One gets the idea he knows everything is going to be okay right from the start.  Recovering alcoholics, some after thirty years without a drink, never think everthing's eventually gonna be okay.  It takes work and the desire to drink never leaves.  Keaton plays it as a cure.  He's cured.  A littel rehab, some rock-solid common sense, why, that's all one needs.  Bullshit.  The desire for a drink is there forever.  Keaton plays it like a life without alcohol condemns a man to a life of being in a bad mood.  And Sandra Bullock misses it entirely in 28 Days.  Albert Finney nails the depression part of the disease in Under the Volcano, but misses the reason why drinkers take the first drink...it's fun.  At least at first.  That specificness is one of the reasons why I liked Giamatti's performance in Sideways.  He's not a disfunctional drunk.  He can still hold things together.  But he gives the clear impression that he's living not for the next life experience but for the next drink of wine.  His semi-sober moments between drinks are anticipatory moments.  One can see him conciously struggling to 'get through' a non-drinking moment so as to more fully enjoy the drinking moment ahead.  It's a tremendously subtle piece of acting and not lost on me.  Really nice work.  I'm glad we picked up that film yesterday.  Every now and then I like to be reminded of how a hangover feels.

Another beautiful pleasant valley Sunday in Burbank.  A walk, some breakfast, some writing, helping a student out with an upcoming audition, some online research, all in all a day of absolute perfection.  Lately I've had a lot of these days.

See you tomorrow.

Recount.

"Sports, politics and religion are the three passions of the badly educated." So wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Not sure I agree with that but I understand where he's coming from.  I have, at various times in my life, been keenly passionate about one or all three.  In this day and age, it's almost irresponsible to be indifferent to politics.  As for sports, I've never been a "team" kinda guy.  Never saw the sense in it.  Tom Wolfe writes of the senselessness of rooting for team sports (professional, that is) in his wonderful book I Am Charlotte Simmons.  And religion.  Well, religion is one of those things where once it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, it's there forever.  Personally, I had the great misfortune of working with The Salvation Army and enduring their nefarious right-wing, literalist policies for several years, so I'm still, all these years later, angry and bitter about that.  Conservative Christian zealousness nauseates me.

I have never been coy about the fact that I'm a very liberal democrat.  At the same time there are liberal policies encouraged and endorsed by our present administration that leave me cold.  Socially, I'm far more conservative than I let on.  I read once that any thinking man would be foolish to be a republican when he's young and even more foolish to be a democrat after he turns forty.

Welfare is one issue that irks me.  Anyone who's lived in a large city and seen the myriad ways it has been abused over the years can identify with that.  There are families on the south side of Chicago that are fourth and fifth generation welfare recipients.  The children are taught from an early age not to get a job but how to finesse the welfare system over a lifetime.  The mere thought of actually getting a job is unimaginable to them. 

It's not an easy issue, this liberal versus conservative stuff.  The choices of either come with heavy baggage.  Liberalism, like many political platforms, is fair and morally defensable on paper, but in application rarely works entirely.  On the other hand, conservative policies fail to take into account actual grass roots governmental responibilities.  The truth is, our nation has become far too large and complex for any one train of thought to be completely unassailable. For example, Roosevelt's New Deal may have worked for the country as a whole and may have been the exact pill we needed to swallow in 1933, but today it is just another example of giving a village fish when it would be more prudent to teach them how to fish.

All of this was on my mind last night as Angie and I watched a fascinating film called Recount, about the 2000 election between Gore and Bush.  It's an unapoligetically partisan movie outlining the evils of Bush's campaign and their legal shenanigans as they used the Supreme Court of The United States of America to quite literaly 'steal' the election.  At one point Angie said as I muttered and cursed under my breath, "Well, it's true that every single hand recount in Florida never once had Gore ahead." I was astonished.  I said, "They never ALLOWED a recount of all the votes, that's why!" In the end the Supreme Court ruled that the recount must be stopped immediately and then took several days to decide their verdict and finally said now there's not enough time to do the recount.  Then they went on to say that this decision regarding election laws was only applicable to THIS ONE ELECTION.  Never before in the history of that august body has such a disclaimer been made about a decision.  And, as well all know, Gore won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College due to Florida's refusal to do the recount.  In the final analysis, it was just a huge cluster fuck.

In the film and arguably in real life, then Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris comes out looking the biggest culprit, the most wanton evil-dooer, when all is said and done.  Her depiction in the film borders on outright libel.  Incredibly, she went on to become a U.S. Congresswoman from Florida, as mind-boggling as that is.  Time and again she steadfastly refused to let the recounts continue, far exceeding her legal authority.  Weeks of valuable time were lost due to her obstructions.  But she is not entirely to blame.  Joe Leiberman weighed in at one crucial point, undoubtedly looking to jockey for position for his own presidential run in 2004, to discontinue the voting.  Blame can be placed on many a doorstep.

One has to wonder where our country would be today had Gore won the election.  Would we be embroiled in Afghanistan today?  Would we have sent ground troops to Iraq?  Would the senseless killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the Mideast have occurred?  Would the economy be as fragile as it is today? I don't know.  Maybe.

Ultimately, the biggest problem I and many others, republicans, too, had with George W. Bush was not so much his military decisions, but his clear lack of intellectual capacity to actually be President.  One has only to watch any one of his many press conferences to realize he's simply a dumb guy.  I do not write that with any satisfaction.  It's only a fact.  W. just isn't too smart.  Never was. Yes, Bill Clinton certainly had his moral drawbacks as the leader of the free world.  But he was also one of a handful of the smartest guys ever to sit in the oval office.  It's useless to rehash his sexual peccadillos at this point in time, but I think it safe to say most of us could care less about his infidelities as a man as opposed to his blazingly intelligent decisions as a president.

I admit to some strong reservations about Barack Obama in the oval office.  I was living in Chicago, his home base, when he was elected.  There, as in many other cities in the country, the election became all about race.  The race card was played insufferably.  To his credit, then Senator Obama, tried desperately to downplay that aspect of the election, but the African-American population refused to let him do so.  I can only attest to my observations in Chicago, but I honestly think had he lost to John McCain there would have been a massive and uncontrollable riot in that city.  It would have made the Watts Riots look like a peaceful protest in comparison.  I abhored that.  I was ashamed of that city. 

Churchill said something akin to the idea that democracy is the worst system of government on earth until one looked at the others.  That was sort of how I felt in Chicago on the eve of the 2008 presidential election.

At the end of the day, I still count myself a liberal democrat.  After a lot of anguished thought, I have come to the conclusion that as a voter I have no choice but to vote for the platform, not the man.  I have no input as to how a man will actually govern once elected.  I can only trust the platform.  If I don't encourage and vote for my ideas I am essentially participating in a Miss Universe Pageant.  My ideas are all I have.  I am left no option but to vote for what I think is right, rather than what I think might occur.  It is what the founding fathers wanted.  To cast my vote for a man because he's tall or has a fine head of hair or because he's black or because he's handsome or because he's an eloquent speaker is utter foolishness.  A recipe for disaster.  But to vote for a man because he says he wants to do something I believe in, well, that's the ball game.  That's the litmus test.  That's the only thing I have to consider once I'm in the secrecy of the voting booth.

A little off mesage here today, as they say.  But I was laying in bed for a long time last night thinking of this film.  My parents were die-hard republicans.  Angie's parents are die-hard republicans.  Some of my closest friends are die-hard republicans.  Sometimes, depending on the mood in which I"m caught, I am a die-hard republican.  The problem is, for me anyway, is that I keep coming back to what is right and what is obviously wrong.  That's why I adhere to this whole 'vote for the idea' thing.  That's all I can do.  That's all any of us can do.  That's why this system of government is the worst in the world, until we look at all the others.  That's why we live in the most fair unfair country on earth.

See you tomorrow.

Stamping a Role.

I'm reading Karl Malden's autobiography, When Do I Start, right now.  A great, no-nonsense piece of writing about what it was like in the forties and fifties in NY when he was struggling as an actor.  Malden was in the epicenter of the whole Method movement in the city at that time.  He hobnobbed with a generation of actors, writers, directors and designers that literally changed theatre in this country.

I always liked Malden as an actor.  A very 'no frills' approach to his work.  He did, of course, Streetcar Named Desire (which he says is the finest American play ever written) for two years on Broadway with Brando, Jessica Tandy and Kim Hunter.  He also, a couple of years later, did the movie with Kazan and ended up nabbing an Oscar for it.

He writes a lot of really interesting things in his book, one of which is something I've often said throughout the years.  He rhetorically asks why anyone would want to do the role of Stanley Kowalski after Brando did it.  He says Brando stamped the role irrevocably and that anyone doing it afterwards would inevitably pale in comparison.  I agree.  There are a few, not many, roles like that in our American Theatrical Canon.  That is one.  Another I've always felt that way about is George in Sunday in the Park with George.  Patinkin simply stamped it.  Another is Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.  It was not originally a play, but Peck becomes Atticus so completely in our collective mind's eye in the film, that it's difficult if not impossible to see someone else do it on stage.  I did the play myself in Virginia some years ago and the actor, while very good, playing Atticus simply couldn't live up to that towering performance left by Peck.

I have a buddy of mine who says he can't watch Hamlet on stage anymore because he thinks Olivier stamped it for all time.  I disagree with that.  Shakespeare is too big to be stamped by a single actor, particularly Hamlet.  There are just too many possibilities in the role.  Richard III is another.  Just too many ways to go with it.

Sometimes a film adaptation of something will ruin it for actors forever after.  For me, not everyone mind you, but for me, The Producers is like that.  Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder have so perfectly matched those two chacracters in my mind that it's difficult to see anyone else do it onstage.  Although, I admit, Nathan Lane was extremely funny in the Broadway production.

If you've ever had a chance to see Bette Davis do Regina in The Little Foxes in the film adaptation of that very fine Lillian Hellman play, well, that's another example.  She is just wonderful in the role.  Tailor made.  Hard to see another actress do it now.

I've talked to some old-timers that feel that way about Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.  I don't feel that way, however.  Granted I never saw Cobb do it, of course, but I've seen some pretty amazing interpretations through the years, including but not limited to, Dustin Hoffman's version.  I understand George C. Scott was amazing in the role a few decades ago at Circle in the Square in NYC.  Would love to have seen that one.  Most recently we had Brian Dennehy do it at both the Goodman in Chicago and then later on Broadway, winning the Tony.  I thought it was an astounding performance.  But Willy Loman is too big for one actor.  It's like Hamlet in that sense.  Just too many possibilities there.

But what I like mostly about Malden's book is that he struggled so very hard early in his career.  From 1939 until about 1947 he, quite literally, was sometimes a starving artist.  A play here, a small part there, some radio work now and then.  He was right on the brink of extreme poverty and even homelessness for a long, long time.  And then he landed Streetcar.  Five years later he had an Oscar in his pocket. 

Another perfect day in the City of Angels.  I think I'll take a walk and look at the mountains.

See you tomorrow.

Being of Use.

Discouraging news all around yesterday.  Warbucks in Annie was pre-cast and Garbo Talks is looking for someone 'less masculine, more flamboyant.' And so it goes.
I was, while not exactly depressed about the news, a bit disgruntled by it.  Rejection is part of the business and God knows it's not the first time I've wanted a gig I didn't get. 

Talked to a close friend of mine out here about it briefly last night.  He gave some sound advice.  He happens to be an actor also and ran into John Travolta (yes, the John Travolta) one day.  He said they were chatting one time a while back and John said, "You must be tearing things up out in LA."  My friend said, "Actually, I'm not.  I'm struggling." Travolta said, "Well, the thing is, in LA you have to find someone that 'gets' you."  He said, "For me it was Mike Nichols.  He 'got' me.  After that things were a lot easier."  Nice to hear, of course, but still not immediately helpful. 

The last line of Patton, the extraordinary 1971 film with George C. Scott is, "All Glory is Fleeting." I often think of that line.  And it's absolutely true, of course.  I remember a conversation I had once with Michael Moriarty.  It was the late eighties, before he started on Law and Order.  He'd just returned from making a film called Pale Rider with Clint Eastwood, in fact.  Michael was still teaching acting back then.  I don't remember how we got on the subject but Michael said something along the lines of, "I was the flavor of the month for a time.  Couldn't do anything wrong.  Turning down projects left and right.  If I had to do it again, I would have made some different choices.  It's important to recognize when you're hot and then, well, carpe diem."

Andy Warhol's much quoted 'fifteen minutes of fame.'

Angie and I watched a remarkable little film called Little Miss Sunshine last night.  We paused it in the middle to walk up to Baskin Robbins (it's right around the corner from us) to get some ice cream to assuage my bruised ego.  I love the movie.  So funny and dark.  Ultimately the theme is about the importance of family when the chips are down.  I'm happily estranged from the callous and selfish lifestyles of my own family but Angie's family is incredibly supportive.  In fact, I had a conversation with Angie's mom, Rosemary, yesterday that served to underline that very fact.  It couldn't have come at a better time.

In AA there is much talk of 'getting out of your head.'  That is to say, when you're feeling blue or experiencing a moment or two of self-pity, do something for someone else.  Do it with no expectations of being rewarded.  Simply become entirely altruistic.  It works one hundred percent of the time, I've found.  So when I have setbacks like this, the first thing I think of is, "How can I help someone else, someone less fortunate than I am?"  And that is precisely what this day is about. 

Years ago I got sent to Toronto to film a pilot.  I was signed with William Morris in those days in NY and it was a potientially huge 'break.' Nothing ever came of it and before I left Toronto to fly back to NYC, one of the producers said to me, "I don't think we have a snowball's chance in Hell of selling this thing.  I just wanted you to know that so you wouldn't be waiting on pins and needles back in New York." So flying back, I was really depressed.  Just awash in self-pity.  I had tried so hard.  And nothing was gonna happen with it.  There was an older lady sitting next to me on the flight back.  She would not shut up.  Just yapped away like a wind-up doll the whole time.  I tried to ignore her.  I gave her exasperated glances.  I sighed a lot.  Nothing worked.  She just kept blabbering about absolutely nothing.  Whatever came to her addled mind.  Finally, just before we landed, she said, "So why were you in Toronto?" Finally, a chance to talk about ME.  I said, rather importantly, "Just shot a pilot.  I'm an actor.  Finished yesterday and now I'm just flying back to New York.  What about you?  Why were you in Toronto?" She said, "My husband was there on a business trip.  He had a heart attack in his hotel room.  His casket is in the belly of this plane.  I'm bringing him home."

I was shell-shocked.  I was humiliated.  Deeply ashamed.  We landed and I stayed with her to get her bags and then walked with her to the United offices to sit with her while she did all the paperwork.  There was a van waiting for the body.  It took awhile for the transition from the plane to the van.  I stayed with her.  I let her talk.  I wanted to ride in the van with her back to Brooklyn where she lived and where she was taking the body.  The van driver wouldn't let me, though.  When we said goodby, about two hours after we landed, she tried to give me a five dollar bill for my troubles.  The van drove away and I stood outside Laguardia for a long time, deep in thought.

Anyway, the point is, not getting a role in a play in Long Beach is not the end of the world.

I'm going to make some breakfast now and serve it to Angie in bed.  I'm going to feed the puppies and take them for a walk when they're done.  I'm going to call my friend, John, who just lost his mother and try to give him some solace.  I'm going to go to a meeting later and seek out someone newly-sober and tell them it's going to be okay.   I'm going to move everything around in the garage so we have room for Angie's daughter's things (she's moving and doesn't have room for it all).  I'm going to be of use.

See you tomorrow.

Choreographers: Professionals? Or Evil Incarnate?

I just got back from two days in Long Beach.  It was a working 'mini vacation,' really.  Angie's daughter, Lauren, lives in Long Beach, so we simply comandeered her little studio apartment for a couple of days.  She stayed with her boyfriend, Nate (an incredibly nice guy).  Nate is the manager of a very festive restaraunt there called 'Panama Joe's,' so he treated us to a great dinner Monday night while Angie whooped and hollered for her beloved Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football.  The place is literally wall-to-wall flat screen TVs so everywhere you look is a sporting event.  Nice joint, really.  Very collegiate.  Personally, I felt a bit old in that environment but it's a cool place.  It's the kind of place where twenty five years ago I would have drank a lot of tequila and probably been a regular.

We were up there because I had two back-to-back auditions in Long Beach.  The first was a call-back for the new musical, Garbo Talks.  There were only three of us called back for the role.  In fact, when we all entered (the three of us were called in together, which is sort of odd) the director said, rather importantly, "We've seen over two hundred actors for this role...it's down to you three." I felt a little like I was on American Idol.  Anyway, I don't think I landed it.  In turn we all sang the song we had been forwarded from the show, a very dramatic, overly so in fact, ballad about discovering and molding Greta Garbo.  After that we did a quick dance routine and then finally read a couple of scenes from the script.  The song went okay, I suppose, nothing dazzling on my part.  The scenes from the script went fine and I think I can say I nailed that part of the call-back, but the dance...oy, the dance.  I am not a dancer.  In fact, I'm not really much of a 'mover,' as they say in the business.  So clearly I missed the boat on that section of the audition.  The other two guys were vastly superior to me in that area.  I sang fine, choosing to try and make some dramatic sense of the song rather than just sing pretty notes.  However the other two guys were real 'singer' types, in the classical sense of, say, Les Miz or Phantom.  So if that's what they're looking for, which may very well be the case, I think it safe to say they both did a better job with it than I did.  However, and this has been the case in my career for decades, I think I can resolutely say I acted circles around the competition.  But again, is that what they're looking for?  Probably not.  I got the idea from the guys behind the table (producer, director, asst. director, musical director, choreographer, etc.) that they were looking for a real "VOICE."  I am always a bit disgruntled by that mind-set, but it's a reality in this business and there's not a lot I can do about it.  Personally, when I go to a musical and hear a bunch of VOICES on stage that can't act much, well, I'm left cold.  Nonetheless...

The following day I had the first audition for Annie.  Daddy Warbucks, of course.  While I consider myself a fairly versatile actor, the role of Annie herself would be a stretch.  Although I do have some ideas for it...

That went fine.  Unless the role is precast, I suspect I'll at least be called back. 

Right before we left Long Beach to return home, I got a call from the producer of a film that had seen me before and she asked if I could come straight to a read for it.  A quick two day shoot for two grand.  I love those kind of gigs.  So we headed back to LA to get the sides for the read.  As soon as we walked into our house she called back to say the director had hired a 'friend of his.'  And that was that. 

But back to this 'dance' versus 'move' business.  'Move' is a pleasant euphemism that choreographers love to bandy about.  Every choreoghrapher I've ever met in my life (and that would be quite a few) always use this term.  They all think they and they alone can turn a non-dancer into a dancer.  It's utter bullshit and I have found myself feuding with many a choregrapher over it.  For some reason they all think they can make someone a dancer even when the performer tells them, categorically, they do not dance.  It's sort of like a musical director taking a tone deaf guy and arrogantly stating, "I, and I alone, can make him a singer."

I have never gotten along with choreographers because of this unreasonable conceit on their part.  For some reason they think non-dancers are purposely dancing badly just to make them look bad.  They get very self-rightous about it all.  Once, years ago, a director friend of mine called me up and asked me to do the oldest brother in a musical called "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." He said, "It's primarily an acting role and I want a real actor in it.  You won't have to do any dancing, we'll have the other brothers do that."  So I said, okay, as long as you understand that I don't dance.  "Fine," he said, "Just come by the audition and sing a bit for the musical director and the choreographer will have you do a little 'movement' just to get an idea of you."

So I show up and sing a bit and then go off with a bunch of dancers to learn the 'dance routine.' Well, great googleymoogley, this broad had us all doing Twyla Tharp Martha Graham and Najinsky all rolled into one.  I tried for a bit and then sort of lost my temper (it's embarrassing for non-dancers to be put in a position like that, just as it would for non-singers if they were asked to 'just sing a few bars from Pagliacci for us.')  Finally, I just stopped and said, "Alright, listen.  Did you think I was lying?  Did you think I was really a closet dancer, a brilliant hoofer, a guy that secretly dances around his apartment like a reincarnated Fred Astaire?  Why would you think that?" She got very flustered and I, in a real tizzy by now, stormed out and walked into the other room and said to the director, "Don't you ever call me in and embarrass me like this.  That's not 'moving.' That's professional level dancing.  Thank you, but no thank you.  I don't like starting a new gig like this.  I don't trust you and I certainly don't trust her.  Good luck." And I walked out.

He called later that day and apologized profusely.  He said there had been a miscommunication with the choreographer, that I wasn't supposed to go with that bunch.  I accepted his apology and said I still wasn't interested.  A couple of years later I did another musical and this choreographer had been hired to do it, too.  She pulled me aside on the first day and said she would not make me dance. A week later she was trying to make me dance.  I don't trust choreographers.  Never will.

So that's how I feel about 'moving' as opposed to 'dancing.' Choreographers just don't get it.  After that Seven Brides debacle, I always made it very clear when I walked into the call-back, 'I DO NOT dance.  Let me say this again so everyone is clear...I DO NOT DANCE." It has saved a lot of bruised egos.  Choreographers alway hate me because of it.  And often times once the rehearals start they begin to attempt to sneak some dancing in.  I always just stand there and when they're done 'showing me the steps,' I simply say, 'No, I won't do that.' They really hate that.

Anyway, after having said all that, the Garbo Talks 'movement' routine really was just that.  It was fairly easy and the choreographer didn't try to embarrass us, like most do.  I still sucked at it, but at least it was simple.  She really did, for once, actually give us some 'movement.' I appreciated that.

I have always been very sensitive to dancers that don't act or actors that don't sing when I'm directing a piece.  Once a performer is embarrassed in rehearsal, the ball game is over.  The director has lost trust.  I have directed a few musicals over the years (it's not my forte, but I have done it) and I always keep a tight rein on the choreographer.  Give these people and inch and they'll take a mile. 

These days if I look out the kitchen window and see a stray choreographer on my lawn, I shoot them with a BB pistol. 

Okay.

See you tomorrow.