Ali - Part V...The Thrilla in Manilla.

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in Manilla, October, 1975.

The most brutal, back-and-forth, kill-or-be-killed, non-stop action, nail-biting fight I've ever seen is the 'Thrilla' in Manilla' between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the Phillipines on October first, 1975, exactly 35 years ago today.  It was Ali's last great fight, his final miracle and marked the end of Joe Frazier's fine, noble and heroic career as well.  Frazier went on to fight a few more times, but this was really his last hurrah.  And Ali had a number of challenges in front of him, too, most notably the rematch with Kenny Norton in Yankee Stadium, the loss and comeback victory to Leon Spinks and one of his finest hours, a 15th round slugfest with Ernie Shavers.

But it is the fight in Manilla that both men gave their last ounce of courage.  And, oddly, at the time no one expected it.  Both men were past their prime.  Ali, while still the fastest heavyweight in the division, was not nearly as lightning quick as he was a few years earlier.  And Frazier had taken a savage beating from George Foreman a couple of years before and hadn't quite gotten over it.

But the world wanted to see one more Ali-Frazier contest.  They wanted, one last time, to see these two men battle for heavyweight supremecy.  They wanted the rubber match. 

Frazier, as I outlined in Part II of this series, had beaten Ali fair and square in their first encounter in Madison Square Garden in 1971.  He'd ended the night and the fight with a left hook from the ninth circle of Dante's Hell and deposited Ali flat on his back.  He'd taken the fight to the old poet-warrior as no one before.  And he'd done it without doubt, without second-guessing.  He'd won that fight.  Yes, Ali had gotten up, but the moment had passed.  He'd lost the fight to a better fighter that night.

In the second fight, both men were contenders.  Mighty George Foreman was the champion and both were scrambling for a title fight.  But Ali had learned his lessons well in the first battle and fought a fight specifically designed to beat Frazier.  Hold, clinch, move, circle, long range jabs, quick, end-of-round combinations.  He refused to fight Frazier's fight.  He adapted to Frazier's tank-like style and won the unanimous decision.

Following that he'd beaten the unbeatable George Foreman (See Part IV) in one of the most unusual and exciting fights of the century, The Rumble in the Jungle.  So here it is, 1975, and Ali is once again at the top of the pile, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.  And the truth is, as Ali later admitted, he didn't want the third fight with Frazier.  He'd already had 27 brutal rounds with him and didn't relish the idea of 15 more.  Frazier had the perfect style to confound Ali.  Head down, no retreat, get in close, hammer the body, stay low.  That's why I think the oft-asked question about Tyson in his prime and Ali in his prime is so interesting to me.  Tyson was essentially a bigger, stronger, faster, more savage version of Joe Frazier.  He would have given Ali fits.  I still think Ali would have found a way to beat him, that was Ali's remarkable gift as a fighter - much more so than his speed - but it would not have been easy.  It would have been a war.  But I think the deciding factor would have been psychological.  Tyson never took pre-fight banter very well.  His temper nearly always got the best of him.  And having said that, can you IMAGINE what Ali would have said to and about Tyson leading up to the fight?  Tyson would have been too enraged to fight a smart fight by that point and I truly believe Ali would have picked him apart because of it.

But back to Frazier and Ali.  The final battle.  The Armegeddon of boxing.  The Holy War of pugilism.  The last and final measure of these men.

In the pre-fight build-up Ali was even more caustic than the first time.  He called Frazier every name in the book, 'gorilla' being the one that stuck in Frazier's craw the most.  He called his children ugly.  He berated his wife.  Ali had an impish, almost evil side to him and it came out now.  As Red Smith, the great sports writer wrote, "Frazier didn't want to just win the fight, he didn't just want the title back, he wanted Ali's heart."

As I said, no one really expected the fight to be great.  Ali was 33 and Frazier was 31, ancient by boxing standards.  Ali had clearly lost his god-like speed and Frazier was not the juggernaut he once was...Foreman had taken that out of him.  It didn't figure to be too exciting.

From the opening bell, Ali took the fight to Joe Frazier.  He knew from experience that Joe was a slow starter.  History indicated that if Frazier could be caught early, before he had a chance to really get warmed up, he could be stopped.  And Ali, contrary to his usual style, tried to end it at the outset.  He went out and tried to knock Frazier out before he could find his range. 

So, not surprisingly, the first five rounds belong overwhelmingly to Ali.  He sets his feet, comes down off his toes, plants his 6'3", 218 lbs, and throws every shot in his arsenal.  In those first five rounds he hit Frazier with shots that would take a barn down.  He hammered Frazier's head and eyes relentlessly.  And in the third and fourth rounds it looks like a mismatch.  It is a startling display of organized fury.  Frazier can't find his pace, he is off guard, he can't get to Ali, and he takes bomb after bomb straight on the chin.  Ali seems to be channeling his younger self at times.  He throws some of the most perfect, pin point accurate shots of his career.  In short, he seems to be pummeling the hapless Frazier.  It is frightening to watch.

But in the sixth, Frazier finally finds his rhythm.  And all of a sudden, we have a real fight.  He begins to cut the ring off (the only way to fight Ali when he's on his game), to land crushing left hooks to the body, to set the pace.  He starts making Ali fight his fight, trading shots without fear or quarter. 

And it is then that the two men dig inside themselves and refuse to lay down.  At that moment, the sixth round, both fighters make a silent pledge to themselves to either die or win.  The next 8 rounds are magnificent, the finest display of boxing I've ever seen.  At one moment Ali appears to be in trouble as Frazier bludgeons him all around the ring.  A minute passes and Ali tees off at long range, stinging and cutting Frazier with impossible combinations.  I have never seen anything like it before or since.

But in the 13th round things begin to change.  And the reason is simple: Ali is blinding Frazier.  Literally.  Joe's eyes are shutting from the ceaseless pounding around them.  He's having trouble seeing Ali.  And if he can't see Ali he can't get away from the punches.  Both men are beyond exhaustion.  Ali later said, "It's the closest to dying I've ever come."  Even Frazier, after the fight, says uncharacteristically, "Lawdy, Lawdy, Lawdy, he's a great champion."

As the 13th wears on, Ali begins to punch with impunity.  Nearly every shot lands.  Frazier has had to stand up and fight, a posture he's not familiar with, because he can't see from his usual crouch.  He thus becomes a perfect target for Ali's style. 

The 14th round is almost painful to watch.  Ali is picking Frazier apart.  The blinded Frazier keeps coming forward, never retreating, never backing up, and Ali treats him like a training bag.  Blood is flowing freely from cuts around Frazier's eyes.  His left eye is completely shut and his right is a mere slit.  And he keeps coming.  He keeps walking straight into Ali's sniper fire.  It's beautiful and tragic and ugly and perfect and inhuman. I have never seen more 'heart' from a fighter than Joe Frazier exhibited that night in the 14th round in Manilla 35 years ago this month.

Between rounds 14 and 15 will go down in boxing lore.  In the films of the fight, one can clearly see Ali holding his gloves out to Angelo Dundee, his trainer, and mouthing the words, "Cut them off." Dundee refuses to do so.  Later, Ali says he told Dundee, "I can't go back out there.  I can't fight that man anymore."

In the other corner, Frazier's corner, Eddie Futch, Frazier's long-time close friend and trainer, is moving his index finger around in front of Joe's face.  Frazier can't see it.  He tries to get up, to rise off his stool and move toward Ali.  Futch stops him.  Physically pushes him back on the stool.  He says, "This is over.  No one will ever forget what you did here tonight.  But it's over."

Literally moments before Ali can quit, Frazier's handlers toss a small, white towel into the middle of the ring signalling the end of the fight.  Frazier is blind and Ali is spent.  But the contest was over.  Frazier had lost by TKO.  And that's what's listed in the record books: Ali - W - TKO - 15.  But it doesn't begin to tell the story.  It doesn't begin to tell the story of 42 minutes of the most astounding boxing ever witnessed.  Ali had regained his title.  The two men never fought again.  That was the last sound of the cannons.

Ali said, later that night, "If I ever have to fight a Holy War, I want Joe Frazier at my side."

Frazier said, "I hit him with shots that would take down the walls of Jericho.  He just wouldn't fall.  He's the greatest fighter I've ever seen."  Frazier, who still today hates Ali, would later deny he said that.  But cameras recorded it minutes after the fight in his dressing room.  He said it and he meant it.

Joe Frazier spent ten days in the hospital.  Muhammad Ali spent six days in the hospital.  Ali couldn't walk for two weeks, actually used a wheelchair privately, because of the massive and damaging blows he took to his hips and kidneys.  Frazier wore two eyepatches for four days.  His vision never fully recovered.   Ali's hands were so swollen he couldn't even feed himself for days.  Frazier was officially diagnosed with a concussion.

A terrible and awesome night.

The best fight I've ever seen.

See you tomorrow.

First day of shooting.

Setting up a shot.  Tedious.

I just finished doing some of the exterior shots for a new film called "Solution."  Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to say more about it because of a paper I signed saying I couldn't.  And they take that very seriously, I'm told.  It's fairly SOP.  Which is fine.  This weekend we start on some of the interior shots, most of the dialogue stuff I have, etc.  Also knocked out a couple of close-up shots.  And when I say 'close up,' I mean close up.  Wide lens, about five inches from my face, REALLY close up.  But having done that much on it, I have some thoughts.

I'm doing a large supporting role, a bad guy (which is always more fun), and, everything being equal, I'm always shocked at what film and television pays as opposed to live theatre.  I guess I shouldn't be by now but for some reason it always catches me off guard.  "You wanna pay me HOW MUCH to do WHAT?"

As most actors know, the ones that have done both film and TV, that is, camera work is just tedious, for the most part.  The greatest asset a film actor can have is the ability to muster his concentration very quickly when it's needed.  One sits around waiting for the light to be right, or the cameras to be moved, or the APM to move the extras around and give them their marks, or continuity to remind one of what just happened, or the director to see the shots he just did, or the wardrobe and make-up people to get an actor physically exactly right after the last take, or any number of things and then all of a sudden one is back to 'one,' that is to say, the first position of the shot, and then, very quickly, one is in the middle of the scene again.  The trick, I'm discovering, is not to waste concentration on the shots that don't require it.  The old adage, "Save it for the close-up," is very true, indeed. 

I had a conversation with a friend of mine, someone you'd recognize instantly from television if you saw his face, about camera versus stage work a little while back.  Like most people who do almost excusively camera work, he insisted it was 'the hardest kind of acting.'  And for a certain type of actor, I suppose that could be true.  I'm treading on a delicate subject matter here for some actors, so I'm choosing my words carefully, but I think if an actor has the ability to immediately immerse himself in his imagination, it's not so demanding.  If the actor, on the other hand, has to work himself up to a fevered pitch before the word, 'action,' I suppose it could be really difficult.  A buddy of mine did a film with the late Jason Robards, an actors' actor if ever there was one, and he said Mr. Robards was once listening to the director go on and on about a scene he was about to start when Robards cut him off and just said, "Oh, for Christ sake, just tell me what you want, the happy face or the sad face."

So yesterday I had about five hours of filming right smack dab in the middle of downtown Los Angeles in front of a seedy hotel.  We were really only trying to nail one shot, that of me rounding a corner with a large group of pedestrians (the film is set in NYC), breaking off from the crowd, walking to a newstand, telling the old guy in the kiosk to give me a newpaper, being a bit snotty to him, glancing at the paper, seeing something I don't like, and then moving on.  For something like that, which will take about 15 to 20 seconds, probably less, in the film, we did 'coverage' shots, 'medium' shots, 'two angle' shots, two 'over the shoulder' shots and finally several close-ups.  The camera was following me closely, but there were still somewhere between 50 or 60 extras in the shot, too.  The streets were closed off and the LAPD was redircting traffic.  Once, right in the middle of a long 'tracking' shot, that is to say, the camera on a dolly and moving backwards while I walked down the sidewalk with about thirty extras carefully choreographed to pop in and out of the scene all around me, a car about a block way crossed the intersection, slowed down a bit, and the driver stared curiously at what was going on.  Cut.  Do it again.  The PD talked to the cops a block away, instructions were re-given, the extras all had to do it again and again to make sure they had their exact marks, I stepped back inside the seedy hotel to have a bottle of water (remember it was about 105 yesterday in LA), and after an eternity, was called back out to do it again.  And again.  And again.  And again. 

There was a crane there, too, so the director could get one quick shot from above me.  So every time they did the 'from above' shot or whatever it's called, the crane had to be carefully choreographed. 

Anyway, none of this is new stuff to anyone who's ever been on a film set.  Personally, I haven't been on a lot of film sets, a few but none as large-scale as this one, and I was reminded all over of how easily it would be to simply stop caring.  I've heard stories of early DeNiro never breaking character over a two month shoot, of other actors sitting off camera and working themselves into a silent, angst-ridden frenzy for the next shot, of all sorts of tricks to get 'into the moment' before the camera rolls.  I'm a little in awe of that sort of behavior.  One, because unless the scene is really, really emotionally demanding, I don't see the point, and two, because they rarely are.  Yes, of course, if you're Meryl Streep and you're filming the 'choice' scene in Sophie's Choice, by all means, yes, do what needs to be done. 

In any event, after getting the coverage shots that were needed, there was a close-up that had to be shot.  In this particular case, it was a non-speaking close-up, just a reaction shot, really, and the director simply put the camera, quite literally, in my face and said things like, "Look slightly to your left.  Now right." And that was that.  Then he would go inside and watch those shots, come back out and do it again.  As I said, tedious.  Very tedious.  Mostly, in cases like this, I am concerned with making the extras do it again, knowing how tired they must be.  A friend of mine called me yesterday and said, "to hell with the extras, they're getting good money to stand there."  Perhaps so, but not if it's 105 in the shade.  That's not good money, regardless of what you're doing.

So this weekend we move to a studio in the Glendale/Burbank area for a scene in an office.  I have to get a bit angry and contemptuous in the scene and, most likely, will be told to shout.  Fine.  I like to think I'm fairly adjustable as an actor, generally speaking, and won't have a problem finding the why's and wherefor's of the directed anger in the scene.  Motivation, most of the time, is another word for, 'Í'm not very good at this'.'

In any event, the upshot of all this is to simply say, I disagree with my friend.  Cordially so.  I admit, I'm not a camera actor by training.  It's not what I've spent a lifetime learning to do.  But what I HAVE spent a lifetime learning to do is quickly and totally envelop myself in my imagination.  Regardless what acting teachers may say, the primary difference between doing it for film and doing it for stage is the amount of time involved.  There is no such thing as 'over acting' and 'under acting,' there is only honesty and dishonesty.  For the camera it takes total concentration and focus for seconds, sometimes minutes at a time.  For stage it takes two hours plus, with no break.  For the camera, one has only to ignore that it's even there while at the same time remembering that it IS there and for the stage the same is true of the audience (unless one is doing a comedy and then all rules are off, but that's another story).  The trick, for either venue, is the ability to immediately grasp the inner life of the character instantly and not just 'pretend' something is happening.  Rather employ the mind-set that it IS actually happening at that very second, that very instant. 

This probably sounds like a lot of gobbledy-gook to the non-actor.  And I'm sure it sounds like that to some actors, too.  And maybe, just maybe, some day I'll be on set and discover that I'm completely and absolutely wrong in everything I've just written.  If and when that day comes, I promise to admit it immediately.  But here's the thing, I think a lot of actors that make their living exclusively from camera work actually feel bad that they're making so damn much money doing it.  So they invent scenarios about how difficult it is to 'get inside the character,' or to 'emotionally' rake themselves over the coals to find a moment.  All of that is fine and honestly, I do respect it.  And I also have to admit to times when that would be true.  For example, watching Brando in Last Tango in Paris, where so much of the dialogue was deeply personal and improvised, THEN I can imagine the work being almost impossibly emotional.  But 99 percent of the time, Spencer Tracy was dead on target when he said, "Just remember your lines and try not to bump into the furniture."

In the final analysis, there's a reason, aside from the astronomical amount of money involved, that most camera actors don't do stage work.  And it's not popular to utter it.  The reason is this:  it's too hard.

On a personal note, Angie and I are getting married on October 10. 2010, in a little chapel in Sherman Oaks.  A private ceremoney with a few very close friends.  After that a catered dinner at the old homestead for a lot of people we both know out here in LA.  Since I'm so busy these days, our honeymoon will most likely be a night at the bowling alley down the street.  That's a joke.  Yes, it is.  It's a joke. 

When things slow down a bit, maybe we'll take Franny and Zooey and just head out in an RV and see some sights.  Who knows.  Life, unlike film and stage acting, has no rules.  We can do anything we want.  Just don't take it so seriously.  That's a pretty good thing to adhere to whether it's acting OR living, I think.

See you tomorrow.

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:

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“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.