Skip to main content

smokin' joe

Joe Frazier died. "Smokin' Joe" was one of the great heavyweight boxing champions (back in the day when those kind of things were undisputed, or even mattered). In the ring, he was a stalking monster with loaded doom in his left hand.

You'll hear a lot of nice things about Joe today, but what you won't hear a lot about is how much he hated Muhammad Ali. *Hated*. He could just as easily have hated George Foreman, who both took away his title and ended his career (and was a bit of beast himself back then, instead of the genial George we have today), but no -- Joe saved up all his venom for Ali.

Frazier fought Ali three times, beating him once (with a trip to the hospital for good measure). In real terms, they beat each other senseless -- Ali called their Thrilla in Manilla "the closest you can be to death".

Why all the hard feelings? Ali liked to describe Frazier with words like ignorant, gorilla and Uncle Tom.

So Frazier went into the ring trying to kill him.

Years later, he wouldn't even defer to call him Muhammad Ali; he called him Cassius Clay instead. When Ali lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta, Frazier told a reporter that he would like to throw Ali into the fire. Which would have make him Smokin' Ali, I guess.

* * * * *

The winner of the calendar draw is Sheri. Yay, Sheri!
Labels:

Comments

  1. Julie Whitmore Pottery4:14 pm

    What a fantastic painting.
    He looks strong, agressive and all that red, anger and of course,
    b-l-o-o-d.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

glamour, by extension

C is friends with the fashion stylist Rebekah Roy (left in both pics above) ... one of those people who personify calm and smiling success. On her blog she presents glamour in this very sincere, straightforward way ... whether she's taking pictures of people on the street , talking about stain removers , her favourite videos , or attending some glittering party . One minute she's ruminating on hair extensions, and in the next she reveals how she's been featured on the Vogue UK site. A real disarmer and charmer (and this without meeting her yet, although I feel like I know her because we both did our time in Winnipeg). * * * * * Coming home from Russia, we did many bad things. ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. In my own life, the glamour is wholly imagined. * * * * * witches, smoke ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. My second go at this one, and for some reason I'm painting a lot of smoke lately (note to self: tell C that I want to be cremated). *
7 comments
Read more

the indisputable weight of the ocean

People are always telling me that my work is too dark. So I've put up this sunnier story, but even it has a shadow, as its original publisher – a fine Atlantic Canadian literary magazine called the Gaspereau Review – is no longer in business. ---------------- It was a simple enough thing and that thing was simply this: Edmund Kelley was a gentleman. Of course his mom called him her 'little gentleman', as in 'Oh Edmund, you are my perfect little gentleman,' which did seem to hold to a certain logic that these type of things often follow, considering her affection for him and the fact that he was, after all, only ten years old. Still, Edmund himself was not particularly fond of the diminutive aspect of that title. Gentleman was enough; gentleman summed up the whole thing rather nicely, thank you. He was definitely a more refined version of your average child. He lived in a state of perpetual Sunday m
2 comments
Read more

Oona Balloona (doesn't care about new tables)

Well, it's Friday, and since I'm pretty depleted in the chit-chat department, I might as well put up some pictures of Ol' Giggles At Ghosts before Grandma starts sending me hate mail. Man, what a goofball. At this rate it's going to be, like, eighteen years before she has gainful employment and moves out of the house. I mean, come on . * * * * * C is especially crazy and frantic today. About two months ago she decided that she no longer liked our dining room table (take that, dining room table! no more BFF for you!). Since then she's switched the dining room and kitchen table (and all the rest of the furniture in the house -- about thirty times, but that's another story) as a provisional solution while she scoured area stores for an upgrade. And she thought she had found one, on Wednesday, at JYSK ( Whatever , I said). But when she ordered it, JYSK called back to say that they were really low on stock, and that the stock they did have was damaged, and
44 comments
Read more