9/22/22
Newsletter105
The Crack of Dawn
In the Oscar-winning documentary, When We Were Kings (1996), which is about the “Rumble in the Jungle,” the Heavyweight Boxing Championship between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Ali talks about the previous champ, Jack Johnson. Ali says that all of his antics and his big mouth are nothing compared to Jack Johnson, and it’s true. Being an outrageous black man in 1974 was one thing; being a truly outrageous black man in America in 1910 was a whole different thing. Jack Johnson was the first black World Champion, and this was long before Joe Louis or Jackie Robinson. No American boxer would fight Jack Johnson because he was black. It wasn’t until the Australian (born in Canada), Tommy Burns, took the title in 1908, that Jack Johnson finally got his shot, and they wouldn’t hold the fight in the U.S., so it was in Sydney, Australia – on Boxing Day. In my assessment, Johnson was the first modern boxer, meaning he didn’t stand upright and just come forward or back, but moved around, danced, bobbed and weaved. When it was obvious Johnson was whipping Tommy Burns’ ass, cops made all of the newsreel cameramen shut down because it would be too humiliating to see a black man beat a white man, so only half the fight exists. In 1910 Johnson fought the former champ, Jim Jeffries, referred to as “The Great White Hope,” and not only did Jack whip his ass, he carried him for most of the fight so it wouldn’t end too quickly. The film of that fight was the most popular motion picture in the world until Birth of a Nation in 1915. Jack Johnson held the title for seven years. There is so much cool information about Jack Johnson that I can’t do him the slightest bit of justice here. Ken Burns made a great documentary about him called Unforgivable Blackness (2004) that I’ve seen four times. I have a picture of Jack Johnson on my wall; he’s one of my heroes.
This is dumb story, but I’m going to tell it anyway. In the late 1990s I had a meeting with a producer who had secured the rights to the name “National Lampoon” and was now looking for any idea to attach to it so he could have National Lampoon’s Whatever. I came up with a list of about 25 of them, none worth remembering. We met at the Lantana building where Skywalker Sound is located. It was one of those crazy L.A. rainstorms where it was pouring so hard that with your wipers on full you still couldn’t see. I pulled into the parking lot and had to take a ticket from the machine. My electric car window didn’t work, so I opened the door, immediately getting soaked, leaned over the top of my door window, grabbed the ticket, then hastily dropped back into my seat . . . except that I caught the bottom of my nose on the top edge of the window before letting my 187 pounds drop. The edge of the window caught me right where my nose connects to my lip. The pain was astounding, and was followed by a cascade of blood. Meanwhile, rain was soaking me and the car’s interior, a line of cars behind me started honking, and I was in such pain I couldn’t even shut my door. When I got to the meeting I was completely drenched and totally covered with blood. I wasn’t at my best in the meeting. On my way home I went through a deep puddle on Fountain Ave. and lost my hubcap. The next day as I was driving along Fountain, there was my hubcap leaning against a tree, so it wasn’t a total loss.
Have a nice day.