TALKING FOR THE SAKE OF HEARING MYSELF TALK

With Mike Tyson, I have felt that his soul would have been better off, if left to the destiny he was tracking for. None of the 'better life' was something generated from within him, you dig? I mean, the life he was leading was one where 'normal' wasn't anything remotely related to the 'normal' that many of us take for granted.

Going into the system, the life that was prolly promised him by the D'Amato contingent, was not even a fantasy for him ... it was something that was so far fetched as to be impossible. He didn't have any idea of what it may have been like, to have a home and people around him that valued him as a person. What was that thing that Morrissey sang ... 'I am human and a need to be loved, just like everyone else does?'. Coming from where Mike was, the notion of 'love' was as strange as having the issues of a head of state is to most of us.

Things don't translate, when there is no words in the vocabulary. How could he understand something he had no way of quantifying on his own? The 'brute' in Mike Tyson wasn't his ring presence, 'the brute' is how he dealt with his day to day.

When I mentioned that I thought that D'Amato wasn't solely altruistic, it was because I thought he saw Tyson as a way he could leave an indelible mark on the world of boxing, by creating his ultimate boxer. In many ways, he did. But he was called on before he could finish working with Tyson.

Living with Cus, and being a Cus D'Amato fighter also meant a radical change in life and the philosophy of living. It was normal for him to take in his fighters, but it wasn't only to make them better fighters. He worked on making them better MEN. The Tyson that I didn't recognize, was the Tyson that was changing into the man that D'Amato was molding.

After his death, Mike Tyson had a struggle in his fight with Tony Tucker, an athletic, mobile heavyweight from Grand Rapids. He took Mike the distance, and were it not for having Kevin Rooney, a disciple of ol' Cus, I think he would have lost the fight. He had to face things he never had to deal with prior to fighting Tony Tucker, and it was the corner work that helped him through that test.

By getting rid of the people who were looking out for him, Mike was vulnerable. He was never really socialized, so dealing with people was new to him. It is one of the reasons he makes such a good interview subject, because he doesn't know how to 'be' anything other than who he is at that particular moment.

What is the phrase ... 'brutally honest' ... again, the 'brute' unsocialized, with no use of the pleasantries that mark the encounters that most of us have. A 'two beat' fighter, is what Angelo Dundee called him. He lives in two beats as well.

All I ever saw with Tyson after he signed with Don King, was a victim. Sometimes, there is no one worse that your own kind when it comes to exploitation and manipulation of the worst in 'us' for commercial gain, and you see it in the culture of rap music. Don King used that to his advantage, leading Mike to be suspicious of the wrong group of people. Mike I don't think really cared. He was just a performing animal, and they did what they could to keep him asleep.

I don't know where anyone come down on his fateful trip to Indianapolis, but what I remember the MOST is how unqualified his attorney's were. They were good lawyers, just not in the area of law that Mike needed them to be good in. There were rumors that Tyson wanted to break from Don King prior to the incident, and I think that King put a 'fix' in, to have Mike sent away. By putting Mike on ice, it pretty much insured that the cred King had in his story, having emerged from prison, would keep Mike in his fold.

When Mike emerged from prison, I saw someone who had looked in the mirror, and saw that it was always going to be this way for him. No matter what, it wasn't in the cards for him to have a stable life. He would try, getting married again and failing. I don't know anything about his home life to comment on his recent tragedy or know enough about him to say anything other than it is a very sad thing to have happened.

I don't feel pity for Mike, but more of an understanding. Brothers have a different burden, and other than 'those I don't know enough about to name', I think that it has been the biggest issue keeping black men from open society. That isn't a 'wah', but the truth. Every thing negative, we lead the pack ... when it comes to positive stats, not only are we bringing up the rear, but LOSING from where we were!

The struggles of 'Iron Mike' Tyson is the struggle of the black man, the update to 'Bigger' Thomas. No, the unnamed 'Invisible Man' of Ellison's masterpiece. Because like the subject of the book, I think Mike is finding a place in life, despite the odds, and he is subverting his way around the mainstream.

What are the burdens of his soul? Were I 'The Shadow' ... but I have felt that like Howard the Duck, he did the best he could with the circumstance he was given. Amoral, without a real malovence to him, what does he need? What are his desires?? What moves him?

All I can do is say, 'for but the grace ...', and deal with my life as best as I can.