Just finished the last of the ten interviews tonight for the Facing Ali documentary—the interviewee was none other than Mr George Foreman, who lives and preaches in Houston, and is a two-tiime heavyweight champion. And afterwards, in the sauna-like heat, I went to his church to hear him give testimony at his own church.

Now it’s home (tomorrow morning) to continue editing and all the rest of the details that create film order out of footage chaos—with hopefully the right amount of chaos still left, too.

It’s been a wonderful, edifying process, with a great crew who have made the footage look so beautiful. And, of course, the ten great boxers who fought Muhammad Ali—17 fights in all—in order of the date interviewed, who were so much fun, unique, open and revealing:

Sir Henry Cooper, Earnie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Ernie Terrell, Leon Spinks, George Chuvalo, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes, Joe Frazier and George Foreman.

What a line up! Ah life—and love. I bow with joy, gratitude and humility to the creative gods, goddesses, muses, sparks, thoughts and great mistakes, in all their names,

Pete

Sitting in the airport in…where was it? Somewhere on route to the Lone Star State, I ended up in conversation with a middle-aged fella, a very pleasant guy, whose father-in-law owns a hunting ranch about ten hours north of Houston.

The owner—who worked for a couple of decades with earth-loving Monsanto (seed fascism and napalm all rolled into one), and also had a mid-sized cattle ranch—now owns a hunting ranch. The ranch (perhaps a different ranch) is stocked with deer, wild boar and certain birds. Hunters are charged like a grand a day to come shooting on the land. Cleared profit last year was over half a million dollars, which could buy some pretty high quality, ethically treated ostrich flanks.

Prison building may be one of the fastest growing industries, but hunting ranches with those kinds of profits can’t be far behind.

I may be getting confused on the facts of the story, but the mid-size cattle ranch of say 2500 steer also did all of its processing and packaging on site (the slaughterhouse was right there, in other words). The ranch supplied meat to some restaurant change and I think he said Dairy Queens all over the States.

But here’s the kicker. I asked him if he’d ever worked in the slaughterhouse, adding that I’d heard it was a job with incredible rapid turnover and psychological stress.

He said he hadn’t, but his brother had. And having seen what goes on inside the slaughterhouse, his brother, still a solid carnivore, will no longer eat any form of processed meat. All I could think of was, for him, ‘Well, thank god for the hunting ranch.’

I write this little piece, one, in the wake of my recently teenaged nephew throwing up a McDonald’s hamburger for a day and a half (in bed on his birthday party no less), and swearing off burgers for life.

Will the commitment hold? I don’t know, but McDonald’s for me, really sucks, so I’m with him.

I also write it because of, two, my beloved’s positive take on Barbara Kingsolver’s non-fiction book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, an account of her family living off their own land, eating both vegetable and animal, and seeing it as miracle (and a lot of work).

My girlfriend experienced no pronounced issue of retraction from Kingsolver family’s meat consumption (nor do I), because of the wonderful treatment of the animals (notwithstanding the eventual killing and butchering).

Such a line doesn’t work so well for humans. “Oh yes, we treated our son exceedingly well right up to the killing and butchering (or defeathering).”

Judge: “Clearly well-loved. Case dismissed.”

But this leads to this interesting article in the Tyee called Vegan and Meat Lovers: Truce?, discussing four new books on food and eating (the two often go together).

A couple of excerpts:

“[Although there appear to be less traumatizing ways to get the meat we eat], Bourette believes the environmental impact of meat consumption is a major ethical pitfall.

A 2006 UN report named global livestock farming as the largest producer of greenhouse gases—more than planes, trains and automobiles combined.

“That’s the one obligation every carnivore has,” she says, and for many the solution won’t be easy: “Eat less meat. I eat vegetarian most days of the week. It’s the only ethical way to eat meat.”

Another:

The result of her journey is Carnivore Chic, in which Bourette outlines a new philosophy for eating meat. “I learned how to be a more compassionate carnivore,” she says.

Perhaps surprising to many, Bourette’s carnivore ethics deviate little from the principles of vegans such as Sarah Kramer or Jae Steele.

“It’s important for carnivores to get closer to their farmers, to learn where their meat is coming from, how it’s grown,” she says. “This is for your own health and for your own sense of comfort about how the animals are raised. If we’re against factory farming, and inhumane treatment of animals, then we shouldn’t shop for it.”

The full article is here.

By the way, the Joe Frazier interview in Philly was a lot of fun and wonderfully nostalgic and touching even. Last one tomorrow, the at-one-time-thought-invincible George Foreman, who won the Heavyweight Championship of the World an unimaginable 20 years apart (the first won in 1973, knocking down the then undefeated Smokin’ Joe Frazier six times in two rounds).

Big meat eater—what with that grill. Mr Foreman supposedly sold his name to the grill company for an enjoyable 127.5 million dollars and 10 million in stock options. That’s like twice what I made last year, if you don’t include the paper route.

Love to you—and love to more compassionate, ethical steps towards ecological, physical and emotional balance,

Pete

I just ate amazingly good, tasty, rich, filling, healthy, cruelty-free vegan food in Philadelphia tonight, at a restaurant called Horizons. Then I read that Oprah is on a 21 day vegan kick. And then I read this—what appears to be a highly methodical, even ’scientifical’, approach to deciding what the human system is built to eat.

From a Dr Milton Mills, who must be smart with a name like that.

In conclusion, we see that human beings have the gastrointestinal tract structure of a “committed” herbivore. Humankind does not show the mixed structural features one expects and finds in anatomical omnivores such as bears and raccoons. Thus, from comparing the gastrointestinal tract of humans to that of carnivores, herbivores and omnivores we must conclude that humankind’s GI tract is designed for a purely plant-food diet.

The full article is here (I didn’t read it all because I’m researching for an interview tomorrow with Smokin’ Joe Frazier for the documentary Facing Ali).

But for those with bunged up colons or those who hate the environmental side-effect of factory farms or for those who hate the unnecessary treatment of billions of animals, and yearn for a sweeter, healthier planet, it may be informative and interesting to see why we’re less tiger-like then we think (Carnivore) and even less racoon-like (omnivore) then we think.

And you don’t even have to measure your own colon to get this information.

By the way, of course, you can yearn for those sweet things and be a meat-eater, too, but I have to write for optimimum guilt and/or dramatic effect.

As I said, I am interviewing the inimitable Smokin’ Joe Frazier tomorrow, and he wrote this in his autobiography (pg 23), about his early days working in a so-called kosher slaughterhouse, before he followed his dream to become Heavyweight Champion:

“[I]t must have been pretty damn scary for those animals. They’d bring them onto the killing floor in trucks.

And bam, a shute would pick the creature up by the belly, shackles would drop behind its neck—and, man, that bull would run the floor like an NFL fullback, hitting everything in sight, bouncing off walls, ramming sides of beef, and going after any human son of a bitch unlucky enough to be in his path.

That scamboogah was desperate to get off that killing floor; he never made it, though. Cross Brothers [the company name] stored guns there for the occasional emergency like that, and, bang, they’d shoot the crazyass bull in the head.

And that would be that.”

That is from a blog I wrote awhile back.

Here’s to a little (or a lot) more love for all beings,

Pete

If all goes well, I’ll get a chance to interview the legendary Smokin’ Joe Frazier this week. Frazier defeated Ali in what was called the Fight of the Century in 1971—an astounding sports spectacle of mythological proportions exploding out of the 1960s (Ali defeated Joe in their next two slugfests).

And after that, hopefully I’ll get to interview the inimitable two-time World Heavyweight Champion (some twenty years apart!), Big George Foreman, who lost to Ali in the insurpassable Rumble in the Jungle, in 1974—a fight that propelled Ali to mythological heights.

What a fantastic week—and what a great journey it’s been thus far. I am looking forward to seeing how it unfolds; to try and get their insights, reflections, passions and current dreams.

Here’s a cool excerpt from a Sam Cooke documentary, showing where his life intersected with both Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X’s lives, at a remarkable period in history.

Both Malcolm and Sam were ringside at Cassius Clay’s (Ali’s) first fight against Heavyweight Champion and invincible foe Sonny Liston. It was February 25, 1964, and Ali shook up the world both in the fight, and with his announcement the next day that he had joined the Nation of Islam under the teaching og the Honorable Elijah Muhammad (see the last blog).

Malcolm was just about to break from that same Nation of Islam, and with Ali (or Ali with him). Malcolm would be murdered just under a year later.

Even less than a year later, December of 1964, Sam Cooke would also be murdered—both leaving great influence in their respective areas of fame.

Lots of love to you,

Pete

I don’t know what the truth is, of course, but here’s an interesting and provocative article about the Malcolm X assassination.

It reflects on that remarkable period of (ongoing) race, spiritual and American history, the killing of Malcolm, the sentencing, the Nation of Islam at the time, and within that, an aspect, too, of the life of Muhammad Ali—whom the writer of the article, Mark Jacobson, calls “the most famous of all Black Muslims.”

As is so often the case, it also brings to light the darkness—the ongoing shadow, let’s say—of the system and the criminal justice system, here, particularly as it can apply to so-called minorities (which sometimes also simply means ‘the poor’, race notwithstanding).

Here in Canada, Prime Minister Harper’s necessary House of Commons’ apology to indigenous people for residential schools could be brought to life through a serious exploration of ongoing discrimination.

There remains, for myriad reasons to be sure, an outrageously disproportionate number of indigenous people incarcerated in Canada (nine times the population percentage, I believe)—and the nature of the American-government-encouraged War On Drugs policy that upholds this problem.

Here are two excerpts from the New York Magazine article:

Despite near-universal acknowledgment of his innocence, Khalil [Islam, the man accused of killing Malcolm X] was not to be released for another eleven years.

In the early eighties, Muhammad Ali, the most famous of all Black Muslims, paid for him to take a polygraph test. While allowing that Ali’s Islamic progress was hindered by a serious “zipper problem,” Khalil passed the polygraph, but nothing happened.

Nothing happened either when, in 1977, Talmadge Hayer, who’d kept quiet while Elijah was alive, signed an affidavit revealing the names of the four men who he claimed really helped him assassinate Malcolm.

“You’d figure that might at least get you a new trial, a hearing, something,” Khalil says. But despite the efforts of William Kunstler, it didn’t. The four men named by Hayer remained at large, while Khalil stayed in jail.

And another:

Khalil likewise takes a dim view of the popularized interpretation of Malcolm’s political legacy.

No fan of Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, Khalil says, “They made him into a cartoon. A shell. By any means necessary—that’s the only thing left over now. Where you gonna get with a slogan like that on your T-shirt? In the joint, the Panthers were screaming about revolution, calling Muslims Uncle Toms. I’d say, ‘You think you’re taking on this government, where’s your air force, where’s your tanks?’ People lie to themselves.

When I was in Auburn, there was a riot, the prisoners took over. They’re standing there congratulating each other, and I’m thinking, Great, what are you going to do now? They got cut down.”

When it comes back to Malcolm X himself, however, Khalil’s voice softens. “He was a sitting duck. God would have had to come down and pull that man out of there. That’s the only way he would have survived. Everyone’s got their destiny. He had his, I have mine. Our paths crossed, and we both suffered.”

Here’s the full article. It was pretty interesting reading.

Here’s to sister and brotherhood, and more peaceful paths in a difficult world,

Pete

PS: And here’s a link to a long article I wrote about the War on Drugs called Noam Chomsky On Drugs (apologies to lovely Karen for my still having not made the grammatical corrections. Suffice to say, what was pointed out has stuck with me elsewhere, so thank you!)

And here’s a song for the heart, that yours may be, when safe, Wide Open.

Pete xo

I’ve been editing, researching and soon interviewing again (Smokin’ Joe Frazier at the end of June—which should be great), so no time to write thoughts of gratitude and press them into cyberspace. All I have is the occasional scribbled thought/poem.

Here’s one or four:

It is virtually certain
that in inconceivable ways
for mysterious reasons
the truth of existence has been communicated
somewhere, somehow, some place
What version
have you downloaded
lately?

WEDNESDAY DUSK

Sitting with a glory of friends
dreaming divine adventures
golden embers and whispers
descend
upon the ascending moon of my heart
we are little, here
shining with the hope of remembering
last minute birds whistle lullabies
blades of grass perk up
beauty falls out
from a suitcase in my heart
and everywhere
don’t be fooled
cosmic maintenance
by friends
heavy with soul
makes this possible
tickling entropy
into us
breathe deeply
a smile behind your eyes
kiss the day away
stretch towards the endless space
we are here
undeniably
here

ME AND HARMONY

To live in greater harmony
know
that death
can and will happen
at any moment
(and that’s life)
while seeking
whatever is required
for the well-being
of sisters and brothers
ten generations hence
(and that’s love)

IF THIS IS TRUE

If this is true:
we are eternal souls
dressed up in time
where do I cry out:
remove these veils
that shroud
Your kiss!
Where do I run
naked
into my true self?
Where do I push open
steely gates
for a glimpse
of my temporary hands
catching fragments
of You
in between
my thoughts?

Just a couple of spontaneous thoughts written down.

And this week, an apology by the government of Canada for all the sickness and hatred that came out of the residential school system. This is where Native culture (and soul) was, with intention, aggressively and cruelly obliterated through the trauma of parent-child separation, sexual and physical violence and so-called education that decimated native ties, language, culture and self worth.

As far as countries go, Canada has some great reasons to celebrate. However, the state should just admit that Canada, like most every other state I can think of, was ultimately obtained through conquering, whether Canadians like that fact or not.

The apology, though perhaps even well-intentioned, means not too much from a government that actively and overtly pushes, as one minor example, a so-called War On Drugs a la George Bush (which targets indigenous folks in great disproportion).

And let’s not forget unmitigated support for a business model so standard that it’s almost natural, but that by definition and law, laces profits above the well-being of non-shareholders (everybody else), and thus has little to do with the environmental or economic welfare of future generations, let alone democracy.

Ah, future generations.

But at least awareness of the crime that was—and is still unfolding—is that much more in the zeitgeist.

Love to you all, sisters and brothers,

Pete xox

“That draft dodger will never fight in my state, period.”
—Ronald Reagan on Muhammad Ali

Ironically, the first state that Muhammad Ali was allowed to fight in, when his boxing license was reinstated, was Georgia. Georgia. I have read that so-called mixed-race boxing matches were not even legal in the state at the time. We live in a remarkably paradoxical world.

Being immersed lately in researching the remarkable 1960s, I am re-inspired by the descriptions of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and the raised fists in black gloves—by 200m sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and Australian Peter Norman in support.

In fact, it always brings tears to my eyes. I think it’s the pain of knowing how difficult it can be to do something that, in my opinion, is so undeniably, morally correct—and beautiful.

It’s distressing how the Olympics, supposedly promoting brotherhood, profoundly frown upon displays of brotherhood and sisterhood solidarity against gross injustice. Who decides that? Granted, athletes as a rule are more physically than socially focussed, but how great it is to be reminded of inequalities and injustices. And what better place to be reminded than in a forum supposedly promoting sister and brotherhood?

What Smith and Carlos did was described by a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee as….

“…a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit.”

To amplify my point, the Olympics are now in Beijing, of all places, where I have heard the government has released to the press a warning to tourists not to engage in any forms of protest.

Does that not tell us what a certain leadership actually stands for? And what the Olympics ultimatley stand for—or, at least, don’t stand for?

Imagine if a government said: “We support your right to protest non-violently about injustice! Heck, we not only support it, we’re with you!”

SPRINTING INTO THE MEMORY HOLE

It is forgotten that the actions of Tommie Smith and John Carlos were reviled by media and large portions of the public in the United States and elsewhere. Similarly, it is often forgotten that Muhammad Ali was largely despised by the media (and booed before all his pre-1971 fights) in the early and mid 60s. Both are obvious examples of the process of historical revision and then mummifacation (statue-ification) that seems to so often take place.

Martin Luther King, in the mid-sixties, was considered Public Enemy #1 by the Hoover-led FBI, central policing authority of the self-proclaimed freest country on Earth. That should be, to all, about as bizarre as having a Klansman running Oxfam.

Being aware of these facts has nothing to do with dwelling on the facts, or being lodged in the past. I think it’s more about reaching to know these facts—to not be so mired in a past that didn’t exist. It’s about trying to remember that the same manipulation or revision of certain truths goes on, seemingly as a process or at least an aspect of the human process, now, and all the time, to retell a Nation’s history.

Heck, I probably (perhaps undoubtedly) do it with my own history.

Regardless, the collateral damage of Smith and Carlos’ actions are at least not forgotten by themselves. This from an interesting article about the unveiling of a statue of the event—which can be a disaster in itself, speaking of mummification:

And, fittingly, the day of the unveiling was not merely a celebration of art or sculpture but a bittersweet remembrance of what [Tommie] Smith and [John] Carlos endured upon returning to the United States, stripped of their medals [I don't know if that is accurate] and expelled from Olympic Village. Smith recalled, “The ridicule was great, but it went deeper than us personally.

It went to our kids, our citizen brothers and our parents. My mother died of a heart attack in 1970 as a result of pressure delivered to her from farmers who sent her manure and dead rats in the mail because of me. My brothers in high school were kicked off the football team, my brother in Oregon had his scholarship taken away. It was a fault that could have been avoided had I turned my back on the atrocities.”

Carlos also said, “My family had to endure so much. They finally figured out they could pierce my armor by breaking up my family and they did that. But you cannot regret what you knew, to the very core of your person, was right.”

[Silver medalist Australian sprinter] Peter Norman said, “There is often a misunderstanding of what the raised fists signified. It was about the civil rights movement, equality for man…The issues are still there today and they’ll be there in Beijing [at the 2008 summer games] and we’ve got to make sure that we don’t lose sight of that. We’ve got to make sure that there is a statement made in Beijing, too. It’s not our part to be at the forefront of that, we’re not the leaders of today, but there are leaders out there with the same thoughts and the same strength.”

Heck, it should be said everywhere, and people of different energies and pressures, will say it, stand up against it, oppose it, or even support injustice, in different ways. It’s not easy being human, but I’m sure grateful for the opportunity.

The full article is here.

One question:
Political, physical and economic tendencies aside
what is the power of your existence?
What is the power of the power
that keeps you alive
and lights up
your ability
to love?

Here’s to remembering, considering, doing and loving,

Pete xox

I’ve been joyously and gratefully swamped lately by a journey interviewing some of the great boxers of the 60s and 70s, thus contributing zero here—and am now wondering what of value to others’ souls and hearts could be contributed. Of course, value is in the heart and soul of the beholder. So, for now, a few thoughts and poems over the last week or so.

In the Rig Veda, arguably the oldest known scripture, it is written:

Truth is One, sages describe it variously.

That it may be one, in turn, inconceivably does not nullify the miracle of distinctions and individuality. For if all is one, how did individuality arise? And without distinctions—with the other, with one’s beloved—how could love exist?

HUMAN HOLIDAY (Or, A Holiday To Humanland)

From what is called in India the Vaishnava viewpoint (followers of Vishnu), or distinctivest viewpoint (where distinctions between things here are considered temporary but real as opposed to an illusion or false (mithya—see Shankara and the advaitan philosophy), we are thought to be atmas—transcendental beings, eternal individual souls—who are wrapped in matter as a result of our visiting the material world, or the material aspect of the Divine.

This is, to some, a compelling idea, including me. We are visiting, but we do not remember that we are visiting. We believe we are the body, also for profoundly compelling reasons, but the body is only a temporary aspect of our true nature: the atma.

It’s a bit like a person who goes to Mexico for a holiday, but forgets they’re just visiting, and believes they’re from Mexico.

Or, put another way, from Alice in Alice in Wonderland, in conversation with the Cheshire Cat:

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “otherwise you wouldn’t have come here.”

According to the Vedas, we’re mad until we realize we’ve come here. Also, we are mad until we realize we are not physical beings having spiritual experiences, we are souls having physical experiences.

But have I had realized experience that this is true? Ah…no. Which brings to mind a mad thought:

That I am an eternal being temporarily living inside this body, but don’t know it, is what all of my very best friends know—even though I don’t know them, either.

For some reason, contemplating upon that idea, particularly while under duress, brings those very best friends to life and decreases anxiety. Not a bad combo, speaking of distinctions. Which brings to mind, for various egoic reasons, two songs, a couple of ol’ chestnuts: Wide Open and Little Dreamer.

Oh, I have more thoughts and poems, but it’s getting late, and I am in deep need of sleep. I am missing this process, of seeking things edifying and throwing them from the inner net to the internet. Hope your heart is flowing through the madness and beauty of this world. Oh, that brings to mind a line from the Bhagavad Gita:

One who remains inactive during action
and active during inaction
is the most discerning of persons.

This means remembering who one truly is while doing something, and remembering who one truly is while doing nothing.

Not one day
Repeat, not one day
of anxiety
that I have passed
has ever been helpful
Being, yes
Worrying, no

And a Morning Prayer, to be repeated with equanimity:

Today I may get fired

Vasudaiva Kutumbakam (we are all family, and we are all in this together). Lots of love to my sisters and brothers,

Pete xoxox