want feedback from classic posters

Yeah, there is something which rubs me the wrong way about it. Having a man defeated by someone who didn't defeat him because that is the opinion of the "experts" they polled or a computer.

 

COME ON MAN! You're a boxing fan. King Kong was throwing combinations on that lizard with midget arms!

 

Die-hard fight fans, probably not, J., but some people, younger people could. Seems like it's a different audience you'd be after, the video game generation ... they can't tell the difference between a computer generated image and flesh and bone anyway. Tell the graphics people not to worry too much about nailing a striking resemblance of Pep, Benny Leonard, or Sugar Ray Robinson, 'cause your target market hardly ever heard of these guys, let alone knows what they looked like.

All that said, J., I wouldn't be surprised if it made a mint, and **** it, why shouldn't you get your taste. I mean anybody over forty that takes a look at the movies, music and TV shows coming out of mainstream Hollywood these days has to know that, and who said it, "It's all about money, ain't a damn thing funny." That's why more and more the only things worth watching or listening to in this country are produced independent of the Hollywood system.

One thing though, just a thought; tell your guys they might be better off on Pay-per-view TV, as long as they don't charge too much, 'cause then some who wouldn't go to the trouble of a close-circuit event might put it on to kill an otherwise monotonous Saturday night.

But truth is J., when I look around at some of the things that are making money these days and some of the things that aren't, I must not know a damn thing about it.

 

..."you got to have a job in this land of milk and honey. They pushed that girl in front of a train, took her to the doctor's -sewed her arm on again. Stabbed that man right in his heart, gave him a transplant for a brand new start. I can't walk through the park cuz it's crazy after dark... keep my hand on my gun cuz they got me on the run. I feel like an outlaw broke my last glass jaw, hit me said 'you want some more?" --living on a see saw..."

 

"My brothers doing fast on my mother's TV -says she's watching too much its just not healthy. All My Children in the daytime, Dallas at night, can't even see the game

or
the
Sugar Ray fight..."

 

"Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind," I'm sure as hell not gonna try and out-rap, out-flow you, is that the term? I'm an old school, jazz, classic rock and Frank Sinatra fan. I'm a melody freak, so how much could Rap really work for me? Though I've heard some poetry from some of those guys, and early on some of it grabbed my attention, before business moguls got a hold of it and ruined it, the way they ruin everything in this country sooner or later.

Sorry to get off on a rant, but if you take all the art in this country that is so undeniable Wall Street can't **** with it you're lucky if you end up with Jewel and Wynton Marsalis.

 

Cool. Now we all get to see De La Hoya-MayweatherIII, IV, V and XII!

 

Haha! I despise rappers. They have moved their bowels on African-American and American culture at large and we pay them for their excrement by the pound.

They're about as "cool" as the steam coming from the piles they offer us.

Coltrane was cool.
Sinatra was cool.
50 cent ain't worth a nickel.

No, those rhymes are from way back in 82 when Hip Hop Pioneers were producing messages of hope and strength out of ghettoes. You quoted a line from "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five ("it's all about money ain't a damn thing funny"), and I just picked up the next line and went down memory lane.

You may remember the refrain from that song: "Don't push me, cuz I'm close to the edge, I'm trying not to lose my head... it's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how i keep from going under."

It's great stuff. These days, it's all about "Summer Wind" and "Cycles" and "It was a very good year".

 

I do remember that, ha ha ha ha ha ha, it's like a jungle some time...

Man if you're into the kind of stuff, Coltrane and Miles and Stan Getz, Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, we are of the same mind and soul! And to touch on our original point (the stranglehold big business has on the arts), there is some good stuff out there these days, but you've gotta be a friggin' Columbo to find it.

 

Haha... how true.

All of the vocalists and musicians you mentioned have a home in my house. I love Billie too. Now, are you familiar with Arthur Prysock (his version of "My Funny Valentine" is superb), Billy Ekstine, and Coltrane's favorite vocalist (and the only one he'd allow apparantely) -Johnny Hartman?

I'm a big fan of Doo-Wop too, and it's progeny -Soul from the late 60s and early 70s -The Delphonics, Blue Magic, The Dells. Try on "Shoe Shoe Shine" by the Dynamic Superiors. Great stuff.

 

You're talkin' to me brother! And on a Sunday afternoon yet. Billy Eckstine was from my neighborhood, his neighborhood, went to high school with my grandmother and had a voice that made Nat King Cole's sound thin. Coltrane/Hartman? I have an album they did together. "My one and only love," and "Lush Life", written by Billy Strayhorn, another guy from the East End of Pittsburgh.

But I was weaned on Motown, "La la means I love you"? Man I got my first you know, whiff on that kind of music at high school dances. Just made a CD for one of my friends back home from the access I get from a new piece of equipment my kid hipped me to called Apple Music! Stonehands, if you don't know about it, being the music fan you sound like you are, you gotta look into it.

Actually great for alot of things, old fights for that matter, anything that somebody somewhere went to the trouble of putting on the internet is available on your TV and stereo with this thing. Old Marvin, you hardly ever hear, original Stevie, obscure Smokey, plus the lesser known artists you mentioned, and then some!

 

Why would it have to be computer generated, unless the viewer was going to control it like a computer game?

Get well cast actors in. Raging Bull looks better than any computer graphic.

Also, I think half the mystique of the old time fighters is not just in how they could fight in the ring; but how they were outside it:

Johnson, overcoming incredible racism to fight for the title. Dempsey, riding the rails, fighting in mining camps verses the well protected and scientifically prepared fighters of today. Louis treading the line between pleasing the white authorities and KO'ing every white man put in front of him. That is at least half the interest to me. Even the shallow Rocky movies emphasize build up.

So a good writer preparing a back story would make it a lot more interesting to me. I guess a kind of build up to inform the casual viewer how great the fighter is would help to get them to care a bit more about the result, rather than just watching a simulated fight between two boxers they may never have heard of. How about commentary from experts, giving opinions/recollections on the fighters in question?
John, your own recollections of meeting Marciano and Suger Ray would make me more likely to buy such a product.

I think it could broaden the appeal. Remember, Ali vs Marciano took place when the public knew these fighters. Boxing has sadly become a minority sport since then. Most have no recollection of anyone before Ali. It would be good to educate the public...perhaps even showing actual footage of the fighters during the build up.

I think that if this could educate the public of how goddamn tough the old timers were, we may even see a renewed interest in boxing.