Muhammad Ali: People Like That Never Get Knocked Down

Rarely have performative and athletic aptitudes intertwined with such fluency. When we first noticed him, around the Liston fight, we noticed he was different—different in the way an exposed diamond is different from a chunk of cement. It was as if the boxing ring had become a bejeweled pulpit, and the sermons that rang from above held more holy suspense than blood action.

It became obvious—for Muhammad Ali—that boxing was a secondary skill, one that furthered a spiritual quest. He was a seeker for that which  lay far beyond Vegas hotel rooms and ringside misery.

Once called the most famous man on earth, he had a detachment from those who wished him good or ill. Redemption arrived from beyond the roiling crowds and praise and money. If the gloves were cut off, the hands would remain in prayer.

At the end, when the body failed and he could no longer raise his arms, salvation swooned and led him from the Ring. Ali then entered the mystic, that forever sanctified, quiet kingdom where victory and loss are unknown. 

Rest assured, people like that never get knocked down.

#muhammadali #boxing #miketyson #anthonyjoshua #boxinglife #floydmayweather #canelo #tysonfury #mma #ufc #boxingtraining #deontaywilder #boxeo #mannypacquiao #mayweather #caneloalvarez #ggg #knockout #champion #ryangarcia #cassiusclay #boxinghistory #fight #ali #boxer #fitness #thegreatest #boxingnews #fighter #tyson #letsplaysomethingelse

Anna Fallarino: Tales of Pleasure and Pain

 

A crime of the heart?

Zannone. A beautiful Mediterranean island. Italian. Warm waters ebb and flow. Overhead, an azure sky. In the 60s, the Marquis Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, or just Casati Stampa, leased the island.

His villa was the scene of endless parties, replete with orgies. There was a 'hidden mirror room' where the marquis and friends would watch sex sessions, many involving his wife, who often swam naked with guests.

His wife. Anna Fallarino, an actress searching for a different stage. Off to Zannone. Lots of lovers. A cache of nude photos. And more and more.

But then, what? Call it love. Massimo Minorenti, student/porn actor, a regular sex partner, captured her heart. And they met off the island—an extremely dangerous adventure.

Rome. August 1970. Enter Casati Stampa with a shotgun. Six shells. Three for Fallarino. Two for Minorenti. And the final one for himself. All gone.

A crime of passion? Hardly. Sexual jealousy is no substitute for a crime of the heart.

Today, Zannone is in ruins. At night, wild sheep sleep under their indigo sheets, unheeding the whispering surf with its tales of painless pleasure.

 

#zannone #casatistampa #annafallarino #sex #1960s #island #italy #marquis #lamarchesa #annaecamillo #MassimoMinorenti #letsplaysomethingelse

Warren Beatty: Never a Dandy in Aspic

 

Strategic sex

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht

Your hat strategically dipped below one eye

Your scarf it was apricot

You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself gavotte

And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner

They'd be your partner and

You're so vain.

-        -  Carly Simon

Closer to Narcissus than Priapus, or perhaps neither, because Warren Beatty was strategically vain. He had a discipline matched by temerity and talent. Sexual conquests were guided by pragmatism. Like most enduring film stars, he was self-reverential with a charming detachment.

Beatty had little time for the 1960s zeitgeist. He was never counterculture, always closer to the Rat Pack than Haight-Ashbury. But pure Malibu, no Vegas. By the time of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), he had perfected the character of an inchoate man, burdened by cultural confusion and societal norms. He wanted to belong but lacked an invitation. Unsure, mumbling, Beatty in Shampoo (1975) can’t be redeemed by his face alone—so alone he must stay.

Know when to leave

His personal narrative belongs to America for it’s grounded on the terra firma of independence. No other soil breeds those so hungry for freedom that they risk all to remain untethered. Beatty could act, write, direct and produce. His ambition was puzzling. Was he a new kind of movie star? Carey Grant never attended political conventions.

Then the films began to fail, and he just stopped. Didn’t matter—because he was protected by instinct. He was never a dandy in aspic. You see, anybody can show up; only the chosen know when to leave.

 

 #warrenbeatty #shirleymaclaine #shampoo #bonnieandclyde #movie #star #oscar #hollywood #shampoo #reds #swinger #1960s #pop #culture  

 

Donyale Luna: Behind Every Great Face is a Greater Spirit

 

Born Peggy Ann Freeman (1945-79), in Detroit. Later, by her own hand, she becomes Donyale George Tyger Luna. 6’2”. Slim. Her parents married and divorced on four separate occasions. In January 1965, her mother fatally shot her father in self-defense. Luna stayed away.

First Black model to appear on the covers of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar—although Harper’s likened her to a Masai warrior. A supermodel before the term was born.

She said: “I wasn’t accepted because I talked funny, I looked funny, and I was a weirdo to everyone. I grew up realizing I was strange.”

Sometimes, she told people she was Polynesian or Mexican. Some thought she was Indian. Whatever they wanted her to be… She could wear colored contacts and once expressed a desire to be white, blonde, and blue-eyed. Did it really matter? Never a shapeshifter because she always controlled the light.

She palled around with Andy Warhol, Otto Preminger, Salvador Dali and Federico Fellini. Restless, pursued by demons from long ago and far away.

She joked that her home was in the cosmos, hence ‘Luna’. Possible, for her beauty was untethered and somehow intellectually seductive. Very rare. Great photographers know that beauty itself is banal and strictly limited—just a matter of proportions: behind every great face there must be a greater spirit.

Marriage failed, a nervous breakdown, so off to swinging London as 1966 got underway. Then her most famous photo, a cover for British Vogue. Her pose was a riff on Picasso’s ocular-centric portraiture. One of Luna’s eyes playfully peers from between her fingers.

Eccentric, even for a model, she spoke of her love for LSD and had a habit of not wearing shoes while walking on city streets.

The end came from drugs. Too many, too soon. Luna is gone.

When asked in 1966 about what her success might mean for other people of color, she said, “If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad.” She thought for a moment. “I couldn't care less.”  Cosmic for sure—because the farther up you go in the sky, all of the Earth looks blue.

 

#donyaleluna #model #vogue  #harpers #beatles #rollingstones #1960s #fashion #andywarhol #film

Dennis Hopper: An Artist Knows Who to Trust

 

"The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere". – Dennis Hopper

“No other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper". - Matthew Hays. film critic

 

Dennis Hopper was such a good actor that you always assumed he wasn’t acting. That’s an extremely rare accomplishment.

In his greatest role, Frank, in Blue Velvet, he presents mental illness as empowering components of his personality, traits that render him forceful and attractive and violent. It’s a seamless performance. Sure, we say, that’s Hopper. But it’s not. He became a go-to-actor for offbeat roles which, to work, can only be played by so-called ordinary people. Yes, the best comedians are sad and serious. Life works in opposites. It always has.

In his most famous role, Billy, in Easy Rider, he detaches himself from Earth, Camus’ stranger on a motorcycle, tripping the light fantastic, burdened with worry but unencumbered by fear. With hair blowin’ in the wind, we motor with Hopper down dark halls of hippie existentialism. No flowers. No peace. No music. Fade to black.

He long mourned his buddy James Dean. He got sick on drugs and booze. He had five wives—with one marriage lasting eight days. Unemployable. Erratic. Dennis the Menace. Somehow his anger was transmuted to art—without artifice. He stumbled from the fifth dimension, torn and frayed but unbowed. He was what he was. 

He held a tremulous flame. Dennis Hopper enslaved his demons, kept them in chains, to be visited now and then, as they hunkered in their dungeons, waiting for a reprieve that never came. Because artists always know who to trust.

#dennishopper #easyrider #peterfonda #jacknicholson #michellephillips #motorcycle #1960s #james dean #rebelwithoutacause #bluevelvet #davidlynch