June 2016 - Page 6 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome in 1984.

Muhammad Ali was born on January 17, 1942. When I was growing up, my grandfather McKinley told me that being the heavyweight champ in boxing was a most notable achievement.

This brash young man out of Louisville, KY, named Cassius Clay, who had won the Light Heavyweight gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, and tossed his medal into the river, because being an Olympic champion, did not inure one from racism. (Or he just lost it.) He was an underdog against reigning champ Sonny Liston.

Most thought his pre-fight chatter that he would “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” was just talk. But he beat Liston on February 25, 1964, in Miami, becoming the youngest boxer to take the title from a reigning heavyweight champion. His new name was announced shortly after that fight.

Ali was stripped of his title in 1967 for his refusal to be drafted into the Army service. He was denied a boxing license, first in the state of New York, and eventually by every state. He was convicted on June 20 of that year of draft evasion. He was not allowed to “fight from March 1967 to October 1970—from ages 25 to almost 29—as his case worked its way through the appeal process. In 1971, the US Supreme Court overturned his conviction in a unanimous 8-0 ruling (Thurgood Marshall abstained from the case).”

After Losing three and a half years in boxing, Ali had his first fight against champ Joe Frazier, held at Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Ali suffered his first professional defeat.

When he defeated Frazier in a rematch a couple of years later, after Frazier had lost the crown to George Foreman, Ali regained the title against Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, on October 30, 1974. In February 1978, he lost to young Leon Spinks in Las Vegas, but won a rematch a little over a year later, making him the first heavyweight champion to win the belt three times.

It was Ali’s name change, fighting to have it accepted against the conventions of the day, and his successful opposition to the Vietnam war, more than his boxing, that most interested me about the man.

Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome in 1984. Yet he remains one of the best-known, and beloved, persons in the world, as he engaged in philanthropy, “involved in raising funds for the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in Phoenix, Arizona; supported the Special Olympics and the Make a Wish Foundation among other organizations, and has traveled to numerous countries… to help out those in need. In 1998, he was chosen to be a United Nations Messenger of Peace because of his work in developing countries. In 2005, Ali received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush.”

I was saddened, but not surprised that he died this weekend at the age of 74.

LINKS

The late Ed Bradley’s interview with Ali on 60 Minutes in 1996

Michael Rivest: The greatest is Gone

Ali on the wall.

Music Throwback Saturday: Smile, Darn Ya, Smile

The Smile, Darn You, Smile cartoon was redone, and colorized, in 1995.

For this one, blame fillyjonk. She had a post featuring, among other things, Billy Cotton singing Smile, Darn Ya, Smile from 1931, a song written by Charles O’Flynn, Jack Meskill, and Max Rich.

Also in that post, from that year, a character named Foxy – looking not dissimilar to Mickey Mouse – in an animated feature with the same name as the song. It was a Merrie Melodies cartoon, a producer I recognize as later featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and others.

From Toonzone: This cartoon is very similar to Walt Disney’s Oswald the Rabbit cartoon Trolley Troubles (1927) [where “Oswald is the conductor on a runaway trolley] which [supervising director Rudolf] Ising likely worked on. Disney Swipe: In both Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! and in Disney’s The Opry House (1929), a fat hippo is deflated with a pin.”

The Smile, Darn Ya, Smile cartoon was redone, and colorized, in 1995. “The re-drawn version is never animated at 24 fps (as many scenes in the original are), but only with 12 drawings/second.”

As fillyjonk noted, the song “was used (at least the chorus was) at the very end of ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (when the Toons get their happy ending, after all).” It was also recorded by several others.

LINKS

Read the fillyjonk post

Read IMBD of the 1931 cartoon

Watch the side-by-side comparison of the 1931 and 1995 cartoons

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile by Ben Selvin, which hit #14 on the Billboard charts in 1931 HERE or HERE or HERE

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile – Percival Mackay & His Kit-Kat Band (1931)

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile – Joe Morgan and his Palais D’or Orchestra (1931)

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile – Sammy Davis, Jr., featuring tap dancing

Watch the end of the Roger Rabbit movie

Listen to soundtrack recording of Smile, Darn Ya, Smile from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The lyrics

Smile, darn ya, smile
You know this great world is a good world after all
Smile, darn ya, smile
And right away watch lady luck pay you a call
Things are never black as they are painted
Time for you and joy to get acquainted
So make life worthwhile
Come on and smile, darn ya, smile

Mark Lane

Dick Gregory ran for President in 1968, with Mark Lane as his VP running mate.

I don’t know when it was, at all, though it was in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I was in an airport, probably on my way to Charlotte, NC, or San Diego, CA, but it was neither of those cities’ airports or in Albany.

I was reading the New York Times, maybe the Sunday paper. The cover story was about a guy named Mark Lane about to be indicted for something or other. Then who should I see but Mark Lane?

I knew who he was, mostly from his contrarian views on the John F. Kennedy assassination.mHe believed the CIA was involved in the murder, producing a thesis casting doubt on the lone-assassin theory – “and even whether Oswald had actually been involved in the crime.” When the Warren Report summaries came out in the local newspaper, I cut them out and pasted them in a three-ring binder – I may STILL Have this – so I was a JFK assassination junkie.

Mark Lane was also involved in civil rights activism. I recognized him right away, and I’m not sure I needed the picture in the paper. Somehow we got to talking.

One of the things we discussed was how I tried to talk to my parents, especially my father, NOT to vote for Dick Gregory for President, who had Lane as his VP running mate, in 1968. My father was keen on voting for a black man, the comedian-activist Gregory. I insisted that Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate, was too dangerous and that they should vote for Hubert Humphrey, the Democrat, instead of throwing away his vote. For sure, I STILL have the button pictured.

(How my folks actually voted, I’ll never know, of course. I’ve “thrown away” my vote once or twice subsequent to that year when I was not yet eligible to cast a ballot. That topic is extremely hot in 2016.)

Mark Lane was very generous in hearing about my politicking against him. I’m sure we at least mentioned JFK, but not his then-current legal troubles. Nor did we talk about his peripheral involvement in the Jonestown massacre, since I was unaware of it until much later.

Mark Lane died on May 11 at the age of 89. I was going to write about him, then it slipped my mind, but Shooting Parrots reminded me.

Internet mob justice

The vitriol -“someone must pay!” – feels about the same as the Cecil the lion case.

The story of the shooting of a rare gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo by zoo officials, after a small child slipped into an enclosure and fell into the primate’s area, utterly fascinates me. It has even kept Donald Trump off the lead on the news for a day or two.

What I’ve discovered is that there are far more zoologists in the United States, and the world, than I ever imagined, all well-schooled as animal behaviorists. They seemed to KNOW for a certainty that the 450-pound primate would NOT hurt the three- or four-year-old, even though he had dragged the child through the pool at least twice.

This assessment seems to be based on some case of a child falling into a gorilla enclosure 30 years ago, and THAT gorilla WAS protective of THAT child.

Or in the alternative, these experts in primate physiology attest that the gorilla would NOT hurt the child in the minutes while a painful tranquilizer dart was taking effect.

I’ve also learned that most Americans are PERFECT parents, who NEVER turn away from their child, not even for a second. When I was five, my parents were frantic when I wandered away in Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton, NY.

And, BTW, this incident isn’t about what it’s about but rather the history of human bondage or the shame of horse racing or Americans’ hypocrisy about animal suffering (meat eaters!)

But mostly it’s about the danger of Internet mob justice. “There are reports of online harassment against a woman who shares the name of the 4-year-old’s supposed mother…

“The fundamental problem with mob justice is that it’s prone to randomness…People are calling for someone to be punished for Harambe’s death. But the internet mob has widely ignored other cases in which animals needlessly die. And it doesn’t pay much heed to animals that are suffering in negligent zoos or farms right now, in some cases until their very sad deaths.”

Some believe, perhaps correctly, that race is a factor in this situation; the mother and child are black, I gather. But it shares some of the same vitriol as when some parents let their kids walk home, all by themselves. In some ways, this is different than when a Minnesota doctor shot the famed lion Cecil because the feline was killed for sport. But the vitriol -“someone must pay!” – feels about the same.

So I’m not signing any online petitions to get “justice for Harambe,” especially those targeting the parents. This was a tragic set of circumstances. The zoo is mourning its loss, and the mother has acknowledged this and apologized for her part.

Yet I’m not opposed to the negligence complaint filed by the animal rights group Stop Animal Exploitation Now against the zoo with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “The group said in its complaint letter that the child’s ability to get past the barrier was proof the zoo was negligent and should be fined for a ‘clear and fatal violation of the Animal Welfare Act.'” Zoos everywhere, I suspect, will be re-examining their enclosures.

Movie review: The Jungle Book

The standout of The Jungle Book, both visually and aurally, may be King Louie.

I’ve never read the 1894 stories by Rudyard Kipling known as the Jungle Book. Nor did I ever catch the 1967 film that was the last full-length animated film produced by Walt Disney himself. And no copy exists in the Albany Public Library; I may have to get a copy through interlibrary loan.

I have watched scenes of the older film featuring the songs I Wanna Be Like You and especially The Bare Necessities.

So seeing the 2016 version, done with special effect animals and scenery, plus a real boy (Neel Sethi as Mowgli) in the center of the action, was a very different experience. The technological challenge was daunting for director Jon Favreau, who has piloted such diverse fare as Iron Man and Chef.

He succeeded.

My wife claims that I flinched more in this film that the three of us saw at Albany’s Madison Theatre on Sunday than she can recall, especially with the appearances of angry tiger Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba). I recognized right away the voice of Bill Murray as the crafty bear Baloo, and that was actually a relief after all the action that had taken place up to that point.

All the voice actors were quite fine: Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, the panther; Lupita Nyong’o as Mowgli’s wolf mother, Raksha; Giancarlo Esposito as Akela, the wolves’ father; and Scarlett Johansson as the snake Kaa. The late Gary Shandling had a small role as Ikki, the porcupine. Even Favreau got into the act as a pygmy hog, and used his kids Madeline and Max as Raquel the rhino and a young wolf.

Still, the standout, both visually and aurally, may be King Louie, voiced by Christopher Walken, who’s seeking the “red flower.” My spouse, who’s not a Walken fan, even said so. This is NOT Walt’s Louie.

If The Daughter had been five, I believe this film would have terrified her, but as a tween, she’s more impervious to scary movie action.

This is a fine film. Read SamuraiFrog’s review.