I’m going to say a thing and then follow it up with a longer thing, and that longer thing will be possibly upsetting for some people and will have a content warning. Feel free to flip through and read, or skip all of it. It’s really just to get it out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about kindness. Softness, in particular. It’s a tricky thing, at least for me. Something that I’m at times not strong enough to pull off, and at others, “too strong”. It takes a lot to be soft. To carry yourself with softness. With empathy. It can easily be met with derision or ridicule, and some may even try to exploit it. I still believe we need it. Possibly even more so in those moments. Possibly in every moment. Or at least close enough to be readily accessible at any time. And sometimes that is really fucking hard. At least for me. And the harder I see the world being, big and small, the harder it is to find softness in myself. But that also compounds the feeling that I’ve had for a while now. The feeling that whatever best version of us there is, of all of us, humanity, society, pick your term for it, the best version of that we can think of is going to take an ability for as many of as possible to approach as many others as possible with as much softness as we can muster. 

Okay, the other thing. 

CW: miscarriage and the immediate aftermath. 

Some of you may know parts or all of this story, some don’t. Many years ago, my partner at the time became pregnant. It wasn’t planned, but young as we were, we were going to figure it out. We made some plans, talked things over, got nervous, got excited, got nervous again, made more plans. Until one day we went to a check up and none of the plans applied anymore. 

At some point after that moment, when the initial shock of the news fades a bit, there is a realization that this experience isn’t over. There is more to be dealt with. More hospital visits and plans to be made. Young, naive, and quite frankly, dumb as I was, it was the first time I realized that what happens after that moment is often times the same procedure that occurs during an abortion. 

We made plans for that. Our shared car needed work, so I would bring the car in, her mom would take her to the hospital, and I would come later to pick her up. I mention this detail for 2 reasons. 

1.  this is a nice little encapsulation of what a shit partner I was at this time in my life. I was pretty regularly a selfish prick of a boy, rarely thinking of anything before myself, and on those infrequent occasions when I did, probably being pretty whiny and petulant about it. It was a practical plan, but I don’t even remember having much to say about it, and at no point did I even consider pushing back on it. To figure out a way that I be the one to drive her in, wait it out, be there for her when it was over. It wasn’t the first or last time I’d act like that, but it’s one that sticks with me.
2. It made what I saw that afternoon that much more drastic to me. 

I barely recognized her. The exhaustion. The sadness. The emptiness. A physical toll had been taken that I was fully unprepared to see. Again, I should have been. Looking back, it feels pretty obvious. And I imagine any of you reading this far probably understand it far better than I did in that moment, and quite possible better than I do now. 

I think about that experience from time to time. Different aspects of it. How it changed me in different ways. And how for all the ways it changed me, I watched it do something to the person closest to me that I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around. 

I’ve been watching the reactions to the recent Supreme Court ruling. The sheer joy, if you can call it that, that pro-life advocates have reacted with. It’s not universal, but there seems to be no shortage of glee generated from the implied suffering of those who can no longer get the healthcare they need.  There is no shortage of despair to be found right now, but for me, that’s the deepest well of it. Right there in those who want those who disagree with them to suffer for that disagreement. It’s not all, but it’s enough. 

I’m absolutely not telling anyone how they should have felt about that ruling, how they should feel now, or what they should be doing about it. Even if that’s what I wanted to do, I’m not the person anyone should be listening to on these sorts of matters. But I know how I feel. And I can see how my friends are feeling. The sadness. The anger. The confusion. Watching folks who I know stand on the same side of this tear into each other over minor differences because we ended up in this place we never should have gotten to. However you feel, however you choose to fight this, wherever you point your efforts, please find the moments to be soft. With others. With those closest. With yourself. I don’t know the best way forward, but I’m certain it involves that. 

I love every last one of you. 

An Attempt at Rationality

No one should be surprised by the media coverage leading up to the Super Bowl. It's the biggest game of the year in the most popular sport in the America. This year's Super Bowl will be the highest rated television broadcast of the year, and, considering the markets and fan bases involved, could attract the highest rated Super Bowl of all time. You don't need to be a lover of football to know this, as even non-fans tune in to the game to catch the ads that they will eventually feel let down by. It's a big event, and big events are something people talk about.

Every Super Bowl is unique and comes with it's own story lines, and this one has no shortage of sub-plots: What a win or loss does to Tom Brady's legacy among all-time great quarterbacks. What a win does for the legacy of Eli Manning, particularly when compared to big brother Peyton. The comparisons to the-Super-Bowl-that-shall-not-be-named. The question of whether Bill Belichick still deserves the label of "genius" (possibly the most collectively blocked out thought among die-hard Pats fans). Will Tom Coughlin or Bill Belichick handle defeat by screaming at children until they cry? Will Tom Coughlin or Bill Belichick celebrate a victory by screaming at children until they cry? Will anyone be a bigger loser than all the fans who sit through Madonna's half-time show? All of this without getting into Rob Gronkowski's footwear options or Tom Jackson's impact on the game.

I've tried to avoid thinking about this game as much as possible. I don't like the way the Giants defense gets after the quarterback (absolutely the best way to stop Tom Brady), but this Patriots offense runs quicker plays than the '07 team, and should be better suited to deal with the pass rush. A banged-up Gronkowski will surely hurt them, but if he can give them even 75 percent, along with Aaron Hernandez and Wes Welker, the "dink and dunk" offense they use could be able to get the ball off before pressure can disrupt the play. The Patriots defense still scares me, but they have been much better in the playoffs, and have at times been more aggressive in their play-calling.

(Anyone reading this who remembers my week 3 freak-out, I stand by the points I made then, and would like to call attention to the fact that, at the time, New England was 28th in the league in sack rate, and have since moved to 13th, including the postseason. Some of this can be attributed to playing some not so stellar teams down the stretch, but it's also been due to a more aggressive approach on defense, particularly in the season finale against Buffalo, the divisional round game against the Broncos, and for parts of the AFC Championship against Baltimore. Do I think New England's defense is good enough to be part of a Super Bowl winning team? Yes. Do they make me want to throw up when I think about watching them for 60 minutes this Sunday? Yes.)

Let's forget about all of this for a minute. All of the side-stories, subplots, injury reports, bulletin board material, and breakdowns. First and foremost, I am a fan. A lot of the space I've used here has been on the teams and sports I love, and spend enough time with me and I'm bound to find a way to get onto that topic, even if you don't want me to. This Sunday, my love of football and the New England Patriots is going to dictate my following week. Forty-five grown men are going to try to break the bodies and minds of forty-five other grown men, and depending on which of those two groups achieves that goal, Sunday night will be one of the best, or one of the most soul-crushing, nights of my life, and there is no middle ground. There are no "ugly wins" in a Super Bowl, and no "encouraging loses", only a champion and an also-ran. Fans live and die in these games.

This is ridiculous.

It is also unavoidable.

That's why the build up has been so stressful for myself and every other loyal fan of these two franchises. There is one thought, however, that seems to put this all in perspective without sounding completely hollow the way "it's only a game" sounds when someone who doesn't understand tries to point out how foolish we all behave in these situations. As a Patriots fan, I remember watching the team go 1-15 and being the laughingstock of the NFL. I remember watching them go 6-10 under Dick MacPherson and thinking that things were getting better, only to have them follow that up with a 2-14 season as we went through another head coach. I remember crying as I watched Brett Favre and Reggie White beat up on a team whose head coach had quit on them and was planning for his next job in Super Bowl XXXI. As a New England sports fan in 1997, that game seemed like it was as close as I would ever get to witnessing a professional championship. No one knew how much things would change in a few years, when the Brady/Belichick Era began.

I'm not going to get into everything that happened in those years, but if Brady and Belichick both choose to retire after the game on Sunday (DEAR GOD NO!!!), they will have brought fans of this team more joy than any of them thought possible, at least in terms of being a sports fan. They will have played in 5 Super Bowls, winning at least 3 of them, 6 Conference Championships, winning 5 of them, will be the greatest coach this area has ever seen, the greatest quarterback this area has ever seen, the greatest coach/QB combo the NFL has ever seen, and will both be first-ballot entrants into the Fall of Fame. Clearly, it's been a good run.

There is no question that Boston sports fans have been spoiled. Eleven years, four teams, seven titles. We have a team playing for a championship, and one that looks poised for another run. It's an embarrassment of riches. I say this not to brag, or rub it in to fans of other teams, but rather as someone deeply aware of how lucky we are to be a part of it. Years from now, nothing will stick out to me like the Brady/Belichick Era. I will never see anything like it, no matter how long I live and follow this team. The chances of another coach AND quarterback coming together and operating at this level are astronomical. Even if it did somehow happen, it wouldn't be like it is now. Nothing is ever as good as the original.

Whatever happens on Sunday, this has been, and always be, the greatest period in my life as a Patriots fan. I will tell my children and their children about watching Tom Brady carve up defenses and break records, and how before that, he was simply someone who managed games but got the absolute best out of everyone around him. I will tell them about Bill Belichick winning a Super Bowl before he even had a chance to install the defense he wanted, and how he beat other teams in the film room long before they ever took the field. It's been great to be a part of all of this, even if only as a fan.

Just don't try to throw that in my face on Monday.

Record Reviews (the assault)

(With the end of the year closing on us, I've decided to bang out some quick reviews in order to get through everything I enjoyed this year, with the hope of having enough time to reveal my album of the year choice sometime in the next couple of days.)

El Camino - The Black Keys

After the exposure they gained from Brothers (their best charting album and single at the time, 5 Grammy nominations, 3 wins, and being the soundtrack for just about every commercial in 2010), The Black Keys were probably under more pressure to produce than they have been in their decade-long career. They came through with El Camino, 11 tracks of exactly the kind of blues-inspired rock fans of the band have come to expect.

The easiest comparison for The Black Keys is The White Stripes, and while the analogy is favorable, it's also lazy. Yes, they are both two-piece outfits playing 12-bar-burners, but to call The Black Keys a Stripes knock-off doesn't give them enough credit. Over their career, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have pulled from the full history of rock to find inspiration. My two favorite albums from them, Brothers and Rubber Factory, appeal to me for their reach towards Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. On El Camino, with the help of producer/co-writer Danger Mouse, they continue their exploration of the blues, while moving even further back at times.

Lonely Boy, the first single from the album, is one of the ballsiest songs to be released in the past 10 years. Any bar fight scene should have this playing over it, including movies already made. (The idea of watching Road House with this album constantly in the background would make the experience 100 percent better, which would be about the same as not watching Road House.) Gold On the Ceiling is the best ZZ Top track since that song from Back to the Future 3, and has an intro riff that sounds like it was written by a drugged-up Joe Perry. Run Right Back and Stop Stop would fit right in on a 50's-rock satellite station, assuming anyone with satellite radio listens to 50's-rock.

Time will tell if I turn back to this album ages as well as Brothers has over the short-term, but the early returns have been enough to keep me looking like a fool to anyone who has seen me driving around listening to this album.


Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes

I do not care about production values. Not only do I not like them, it could be argued that I actively dislike them. A great example of this is the Foo Fighters, a band that has written some of my favorite songs of the 90's, as well as being fronted by the drummer for one of my favorite bands ever. Despite these factors working in their favor, I find much of their post-millennial output to be unlistenable, and it's due to the fact that they have polished themselves down to something that is no longer interesting. I like rawness and unpredictability in the things I listen to, even in the more precise artists I listen to. (Andrew Bird comes to mind here, someone who is a bit notorious for the work he puts into making an album, but still manages to sound like he is writing the songs in studio as he plays them.)

This outlook on music would hold up almost flawlessly for me, if not for the Fleet Foxes.

On both of their full length albums, they have achieved a sound bordering on seamless. The instrumentation, the melodies, the vocal harmonies (MY GOD!!), it all sounds like they spent weeks perfecting every detail. Maybe, because it feels like they never rely on that production to be the focus of their songs, and instead use the arrangements to let their songs shine at their brightest, that it never seems to bother me. Or maybe it's because it's winter, and the sound like falling snow, if falling snow would get it's act together and make the kind of sounds we all know it can make.

I'm not sure anything on Helplessness Blues hits me quite as hard as the best moments on their self-titles debut, but the album feels a bit more complete overall. The title track is most-likely the strongest track on the album, and it's hard not to have an easy smile on your face while listening to Bedouin Dress, and it's hard to pinpoint much that disappoints. (An Argument being an exception. I fail to see how the album, or the track, is any worse without a minute and a half of horn noise. Wilco has that covered.)

Either way, throw on the album, sit by a fire, and make the best out of grey skies.



The King Is Dead - The Decemberists

Listening to music is a little different for anyone who has ever played music. It's not that we enjoy it any more than someone else, or that it makes us any better than someone who hasn't, it's just different. It can bring an automatic response of comparison. One of my favorite feelings while listening to something new is of being blown away by the talent and ability of whoever it is I'm listening to (see the above review). Wishing I had the ability to write and/or perform a song makes me even more appreciative of what I'm hearing. This is a fairly common occurrence, seeing as how I'm sitting her writing about music instead of writing music. What's less common, but possibly more impressive, is hearing something so simple and seemingly easy that you feel like you could have written it, and you're mad at yourself for not coming up with it first.

Don't Carry It All is not an overtly impressive song. It's structure is fairly straightforward. The inclusion of violin and mandolin certainly add to the song, but they don't make it overly grandiose. And while Colin Meloy certainly has a rather unique voice, it's not like many people would be mad to hear someone else sing his songs. (To be clear, I like his voice, my only point is that I don't think anyone would call him the male Adele.) All of this, and it's still the best Tom Petty song since, well, Tom Petty.

Music in the internet/iTunes/Spotify era is a pretty fantastic thing. It gives almost any access to things that wouldn't have been available not that long ago. (I'm pretty sure I've made this point before, but let's just pretend this is for all the new readers, okay?) This has made for a landscape where there is a sound for just about everyone, which is a great. I like having access to music whose influences could come from, conceivably, anywhere (or even nowhere, I suppose). But there is something to be said for a band that writes fairly basic, Americana-folk-rock, that still manages to sound inspired, and The Decemberists manage to do it better than anyone (sorry, My Morning Jacket).

Don't get me wrong, The Decemberists are a very talented group of musicians, it's just that their talent as players takes a backseat to their ability as songwriters. The King Is Dead is 10-straight tracks of song-crafting expertise. It would make a strong case for the best album I heard this year if not for one other album this year.

But that is a review for another time, and that time will hopefully be tomorrow or the next day.

Record Review: Showroom of Compassion

Cake is not my favorite band. I don't consider them to be the most talented group of musicians I enjoy (though, they are very talented), they don't always write the best songs, and while their live show is good-to-great, they are not transcendent. Despite all of this, Cake might be the greatest band currently making music. You probably disagree with this statement, but let me try and explain.

When you, as a random individual, think about what band you consider to be the greatest, you apply your own, personal set of standards and see how everything stacks up. These guidelines probably include some combination of the previously mentioned aspects of a band, and maybe a few others. And while I stand by my assessment of how Cake fits into those criteria, there is another way to look at it.

When a band achieves some level of fame, expectations are put on them. Some groups handle it and go on doing what they were doing, some crack under those expectations, and others deal with it by going in a completely different direction. Whatever they do, and no matter how good it is and how many new fans it gets them, these bands will lose some of the older fans, and those fans will say one of two things; "They sound exactly the same", which is another way of saying that they are now bored by this band, or "They changed their sound", which is another way of saying that they themselves are boring.

Cake has somehow avoided this almost entirely.

With Showroom of Compassion, Cake has made yet another album (this is their sixth full-album of new material) that is clearly the alt-country, funk, spoken-word form that only they can achieve, while still managing to sound like it's own unique album. It's not my favorite Cake album (I still have to give the nod Motorcade of Generosity), and I worry that some of the more "occupy"-themed songs will age in a less than flattering way. That being said, even without the time-stamp of the topic, Showroom, like all of Cake's albums, is full of songs that wouldn't fit on another Cake album.

Federal Funding and Easy to Crash are two of the more aggressively-sleazy toned songs I've ever heard from the McCrea and Co. (and are also the songs I'm worried about becoming dated, which would be a shame). The circular riff and vocal melody on Got to Move are enjoyable enough that they could go on for hours. I don't listen to much straight-forward country, but I would if more bands wrote songs like Bound Away. The album is filled with solid songs and few weak spots, but The Winter might be the best track on the whole album. An electronic-filled cold walk through the memory of a lost relationship, the song would be just as good stripped down to a simple acoustic-driven ballad.

I'm sure there are Cake fans who are disappointed with the album (and some who think it is their best), and time will tell how much I'll listen to it compared to their other albums. Regardless, it's a great record on it's own, and it comes after two decades of never letting us down. What's greater than that?

Record Review

Over the next few weeks, I will be trying something a little new. I'm going to be reviewing some of my favorite albums of 2011, with the hope of record reviews becoming a regular feature here. They won't be in any particular order, just what I happened to find enjoyable over the past 11+ months.

Kiss Each Other Clean - Iron & Wine

Iron & Wine is a band that has become some kind of bizarro guilty pleasure for me. Not an actual guilty pleasure, as I make no apologies for liking them (and by "them" I really mean singer-songwriter Samuel Beam). What I mean is that they are a band that consistently makes music I enjoy and sometimes love, and yet seems to always be less than loved by critics, and the most positive reaction I get from people (assuming they've heard the music) is "eh", or something similar. It's hard to imagine Kiss Each Other Clean changing that too much (the album did peak at no.2 on the Billboard Chart, yet I don't know anyone who has listened to it, unless through myself), but I suppose that's the way it goes.

Over their first three albums, Iron & Wine have grown from simple, quiet beginnings of The Creek Drank the Cradle and developed into the more elaborate and nuanced, but still delicate sound of their most recent, The Shepherd's Dog. On Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam trades some of the backwoods charm of The Shepherd's Dog for a horn section, a few synthesizers, and what are possibly some of the most accessible songs he's written yet. Album opener Walking Far From Home sounds like it was written for the next album from The Postal Service, while Tree By The River is the kind of song young girls would listen to if they weren't listening to Jason Mraz or Boz Scaggs or whatever it is the kids listen to these days.

While it's a bit up and down through the first few tracks, it really takes off on the back half. Rabbit Will Run is one of the best songs of the year. A bass-and-drum run through the Everglades of Beam's Florida home and a lyrical story loaded with metaphors that cover almost every aspect of human existence, without feeling heavy-handed or forced. Big Burned Hand is a fuzzed-out trip into the back of a '72 Vista Cruiser, complete with hanging dice and the smell of cheap weed.

Kiss Each Other Clean has a way of guiding you into the most comfortable chair you can find, ready to just let the music pour over you. Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me does just that. The final 4 of its 7 minutes are spent in repetitive waves, Beam imploring us to experience everything life has to offer, good and bad.

While at times it seems as if he is still getting comfortable with his new instrumentation and arrangements, the final product is worth the effort. Four albums in to his career as Iron & Wine, it will be interesting to see if he tries to find a happy medium between his quiet beginnings and where he stands now, or if he will continue to expand his sound. With Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron & Wine have made sure that I'll be listening to find out.

Grade: 87
Key Tracks: Rabbit Will Run, Big Burned Hand

End is the Beginning is the End

This post contains spoilers for Groundhog Day, Memento, Inception, Fight Club, The Dark Knight, and No Country for Old Men. You've been warned.

I'm holding out hope to one day see a sequel to Groundhog Day. I don't want to watch a movie that is essentially a cheap knockoff with B-list actors and a reworked plot. I also don't want to see a cash-grab by the original actors with a reworked plot. And I definitely don't want to see this.

If you will, for a moment, imagine this. 4 years have passed since the events of the film. Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is alone and jobless. After trying to tell Rita (Andie MacDowell) what really happened to him on that fateful Groundhog Day, she thinks he's crazy (or a liar, or both) and leaves. Phil starts to tell others about his ordeal, hoping for some kind of validation, but slowly just pushes his friends away and loses his job. Now, unemployed and alone, Phil is left to piece together the shattered remains of his life.

This is the movie I want to see.

Now, I know that film is probably too dark to ever get made, and would need some tweaking to ever see theaters. Maybe he goes to Japan and meets Black Widow. I'm not opposed to this sequel having a happy ending, provided it felt believable (at least in the universe the original movie created, where someone can live the same day over while learning life lessons), and it's the believability that matters to me.

I find that many of my favorite movies are ones that, even if they are successful or well-received (not always the same thing), tend to leave a lot of people lost or upset. In my mind, one of the best movies to come out in the past ten years is No Country for Old Men, a film that most people I talk to claim to either hate or not understand (It is worth noting that it won Best Picture, which would indicate some level of success and critical reception, but I remember it being very hard to find overly supportive reviews when it came out). Almost all of the problems people had with it stemmed from the ending. Lewellyn Moss, the man you spend most of the movie following, dies in a gunfight the audience never sees, and Anton Chigurh (an all-time great villain, with even greater hair) escapes into the sunset, albeit with the Joe Theismann of arm injuries. The movie ends with professional crotchety-old-man Tommy Lee Jones telling his wife about the dreams he had. It's not exactly dripping with closure, but that's what I love about it. It's closer to real life than any movie with a clear-cut ending.

(For anyone reading this who didn't like the movie, try watching it while thinking of it as a story about Tommy Lee Jones dealing with a changing world and his coming retirement.)

Not always, but more often than not, I don't want movies to be an exercise in escapism. This isn't a knock on people who seek that, or the films that they find it in, and there are times when that's exactly what I want. But, in addition to the Coen brothers, many of my favorite directors are ones who make films that depict a less polished view of life, and often have endings that can be taken more than one way, not all of them happy. Christopher Nolan has come close to perfecting the dichotomic ending. Inception either has a perfectly happy conclusion, or Leonardo DiCaprio has trapped himself in his own delusional dream world. Guy Pierce has exacted revenge for the murder of his wife, or needlessly killed multiple innocent men while tricking himself into believing he isn't the one who took her life, depending on how you want to view Memento. Even his characters aren't safe from this split-view of the world. By the end of The Dark Knight, Batman is more heroic than Gotham City can know, accepting the weight of a crime he didn't commit.

I realize that talking about the importance of believability, and then following that with a discussion of those particular movies seems a little contradictory, but not as much as you might think. If a director builds his universe well enough, the actions are never questioned. This is why jumping into dreams to plant ideas seems like a completely reasonable idea. What needs to be believable, for me, is how the characters act in that universe. If you told your friend that you aren't able to stop yourself from thinking about your wife committing suicide because of an idea you planted in her mind while in a decades long dream, causing her to to appear in dreams you enter while trying to destroy your plans, that friend would stop talking to you immediately. But in the world of Inception, this feels exactly like something that would happen in that particular situation.

If someone asks me my favorite movie, I give them a list of all possible candidates, and Fight Club is always near the top of that list. Fight Club was a box-office failure and critically panned, but has grown into a rather well respected film. Part of it's initial failure was the marketing for the film, in that no one knew what they were going to see. It was a movie about fighting, or perhaps soap. It might have been a film to see how much blood, dirt, and weird clothing it would take to make women turn on Brad Pitt. Now, it's seen as a film about rejecting consumer culture in a society that has no place in history (this message could have been lost post-9/11, and I imagine it changes how people react to the line about being a generation with no great war, but I wonder how many people feel their lives have been defined by the war on terrorism). It's a film (and a wonderful novel before that) about the emptiness modern life can have, and the dangers of letting that push us too far, and of unchecked rebellion against that life. Creating a completely new person that you slowly become friends with before trying to bring down contemporary society is probably not something any of us would ever do. But what if it did? What if life pushed you to the point that your mind created another person that allowed you to fight back against that push? How different would you be than Jack (Ed Norton)? Wouldn't you embrace this new friend who helped you let go of the possessions you lost, then start to retreat from when you realized he was the one who destroyed and stole those possesions? Would you be any less maniacal when you discovered that this person was actually you when you thought you were sleeping?

Real life doesn't happen in acts. Relationships end, loved ones die, friends move away, but none of that happens in a vacuum. These events impact each other, and the effects last long after the actual moments in which they occurred. Movies end and leave you with a feeling that all is right in the world, or at least the world you've been watching for the last two hours. This is my problem with most films, and with one like Groundhog Day (I do like Groundhog Day, a lot, but I can't help but think about these things when I watch most movies, and this is no exception).

I know people get different things from art, and movies are no different. So maybe it's just me, but I want to be able to find myself somewhere in the characters of the film. I have a hard time letting things go, major events last longer in my mind, drifting into one another, and the past ends up feeling like a bigger part of the present than it actually is. I might be in the minority, but I don't think I am. Even if some may not think about it as much as others, or to the borderline obsessive levels that I think about it, we are all shaped by our past.

I know a film can't go on forever. At some point, all movies have to end, I just want more that acknowledge that the story doesn't.

Remembering What You Didn't Forget

I have watched very little footage of Joe Frazier. I know that he was one of the greatest boxers of all time, but only because it's something I generally know as sports fan, not because of any exhaustive research or personal opinions. He was the first man to defeat Ali, but I remember them more in their later years, taking jabs at each other through the press. My most vivid memory of him in the ring is when he was introduced at the start of the first Rocky-Creed fight. This is why it might seem weird when I tell you that Joe Frazier is my favorite boxer of all time, and that his passing left me saddened and feeling somehow different.

The thing that I will remember most about him was his nickname, Smokin' Joe Frazier. When I was about 5 years old, I heard his introduction to the ring, and I honestly don't remember anything else about that moment. Logically, I'm assuming my father was watching some sort of boxing match that was showing highlights of general boxing history or specifically from Joe Frazier's career. It didn't matter. "Smokin' Joe Frazier" latched itself into my still developing mind, and just like that I was shouting it in every room of my house daily. When I saw pictures or him wearing green (my favorite color) trunks in The Fight of the Century, it was settled then and there. No boxer would ever dethrone Joe as the greatest in my mind.

I've followed boxing somewhat half-heartedly since I was a kid, watching Tyson demolish opponents who were never actually that good, before ruining his own career and eventually revealing that he was never that good of a boxer in the first place. The most exciting fight in my lifetime was seeing George Foreman, a man I knew for being a goofy, friendly guy with his own grill and starring in muffler commercials, suddenly remind everyone that he was once a brutal and punishing man while becoming the oldest champion the sport has ever seen. Since then, (and possibly before), the sport has been in decline, particularly in the heavyweight division. There has been a lack of true superstars, and the titleholders have mostly been whoever happened to be there at the time. (The exception right now, of course, is the ongoing non-fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao, a fight that would most likely shatter ratings records. You know, if it ever happened.) This, combined with the rise of UFC and mixed martial arts, has pushed boxing to the back of the national sports consciousness.

Even in my own quasi-disinterested sort of way, I've always preferred boxing to MMA. I know I'm wrong about this, and that any fan of MMA would shout at me for hours with the reasons I am wrong, but MMA fights lack any real excitement and technique to me. Sure, this guy trained with this master of whatever, and that guy lived with a guru in the art of that other thing, and one punches a bit more while the other kicks a bit more, but 9 times out of 10, they just end up rolling around on the mat trying to bend their opponent's limbs in ways they aren't supposed to until the other taps out. Boxing can be equally mindless, but there is something about it that can (but doesn't always) transcend that savage brutality. Sometimes, it's not about the training or the skill of the two boxers, but it's about their will, something that made the Ali-Frazier fights so incredible. It's about two men who want to destroy each other, knowing that they have to give everything they have to bring his opponent down, while dealing with the same coming back. It's the ultimate test of perseverance and strength, both mentally and physically.

I wish there were more boxers that could push the sport to those levels, but not just for that reason. I miss sitting with my father and grandfather, watching two men trying to punch there way through one another, and then talking about the grace and intricacy of such an act. I want to see two men bring the absolute best out of one another, which is really one of the greatest things sports can allow us to witness. I suspect over the next couple of days, I'll watch clips of Joe Frazier's fights, and I'll sit through the entire third battle with Ali, and even though I'll know it's coming, I'll be crushed when Frazier's corner throws in the towel before the final round, his trainer realizing that Frazier couldn't see out of his eyes because his face was too swollen. And then I'll think about his green trunks, and his cool nickname, and I'll feel like I'm 5 years old again. And that will make me happy. And then I'll remember that he's gone.