Has Mike Tyson become a mensch?
Both of us got up at 4:30 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep and both of us had Mike Tyson on our minds. There was an article on the now reformed Tyson in the NYT magazine this Sunday and he said he goes to bed every night at 8 and gets up at 2:30 and then takes a walk around the neighborhood. The difference is that I had to wait till it was light out before I ventured out seeings how I am not Mike Tyson, but sometimes I sure do wish I was (for a moment). Tyson is keeping his demons at bay and I’d have to say I am at a point where mine are at bay and for a change instead of nipping at me, I seem to ruminate on demons past as a pastime instead.
Is that healthy – hell no! Well I can still write cuss words, I just can’t say them – my cussing kitty fattening as I sit here. I had also read in same magazine about a Muslim cleric and I forgot who said that all these young Muslim men have a deep desire for certainty – really now? – and I have a deep desire to be sitting on an island sipping a nice drink and finishing my Mitchell novel that is set in Japan. No kidding dudes, we all have a deep desire for certainty but you know what it ain’t gonna happen. You can sit here and fathom your god and any sort of idealized certainty but that is a losing proposition. Chaos rules. Get over it.
Which brings me to the podcast Crime Fighters I was listening to on It’s New Orleans yesterday and again not young Muslim men, but young black men, all wanting to overcome the world that has presented itself for the world they desire … one where they are in charge, they have the power, and they rule the WORLD. I must say that is empty – sadly empty – to aspire to this sort of certainty, ruling the world, and all sorts of other nonsense related to this way of young adult male thinking. What ever happened to daydreaming and masturbating – for goodness sakes.
But let me ask you a question – what else is left for young men to dream of these days? I searched my mind for one nanosecond, and okay I’ll throw out a couple and you let me know – music, poetry, literature, film, adventure, science, outer space, artist, architect, teacher, biologist … didn’t I say a couple, geez Louise, I couldn’t stop dreaming of the paths that lie in wait for any young man – paths that are divergent from guns and violence and blowing up the planet.
Yesterday on the podcast, one of the men said if you want to see change, be a mentor. That mentoring was a way to help effect change. I concur. I say be a role model, be a mensch, and by all accounts be for real. And I’m sorry I don’t see the world Chuck Perkins glorified by giving credence to the young black man holding a pistol my head in his Don’t Shoot piece, or like the guy on the Crime Fighter podcast I don’t see why on earth Jay Z’s seems determined to use the n word on Oprah’s show or any other place he damn well pleases. I wonder about that one, young black men owning the n word because it is a fact that women are taking back cunt ever since the Vagina Monologues came along.