More to Life

I never thought I'd feel sorry for this guy, but, after having read this article some weeks ago, I now do.

TYSON: DYING CAN'T BE AS BAD AS LIVING
Dec 22 2004
EXCLUSIVE: Despair of a fallen idol
From Anthony Harwood at Gleason's Gym, Brooklyn, New York

This week, 38-year-old Mike Tyson was back at Gleason's Gym, where he used to train as a youngster - but the conquering days are over. This time, there is no fight to prepare for and no prospect of one.

Instead Iron Mike is here to teach kids how to box as part of a community service sentence he was given for his part in a brawl at a Brooklyn hotel. The gym owner persuaded the district attorney that Tyson should put something back into the community instead of going back to jail. [SNIP]

Overweight and on prescription drugs to fight depression and keep him calm, Tyson is still carrying a leg injury from the pounding he took from Britain's Danny Williams, who knocked him out in July.

Contrary to what his adviser Shelley Finkel claims, he is not planning a comeback fight in March. Maybe there will never be one. "I'm just training," says Tyson, who hasn't worked on his bad knee for more than two months. "I don't know if I still want to box. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I feel I don't more than I want to. I'm just tired." [SNIP]

"Dying can't be as bad as living," he muses. "There's no way that dying can be as bad as living. But while you're living you have to live.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I just live, I guess, get some food. But I don't cook. I go to restaurants every night." Asked how he fills his days, he replies: "I don't do anything. My life sucks." [SNIP]

The public persona of Mike Tyson is nearly a mirror of that of the proverbial Primal Man. Almost. He eats when he’s hungry, drinks when he’s thirsty. He raises Hell, both in the boxing ring—to his glory—and out—to his detriment and that of others. And, of course, he has sex when the desire arises.

We all remember this:

Tyson was jailed for six years [SIC; he was sentenced to six years] in 1992 after raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant, in a hotel in Indianapolis. He served half his sentence.

(Sidenote: I don’t know if he did the deed or not. But every time I read about this incident, I am reminded of an axiom that good mothers impart to their daughters: don’t go to a man’s hotel room *ever.* The part that Mom may leave off is this: not unless you’re willing to give up more than good wishes. An up-front explicit agree to give up no drawers is valid, but only an idiot or a schemer says this after she has voluntarily removed her clothing.)

For all of Mike Tyson’s life of fulfilling the primal callings of man, there’s a part of him, as he approaches forty, that realizes that there is something more to life that being full and physically sated. Some part of his soul grasps that these things have not brought about happiness and that the other parts of his being have been left to starve: the mental, the emotional and the spiritual.

It remains to be seen whether he will find some higher purpose for himself or whether he will be blessed enough to have someone come into his life to open that particular door for him.

My advice to him: don’t do it, Mike! Don’t solve a temporary problem with a permanent solution (and, from my beliefs, taking this road leads to a permanent problem). There’s another life out there. You only have to be ‘Iron’ enough to look for it, to grab it and to live it.

UPDATE: Kathleen has an excellent post on Tyson.

Comments

[Iron Mike]

I'm amazed when I have people ask me questions like:

"What were your parents thinking, naming you after that guy?"

or

"Oh, but you're not the real Mike Tyson!"

Of course, I guess I should take the first one as a compliment. I'm only a few months younger than the pugilist. I must look younger than I am! (Yes, I actually did have someone ask me that...only about 3-4 years ago!)

For the second one, no response needed. Last time I checked, I'm real. My wife is pretty sure I'm real. My kids think I'm real. My dog even believes I'm real.

Sadly, knuckle-head couldn't just be a good fighter. He has to be a convicted-rapist-Maoist-muslim-loud-mouth-face-tattoo'd-freak. And the fact that my name happens to be the same as his has gotten me nothing, not even a free beer.

[Queenie]

You know...

I have held Mike Tyson up, in my mind, as a sort of uber-example of an animal-thug-jock, for years now. Rapist. Ear-mangler. All-around sh*tepoke. Yet, after reading the linked article, I actually feel a little bit sorry for him. Just a little bit. Okay, just a TINY bit.

I think a prayer for his soul is about the nicest gesture one could offer someone like Mike Tyson.

[StinKerr]

Don't feel bad, Mike. I share my name with an oil baron and former Senator and it hasn't gotten me anything. I couldn't even get a free beer in Kerrville and McGee acts like I don't exist.

As to Mike the boxer, I saw him interviewed years ago on the Letterman show when he was on his way up. He seemed like a nice guy.

I don't know either what happened in the Indianapolis hotel room but I somehow feel that he may have gotten a raw deal there.

Unfortunately he seems to have had a talent for getting into trouble since then, some of which I'm sure, he has been lured into by people who know he won't react well.

It's a damn shame that nobody in his life cared enough for him to teach him to walk away from some of those situations. Maybe he's not bright enough to make the connections. I dunno.

[StinKerr]

I had forgotten about the ear biting. There was no excuse for that. Maybe I'm being too generous with the above post, but I'll stick with it.

[baldilocks]

Stinkerr and Mike: Free beer (hopefully) is in your future. :-)

Queenie: It's the best Mike could hpe for, at this point, and, of course, it's no small thing indeed.

[Silicon Valley Jim]

It's a damn shame that nobody in his life cared enough for him to teach him to walk away from some of those situations.

There actually was somebody. For the first few years of his career, Cus D'Amato was his trainer, and Mike Tyson didn't have trouble. D'Amato died (Tyson may have dumped him as his trainer before that; I'm not sure), and it's been downhill for Tyson since.

I feel sorry for him, myself. One of my brothers took umbrage at that, once, saying that Tyson belongs in prison. I agreed. I can feel sorry for him and still think that he belongs in prison.

[Bucky Katt]

Actually Cus D'Amato died in '85. Over a year before Tyson won the WBC title. URL for Tyson timeline follows:

http://boxing.about.com/od/records/a/tyson_timeline.htm

[Silicon Valley Jim]

Thanks for the clarification and the URL, Bucky; it's good to get the facts straight.