Ali: A Life

by Jonathan Eig

you pretend it was his idea in the first place . . . After a workout I’ll walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, that was really some uppercut you threw in there. That’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.’

Ah hah

he knew perhaps better than any performer in America that infuriating fans could be more lucrative than charming

Infuriating pays more than charming?

People paid because they wanted to see George get his beautifully coifed head knocked off. In later years, Bob Dylan, James Brown, and John Waters would all say they took inspiration from Gorgeous George.

Peoplle want to get paid

saw fifteen thousand people coming to see this man get beat,” he said. “And his talking did it. I said, ‘This is a gooood idea!’”

They want money and attention and fame

Clay was not a pensive person. He had not led a life of poverty and suffering.

Thought #1

Survival was the black man’s goal—not enlightenment, not enrichment. Survival was the best he could hope for,

Thought #2 compare these to CT's book aand lived experience

Islam was a “facade,” said Bennett Johnson, who worked for the Nation of Islam and met Clay in the early 1960s, “a structure.” It was a story that gave Elijah Muhammad a way to teach black Americans how they might liberate themselves.

There it is. secular, with the guise of religion. evil

The white Christian people had enslaved us and given us their names and he saw all that.

Alas, this is true too

“Whatever the other man want to do, don’t let him.”

Good advice in a fight, i guess

“Things just went sour gradually all at once.”

Haha

“traitor to the Negro people” for insisting on a nonviolent approach to the fight for equality, saying a movement based on sit-ins and Freedom Rides would never suffice.

Many said the same to Gandhi. Gandhi's reasoning: the people who lead a revolution will later lead the country. So, only people trained in dialogue and compromise should lead the revolution. A little contradictory: such people are not revolutionaries. They need a principled leader.

’Cause you may never reach your peak, Then, to whom shall you turn?

'Caue you may never reach your peak, and then to whom shall you turn?

because much of his work was devoted to clearing up the boxers’ sexually transmitted diseases.

Not just a stereotype

Brown challenged Clay like no one else, telling him Elijah Muhammad was wrong, that white people were not devils, that God didn’t care a thing about a person’s color.

Common sense

Like Don Quixote, Cassius Clay was a man of desire who often mistook passion for truth, and now, in Bundini Brown, Clay had found his Sancho Panza.

Passion is not truth always

the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was an adulterer who had been having sex, perhaps for more than a decade, with some of the young secretaries who worked with him in the offices of the Nation of Islam in Chicago. Muhammad had been telling the young women that his wife was dead to him and that he had a duty to spread his holy seed among virgins.

Vile. common among religious charlatans

High-paying jobs were awarded to Muhammad’s relatives, and Nation of Islam funds supported the Messenger’s comfortable lifestyle.

Politics And religion to get money and women

“I was surprised to see that there are hundreds of thousands of Negroes who don’t want to integrate. And the whites seem more worried about them than they are about those who do want to integrate.”

Fair point

If Clay really had fallen in with the Black Muslims, it was hard to imagine that those offers from Jack Benny and Mr. Ed would stand.

We like what we like

two of his strongest impulses conflicted: his lust for fame and his itch to rebel.

Impulses collide that is our vasanas are in conflict but it turns out that straightening them out doesn't work the happiness we seek is not achieved through obtaining pleasure

It was one thing for a man to wear rollers in his hair and feign homosexuality, and quite another to advocate the destruction of all white people.

Nice writing

But I probably won’t ever get tired of money. I love money . . . The fame and pride of doing something real well—like being the world champion—is a pretty nice thing to think about sometimes, but the money I’m making is nice to think about all the time. I suppose it’s the one thing that keeps me going.”

Awareness of motives

The Beatles liked money too, so they had that in common.

Money

He gains strength from being around people. He can’t stand being alone.

Extrovert gains energy from others

They told the FBI they were worried that white fans would boycott the Liston fight if word spread about Clay’s beliefs.

Money can cause friends to betray

Ambiguity was not the thing sports fans craved.

Great point. nobody likes ambiguity really

Angry fighters don’t think clearly.

Use emotion