MORE ON MUHAMMED ALI.

++I followed Muhammed Ali's career since he won the Olympic gold medal. We forget how white America hated him and rooted for mob-uped Sonny Liston to defeat the loudmouth. I never knew until years later that Liston continued his boxing in Europe before becoming and enforcer for the mob in Las Vegas.

++Cassius Clay-Mohammed Ali I ended with the Foley fight. Ali at this time was the fastest and most powerful boxer. No one could defeat him. He basically gave older fighters that one championship fight they have been hoping for. Ike Williams, Ernie Tyrrell and others who had fought for years. Then it ended when the WBA stripped him of his title and the United States government prevented him from traveling abroad.

++Ali declared he was a conscientious objector because of his faith, a faith despised in America. He was out of the ring 3 1/2 years without a fight. He existed on college speaking fees, which were nothing like they were today. He even had a small role in an off-Broadway play.

++Then with the Jerry Quarry fight in Atlanta--the Mohammed Ali II stage begun which saw the famous Frazier and Foreman fights. The Thrilla in Manilla basically took it out of Ali and people thought he should quit then. 

++The Last phase of Muhammed Ali saw the Kenny Norton fights, the Spinks fights, where Ali won back the title a third time. We saw Ali get into his old shape to fight Holmes only to be pummeled. And then Trevor Berbick in Jamaica. 

++Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote today that Ali was his mentor and that we should remember his courage in facing racism during the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King,Jr. said at that time that he urged all young men to become conscientious objectors and act as courageously as Muhammed Ali. 

++Alot of web posts by African-Americans said that we should not white wash Ali because he really was a radical fighter for racial justice. There's some truth to that.

++I was Ali's height. In high school Esquire magazine published a fold-out photo of Ali's reach. He had at least two feet on me and his hands were twice the size of mine. We forget how awesome he was in his prime as a physical specimen and an athlete.

++I've spent the days watching clips of Ali before fights and afterwards. Plenty of Howard Cosell--"telling it like it is". "Howard, why are you following me around. Haven't I made you famous enough."

++Then the Gentlemen Quarterly article from 1999, reprinted in the Dailybeast. This was about the Parkinson Ali, the one who could barely talk. The Man with the trembling hands who raise the torch at the 1992 Olympic Games.

++Ali was 55 at the time living at his farm in Michigan in the old Al Capone estate. During renovations,they still dug bullets out of the wood from Capone's day.

++The author followed Ali around to various events and saw him at a fake boxing match where celebrities "fought" amateurs. The audience stilled and were anxious as Ali entered the ring to fight a teenage boy. The boy charged looking forward to knocking down the former champ. Then Ali started to dance and throw jabs. He was able to shuffle for at least a minute and the boy put down his hands and quit.

++The author wondered about this. His lifelong photographer told the author that the parkinson symptoms disappeared whenever Ali was in a ring. He could dance,shuffle and throw punches. Then out of the ring he resorted to his mumbly,palsied self. He forever thought of himself as a fighter.

++The story reminded me of DeKooning afflicted by Alzhimer's but still retaining his ability to paint large canvases.

++The Guardian had a nice retrospective on Ali. It said that he came of age during the period of African independence and the civil rights movement. It was one of the few times both American blacks and world brown and black people talked the same language. 

++"You are looking at America. Get used to it," Ali said. And by his death we recognize him as purely American in his charisma, self-promotion and talk.

++After he won the Olympic medal,he thought he could get a meal in Louisville. He put his medal on and walked to a dinner and ordered a cup of coffee and a hot dog. "WE don't serve Negroes here,he was told." "I don't want to eat them, I just want a coffee and hot dog." 

++We also saw the inevitable pro-Joe Frazier article in the Chicago news. The writer thought Ali treated Joe poorly and pointed out that while Ali couldn't box,Joe lent him money just so he could get back into boxing. Nice story but Joe was just a foil.

++Bill Clinton will be doing the eulogy at Ali's funeral. 

++At the University of Chicago,I lived a few blocks away from Ali. His house was guarded by the Nation of Islam people and no one came near. 

++Ali beating Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle gave me the same type of thrill that Obama winning the 2008 election, an improbable , almost miraculous victory.

++My iconic photo of Ali downing Liston disappeared during several moves, but I have an autographed plaster cast of his hands. 

++Muhammed Ali--the Greatest of All Time.