Life of Muhammad Ali is Errol Garner's "April in Paris"

Since early Saturday, June 4th 2016, I have read, watched and listened to tributes, remembrances and analyses from ink-slingers, talking heads and tweedy fops that contort the life of Muhammad Ali, the father-in-law of my friend Mike Joyce, in pretzel logic so his life and his passing from this life makes their own pet theories somehow important.

Muhammad Ali was a one of the greatest athletes in human history and a genius.

He was an Adonis for most of his seventy four years here with us and man of wit and grace.  

You can not explain the life of Muhammad Ali by making him into a Black Joe Hill, a muscular Howard Zinn, a testicular Gloria Steinem, or a good humored Donald Trump.

I understand Muhammad Ali by listening to Errol Garner's April in Paris from Concert by the Sea

Its is all here -humor, power, love, artistry, joy, righteous anger, gratitude, humilty and grace in the hands of two man blessed by God. 

Celtic Youth Charity Fundraiser Presents The 4-Fs of Boxing at Bourbon Streets: Fists, Friends, Family & Fun!

Boxers Dicky Ecklund and Mike JoyceMike Joyce and his Father-in-Law Mike's Father-inLaw's Boss and Trainer the late Angelo Dundee
Mike Joyce and Denis Leary

 Mike sparring with boxer and NFL great Tommy Zbikowski in the Leo Boxing Gym


You never know with whom Mike Joyce will bring around.  One time it might be Dicky Ecklund and another it could be Willie Nelson; yet again philosopher professor and boxing journalist Gordon Marino and Rhodes Scholar/Song-smith/actor and Golden Gloves Champ Kris Kristofferson.  More than likely you will witness Mike's vehicle du jour packed with an ethnic assortment of Pops's cheeseburger eating eight year olds after a work-out at Celtic Boxing Gym, or African American scholar tough guys from Leo High School.

This I know and have experienced.  Mike Joyce is the head boxing of Leo High School, as well as founder and operator of Celtic Boxing Club and Celtic Youth Charity Foundation. I know that celebrities* who actually do something for other people are going to join the those of us do just that 365 days a year at Bourbon Street on March 13th.  For the price of ticket you get to watch great boxing, mingle with great people, chow-down of the wonderful spread provided by Chicago's # 1 Charity Venue - Bourbon Street -groove to the great sounds provided by the political Godfather of Worth Township Johnny O'Sullivan's DJ gear, spill some over flowing beverage and help youngsters develop the confidence, the skills, the work-ethic and recognition of others less fortunate that only boxing in the square ring provides.

Only the Squares Won't Be There!

Celtic Youth Charity Fundraiser
Boxing Exhibition


Thursday march 13th  6:30-9:30
115 Bourbon Street  Merrionette Park
Donation $30 adults   $15  under 18

* Charity Fundraiser-Boxing Exhibition-music, buffet, open bar
* Donation $30. adults $15. under 18
*
* Proceeds to benefit Celtic Youth Foundation a sports program whose mission is to coach and mentor young individuals in order to promote health, fitness, work ethic, self respect, respect for others and a sense of community in these individuals.
* Through our boxing and other after school activities we seek to offer internships, mentorships, scholarships and apprenticeships to deserving youth who participate in our program and adhere to our high standards.
* In the past we have had our youth train alongside police officers, state's attorneys, firefighters and other first responders. The results of this interaction between at risk youth and members of the public service community have been outstanding.
* Virtually 100% of our program's participants have gone on to college, the military or organized labor unions.
* We are now expanding our program and desperately need your help to do so. We are counting on members of government, business, organized labor, educational institutes, professional sports organizations, the clergy and the media to become involved with our program.
* What we are seeking from you is assistance with mentoring, tutoring, financial assistance, employment opportunities and the use of your good name and that of your organization through sponsorship.
* What we offer in return is the gratification that you will receive knowing that you have made positive difference in a deserving young person's life. Your efforts will also result in safer and stronger communities.
* Please consider assisting The Celtic Youth Foundation at whatever level of participation you can commit to in helping our youth.
* Thank you so much for your consideration in becoming involved with us in our program. Any level of support is sincerely appreciated and guaranteed to make a difference.
* The Celtic Youth Foundation has applied for recognition as tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and anticipates receipt of same within the next 180 days. The Celtic Youth Foundation anticipates that donations to the Celtic Youth Foundation are tax deductible as charitable contributions to the fullest extent allowed by law.

115 Bourbon Street
3359 West 115th Street, Merrionette Park, Illinois 60803
View Map · Get Direction

* The term applies with this caveat - Great People Don't Act Like Big Shots.  I have yet to hear a great person say 'Do you know who I am?'  Don't You?

Imperishable Wreathes: Philosopher Gordon Marino on Boxing's Police Athletic League Initiative to Fight Violence

 

“Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” St. Paul Corinthians 9:25

"In order to box you need to control your emotions, your anger and your fear. And the more in control you are of your emotions the less likely you are to do something mean or stupid." George Foreman

Gordon Marino is a boxer, philosopher, nationally syndicated writer and professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.  Today, Marino writes about the Police Athletic League and the Illinois Crime Commission's initiative to steer more young girls and boys away from the madness of the streets and into boxing centers around Chicago.  The goal is to place young people in a gym where they will exercise, learn the science of boxing and spar with men and woman who serve and protect - firefighters and police officers.

One of those centers is one floor above me, on second floor here, at Leo High School in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood of Chicago.  Leo High School has provided this community with a Christ centered, safe, nurturing educational institution since 1926.  Leo High School has operated a boxing gym since the late 1990's and produced scores of amateur boxers, twenty-five of whom are Golden Gloves champions.One such boxer Tommy Hayes ( Leo 1999) is a professional heavyweight boxer with a record of 27-1.

Scores boxed, 25 won amateur titles, one has a distinguished professional record; thus, it is, like life.  All who competed won what St. Paul would call 'imperishable wreathes."  Imperishable wreathes are character, self control, courage and commitment.  Those who entered took away with them pride born of humility.  That is what George Foreman might call Toughness.  Toughness is not determined by how much pain one might dish out, but how much pain one can endure.

Gordon Marino in today's Huffington Post offers this challenge:

In a fresh Police Athletic League initiative police officers and firefighters will begin training in local gyms for a "Battle of the Badges;" that is a grand night of boxing between a team of fire fighters and police officers. Proceeds from the event will flow to police and firefighter charities as well to the Chicago Park District Boxing Program.
Mike Joyce, Director of the PAL Boxing Program, emphasized, "We want to expand our 1st Annual PAL boxing gala to include private businesses, faith based organizations, and organized labor unions. We are all in this together. We need to give these kids opportunities. We need to give them hope and a stake in the community. We want our kids to have the means to build up our neighborhoods, rather than tear them down."
A former fighter and coach of the Leo High School boxing team, Joyce explained that the most significant aspect of this effort is not to raise funds, though that is important as well, but to bring people together. "The key,"he noted, "is that police and firefighters will be training side by side with the kids, getting to know them, and acting as mentors."
There are currently 25 Chicago boxing centers and a handful of other PAL affiliated boxing facilities, but the plan is to add three gyms in the coming year and to increase the number of boys and girls lacing up the gloves and getting into shape.
It might seem counter intuitive to fight violence by teaching boxing. However, Hall of Famer George Foreman once put it this way, "In order to box you need to control your emotions, your anger and your fear. And the more in control you are of your emotions the less likely you are to do something mean or stupid."

Competition is a life challenge that kids can not learn at a keyboard, or through the controls of an X-Box.  Interestingly, the phrase used by  St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, a host of citizens known for, shall we say, licentious behavior - what happened in Corinth did not necessarily stay in Corinth - "competes in the games" comes from the Greek word agonizomai. (I learned this years ago in order to understand Milton's Samson Agonistes) - from which own word agony is derived. To compete requires agony which is very different from fear.

Fear is what creates meanness and stupidity - gun violence and savagery.  A boxer learns this without the need to turn to Milton.

Turn to Foreman, Ali, Marino, Joyce and above all St. Paul - those who compete win imperishable wreathes.

Muhammad Ali Lights Up London!

The nattily attired young gentleman with his mug facing his Grandpa is Master Jake Joyce of Chicago, IL.  Jake is the son of Jamilah and Mike Joyce.  
Mike's father-in-law, The Toast of London and the World, gave him sound counsel on marriage, boxing, and fatherhood -


Young Master Joyce did not accompany Gramps to London.

Muhammad Ali is so hot that following his last birthday celebration the site of that fete - the fabled Franconello's at 102nd & Western here in Chicago - was closed due to fire.  CFD officials determined the cause of fire to be caused by a gas leak, but this attendee feels the cause may have more to do with the boxing luminaries collateral effect upon the environment.

Muhammad Ali lit up London last night -The handout photo provied (sic) by Beyond Sport shows soccer player David Beckham, right, and former boxer Muhammad Ali, center, together at the Beyond Sport Summit in London to present the inaugural Generation Ali Beyond Sport Award. The boxing legend and the former England captain presented the award, which recognizes Service, Leadership, and Action in the community, to Matiullah Haidar at The Grange Hotel, London. (AP Photo/Action Images for Beyond Sport

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/25/3722367/column-in-olympic-london-muhammad.html#storylink=cpy

LONDON -- Muhammad Ali moving people to tears by starring again, however briefly, at the Olympic opening ceremony - this time in London? That really would be something.
Only ceremony director Danny Boyle and a few well-informed others will know for certain if British newspapers are wrong with their speculation that Ali could play a role on Friday night.
He surely won't, as he did at the Atlanta Games, light the Olympic cauldron. Ali, 70 and imprisoned by Parkinson's disease, seems far too frail for that now. And one imagines that Boyle, an Oscar-winning filmmaker, is clever enough to realize that it would be foolish and crass to try to recreate that Atlanta moment as poignant and powerful as anything that happened on the Olympic fields of play in 1996.
But even a glimpse of Ali in London's Olympic Stadium would be, well, just wow. The former heavyweight champion's presence this week in London - he attended an award ceremony on Tuesday - seemed to lend credence to the notion that he might somehow be involved on Friday.

Young Master Joyce is seen here with the late Angelo Dundee who mentored and trained Grandpa - a surrogate Great Grandpa Angelo.
Jake's Dad runs the Leo Boxing club and Celtic Boxing*.
here on the south side of Chicago and is responsible for mentoring a score of Golden Gloves Champions, Pro Boxer Thomas Hayes, Team USA Boxing Captain Lamar Fenner, U.S. Army Boxing Captain, Iraq and Afghanistan combat veteran Sgt. Marvin Carey and beautiful mother and sisters run both Jake and Dad - as intended.

God Bless this family and every family.

*

Celtic Boxing Club Gallery

The Celtic Boxing Club of Chicago had it's beginnings on the city's South Side in 1993. Due to the success of the program, Coach Mike Joyce started a youth outreach program at his alma mater Leo High School to help troubled teens get on the right path in life.

The Leo High School Boxing club was formed in 1996 and has evolved over the years into one of the finest boxing programs in the US. Here we have collected images of the both of the clubs. The first gallery is at Leo High School. The next two pertain to Coach Mike Joyce and Chicago's Celtic Boxing Club.

Click on the image to enter the galleries.

 http://www.celticboxing.com/Chicago-celtic-boxing-club-gallery.php

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/25/3722367/column-in-olympic-london-muhammad.html#storylink=cpyhttp://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/25/3722367/column-in-olympic-london-muhammad.htmlhttp://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/25/3722367/column-in-olympic-london-muhammad.htmlhttp://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/25/3722367/column-in-olympic-london-muhammad.htmlY

St. Colman of Kilmacduagh - Helped Preserve Thought in the West - Feast Day October 29th

"St. Colman was retired into the wilderness for the benefit of his devotion. He had no living creature about him except a rooster, a mouse, and a fly. The use of the rooster was to give him notice of the time of night by his crowing, that he might know when to apply himself to his prayers. The mouse had a proper office, which was to prevent the Saint from sleeping above five hours within the space of twenty-four; for, when the business of his devotion, which he exercised with great reverence and regularity upon his knees, had so fatigued his spirits that they required a longer refreshment, the mouse would come to his ears and scratch him with his feet till he was perfectly awake. The fly always attended on him when he was reading. It had the sense to walk along the lines of the book; and when the Saint had tired his eyes, and was willing to desist, the fly would stay upon the first letter of the next sentence, and by that means direct him where he was to begin."

St. Colman was a Clare Man - like Christy Ring* and Muhammad Ali. Colman lived in the 6th Century, a time known as the Dark Ages, when Ireland was the depository of Western Civilization and Greek Thought as one barbarian horde after another extinguished civilized life in the West.

Colman built a monastery with a 110 foot Round Tower - Round Towers were used to hide and preserve treasure, books, and ideas from savages.

St. Colman Mac Duagh thus began a great and holy work that was destined to endure for all time. It was a work which would inscribe his name on the hearts of a grateful Irish people, who would transmit it, with the memory of his virtues, from generation to generation. King Guaire, with his characteristic generosity, not only granted the site for the cathedral and monastery, but also granted large endowments for its future maintenance. His benignity did not stop there. The King through his influence was able to secure the assistance of St. Gobban Saer the eminent architect who flourished early in the seventh century. St. Gobban Saer was an illiterate monk in the monastery of St. Madoc of Ferns. An excerpt from the life of this saint (St. Gobban) provided by an ancient Irish chronicler says,
"A church was to be erected, but no builder could be found to guide the religious brethren in the work. Wherefore, full of confidence in God, St. Aidan (Madoc) blessed the hands of the untutored man named Gobban. From that moment he became most skilled in the intricacies of the art, and was able in a most perfect manner to complete the church of the monastery."

Would that a Colman might appear today and preserve some thought from our contemporary savages . . . and ourselves.


* A Man or Lad of Spirit was identified by the Salt Water Irish on the south side of Chicago as being 'as Game as Christy Ring!'

'As long as young men will match their hurling skills against each other on Ireland's green fields, as long as young boys swing their camáns(hurling bat) for the sheer thrill of the feel and the tingle in their fingers of the impact of ash on leather, as long as hurling is played the story of Christy Ring will be told. And that will be forever.'

MSNBC's Right Wing Bias Confuses Cute Hoors

E.J. Dionne is a very in-demand columnist of the Washington Post, frequent flyer on MSNBC, NPR and the balance of what he terms 'the right-wing Media.' In today's offering at Real Politics Dionne presents himself as a real Cute Hoor.

E.J. Dionne is what Muhammad Ali Boxing Legend and Freeman of Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, would call " A Cute Hoor*." A cute hoor, in Ireland and among the children of the Spud Diaspora is a dissembler, a hair-splitting sneak.

When the Summer of Hope Dashed hit President Obama just days before the Great National Lesson on Race, Part II ( The Beer Boondoggle) MSNBC, CNN, most of the print media, Hollywood Swingers, and every guy who travelled on a short yellow bus to school in my neck of the woods howled and tore garments about Town Hall Thugs and Tea Bag Militia Men.

That attempt at concerted calumny by the Cute Hoors of America ( E.J. Dionne Life Member)really did not turn out so well for the attempt to throw the high hard one into the American Tax-Payer under the euphemism Health Care(Insurance) Reform.

Here is what Cute Hoor Dionne tries to parse:

There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television's point of view "boring") encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.

It's also clear that the anger that got so much attention largely reflects a fringe right-wing view opposed to all sorts of government programs most Americans support. Much as the far left of the anti-war movement commanded wide coverage during the Vietnam years, so now are extremists on the right hogging the media stage -- with the media's complicity. (emphasis my own)

Over the last week, I've spoken with Democratic House members, many from highly contested districts, about what happened in their town halls. None would deny polls showing that the health reform cause lost ground last month, but little of the probing civility that characterized so many of their forums was ever seen on television

E.J. Dionne, if you told that to a deaf mule, he'd kick you to death. Imagine what Muhammad Ali, good man that he is, would do to you!


* Cute Hoor -

Someone who tricks other people without being discovered. Clever or sneaky.

I heard this term used in conversation long before I REALLY understood what was being said. I thought the insinuation was one that compared a trickster to a prostitute. Then I saw it written as the subtitle on a poster for Margaret Mckenna Mullan’s play, The Sleeveens, and realised it was pure slang.

As to the origins of this phrase, I’d imagine that “cute” is being used in its old meaning as “small.” A cute hoor in Ireland doesn’t do anything truly harmful - it’s almost an affectionate term for someone who’s a bit of a chancer, given the opportunity.

“So I told the doorman I’d lost my wristband and he let me in without paying. Then, I drank for free at the bar because I convinced the staff I was the owner’s son returned from Australia.”

“Ya cute hoor, ya!”

Muhammad Ali - A Freeman of Ennis!

Freedom of the City is a medieval military honor bestowed upon the heroic. In Ireland, it is an honorary distinction outside of the City of Dublin where the Freeman may sell his goods without license, graze his sheep in the parks and keep armour for the return of the Vikings or the Brits.

In the town of Ennis, County Clare, in the most beautiful of Ireland's four provinces -Munster -Muhammad Ali was named a Freeman of Ennis today.

Mike Joyce, Leo Boxing Coach and St. Cajetan neighbor is with Muhammad Ali along with Emerald Plumbing CEO and Boxing Impresario Terry Cox of County Mayo.

Meallan muilte Dé go mall ach meallan siad go mion.

Boxing Great Muhammad Ali Returns to County Clare, Ireland

Fifty thousand people will crowd into Ennis, County Clare, Ireland to welcome Muhammad Ali - Home.

The Greatest is a Son of Erin and the great grandson of a Clare Man who married an African American woman here in the States.

“Ennis has had rain for three months, June, July and August, it hasn’t stopped, we’ve been hit by the recession, but for the last three weeks, since the offer for him to come was taken up, it is all the townsfolk have spoken about,” Ennis Town Mayor Frankie Neylon said.

“Old and young are united in this. The older people are educating the young children about the great man, and the town is abuzz with activity. There are musical bands preparing, memorabilia is coming out, it is thrilling for everyone.”

Ali’s great-grandfather Abe Grady was born and raised in Ennis before he emigrated to America in 1860, where he married an African-American woman. Ali’s mother, Odessa Lee Grady, was his granddaughter. Abe Grady’s father, John, rented a house and garden in Ennis for 15 shillings a year in 1855.

Nár laga Dia do lámh