December 16th, 2009 / 3:17 pm
Craft Notes
Mike Tyson on Writing
No such thing as great writing advice from writers. I learned most from candy and smothering and sitting on my ass.
As well, Mike Tyson’s got some knowledge:
“My main objective is to be professional but to kill him.”
“There are nine million people who see me in the ring and hate my guts. Most of them are white. That’s okay. Just spell my name right.”
“One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like a infantile retard.”
“I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage.”
“I try to catch him right on the tip of the nose, because I try to push the bone into the brain.”
“I could have knocked him out in the third round but I wanted to do it slowly, so he would remember this night for a long time.”
“I can sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating.”
“I’m on the Zoloft to keep from killing y’all.”
Tags: mike tyson
amazing!
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ha, good stuff.. where’s all this from?
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December 16th, 2009 / 3:38 pmBlake Butler—
i believe they are from his interview with the paris review
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I am a fan of this man.
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“I could have knocked him out in the third round but I wanted to do it slowly, so he would remember this night for a long time.”
This has gotta be about Tyrell Biggs, right?
Biggs picked on him during the ‘84 Olympic Trials, teasing him about his lisp and being gay, and Tyson had his revenge in this life. He tortured Biggs with huge bombs and then would step back to let TB recover.
This is a great list. The Jose Torres bio about Tyson is great. JT really cared about MT and it killed him to see MT’s life go down the shitter. Of course, people accused JT of being an apologist for Cayton, D’Amato, etc., but the guy really cared about MT. A real shame.
Another favorite of mine is Tyson saying if he didn’t kill Razor Ruddock it didn’t count (fwiw, I spelled it at first Ruddick, getting Razor and Sam mixed up).
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December 16th, 2009 / 3:43 pmBlake Butler—
yeah, it’s about Biggs
tyson the documentary is also something else, for those who haven’t seen it.
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“I just want to conquer people and their souls”
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here’s another:
“[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”
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“I try to catch him right on the tip of the nose, because I try to push the bone into the brain.”
I believe this was about Marvis Frazier (who was obliterated by Tyson). Marvis’ uncle Joe did the lad no favors by ripping MT before the fight.
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“Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It’s like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can’t control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn.”
This was Tyson, paraphrasing Cus D’Amato (who may have been thieving from Dale Carnegie)…but I like the quote
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my favorite quote by tyson ever (nope, not the bolivian one) is: “Everybody’s got plans… until they get hit.”
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December 16th, 2009 / 5:12 pmKen Baumann—
Yes.
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i’ve been mesmerized for years by the strange poetry of mike tyson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-LuTQ-HQ2o&feature=related
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“I was gonna rip his heart out. I’m the best ever. I’m the most brutal and vicious and most ruthless champion there has ever been. No one can stop me. Lennox is a conqueror? No. I’m Alexander, he’s no Alexander. I’m the best ever. There’s never been anybody as ruthless. I’m Sonny Liston. I’m Jack Dempsey, there’s no one like me – I’m from their cloth. There’s no one that can match me. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!”
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December 16th, 2009 / 4:35 pmbruiser brody—
ha, yeah the eat his children/praise be to Allah…nice.
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December 17th, 2009 / 1:44 amreynard—
when i was a kid i saw him say that on tv and i think it was seriously the scariest thing i had ever seen at that point and i had already seen like three of the hellraisers.
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Mike Tyson is one of the best to ever do it. Respect.
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December 16th, 2009 / 4:39 pmbruiser brody—
i like tyson and he revolutionized how boxing is viewed…but he beat a lot of scared fighters, fat fighters, old fighters, etc.
in his prime he beat dudes like tony tubbs, pinklon thomas, a 75-year old larry holmes, etc.
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these are brilliant
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He could probably write the best book of all time, if he wanted.
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Wow. Wow. Wow.
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My favorite from the Toback doc:
“I might be scum and trash, but I’ll be angelic scum and trash”
Also any time he uses the word “skulduggery”, which is often.
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December 16th, 2009 / 5:03 pmBlake Butler—
haha, shit yes. skullduggery. that’s the best.
i also like in the documentary when he talks about giving ‘fellatio’ to a woman while he’s sitting on a sink in a bathroom
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December 17th, 2009 / 10:46 amGene Morgan—
That was my favorite quote, too. I had to rewind the movie to watch him say it again.
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i mean, did Barry Hannah write his monologuing? look a dat. “I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like a infantile retard.”
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He kinda makes Ali look like Mickey Mouse.
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December 16th, 2009 / 5:14 pmKen Baumann—
Dream Fight: who would you have your money on?
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December 16th, 2009 / 6:09 pmsampink—
there is no way on earth that ali would have beaten tyson. i like james toney.
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December 16th, 2009 / 6:26 pmrion—
Ali was a much better athlete, he would have had the stamina and the form and craft to outlast tyson’s raw brutality
December 16th, 2009 / 7:46 pmsampink—
tyson utilized some really good hip-punching which i think might have negated ali’s moves. doubtless, ali could outdance tyson, but tyson stalked. he only expended energy with precision. nowadays, given ali’s parkinson’s, i think tyson all the way.
December 17th, 2009 / 9:09 ambruiser brody—
ali would have killed tyson
buster freaking douglas beat tyson simply by employing a proper jab
george foreman in his prime would have crushed tyson
the HW division in the late 80’s was a joke. larry holmes was ali’s sparring partner and he owned the heavies in the 80’s against people like berbick, bonecrusher smith, tubbs, witherspoon, etc.
tyson really bombed in his fights against decent fighers who weren’t terrified of him (e.g., holyfield, lennox lewis, douglas)
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December 17th, 2009 / 9:10 ambruiser brody—
shit, sam, i just saw your parkinson’s comment. dude, that is low, even by deadspin.com standards. keep ‘em up, yo.
I want to be like Mike.
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I am fascinated by Mike Tyson–everything about him. These are excellent quotes. Joyce Carol Oates has written some interesting (if not flawed) stuff about Tyson and boxing.
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December 17th, 2009 / 3:56 amI. Fontana—
Katherine Dunn has much more. See the Tyson chapter in her book ONE RING CIRCUS. She actually knows him. Oates has never left her room.
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December 17th, 2009 / 9:10 ambruiser brody—
ha!
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“titanic right hand” is kinda awesome, the flow.
then the rapist thing emerges. That’s huge, no? Yes.
I am always kinda hesitant. I dunno. I can’t go Tyson cool, I feel.
Some things paint one. Period.
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Sorry fight fans, I want to provide a bit of lay psychobabble: I just saw the Toback doc. Honestly, I feel a sadness when I look at Mike Tyson, all I see is a vulnerable little kid. He’s a super(ego) knock-out machine, act after act of aggression, why should anyone be surprised at the violence of his speech? Or venerate it? His ‘tough talk’ doesn’t take much imagination for him, and provides a gross vicarious thrill. Some people got the same kick from Rumsfeld’s daily conferences.
I’m more fascinated in the parts of ‘Tyson’ where he tries to lay it on for the ladies, walking on a beach, getting Toback to depict his softness, his Other side – in a way Toback uses Tyson for his own sexual goal. It is Toback’s gamble, heteronormative rules in Brownsville might mean a slug to the head, sadly. The odd thing is that the threat therein contains the power or the phallic drive in our society. In a movie about Toback called ‘The Outsider’, Toback admits that his earlier friendship with Jim Brown brought him to orgies and total libidinal satisfaction, but as though on loan from Brown’s vital figure. Toback makes ‘Iron’ Mike his phallus too, and what is even stranger is a passage in the film where Tyson admits that his greatest fear is being raped, that his whole being as a warrior is to prevent that from happening. Why would someone have that fear and then give away the representation of his sexuality to older (not to mention white) men, over and over? I would suggest a neurotic self-fulfillment in Tyson’s speech, and that when he loses control, and says he will fuck someone (another man is a “bitch”), conquer them, rape them etc., he means he has been raped, dispossessed, and conquered himself. The man literally defaced himself with a mark of warrior-masculinity, which is in essence the ‘gayest’ tattoo of all time; when he was young he had the most beautiful body, he was like Tadzio to Gus D’Amato, I’m sure.
I don’t find anything in his figure besides tragedy, but that is what is manufactured for us, for our pleasure, as spectators. The brutal culture that encloses the signified as ground, I’m sorry, has no rewards. It isn’t brilliant, at best it just is, so what he says is not writing, it is *written*. When I see the same behavior in another person, who is not Mike Tyson, who confronts me with the same aimless dispossession, do I think of it as infantile? Yes, and depressing, if not downright frightening. The ‘Iron’ of this irony finds the end of a narrative circle and it comes crashing down when one accepts that there is nothing valorous in this, nothing ironic. This is like the spotlight on “Wigger Chick”, or certain arguments for realism in representation, or objectivity and ‘distancification’ in theater (or in certain categories of rap-music, where the goal is to “represent”). It is too easy to feign a bad-faith permissiveness, and take the stance of negative interest, to make a tableaux out of a complex problem, instead of getting immersed in it. “Care” is the word; why do we care about anyone? Why care for some people and not others? David Foster Wallace cut to the heart of this problem as it presents itself to language teachers, certain ‘cultural’ barriers make it so that closeness is harder and softer to achieve, at the same time. Getting past all the blocks, not to mention the barrage of punches, take gentleness. I think to call it ‘cultural’ or to make a return to PC speech and say ‘multicultural’ is to act like a complete sissy, and not involve oneself in the lives of others. It is totalitarianism, basically. Mike Tyson is a brutal rapist, and he is a victim, and sees himself as a victim. Life wastes him. I’m reminded of Nick Tosches excellent book about another big baby, Sonny Liston.
Nobody gets rich with this bullshit but the most Faustian motherfuckers like Dana White or Don King, all of them ‘daddies’, who run the game. Let daddy die, the words he said and wrote needn’t be repeated (although sometimes it seems it can’t be helped). A man fighting against the threat of emasculation, by beating another man with his fists, is sick. It is not strength to try and conquer another, but weakness. There is a store in the 42nd street subway station that plays knock-outs on a perpetual loop, with young men gathering around watching the clash. Bodies clashing, movement, a primordial entertainment is spartan and Spartan. This is it? Many of these guys look slender, like they couldn’t, to cop a phrase, “bust a grape in a fruit fight”. What a thrill! Almost as good as watching someone else having sex.
I probably won’t comment again, so go ahead and tear me up like the punk ass I apparently am for being remotely squeamish without a sign that promises active thoughtfulness, and tells me that Mike Tyson as writer is meant literally. It is literal, I hope. So what type of writer is he, is the next question? The one who imagines, or is prey to his imagination? I’m sick with a terrible cold, so I have nothing better to do than ask this question. In asking I guess I appear to posit some morality, like I am saying Tyson is a brutal rapist who isn’t the least bit funny, and I guess I am, but without the moral trip… It is fascinating, fascism always is, by saying any of this, I risk saying I am equally fascinated and fascist, because I am.
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December 16th, 2009 / 10:31 pmAndrew—
It kinda bugs me when Tyson is treated as either a “tragic heroic figure” or as a punchline- like hes done a couple of spots where he made fun of himself in the media (“the hangover” comes to mind) and the whole time I’m thinking – this dude is a rapist. How is it cool to venerate him? In that movie he said something like “we all do dumb shit when we’re fucked up” and its treated as a punchline. Dumb shit like rape? Rape. Rape rape rape rape rape. Why is it that when a normal person commits rape that person is ostracized forever by all but those closest to him but when a dude is a celebrity and he rapes we act like its a fucking drunk driving charge or some shit (“oh he made a mistake, he feels bad about it”)
Its like the polanski thing, sorta. Everybody falling head over heels to cry foul cause hes this artistic genius or whatever. RAAAAAAAPE.
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December 16th, 2009 / 11:17 pmStu—
Maybe you should have a fireside chat with Steve Wilkos about that.
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December 17th, 2009 / 8:43 amAndrew—
I dunno. Am I crazy? I feel like I’m missing some component RE: relativism and rape
December 16th, 2009 / 10:57 pmBlake Butler—
learn to learn
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December 16th, 2009 / 11:45 pmoliver—
This comment is a tour de force, JWV
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December 17th, 2009 / 9:18 ambruiser brody—
in jose torres’s bio about tyson…jose says mike never really got out of the ghetto. it killed him, all the good parts at least, leaving only a child-monster who knew how to hit.
i do watch ufc and boxing but i don’t disagree about your comments about don king and dana white. i’m conflicted, to say the least, about my enjoyment watching such “sports.”
one don king story i’ve heard: a fighter who signed with him became champion and then got ko’d. the guy was on the mat, looking up as DK entered the ring, ostensibly to comfort him. the figher waited and then watched as DK stepped over him to congratulate the winner.
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May 16th, 2010 / 6:02 pmnema—
I thought i was the only person who believed Mike was molested by the old man (or someone very close to him), I truly believed Mike was turned out at an early age and he doesn’t know how to feel…he stuck between loving and honoring someone who gave him so much but yet this person also violated him.
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LOVE THESE. This one is the best:
“I’m on the Zoloft to keep from killing y’all.”
Me, too.
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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/1217/1224260840003.html?via=mr
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ha, ellen, nice
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This isn’t condescending in that rich kid hipster way at all.
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December 22nd, 2009 / 9:16 amfrank donald goodish—
shut it, sockie, before i throw a right cross and cold knock you out. Us here on htmlgiant are boyz in the hood.
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This is as titanium a post as Hannibal himself could have written. Mega-congratulations.
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