Went down to Louisville, Kentucky for the weekend to attend the opening festivities of the Muhammad Ali Center, which is somewhat like a presidential library for the Champ. Funny town. They’re proud of having a view of the nation’s second largest clock above the Colgate plant across the river in Indiana and of having the world’s largest chandelier on one of them five casino boats on the Ohio River. The windowless bar of the local Hyatt with its pool tables and Formica paneling had all the charm of a state sponsored Romanian youth club. The bartenders swapped stories about the last funeral directors’ convention, while they served me snifters of so-called „sipping Bourbon“, which is the local effort to compete with expensive single malts, although it still tastes like kerosene. I guess the flight on that tiny Delta jet had already been a strong hint that I was leaving cosmopolitan America behind, with that faint odor of manure wafting through the cabin courtesy of a non-working bathroom door and seats encrusted with old chewing gums and the remnants of countless crackers (no pun intended).
Ali's museum wasn’t quite finished yet, but I really liked the place. It sits on a prime spot by the river overlooking the 2nd Street bridge, from which Ali supposedly threw his Olympic gold medal in 1960, because some segregated diner on Main Street had refused him service, even though he had entered with the medal around his neck.
The museum features plenty of footage with Ali clobbering opponents and getting talk-show hosts off-kilter with blunt statements about race and politics. There are some nice virtual reality installations, like a heavy bag attached to some mechanism that simulates the punch of a heavy-weight, and a ring where you can spar with a projected image of Ali's daughter Laila. To continue Ali's humanitarian work, it will also serve as a center for conflict resolution on a rather ambitious scale. They already sponsored a round of informal Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Ali had never seen the finished place, so yesterday he toured the exhibition halls with the help of his wife Lonnie and his buddies Kris Kristofferson and Howard Bingham. He seemed quite overwhelmed, seeing a whole modern museum dedicated to his life, but it’s hard to tell what he thinks these days. He still does his friendly shadowboxing moves, but can’t talk much right now. On top of the Parkinson increasingly getting a hold on his motor skills he's had neck surgery a couple of weeks ago and his gate looks like he’s wading through knee-deep cotton candy. But his charisma is still intact, getting grown men to feel like teenage girls meeting their crooner idol. In one of the Center’s showreels Billy Crystal puts it best: „...and in this quiet now he is almost louder than when he was ranting and raving.“
No comments:
Post a Comment