Scene & Herd - Friday night is all right for fighting
And Sunday’s cool for debating
Last Friday night, as a result of working hard for your reading pleasure (and, let’s be honest, my paycheck), I landed my sweaty face on basic cable for two whole hours. Was I starring as a murderous, philandering husband opposite Joanna Kerns in a Lifetime movie? Good guess, and I wish, but no.
Actually, I was ringside at the Tabernacle, photographing the eight boxing matches that made up ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights broadcast, presented by Atlanta’s Undisputed Productions. I know that I was on TV because the guys sitting next to me, covering the event for Fightnews.com, kept getting calls on their cell phones from friends telling them that they were on TV.
The seven “non-main event” fights were relatively quick affairs. The highlights included up-and-coming fighter Yusef Mack’s second-round knockout of former light-heavyweight champ Donnell Wiggins. The quickest of them all was Atlanta’s Thomas Nguyen’s first-round knockout of Anthony Henry. The fight was over before I could even lift my camera for a picture. I was hoping that fight would go on for a while because the guys from Fightnews.com told me that Nguyen was a bleeder and I was curious to see.
During the long stretches of inactivity necessitated by TV breaks, I chatted with the people around me hoping to glean some boxing knowledge. The Fightnews guys were helpful. When the action was paused and everyone was asked to stand silently while the fight bell was rung solemnly 10 times, they explained to me that ringing the bell is the boxing equivalent of a 21-gun salute. The bell was rung in honor of Al Gavin, one of boxing’s most respected “cutmen.” The cutman is the guy who stops a fighter from bleeding.
Others, however, were not so helpful. When I asked a fight judge what he looks for when judging a fight, he just laughed a dirty laugh and pointed at the skimpily attired girls from the Cheetah whose job it was to hold up the cards saying what round it was.
The evening’s main event was a 10-round bout between Newnan’s Ebo “The X-Treme Machine” Elder and Fernando “Bleeds Profusely from His Forehead” Trejo. That’s not actually his nickname, but it might as well be because that’s what he did for most of the fight. He bled so much that whenever the action was anywhere near me, I got splashed with bloody sweat. If the stains don’t come out, I might sue.
Democracy inaction: Friday Night Fights wasn’t the only battle I covered last weekend. On Sunday night, I went to Georgia Public Broadcasting’s studio to watch the primary debates between the 4th Congressional District’s Democratic candidates. The participating candidates were Cathy Woolard, Cynthia McKinney, Liane Levetan, Connie Stokes, Nadine Thomas and Chris Vaughn.
Woolard is clearly the cream of this particular crop. Her grasp of issues combined with her grasp of English and her nondemagogic demeanor (I’m talking to you, Cynthia) make her the obvious choice of any voter with a brain. Her opposite in the race is Chris Vaughn. The 26-year-old knows little about the issues and less about English. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that he was a high school-age comedic performance artist trying to spoof politicians. His debating strategy consisted of getting loudly offended at statements made by others and daring them to drop out of the race. As for his Dubya-esque language skills, he explained his position on gay marriage by saying that he doesn’t think that Georgia should necessarily have to “rectify” gay marriages from Massachusetts. He meant “recognize.” In his closing statement, he called himself a “fighter of integrity.” That’s just what we need, someone willing to battle the integrity running rampant in our federal government. What an embarrassment.
My museum, right or wrong: The National Museum of Patriotism on Spring Street in Midtown opened July 4. I visited last Sunday. Before viewing the exhibits, visitors are funneled into a small theater where a deep-voiced, earnest narrator discusses the meaning of patriotism while a montage of feel-good images (shuttle launch, flag waving) and feel-bad images (shuttle explosion, 9/11 attack) are interspersed with written quotations about patriotism.
Even though the video presentation acknowledges that patriotism means different things to different people, the museum exhibits do not. With a few exceptions, it’s a military museum. The best part is a touching photo essay about Vietnam POWs. Unfortunately, that’s only a small part of the gallery. The bulk of the space is taken up by touch screens devoted to military hardware fetishism. Go to the Navy screen and press “F-14 Tomcat” and you get a glamorous video of the plane in action, accompanied by macho guitar rock. Go to the Army screen and press “Apache Helicopter” and you get the same thing. They even have a little music video for the Coast Guard’s buoy boats, but they’re too practical and nonlethal to be very glamorous.
Are you experienced?: Last weekend, the Atlanta Botanical Garden hosted its annual Asian Cultural Experience festival. The two-day food, fashion, dance and music hoedown was extra enjoyable this year because, wherever you looked, there was a Dale Chihuly glass sculpture prettying things up.
My personal festival highlight was the spring roll I bought from a tent labeled “The Key of Immediate Enlightenment.” The roll didn’t quite live up to the tent’s name, but it was damned good nonetheless. Also excellent was a Tibetan opera performed by four men in sleeves so long, their arms looked like flagpoles.
The festival’s “Boy, Andy, a lot of weird stuff happens to you” moment came during the Vietnamese fashion show when a creepy old man started telling me, out of the blue and with no prompting, I swear, how much he enjoys photographing nude women. Then he told me a dirty joke. The conversation was, thank goodness, interrupted before he was able to ask me if I like gladiator films or playing Neptune, king of the sea.