How Can America Be Great Without The Greatest?

I wont attempt to share some personal claim of inspiration from the great Muhammad Ali. We were all inspired in one way or another. In fact, his life and death inspire me even now as I reflect on why did he die now and not sooner-or later, and what can we learn from his passing?

The unexplained success of Donald Trump with his odd way with women proves that misogyny has not yet grown as detestable as it should have been way back when Ali was courting multiple women and having children by a few. Our slow evolving morays gave Ali societal support as he became our honest gigolo hero with the temerity to share his entire life with us. As a result, we know of his various women and offspring, and can fill in the blanks on the lifestyle that might have produced many more if our minds need to imagine all of that.

The fact that a balanced biography inspires us so much upon the death of our stars is probably because hidden, sordid details of our own lives are the primary benefit of being unknown.  It's like a soul bearing measure of self defense that allows most of us to forgive ourselves of hidden hell as we chew and digest the sordid side of stars.

With Ali, he knew what we all came to understand;that his life was not some hidden treasure, but an American treasure to be admired throughout the world-good, bad or ugly- and to be used  accordingly until he died.

If you are 50 and under, it's important to remember what we did and didn't get to see from Ali.  The best of his skill was seen by those older than 50, while the just under 50 folks got the return to the ring version that was more about the cause than the craft.

Until he could no longer speak, he reminded us how strong and quick footed and fast and pretty he was, but when he first said it, he also added the words"I must be the greatest", as if he was deducing something that he would entertain the counter arguments if you had one.

Before long, no one ever argued anymore.

Ali didn't ask to be the greatest.  he assumed a face and personality and a skill set so perfect for the times that he must have been meant to sacrifice himself- and his brain eventually- to inspire change.

Was Ali the greatest boxer ever?  Every great champion who isn't named Joe Frazier seems to think so. After three epic bouts with Frazier, Ali lived and died okay with Joe having the voice to say he was better while he had the rest of us to say maybe not.

People over 50 started the debate over his greatness. Just under 50's were the small children like me that cried when Joe won that first fight and when Foreman crushed his ribs before the rope-a-dope brought us to tears of jubilant joy. Many people over 50 cried too, but some digested Clay like chalk dust, unwilling to even acknowledge his religious conversion or name change for years after he no longer answered to Cassius.

They also argued Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano as true GOATS until one day the arguing just stopped happening so much. Eventually, we all had to analyze him on a weighted scale after he told us who he was before being stripped down to ground zero, only to rise up again and again. Good, Bad or Ugly, he told no lies.

I didn't cry for my hero until I reminded myself of that Joe Frazier fight, and even then, only in memory of the tears I shed as a very young kid watching an aging hero do exactly what heroes do.

Get back up and press on.

I had no sorrow because Ali died as Ali lived. The man that inspired us in the ring passed on moons ago from brain trauma and the debilitating impact of his Parkinson encased shell.  Yet even then, he understood the power of his persona and milked it towards every moment of worldwide influence that he could muster showing us all how to give everything you have until you have no more to give, and then give that too.

He fought Parkinson's and stayed in our midst because we needed him, but also because he needed to hear from the legions of influences that his life created.  The death of his physical prowess and speech gave us a fortunate and unique opportunity to talk to a man the way we usually only do when they are dead and gone. His mass appeal is much greater, but similar to that of Prince when you think about it. Both remained intensely true to themselves until the time that we came around to understand and love them for the genuine genius they offered without wavering.

These death's and this odd year had me thinking.

Is it just a coincidence that we lose Prince and Ali in the year of Trump?  Given the fact that there is only one native, might this wall really uncover our stifled greatness- and that American judge from Indiana whose family came from Mexico really is mad about the wall- or might there be a chance that America's greatness does not come from our ill begotten soil or current territory lines, but from the unbelievable people WE the people produce of every national origin?  Isn't our greatness the triumph of the immigrant and the unified demand that all nations tear down walls instead of build them up?

If there is a need for a return to greatness, it would be great if we fully appreciate those who pursue and achieve greatness, by modeling their sacrifice to society before their lives become nothing but a memory.

 Where have all the heroes gone?

Was Prince The Last Person Everyone Respected?

Prince was everything, everybody and everywhere. That's the best capsule I can place on a man impossible to encapsulate. My real Prince memory is similar to many of you who didn't start out loving Prince like we all do now, so I've been fighting with this compulsion to share such a mundane story.  But I'm a writer, sharing is what I do.

In fact, this nagging compulsion is blocking my ability to write anything else.

I am both old enough and young enough to have watched the career of Prince Rogers Nelson from start to finish, mostly from the sidelines because he came unto the scene with way too much controversy to be ignored; but also too much to be palatable for me and many others.

How did you first listen to Prince?
Whether on this side of the door or the other,
Prince was way too magnetic to be ignored.

Not that we couldn't see his genius, but we also saw the mascara and feathered hair that belied the moustache, chest hair and deep speaking voice that belonged to a man we came to know mostly from high pitched, falsetto screams.

If we think we are struggling with understanding human sexuality as it relates to this bathroom debate, Prince asked us long ago why it mattered if he were black or white, straight or gay, even male or female when he went gender neutral (whatever that means) for many years.  When a gentle man named Prince jumps on the scene looking somewhat Princess like, challenging each of our definition of manhood, you either pop him in the month or run, hide and regroup.

Myself and countless others chose option B; mostly responding to parental warnings of his provocative lyrics and sounds, which only caused us to be lured by the mutli-syllabic nature of the word provocative, yet much more enticed by the sounds that created the hysteria in the first place. All of the sounds. The heavy bass and hard hitting rock guitar solo's seemed to mimic his low, deep use of his natural voice contrasted by the sensual, erotic wailing that became a Prince signature.

Sexuality and sensuality exuded from his lyrics and his persona, and only now are we individually coming to grips with how much each of us were touched by the sheer eroticism of Prince.  Before gender benders Boy George, Annie Lenox or Sinead O'Connor hit the scene, there was Prince who gave them license.  And while they were all fine music makers who knowingly or unknowingly challenged gender norms themselves, Prince was, and is legendary in music, while equally legendary with his impact on society and sexuality.



He married his music to the soul of people and forced fed them through a menage of musical sounds with the passion of a temptress. Black America might have always loved rock and roll, but not like we did after Prince freed us to endulge.

Chuck created it, Jimi ruled it but it
was Prince that made it just music.

Prince lured  people in with his beats and his persona and then unveiled the guitar virtuosity that still has rock lovers including him among the greatest rock soloist of all time. All by himself, Prince destroyed genre, freeing everyone to enjoy all music for what it's worth, not who made it.

Born of a black father and white mother, it was reasonable for each race to embrace him the same way he embraced race. At some point in his career- I can't say exactly when- we no longer cared whether he was black or white, straight or gay or whatever. It simply stopped mattering because he had a level of attraction that every person had been permanently drawn towards.

Prince was humorous, athletic. hard hitting but soft looking and had amazing skills with many instruments including the guitar. He was everything to everyone everywhere- on purpose. He wanted to be your lover and mine; a lover to all of humanity.  Our mother and our sister too. And he was.

Like no other, he was our everything.

In the days and weeks since he passed, I had to stop and realize that its barely been one week since we lost him.  For most of us, his passing has caused a form of reflection that produces time warp.  Lost in the memories he created, unaware how strong his impact really was until forced to lose large swaths of time while reflecting on it.

For some reason or other, Prince had been on my mind about three weeks prior to his passing. I had a feeling stop me in my tracks, about what will happen to all that music in Prince's vault when he passes away.

Maybe there is a plausible cause for the thought (news reports had mentioned a sickness that impacted touring), but there hasn't been a plausible cause for the way his spirit has pestered me from that day until now.

I originally placed a bunch of Prince's music on my shuffle because my wife is a fanatic of his music and deserved a few selections in the shuffle during family road trips. Not that I wasn't a fan too, but screaming "Do Me Baby" while alone in the car at a stoplight took macho that I didn't have before he left us. From the moment I first imagined his music vault post mordem until now, it feels like Prince has now taken over my music listening, DJ'ing in more of his tunes than I ever knew I downloaded unto my phone to begin with.

Suddenly he was gone, leaving behind the thought of who he was to us, why a healthy man left so abruptly, and what was the impact of his life on music and society at large? For me personally, I'm trying to make sense of imagining his death and music vault, as well as this constant badgering I feel I am under with Prince controlling my music shuffle until I finish this post.

Inside of his funky beats and virtuous instrumentation, Prince was the most intricate lyricist, prophet, and poet laureate that music has EVER seen. Maybe Stevie is as good at lyrics,  but even he is not quite the musician that Prince was.

On every radio station, social media posting or general conversation, his lyrics resound throughout the world right now as his music provides a soft background to the messages he was trying to send all along.

We could not ignore the power of his sexuality,  or any of his lyrical truths.  We are a diverse world of diverse experiences that created the diversity in the first place.  Ignoring the challenges of diversity is the equivalent to pretending that the experiences that create diversity are also worth ignoring.

If we still have a fear of people who do not present themselves as the gender of birth, how exactly did we come to grips with Prince?


I can find someone that falls on one side or another for any topic in the world, except for the controversy that once was Prince. That is universally gone now. Now, Prince is loved by the pimp and the preacher all the same.  The macho man and the liberated woman sing his tunes with equal vigor, and before long, no one seemed to care that, from the rear, you never could really determine his gender.

For this one special person on earth, it simply didn't matter anymore what he looked like or sounded like while singing.  Prince was everything, to everyone everywhere, but it wasn't always that way.  For a very long time, many of us just didn't understand the man or digest all the differences he brought to the room.

To his credit, to his dying day he never changed. We did.

We, the same ones who insisted that Prince too was a disruption to  our  sense of normalcy with that screaming and carrying on. We were certain that he would disrupt a civil society of church going boys and girls who should never give in to his kind and their ideas of righteousness via free expression of our sexual natures.

He never changed, and his death has started to clarify his life to us. We already accepted him fully, changing our image of his role in the world long before he died.  Unlike Michael or Whitney or countless others upon death, not one person anywhere didn't respect Prince at his passing. He could have told us he was straight or gay, or that androgynous symbol like he used for a while and we would have accepted him either way, because none of that clouded his greatness once we recognized it.

From and towards every human being left behind on this miserable planet without Prince anymore, bigotry reigns. And that is the true tragedy of his death.