cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grappling with M1ke N0rton. Last night I watched "Creed" And when I woke up I was still thinking about boxing movies. About how I could re-write my first chapter about Mike N0rton like it was a boxing movie. In the 1850's getting any fight at all was a big deal. There was no amateur circuit. It was street-brawling, gloves-on exhibitions, or a prize fight. Most prize-fighters had a very short professional career. Mike N0rton begged for a prize fight. He ran ads in the Clipper trying to challenge "The Benicia Boy," and calling out guy who had bragged that he could beat him. In an age when bare knuckle boxing was illegal, he finally had his shot against Fatty Walsh when they got busted and asshole mayor Tiehman set bail for $1,000 for each of them not to fight anywhere in the world for a year. Then a year and a few months later the Civil War started and Norton became a captain in the stupidest regiment assembled. They literally did not have pants. I spent all day thinking about how I would re-write this chapter like a boxing movie. There is the build-up, with Norton angling for a real fight and getting into a series of sparring matches with blood flying. But no pay-off. Not until he became a senator and took Boss Tweed's bribes to make the Tweed charter happen. There just is not the payoff to this plot that the set-up demands. Sure, he punched a sheriff's deputy out on Coney Island for harassing a few women at his pavillion. And he defended Jewish people, and Black voters. Actually, Mike Norton kinda got his title fight. It was how he lived his life after he walked away from the ring. His grand-daughter married a Vanderbilt and later became first lady of New York. 4:17 a.m. - 2023-03-30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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