Onionheart's blog post

I remember one evening, many years ago, I was waiting for my partner to be ready to go out for dinner. I was watching a heavyweight boxing match on tv, and the two boxers were going full blast in the last round. Sweat, saliva and blood splattering with each heavy blow.

Suddenly, my partner was ready, and she said let's go. I said wait a minute, they are almost finished. So she watched the last minute with me. Nobody could hear the bell at the end of the match, nobody knew that the match was over because the crowd was making so much noise.

The two fighters stopped punching, and they embraced each other, wrapping their arms around each other. They were kissing each other on the side of the head and each whispering in the ear of the other. They were drenched in sweat, slipping and sliding against each other.

It was a very dramatic conclusion after a difficult competition. My partner could not believe what she was seeing. She said "what the hell are they doing ? what happened?" She could not believe that they could be so affectionate after trying to punch each others lights out.


So I said, well they don't hate each other. They are just glad that it is over, and nobody died. Nobody had to be carried out on a stretcher. They are just glad to be finished, after training so hard for the fight.

If you want to read a feminist view of boxing, then look for a little essay written by Joyce Carol Oates, simply titled On Boxing. She grew up in boxing culture, having a very original point of view. She writes so beautifully. She writes about the homoerotic aspect of boxing with bluntness, but also with forgiveness.

Did you know that it used to be a common expression to say that a boxer who had been hit hard, and was on shakey legs, that he was on queer street? "Oh, he is on queer street now." They did not mean that he was a homosexual, they just meant that he was ready to fall, stumbling around.

Joyce Carol Oates uses the anthropological term "deep play" to describe the culture of boxing. It is a mysterious kind of play, and there are examples of it in all cultures. I highly recommend her little essay to anyone interested.

When I was first diagnosed with Parkinson's disease I was asked about head injuries, and I said, yes I was knocked out in baseball, in hockey, and in martial arts. However, there is another part of the possible etiology. Over the years I had many jobs in gardening, green houses and indoor landscaping. I was exposed to fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides. There is a lot of speculation about the long term effects of these chemicals.

So it is interesting to me now that I spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos from the long history of boxing. I also watch videos of horticulture and gardening. When I watch a good boxing video I seem to extract something of the intention of the two combatants, and I respect both of them. I might be having a real crappy day with the tremors and the pain, but something about boxing keeps me interested in living, fighting through.

I am still really, really pissed off with CBC Radio. They use techniques of covert manipulation in newscasts, trying to snag new listeners with sounds of gunfire, bombs and people screaming, woven into the background. Fuck off, creepy little people. You have ruined a great tradition of truthtelling in CBC Radio. You have turned it into something hideous. Fuck off, creepy little people.