Boxing used to be a lot more popular than it is now.  There seemed to be big fight going on all the time, especially in the Welterweight and Middleweight divisions, where there was always a scrum for the number one spot.  I never knew better boxing analysts than those 7th and 8th Graders back in 1980-1981 at LeConte Junior High.  They were old school, like little Bert Sugars (only substituting Dodgers caps and candy cigarettes for Bert’s fedoras and stogies), offering not only their insights, but also the prospect of a wager.

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Seattle’s a great place to go if you want to access your inner hippie.  If you think you know a lot of things but want to give it a test and need a proving ground, I recommend you try the fertile volcanic soil of the Great Northwest.  That’s what I did.   I’d worked at a little Natural Foods store in New York for four years and thought I was a hotshot, a real Granola.  But I got schooled in Seatown, that’s for sure.

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South Beach used to really suck.  Especially for a kid having to live there after several great years in Hollywood, CA.  And having to arrive there in the hot summer of 1982 just made it worse.

Tony revenging on Ocean Drive

1982.

We’re not talking modeling agencies and clubs and bars and celebrity sightings.  This was before all that.  Instead, picture Tony Montana getting chased out of a squalid apartment by a crazy guy with a chainsaw and onto a nearly deserted Ocean Drive. Read more