You, I don't care for so much:
1. Doing the right, mature, responsible thing
2. A to-do list as long as my leg
3. That this four-day work week is feeling like a six-day work week.
You, I like:
1. Good news
2. Being the first to use the shower after it's just been scrubbed clean
3. A three-day weekend coming up, including a much-anticipated ghetto bar night
4. The weather: come Fourth of July, we will have seen only two 90-degree days this year so far.
5. Planning out a quick three-day blast to Chicago
6. Sneezing
7. The new seatpost for my bike
Social club on Detroit's southwest side.
Any idea who owns this place?
Sometimes, you have to rethink what is important. Doing so over a couple of beers never hurts.
If boxing is the Sweet Science, then this must have been the lab where it was created.
Mention the words "Kronk Gym" to anyone in Detroitland or to those with an interest in boxing, and you've just uttered respect and credibility in code. Located on the city's southwest side, Detroit's oldest, city-run recreation center closed its doors 2 years ago, due to lack of funding. A couple of 11th-hour fundraisers with some heavy hitters -- pun firmly intended -- couldn't stop the closure and lo, the building is shuttered.
It sits empty at the corner of 33rd and McGraw, in the shadow of West Warren Avenue.
Before its death, the Kronk Gym -- headed for decades by mastermind boxing trainer Emmanuel Steward -- not only served the community and region as a place for at-risk kids to learn some structure and discipline, but became a factory that churned out arguably some of the most dominant fighters to ever lace them up. A quick resume:
Since 1969, Steward and his crew trained and honed 2 dozen world boxing champions, including:
- Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns -- the first
manbadass to win four different titles in four different weight classes - Leon Spinks -- Gold Medal Olympian and heavyweight champion
- Mustafa Muhammad -- Light Heavyweight champion, and
- Aaron Pryor -- arguably one of the greatest Light Welterweight champions ever
The Kronk Gym, like any such rec center in America's struggling cities, provided a respite for not only kids in that neighborhood but citywide as well. It helped that it would later double as a boxing champion-producing incubator, whose name would become synonymous with elite fighters. As what usually happens in Detroit, funding for the facility started to dry up (but city officials could still use their municipality-issued credit cards to fund travel and shopping, and city monetary funds could be used as personal bank accounts to buy cars and fund wages for derelict relatives and/or sexy interns). And when the fundaisers couldn't provide the salve the Kronk needed -- $500,000 per year to maintain operations -- it closed up shop. Within days, copper thieves raided the building of water pipes and anything else salvageable, thusly rendering the hunk of building not only fully useless but generating a new level of impossibility toward efforts to rehab or resurrect one of the city's most significant sporting addresses.
Not only did Emmanuel Steward train 2 dozen world boxing champions, he also helped produce 6 Gold Medal winners of the 1984 U.S. Olympic Team. Among those boxers were local legends Steve McCrory (flyweight) and Frank Tate (light middleweight). Recent stablemates have included heavyweight champions Wladimir Klitschko (he of 5 consecutive consonants in his last name) and Lennox Lewis. Presently, unbeaten cruiserweight Johnathon Banks and 24-year-old Irish middleweight Andy Lee fight under the Kronk name. The Kronk has spread to the UK, with gyms now in London, England and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The building is now empty and rife with overgrown grass. Across the street, a guy takes a piss against the back of a West Warren business at 10:30 in the morning. I sit in my car in front of the building, my inaugural visit to this boxing Valhalla, and it is quiet, sad, and lonely. The entire block feels like a crime scene about to happen.
The basketball courts behind the gym -- quite possibly where trash talk was invented -- probably aren't seeing much in the way of 3-on-3s these days.
And on the other side of the block, life still goes on for one of the many ghetto pheasants in Detroit.
Detroit's Kronk Gym: Countless wins, very few losses, loser by FKO (financial knockout).
A couple of Saturdays ago, I had the rare circumstance of having the house to myself for nearly an entire weekend. I got up early on Saturday and thought to head to Ikea, in search of a small dresser/clothes and jewelry organizer for Mrs. Chicken. The store opens at 10. I was shrewd and got there 45 minutes early, only to find this scene.
Moments later, it was mayhem on that street.
What is the biggest mistake people make on a first date?
Not checking for the Adam's apple.
Things I had at one time, that I do not have now but do not at all miss:
1. Obnoxious, unsightly white trash neighbors with voices that carry and no regard for discretion or social grace.
2. Neighbors who sell heroin.
3. A driveway full of cars that do not belong to me or anyone else occupying my address.
4. A full ashtray.
5. A clueless, idiotic boss.
6. An account for an online dating service.
7. Anyone interested in "crashing on the couch."
8. An OCD-like tendency to peer through my blinds to make sure my car was still on the street and not in the grips of some thug shithead.
9. Homework.
Things I had at one time, that I no longer have and that I miss greatly:
1. Hair
2. A mother
3. A father (despite the fact that he still has a pulse)
4. Clear arteries
5. Summers off
6. A 30-inch waist (granted, it was in the 7th-grade, but still)
7. Optimism
8. 20-20 vision
9. An apartment with a bar on one side of the block, a Polish restaurant across the street, and a liquor store on the other side of the block.(See item No. 4 of this list)
10. Discipline
Things I didn't have before, that I now have, that I absolutely cherish:
1. Mrs. Chicken
2. Kickass in-laws (that includes you, Matt)
3. Apple/Mac products
4. Lamont the Labradoodle
5. An appreciation, interest and devotion to travel
6. The Hauns
7. A clean soul
8. A cushy, suburban existence on a tree-lined street
9. A pitching staff leading the American League in ERA and strikeouts
10. A clue
Things that I have now, that I greatly regret having, that I did not have before:
1. A mortage payment
2. A stent
3. A bizarre stepmother
4. A shitty commute to work
5. Phony reactions
6. A devotion to trainwreck television
7. Claustrophobia
8. A state leading the nation in joblessness.
9. An empty stable of freelance clients
10. Media coverage of American Idol
