Pimpin Rides In Nap Town / Hauk -vs- Chavez

The greatest thing about this job is when I get to go to a place that I most likely never would have visited otherwise. Places I can only identify with in relation to their sports teams biggest wins, or it being the setting of a sit com or movie. Places that people like to tell you that they've driven through, or have had a layover at on their way to some more exciting and interesting place.



I mean I assume that something would have eventually led me to visit a place like Chicago or Seattle or Denver. These aren't the places I'm talking about. Those places are already presumed to be fun and exciting in their own way. The places I'm talking about are the ones that I approach with absolutely no grand expectations. Places that get lost in the shadows of the huge American cities. Places that struggle to find their identity, something to set them apart from the rest of the country. Places like Cleveland.....Portland.....and.......................Indianapolis.



We had a couple days off in Indy as we made our way to Des Moines (which fits into another category of city altogether by the way) and it happened to be a Saturday. The city was alive as two seperate conventions brought thouands of drummers and promise keepers in for the weekend. We sat in the center of the city at the civil war memorial monument, known to locals as the circle, and watched as the sun set and the sights changed. The families of tourists faded and the tricked out convertibles with their booming bass took over the night. Cars cruised down Meridian Street and looped around the monument and back out again. Packs of similarly dressed bar hoppers passed us by. We were just people watching the night away when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of something quite odd.



A middle aged man was walking along the storefronts across the street from the monument dragging a 10 foot wooden cross over his shoulder like he was J.C. himself! The cross had a sign attached to it which I couldn't read. He made his way across the traffic and began to assemble the stand for his cross. This is when Boom and I approached him.



"That's quite a cross ya got there," I said. The sign said THIS IS NOT GAY AMERICA.
"Yeah ya like it?" The man asked proudly.
"I can't say that I do." replied Brian sparking a 90 minute interaction with the man.

I stood nearby listening to Boom and Rick argue about the wording of the Bible and watched the reactions of people as they approached the scene. Apparently gays are taking over the country with a recruiting campaign centered around mainstream media like Will & Grace. He insisted that he wasn't inciting as his sign didn't say Kill all Fags or Burn in Hell. He calmly and politely rebuffed any attempt to counter his points with lengthy bible verses.

Several entertaining scenarios ensued. One of which involved two high school aged girls who couldn't resist getting their views in. One of the girls, permanently frown faced and heavy set, told Rick that she didn't like his sign. Rick asked if she was gay.

"No but I live with one, my Mom likes hooch."
"Your mom is a lesbian?"
"Yeah, she likes hooch. I like dick but she likes hooch."
"If she's a lesbian where did you come from?"
"She went to this place called.......a sperm bank, to do what she needed to do. She didn't need no man cuz men are a-holes!"




And so it went, back and forth, usually around 7 against 1, for around 90 minutes. Three husky guys approached wearing elf suits handing out flyers for a Christmas in July party at a downtown bar. I got a picture of them next to the cross with Rick. A gay couple strolled by, saw the sign, and stopped to kiss each other in front of the sign. Yep, I got a pic of that too. Anyway, the guy was pretty nutty and all but I admired his ability to keep calm in the midst of the firestorm. He had a crowd shouting him down but he never raised his voice or insulted anyone directly. In his mind the bible is the truth and if you weren't coming from that same place you just weren't going to see eye to eye on this. That didn't stop my frinendly co-brand embassador from giving it a shot though. In the end they agreed to disagree and seemed to have atained a mutual respect for one another. I must have lost my credibility in the debate when I answered his question about prayer by saying that I only did it when it was really necessary......like when I want to get back with my girlfriend, or the Steelers needed one more win to qualify for the playoffs.


So we finally manage to pull ourselves away from the spectacular site to try to go to some bars or clubs. There's some busy places with lines down the street and rows of pimp mobiles rolling by, some of them doing that three wheel motion thingy. We get handed a flyer for some place a block away that has $2 drinks so we decide to start there.

The place is dead. Music blasts from a barren dance floor. A half dozen characters spread out randomly around the bar. We decide not to turn and flee but to have one drink, receive a fake call on our cell phones or something, and get back to where the party was. We order drinks from the stocky blonde bartender and as he turns to grab our beers I notice his shirt says Houck -vs- Chavez in large letters on the back. The blocky lettering is filled in with the Mexican flag where Chavez' name is and the stars and stripes for Hauk. It catches my eye becase Chavez stands for Julio Cesar Chavez, also known as J.C. Superstar, a living legend in boxing circles and nearly immortal in Mexico. This guy chills with the president. It's no exageration to put him up there with Ali and Sugar Ray on the all time list. Plus he also happens to be my all time favorite and most respected athlete. I love the guy.

So no big deal, this guy has his shirt on that's all. I decide to ask who this guy Hauk is though. I followed J.C. pretty closely and watched or read about most of his fights but if you pile up over 100 fights I'm bound to miss one. The bartender comes back with a beer and vodka cranberry and drops them down. As he makes some change I inquire about the shirt.

"So who is this guy Hauk, is that short for Greg Haugen or something?"

The guy just makes the change. He's kinda jumpy I noticed. He acts like he's workin at Coyote Ugly on New Years Eve the way he checks for customers in need of refills. He doesn't seem to realize there's only six people at the bar. Finally he turns around.

"That's me," he says. "I'm Hauk." And I swear he giggled.

I take a moment and let that register.

"You......fought Chavez?!?!"

"Yeah, he kicked my ass too," he says matter a factly, and he definitely giggled this time.

I looked at Boom in disbelief. My jaw must have dropped to the bar. He knows that Chavez is my boy. I cant' tell if this guy is lying or what. He hurridly serves a couple drinks. I declare outloud to get to the bottom of the situation.

After a few minutes Hauk comes back over and starts reliving each of his short but glorious shots at superstardom. Turns out that Chavez took him out in oue round in a tiny ring in Mexico. He seems to remember each second of the fight. He then recounts his match with another famous former champ Hector "Macho" Comacho, whom he claimed to put on the canvas. As he acts out the short left hook that connected the bulljunk starts to fade and we start to become believers. The replica hook was delivered with the form of someone who has spent some time in a dingy gymnasium somewhere with speed bags and jump ropes clicking and snapping all around. When Boom saw the hook wizz past his grill he looked at me and we knew what each other was thinking.....thid dude is legit, he fought Chavez.

Now for me meeting a guy that got whipped by Chavez is just as good as meeting Chavez himself, maybe better, and I told him as much. I don't like getting all star struck and all that in the first place and besides, he don't speaka tha english. I almost wanted to ask the guy to beat me up so I could tell my grand nephews that I got beat up by the guy that got beat up by Chavez. I opted for a photo instead. We both posed in our boxing stances with our fists in the ready position like we were posing for a promo poster or something, which will also be posted on here soon.

He wrote down his name and said to check it out on the internet to check his facts which I just did. Turns out his tale is true, if not a little embelished. The record says he fought Chavez in Chicago and not Culiacan, and I couldn't prove that he decked Comacho before being knocked out himself. Maybe his minds a bit scrambled though so forgivness may be in order here.

He did weave a nice tale though, 100% true or not. And sometimes the most interesting parts were not the fights themselves but the way he hot the fights in the first place. He said they would call him up and say something like can you fight the champ Joey Gamache in 3 weeks. He'd say no way man, I can't train for the champ in three weeks. We'll give you seventy five hundred cash under the table they'd say. So Craig would tell us that he'd look at the calendar, Christmas was coming up and he needed the loot and he'd say "Okay I'll take it," and three weeks later he'd be in Lewiston, ME fighting the champ in the same ring that Ali fought in.

In that fight he got knocked around a bit and he was reeling around the ring. The ref looked him in the face and asked if he wanted to fight on. Craig Hauk nodded his head up and down and said "Hell No!" and the fight was immediately stopped. I thought to myself that sounded familiar and I wondered if I saw that fight on ABC 10 years ago or if I was just trying too damn hard to believe him.



The great thing was you didn't get any sense of bragging when he told his ring war tales. I guess it's hard to brag too much about getting whupped now that I think about it. But he did seem to enjoy reliving his fightin days with a couple a guys who really appreciated hearing about them.

Home Sweet Home / Night Out In Cincy

I am writing to you tonight from the worlds least accomodated Best Western hotel. My laptop rests atop a rickety old table in the corner of a poorly air conditioned room, my partner lays asleep atop his sheets fully clothed and his glasses lay askew across his face. I shouldn't talk, last night the roles were reversed. We knew this place was severely jacked up when we saw the exercise room. It's a regular old guest room, minus the bed, add a stationary bike and a pull up bar and that's it. It still has the TV and dresser. By the way, we are 8 miles outside of Des Moines, IA.

The mood of the team has reached a comfortable high thanks in no small part to my 3 day visit back to the greatest town in the world good old WH. A visit from a long lost French ku-zin (that's French for cousin) along with some urging from my beloved MA was enough incentive to leave poor Boom in Toledo, OH and jump on a prop plane and head to Bradley Internatinal Airport via Cleveland. The friendly faces and familiar surroundings helped recharge the old double A's and now the final month feels more like the home strech instead of an eternity. It's amazing what some Red Plate cheesecake and some Mo's pancakes can do.



We pick up the action in Cincinnati, OH for a Friday night out on the town. First stop is the Great American Ballpark, home of the Reds. The impressive open ended park sits along the river with a view of the boats cruising along the Ohio Kentucky border. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and the game was cut short after a couple rain delays. A quick walk up Main St brought us to the center of the action. After some careful analysis we decided to check out The Lab. The lab is a small narrow pub with a long bar and a hip hop DJ spinning some old school jams. The attraction of the night was the Mike Tyson fight.

The place was filled with Tyson supporters and leading up to the opening bell the place had an electric energy about it as only a boxing match can produce. When the completely unknown and lightly regarded British challenger Danny Williams was introduced I risked life and limb by standing up on my stool and clapping loudly and shouting "Go get em Danny!!!!"

This was not received well by my fellow patrons and a collective groan was heard rumbling throughout the bar. The group of girls at the table in front of us were particularly annoyed and one girl said to nobody in particular "Oh, he's got to go. That boys got to go."

The first round looked bad for Dannys one man fan club as Tyson looked to put him to sleep early with some vicious uppercuts and hooks but Danny weathered the storm and made it to the bell. I was yelling for Danny to use his jab but he ignored my pleas. When Tyson would land some big punches a few heads would turn towards me to see my reaction but I just kept shadowboxing on my stool while barking some more important instructions or encouragement.

Slowly but surely Iron Mike grew frustrated and tired as Dannys confidence rose. By the third it looked like Mike was spent. My cheering grew louder and the bar crowd got quieter. In the fourth Danny landed punch after punch until Tyson finally crashed into the ropes and to the canvas and feebly waited to be counted out. Boom and I leaped about and cheered throughout the onslaught much to the dismay of the Tyson faithful. A couple of the neighboring girls had taken quite a liking to my bobbing and weaving and joined me in cheering against their friends hero. We all high fived for a while as the dejected Tyson fans shook their heads and headed to the bar to drown their sorrows. As we made our way out I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up at a somewhat thuggish yet defeated man who looked at me and simpy said, "you were right man, you were right" and held out his hand in congratulations. And so ends the career of the single most overhyped and overrated boxer of all time, I hope.

Next stop was a dance club that looked so similar to one of the scenes from Max Payne we wondered if the video game was modeled after the club. I stood there on the edge of the dance floor in my fire engine red credit card application Cincinnati Reds shirt and New Balance visor and for some reason no cute chickens asked me to dance. The kid got his groove on out there though doing his pattened woodpecker neck dance as he bumped and grinded across the floor. We hit the streets just in time to catch a torrential downpour which we, much like Tyson did to Williams, succumbed to its power. We walked the streets and let the rain pour over us. Our jeans were soaked and heavy. Lightning flashes reflected in the skyscrapers. People ducked for cover in cabs and bus stops. When you've only got one night to explore a new city that you may never be back to again you don't let a little rain stop you.