Mano a Mano With Eugene Robinson

By Keith Boykin, in books
Thursday, November 29 2007, 12:11AM

A few months ago I got a phone call from an old college classmate who had a proposition. My classmate Mark had heard that I competed in the wrestling competition at the 2006 Gay Games and suggested that I take part in a celebrity charity match against a competitive fighter he had met in San Francisco. I laughed out loud and immediately rejected the idea. There's no way I'm going to get beat up in public, I told Mark.

Mark asked me to reconsider. He told me the fighter's name was Eugene Robinson, which happens to be the same name of a well known black columnist for the Washington Post. The fighting Eugene Robinson is also a writer. He is the author of a new book called Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Ass-Kicking But Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked For Asking. Mark sent me a link to the book and to Robinson's web site. After checking out the site, I quickly realized I was no match for Robinson. But he seemed like a great person for an interview.

INTERVIEW WITH EUGENE ROBINSON

Keith Boykin: What inspired you to write your new book, Fight?

Eugene Robinson: It’s a tortured tale but its genesis lay in a former freelancer of mine getting into a brawl in some bar in LA with some Marines. We talked about it and as he was the number 2 guy at the LA Weekly he said, “Write it up.” And so I did. Another friend in New York happened to pass it by Judith Regan…quickly followed by a trip to NY and an hour later: a book deal.

But the book is just the physical manifestation of what’s been cooking in my head for years. These kind of tributes to the un-reconstructed man. I mean I did the tough guy beat for Hustler…so it’s clearly a preoccupation of mine.

Boykin: You grew up in Brooklyn. What neighborhood did you live in?

Robinson: Cobble Hill. Then Crown Heights. Then Flatbush.

Boykin: I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis and I think I had one fight in my entire childhood. I challenged a kid named David in second grade and he beat me up. Then when I got bigger nobody ever messed with me again. What was your experience like. Did you have to fight a lot as a kid?

Robinson: I didn’t fight a lot because I was a big kid but I was also a mouthy kid. And I hated bullies. And this was the New York of the 70s and so it was a crazier place than it is now. I mean I heard about Mike Tyson long before he started boxing because of the Jolly Stompers and so on. But to answer your question: I don’t really know what you mean by a lot. I DO know that as a teenager and a young adult I fought A LOT more than I did as a kid. My childhood was pretty idyllic. By my lights.

Boykin: Do you remember your first fight?

Robinson: Oh yeah.

Boykin: What happened?

Robinson: Against a kid named Donald. In Crown Heights. He was a judo guy and kept throwing me down on the ground. What I NOW recognize as a hip throw. And after about the 8th time, after I had moved beyond anger, and then outrage, I just devolved into total amusement and eventually laughter. And this has become my archetype. I mean I find fighting amusing, largely.

Boykin: How did you get into fighting on a professional level?

Robinson: I never made a nickel from fighting and so I say COMPETITIVE. Well I’ve always competed in what I’ve done…bodybuilding was my first love. And so Mr. Bensonhurst, Teenage Mr. New York and so on. Lots of competing. Not a lot of winning.

Boykin: What is it about fighting that appeals to you? I understand the physical contact part, but I don't get the blood and the broken arms and the violence in street fighting and stuff like that. I think I like the controlled violence from sports like amateur wrestling.

Robinson: Well, street fighting is a real different kind of animal because of the chaos factor. Which is what really appeals to me. Also I’ve got that whole super hero thing going where it seems I’m the only one there that can teach a lesson that much needs to be taught: be NICE.

Boykin: I enjoyed your book. It looks like a coffee table book and it's got lots of pictures in it. But it's much more graphic than your standard coffee table book. Who's your audience for this?

Robinson: realistically? Probably men between the ages of 18 and 49. But I see the net being much wider and probably including Joyce Carol Oates, Camille Paglia and a whole raft of women who are interested in understanding our elemental embrace of our baser ethics. Which, in large part and to a certain degree, defines the man without apology.

Boykin: What advice would you give to someone to avoid a fight in a tense situation?

Robinson: Humor works. Either that or it gets you killed. Remember this: laugh WITH not AT.

Boykin: What's the smartest thing people can do for self defense in a bad situation?

Robinson: Forget all of that stupid shit you’ve been taught in [those] day long self-defense classes. None of it will ever work against even a lightly trained opponent and it’s almost a crime that they teach it at all. That being said, groin shots, foot stomps, head butts and bites DO work well.

But as a general rule: distance is your enemy. Unless you’re far enough away to run away? CLOSE the distance.

Boykin: How much do you weigh?

Robinson: 230 this morning.

Boykin: You're 230 pounds and I'm about 185 pounds. Who would win if we fought?

Robinson: Collegiate wrestling rules? Probably you. Submission fighting? Me. Mixed martial arts? I give myself the edge there too. But I COULD be wrong. Which I welcome because at least then I might be learning something.

Boykin: And if we arm wrestled?

Robinson: Well I’m a pretty strong guy. So I give this to me as well. But there’s technique to this that most people don’t know about either. Depends on the fulcrum arc of your arm as well as strength.

Boykin: What's your favorite hold?

Robinson: Well I love the rear naked chokehold. Mostly because I can talk to you as you’re blacking out.

Boykin: There's a series of pictures of you in the book where you're choking out some guy at a concert. What was that all about?

Robinson: He came to the stage front and challenged me. It was at some anarchist squat in Bradford, England. Near Leeds. The guy was big, about 6’ 4” and about 250. He was from Belfast. I arm dragged him into it and choked away. It was great. He just emailed me and said that he didn’t wash for a week after that. In all fairness though he probably wouldn’t have anyway. But I love that. Anarchy: great in the streets. Not so great in your living room.

Boykin: How did your band Oxbow get started?

Robinson: I wanted to make the music that I was hearing in my head and that was reflecting my emotional reality. It was the first band I started with out any careerist notions in mind.

Boykin: What kind of music does the band play?

Robinson: We play bass, guitar, drums and vocals. That kind of music.

Boykin: Okay. And what instruments do you play?

Robinson: I sing.

Boykin: Okay. Next topic. [You were the editor-in-chief of CODE magazine.] What happened to CODE magazine? I used to love that magazine. Why did it fail?

Robinson: YOU say fail, I say SUCCEED. Yeah, it’s not being published anymore but as soon as LFP got it into it’s first few profitable months they sold it off to some private equity group and used the money to build a casino. Which presents a much more steady profit picture. But it was a great magazine. One of the best I’d seen OR been involved with and it’s pained me to see Esquire and GQ lifting their somewhat new found awareness of the men of color community directly from us and what we were doing. Which in total though pained me much much less than the horrible magazines that followed it that were supposed to be carrying the torch but were just bougie jiz rags. I mean SAVOY? Jesus Christ.

But I’m not a hater.

…what a minute. Yes I am.

Boykin: You're a musician, a fighter, an author, an editor and a writer, but what are you most passionate about doing?

Robinson: Fucking.

But I guess you mean that I get PAID for? Ha ha. Well I can’t live without the writing. Which is to say: the thinking.

Boykin: There's a few "gay references" in the book. For example, you joke about people pretending that they're gay (p. 146) to avoid a fight, and stuff like that. What's that all about? Are you being homophobic?

Robinson: You mean am I afraid of homosexuals? Or do I have an inborn bias against people who wanted to have romantic/sexual relations with those of the same gender?

I could not give a shit what people want to do with their private parts and the above reference draws on a story that only appears on the audiobook version of the FIGHT book, which comes out January 22nd and it’s called THE ONE FINGER PUNCH and sort of directly addresses the issues that being close, very very close, albeit for combat, bring to the fore.

Boykin: Is there some sort of homoeroticism involved in wanting to beat up other men?

Robinson: Well this is what I’m talking about...There was one chapter heading in the book that my editor changed out because it made him uncomfortable but which I really loved and find highly amusing and that was IT’S ONLY GAY IF THERE’S EYE CONTACT. And this is from a bit of Internet humor that showed Wanderlei Silva and another fighter shirtless and in shorts doing what we’d call a backpack drill. One guy behind the other, and they were smiling and just looking really into it and like kids with the enthusiasm you know and the following legend was IT’S ONLY GAY IF THERE’S EYE CONTACT. Which I thought was completely hilarious because if you’re repressed in any way, shape or form pretty much FIGHTING is not something you’re going to spend a lot of time doing. So one way or another you’ll be dealing with these issues…probably exactly like healthy men should.

Repressed men are fucking dangerous. Which means one way or another decide what works for you and do it without shame because if you don’t your efforts to conceal what’s revealed to everyone else will be killing.

But very specifically for ME? There’s nothing homo-EROTIC about fighting. It’s serious business.

Boykin: In the book, you list the 10 best boxing matches in history. But you don't mention one of the most memorable fights in history, the Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran rematch in 1980 where Duran told the referee "no mas" in the middle of the 8th round. What did you think about that fight?

Robinson: That was a submission fight and I applauded Duran then and do so now. Allowing for a second that there was no Mafia coercion in his decision, I like the idea of people being allowed to submit.

But I didn’t mention this fight because there were just so many other better ones to mention.

Boykin: Who do you think would win if all the presidential candidates got into a big brawl?

Robinson: Well as repressed as many of these folks are it could be a real bloodbath. But who’d win in a brawl? This is a tough one. I mean Giuliani’s a New York guinea so he’s got that whole thing going for him. But McCain’s got southeast Asian anger going for him. Fred Thompson’s all fuckered, er, I mean tuckered out from having to service his 33 year old wife.

On the Democratic side…hard to tell. Bill Richardson’s got that whole Mexican Judo thing going for him…"Judo don’t know if I got a gun…Judo don’t know if I got a knife."…Dodd? could be a killer….but we’re really talking about the field leaders right? Edwards, Obama, and Hillary? I’m seeing it coming down to Edwards and Obama and I see Obama losing because he smokes and so he gasses out sooner than Edwards does…plus you know Edwards has that whole Alabama Anger thing going on. Never underestimate the continuing anger of the Southern man.

Boykin: That's a provocative answer. But one last question. What does your family think about all this fighting stuff?

Robinson: My Mom’s a peace loving sort and had tried and tried and tried to re-channel all of this stuff but you know….you can’t change destiny.

Boykin: Thanks for doing the interview Eugene. And I can't wait till we fight....Just kidding.

Robinson: Ha ha…you’re not kidding. When next I am in New York my friend.

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