RING MASTER: It was a difficult balancing-act - constantly talking himself up while having to dodge the consequences of doing so - but Ali somehow managed it. His awareness of this dynamic has the happy side-effect of making it almost impossible to set about debunking the Ali myth. Those who have tried it recently have invariably discovered that the man they were trying to expose as vain, hypocritical and shallow had always got there first.
'What's the difference between a Jew and a canoe? A canoe always tips." I wish I'd been there when the second most famous black man on earth delivered this joke at a charity banquet last year. History doesn't record how the audience reacted, but I can well imagine their rapt, expectant faces - all flushed in the presence of greatness - turning a shade of puce as the champ struck a blow in defence of his right to say what he liked, however offensive.
The timing of this incident - just months before the release of a film depicting him as an anti-racist icon - suggests to me that this was no unfortunate faux pas. I think Muhammad Ali knew what he was doing. In refusing to fall into line with the identity thrust upon him by the Michael Mann biopic, he was offering a timely reminder that his brand of subversive politics will always resist definition.
"I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want" is his message. Throughout his life, Ali's declarations and behaviour have upset his supporters at least as much as those who thought he ought to be sent to jail for refusing to fight in Vietnam.
Everyone who has an opinion loves him in spite of what they see as an inability to act consistently. To spout on about world peace when you've made a fortune beating people up is just one the many contradictions that constantly threaten to puncture the Ali myth.
The sycophancy that characterised the behaviour of this hero towards his mentor, Elijah Mohammed, is another. Radicals at the time were deeply disappointed that their idol should be so credulous. The same people who booed Bob Dylan when he went electric were always tut-tutting Ali for failing to provide a focus for their commonplace agitations. What they didn't understand was that evading allegiance was the central plank of both men's artistic project. Each of them knew instinctively that the more sense you made to people, the easier it became for them to claim you for their project. For this reason, you would never catch either giving a straight answer. Incoherence was an ally in the battle to preserve their integrity, even when it meant looking stupid.
My favourite Ali story was related by writer Victor Bockris, who fashioned a slender volume from the time he'd spent with Ali in the 1970s at his training camp in Deerlake, Pennsylvania. He was dazzled by his hero's verbal virtuosity, knocked sideways by a number of never-before-made-public poems, and rendered speechless by the humanity Ali displayed in managing the camp.
Three years after these first visits, in 1977, Bockris returned to Deerlake with his new best friend, Andy Warhol. The artist had never met Ali and Bockris was beside himself with excitement at the thought of what the encounter between these two icons would throw up. Imagine his disappointment, then, when Ali acted like an insubordinate schoolboy. He refused to talk to Warhol - "Does he know who he is?", Bockris asked an aide - and was singularly unco-operative when asked to pose for photos. That finished, Ali invited the two men to his cabin where he insisted they listen to "a lecture I gave to the English parliament the day before yesterday. It's called 'The Real Cause of Man's Distress' and it will only take 12-and-a-half minutes".
Forty-five minutes later, Ali paused momentarily between movements of this ghastly sermon and Bockris and Warhol managed to make their apologies. In the car, Warhol declared himself baffled. "But is he intelligent?" he kept asking. The answer is clearly yes. Ali's refusal to present himself to Warhol as the man the artist had heard about shows how far he is prepared to go to avoid being pinned down by his own celebrity.
Now that Ali is a global icon, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing he has relinquished control of his public persona. Like many other lefties, I worried a lot when I heard about his contract with Coca-Cola to be its international representative. I was also none too happy with the news that he was making a five-minute film, to be broadcast on al-Jazeera, about how great the US was for the "genuine" Muslims who had no part in the events of September 11th. Then I realised that Ali was continuing to fulfil his brief as a genuine radical by not giving a jot what I thought. At the very moment when he least needs to - when his status as a modern saint should put him above crass commercialism - he's taking the Coca-Cola dollar. One might also presume that this symbol of global peace would not besmirch his image by appearing in grubby little propaganda broadcasts.
Unpleasant as it may look, Ali remains committed, even in his twilight years, to what Gerald Early refers to as "the incendiary poetics of actual self-determination". In refusing to play the saint, he has left himself free to enjoy that position's benefits.
Charlotte Raven
(Guardian News Service)
Ali is released on February 22nd