The cat has taken some heat on the Internet for his work and has plenty of doubters and haters (not unlike your humble author).
This guy has mad talent and is meeting a monstrous need in today’s media landscape . And when I say “meeting a monstrous need”, I mean like a coke dealer meets a monstrous need of a Hollywood Hills Mansion after party with 20 fly girls and 4 guys in attendance at 2:30 am.
His work is basically a flame that burns within the soul of The Modern Day International Playboy: its a complex overture that delves into the psyche of the male mind; part dazzling fantasy, part demonic nightmare, part vibrant dream, part jagged reality and he mixes it and puts it in a pot like Gumbo.
Hell, he is bringing to fruition an idea I have had for many years in grand royal style that I lacked the aptitude for. My version would be a little more Drug ridden, Crime Ridden, Cigarette smoked out, Boozed out, more Street and with the machine gun sound of the speed bag and clicking of the money counter as the soundscape, but that is neither E-tab dreams nor triple beams.
(Sometimes I really do wish I was born with talent for the camera or video camera instead of talent for Smoking, Drinking, Swooping fly girls, and separating people from their money. But then again, you can’t have it all.)
He has a new video called New York Episode 1.5 – Fails, extras & pick-up tips, peep it below.
First off, anything that can hold my attention for 10 minutes is in and of itself, astonishing. But more than that, it is really entertaining. And I think young cats getting into “The Life” can learn a lot from it. Furthermore, he plays up the “player on a budget” angle, which we all know has mass appeal like Guru of Gangstarr (RIP) said.
This video is all about Pick Up Failures. Watching this reminds me of myself as a young prototype G on the rise on the beaches of Southern California.
I have said it before and I will say it again, no one, and I mean no one has gotten rejected by girls more than me.
In this video Andrew Lindy breaks down rejection. He has fun with it. Bottom line, you have to love rejection.
To the young cats reading this, it really does make you stronger. Hell, I get rejected still all the time, and guess what? It is the funniest thing to me. Especially since I know that any girl that rejects me is making the biggest mistake of her life.
Straight up, if you take yourself too seriously, and you can’t have fun when you are swooping fly girls, then The International Playboy Lifestyle is not for you.
Chuvalo was rough, tough and very strong; He had a “cast iron” chin, similar to that of the great Jim Jeffries; He fought the hardest of punchers – George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Cleveland Williams, Oscar “Ringo” Bonavena, Yvon Durelle – and was never knocked down; During his career, he won the Heavyweight Championship of Canada
George was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1997
GEORGE CHUVALO
Interview conducted by Barry Lindenman
BL: You come from Canada which is known for turning out tough, rugged hockey players. You were known as a tough and rugged boxer. How did you get involved in the sport of boxing when it appears from your boxing style that you would have made a great hockey player as well?
GC: You think I fight like a hockey player (laughing)? You think all Canadians are tough? I thought they were mostly “stick and move” guys (laughing). As a kid, I remember when I first opened up a Ring magazine. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything about boxing, heard anything about boxing or even knowing about boxing. For me it was like when a kid opens up the centerfold of Playboy. To me, it was like “wow, this is it!” I thought it was like the greatest thing in the world. I saw pictures of guys with all these muscles throwing punches shots at each other. I guess it was the respect for power that really turned me on to boxing as a young man.
BL: Did you have a certain boxing role model that you patterned your style after?
GC: No, not really. There was a lot of guys I liked but I don’t think I ever tried to fight like this guy or that guy. I grew up watching Joe Louis, Willie Pep and Ray Robinson. As a kid when I first started to box, those guys were champions of the world so they’ll always mean something a little more special to me than a lot of the other guys. You’re looking at me through American eyes. To me, I’m just a fighter, you know what I mean? I don’t think I had a Canadian style or an American style. My style was just mine, just walk in and pitch.
BL: You will always be remembered as a long time heavyweight contender who fought the best, took their best shots and was never knocked off his feet either as a pro or an amateur. Are you satisfied with your reputation and how you’re remembered as a boxer?
GC: First of all, it depends who’s trying to remember me. Certain guys may think of me in a certain way and other guys may think of me in another way. Most people think I was a tough guy who took a good rap. I think I was a lot better defensive fighter than I was ever given credit for. I’ll go down in history as a supposed tough guy who fought a lot of tough guys, beat a lot of tough guys, lost to some tough guys. I was there. I was a contender for almost a couple of decades and knocked on the door a few times, but am I satisfied, hell no! If you’ve never been champion of the world you can’t be satisfied. I guess I can say I’m proud of my achievements. I’m happy with some of the things I’ve done. I did OK. A fighter always thinks he coulda done better than he did. There’s always a gnawing kind of feeling that I wish I could have been champion of the world. There’s a piece of me that always feels kinda incomplete. All in all, I did a lot better in life than most guys. I was ranked number two in the world at one time. Not too many guys can say they were number two in the world, except Hertz, me and Hertz (laughing)!
BL: Having faced such great fighters such as Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, who would you say was the hardest puncher you ever faced in the ring?
GC: It was neither of those guys. Mike Dejohn was a real good wacker. Mike Dejohn knocked out a lot of guys in one round. Mike Dejohn was a good banger. Foreman was a good banger too, of course. Mel Turnbaugh was also. I guess they were about the three hardest punchers: George Foreman, Mel Turnbaugh and Mike Dejohn.
BL: During your great career, you fought Muhammad Ali twice and went the distance with him both times. You first fought him in 1966 just before his three year exile from the sport and then again in 1972 soon after his return to the ring. What differences did you notice in Ali in the two times that you fought him and did you alter your strategy between the first and second fights?
GC: You got it wrong. Ali went the distance with me both times (laughing). I threw more head punches in the second fight. In the first fight, I concentrated on maybe 75 – 80 % to the body.
I kinda switched it the other way around in the second fight. I fought a smarter fight the second time. I hit him with a lot of jabs in the second fight. Nobody ever talks about that but if you look at the film, you’ll notice I hit him with a lot of jabs. But I still think I should have worked the body more than I did. I worked the body too much in the first fight and not enough in the second fight. The second fight was still a very close, hard fought fight. Some sportswriters even thought I won the second fight. How was Ali different? He was just more energetic in the first fight. He threw more punches and had more verve in a sense. He was trying to get by in the second fight with a lot of guile. He didn’t have the same physical attributes as he had in the first fight. He had flashes of it but he couldn’t sustain it like he could in the first fight. In the first fight, he was a much better conditioned athlete. After his exile, he never really came back. He never came back to the fighter he was before he was put into exile. He was never that fighter ever, ever, ever again. Even though he fought some great fights after with Joe Frazier for instance, he was never the same fighter. When he beat George Foreman he beat him by using his brains. He sucked him in with the “rope – a – dope.” He didn’t beat him on physical ability as much as a well planned fight plan. He used his intelligence and general boxing savvy and let Foreman punch himself out. Then he just took over. But he was not the same athlete ever again.
BL: Ali was famous for giving his opponents nicknames. Sonny Liston was the Bear, Joe Frazier was the Gorilla. He nicknamed you the “Washer Woman.” Do you know what he meant by that?
GC: In September of 1963, I beat Mike Dejohn, knocked him colder than Missouri mule. I knocked him out with a left hook and pummeled him over the ropes. It didn’t occur to me until twenty five years later in 1988 why he called me the “Washer Woman.” It was because in the fight with Dejohn, I had his back draped way over the ropes and I already had him knocked out. I had him pinned against the ropes and I started pummeling him, just beating on a knocked out guy. It looked like I was working on a scrub board. That’s why he called me the “Washer Woman.” It sounds uncomplimentary but it really wasn’t. Ali said George Chuvalo fights rough and tough like a “Washer Woman.” It was a kind of a cute term.
BL: Although you never won a world title during your career, what would you say was your greatest moment in your boxing career?
GC: There’s a few of them. I knocked out Doug Jones, something that Ali couldn’t do. In fact, a lot of people thought he actually beat Ali. I knocked out Jerry Quarry when a lot of people thought I would lose to Quarry. I knocked him out with a second to go in the seventh round. After the Frazier fight, my eyes had a propensity to swell up very rapidly so in the fight with Quarry, I fought like a one eyed cat peeping in a seafood store for about four rounds. The referee told me if the eye gets any worse he was gonna stop the fight so if I didn’t knock him out when I did, they would have stopped the fight. I also knocked out Manuel Ramos in five rounds. He was the Mexican champion who’d beaten Ernie Terrell and a few other guys and had Frazier down before Frazier eventually stopped him.
He fought everyone and anyone who meant anything in the heavyweight division in the 50’s, 60s and 70’s. No one ever knocked him down, and only Joe Frazier and George Foreman were able to stop the man who Muhammad Ali called “The Washer Woman.” Make no mistake; George Chuvalo was no washer woman. In fact he was without question the toughest of the tough; the most rugged of the top men of his day.
He faced, in a career that spanned 22 years, the aforementioned Ali, Frazier, and Foreman, plus Floyd Patterson, Jerry Quarry, Doug Jones, Cleveland Williams, Brian London, Jimmy Ellis, Ernie Terrell, Zora Folley, Mike DeJohn, Robert Cleroux, Manuel Ramos, and Oscar Bonavena. Even before he was experienced enough he was put in with ranked contenders, Howard King, Big Bob Baker, Julio Mederos, and Alex Miteff. George turned pro in 1956 winning four fights by quick KOs in one night.
This all begs the question; how is it possible that Chuvalo looks (okay, his nose is a little mushy) and sounds as though he never stepped into the ring let alone absorbed the punches of the toughest men in the world? Just ask Chuvalo for an answer to that. He has a theory that appears to have validity.
“Some guys are built for speed,” explained the former Canadian heavyweight boss. “Some guys are built for power. Your body type dictates your style, I was a walk in pitcher, and I didn’t move too much. I wanted to walk in and slug it out. I can tell you the guy who won’t take a good shot; the guy with the small head and a neck like a stack of dimes.”
He explained that fighters who had bigger heads and short powerful necks were better equipped to take a hard punch than a guy with a skinny neck and a narrow or small head. He mentioned a few examples of fighters who have had that innate ability to take punches and that list included Jake LaMotta, Tex Cobb, and himself.
“And even Ali,” he added. “He took a pretty good rap, even though he’d been down a few times.”
He’s survived bankruptcy, two marital breakdowns and a persistent habit of referring to himself in the third person: Ozwald Boateng remains a force to be reckoned with. The first black tailor on Savile Row and former creative director of Givenchy, Boateng this month releases A Man’s Story, his 12-years-in-the-making film of his remarkable career. “I’m not nervous about the film, I’m excited – it’s like the first time I sold a suit,” he explains to GQ.com, sitting in an elegant café in London’s Mayfair. “I was always the youngest one around. When I went to Paris for my first catwalk show I was always the kid. Now I’m 45 years old. I’ve got mileage in the tank.” Here he explains how men should wear colour, why Giorgio Armani still inspires him and why everyone should follow the sartorial example of ageing rockers…
Confidence can sometimes be misconstrued as arrogance.
Shirt collars are very important to me. Putting a very soft shirt collar with a formal suit doesn’t work for me at all.
The shoulder line is key on a bespoke suit. Once you have a strong understanding of that, the rest flows from there.
The idea of an ill-fitting suit is something I cannot register. If I register it once then it goes off and destroys! It starts interfering with the mainframe of my computer. It’s like dust in the lens – you grow accustomed to the dust and it starts building up.
Dressing well on a budget is about what we call “strategic shopping”. Spot what you like and then be first in the queue when the sale comes. Be patient enough to rummage through the rails. Sort your basics out and then save up for the key pieces. Make sure you always spend money on shoes though.
The most common style mistake men make? The guy who sits down with his buttons closed and doesn’t know he has to relax the jacket. I understand that the harness of the jacket creates [a particular] shape but there are some rules. Release the button.
If your suit is not handmade, get the other elements really right. Make sure your shirt is pressed and has that sharpness of line. It demonstrates that you pay attention to the way you look.
Style is about consistency and not having just one great day or one great photograph. Paul Bettany always looks good. He’s got a good presence about him. I haven’t seen him slouch and it’s easy to slouch.
‘A Man’s Story’ Preview – Ozwald Boateng documentary film
Casino – that movie really sang for me. It was beautifully shot and you could feel the colours jump off the screen. They must have been in my store when they did that film! The suits were immaculate and there was real attention to detail about the clothes – when [De Niro’s] sitting down he doesn’t want to get his trousers creased. If you love what you wear, that’s what you do.
The rulebook says for black tie it should be a black suit with a satin lapel. But there are lots of things you can do to make it different. I like to play with the traditional themes – it doesn’t have to be black, so I’ve got my signature dark purple tux. It’s a bit boring that the women have all the opportunity and the guys don’t.
