I didn't really know what I valued until I had a child.

Actually, not until I'd had her for a few years, and realized that while I thought I loved ideas, I spent more precious time teaching her about sports—its physical beauty, its literary history, its great heroes.

I've shown her the swings of Ted Williams and Tiger Woods. I've encouraged her to hustle on the soccer field like Pete Rose diving into second base. She's sat through documentaries on Joe Namath, Billie Jean King and the 1999 U.S. Women's World Cup championship team.

But the sports hero I taught her most—the American I taught her about most—about was by far and away, Muhammed Ali.

As in, she has seen the first Sonny Listen fight, from 1964, in black and white, at least five times—the first time, sitting on my lap.

"Oh my gosh!" my five-year-old cried, as the big bear stalked the young Cassius Clay around the ring.

"Don't worry, honey," I said, "he can't catch him."

She's seen most of the rest of his fights, too—except the 1971 bout when Frazier floored Ali with the left hook that convinced the champ he could take the most terrible punch, and still get up. I can't bring myself to watch that one myself. 

I love the way the man moves. I have a heavy bag, and I've spent hundreds of rounds dancing to my left and snapping out long jabs. Every time I visit a real boxing gym, I'm immediately reminded by the trainer that I've taught myself all of Ali's bad habits and none of his skills.

I love Ali's sense of humor, I love his voice, I love his accent, I love his face.

As I write this, Ali skips rope over my shoulder. Because he helps me feel like I'm young, fast, handsome and can't possibly be beat!

I'm reading a biography of Ali right now. It's been out a couple years; took me a while to read it because it's written by Jonathan Eig, a writer I once sat next to on Studs Terkel's couch. 

I remember feeling inferior to Eig that night. I'd spent my twenties writing for a publisher of trade newsletters; Eig had spent his writing for The Wall Street Journal. At 30, I figured Eig was off to a faster start than me, and I'd probably never catch up. About a dozen years later, it occurred to Eig (and not to me), that no one had written a proper biography of Ali. And he had thought: Why not me?

That hurts—bad enough that I wasn't going to read Eig's book, Ali: A Life. I told myself I'd spent enough time on pointless boxing scholarship. But after listening to Eig's accompanying podcast, "Chasing Ali," which made me feel more vicarious joy than jealousy—I bought the book.

It's wonderful—so good that at my most Ali-like, I don't believe I could have done any better. Which comes as a relief, really.

Meanwhile, get this: The goddamned book is giving me ideas.

Strange ones, like one I plan to explore in an episodic, experimental series here on Writing Boots over the next few days or weeks.

Are you ready for this?

Muhammad Ali—my hero and the American who I have most consistently showed my precious daughter as a beacon of human beauty, grace and charisma—has appealed to and alienated people in most of the same psychological, social and rhetorical ways, as Donald J. Trump.

Hear me out.

Starting tomorrow.

Or Thursday. Or next week—whenever I figure out exactly where to begin.

"Speak it, Ricky," spake a professional communicator friend on Facebook. 

She was praising Golden Globes Awards' hired badboy emcee Ricky Gervais for having directed honorees, "If you win, come up, accept your little award tonight, thank your agent and your God, and fuck off. No one cares about your views on politics or culture."

Questioning actors' intellects is an old sport. "Of all actors, the most offensive to the higher cerebral centers is the one who pretends to intellectuality," wrote H.L. Mencken about a hundred years ago. "No man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor." I read that when I was young, and ever since, I've been looking for exceptions. Over a quarter century, I've identified Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Lily Tomlin and Bryan Cranston. Take that, Mencken!

But you know whose intellects I have an even lower estimate of than actors'? People who watch Hollywood awards shows for any reason other than an ironic laugh, aided by a giggly strain of sativa. To anyone who takes the Golden Globes the least bit seriously as an Important Cultural Event—well, the actors's speeches might actually bring them news that the continent of Australia is on fire or that there's a political movement to severely limit abortion laws in America.

So good for Dicky Ricky for publicly afflicting the smug. And good for the actors for "defying" him with all the pathos they've got. And best of all for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, for manufacturing the whole melodrama.

It's all part of the show.

How many times are you going to fall for it?

In yesterday's post I used a term you rarely see here on Writing Boots, because as I've written before: 

No person should ever call another person privileged—at least, if the person is trying to communicate.

Why? Because no matter how privileged a person may be thanks to his or her class, race, gender, physique, nation of origin, region of origin, city of origin, neighborhood of origin or block of origin—no one ever feels privileged.

I'm a runner, and the repetitive boredom of this hobby gives me a chance to think about privilege daily, in terms of the best metaphor I know:

When I'm running against the wind, I curse every gust. Occasionally, I'll turn for home and the goddamn wind will somehow still be in my face. And I'll be outraged at the God that made the glaciers that plowed this twisted frozen Chicago prairie by a lake.

You'd think that, running with the wind, I'd feel pushed along, and grateful for it. Nope. You know what it feels like to run with the wind? It feels like no wind at all. And no gratitude, either, because I'm still having to run, still getting tired, still sweating, still drooling snot out my nose and still bored out of my middle-aged mind.

If I ever wheezed into the back door bragging about the eight miles I just covered and my no-account wife said, "yeah, but the prevailing wind was at your back"—that meteorological observation would not be welcomed.

Privilege is real. But don't expect anybody to be grateful for it—or gracious to you, when you point it out.

Or as I said two years ago:

Let us be clear: There is white privilege, there is male privilege, there is class privilege.

But it's sociological term, not a psychological one.

It's for essays, not for communication.

And yes, I know: By so blithely saying so, I'm showing my privilege.