Digital Ink Los Angeles

Boxing has its pundits, but the truth is the sport — at its highest levels — is as pure an athletic competition as remains in the world. As a metaphor for life, the “Sweet Science” represents the universal truths — heart, courage, love, faith, desire, fear, pain, suffering, elation, and hate — in a squared circle, with two fighters engaged in a struggle. This is what Homer wrote epic poetry about.

Saturday, September 19, 2009, HBO Boxing presents Mayweather vs. Marquez. These are the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world — with many believing Marquez to have proved his pugilistic superiority in at least one of his two match-ups with current World Champion Manny Pacquiao.

Juan Manuel Márquez is the story of a Mexico City kid who grew up sharing a bedroom with eight brothers and sisters, fighting his way out of the rough streets of his barrio. The supernatural, outlier quality he possesses is his ability to sustain tremendous pain and punishment, yet still emerge with his victorious hands in the air. He trains in the mountains surrounding Mexico City, at an altitude above 11,000 feet, using rocks and boulders as his tools for building strength. He is Old School.

Floyd Joy “Money” Mayweather, Jr., was born into a boxing family. His father, Floyd, Sr., and his uncle, Roger, are both accomplished professional boxers and trainers. Floyd is one of the purest, technically sound boxers to ever lace up a pair of gloves. He brings athleticism, savvy, and blinding hand speed. He is New School.

Floyd has the skills to remain unbeaten, but many in the boxing world question his heart and his focus. Marquez, the smaller of the two fighters, is a hard-hitting, courageous man with a granite chin. Old School vs. New School. As Hemingway liked to say: Mano a Mano.

May the best boxer win. Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Willy Pep, Mike Tyson, and Max Baer would be proud.

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HBO‘s given the thumbs-up to writer-producer David Simon‘s new series, Treme’, which will begin its first season in the latter part of 2009. The storyline sticks closely to the musical roots of the New Orleans, with similar “urban-decay” elements to Chase’s The Wire series.

According to Wikipedia, “Treme’ (historically sometimes called Faubourg Tremé or Tremé/Lafitte when including the Lafitte Projects) is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A sub-district of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Esplanade Avenue to the north, North Rampart Street to the east, St. Louis Street to the south and North Broad Street to the west. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, and early in the city’s history was the main neighborhood of free people of color. It remains an important center of the city’s African-American and Créole culture, especially the modern brass band tradition. Parts of the Tremé neighborhood (particularly the area lakeside of Claiborne Avenue) have a crime problem.”

Home to the world famous slave-trading Congo Square, the Treme’ has always been the center of music in the Crescent City, with many French Quarter musicians hailing from its dilapidated homes and shady stoops. Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet were two of its more recognizable celebrities from the early Jazz Age. The neighborhood — as the center of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival’s Fairgrounds — is always bustling with energy and soulful sounds, but it’s also infamous for its late-night shenanigans and violent undercurrents.

With New Orleans’ renovation under full-steam, and a television show to lift its spirits, the spirit of the Big Easy is starting to return. Now, if only those Saints could get their act together and go marching in.

Where y’at?