BIG IDEAS

By now a little bit of everybody has a Mike Tyson in person story. My sister-in-law has one where he grabbed her butt, but I wasn’t an eyewitness. Here’s mine for whatever it’s worth.

So back in my Jesse Jackson press aide days, the boss gets a call from the show “A Different World” to do a guest appearance as a lecturer at the fictional Hillman College. We go to the set early so I can drill the Rev. on his lines, and who’s there hanging around the dressing rooms but the then recent champion, Mike Tyson.

I strike up a conversation with Kadeem Hardison and find out that Mike is a constant presence on the set, driving up in his Ferrari, asking everybody if they want a ride and letting people drive. Basically being not a complete pest, but an interesting and quizzical distraction, something I imagine happens in Hollywood a lot.

So inevitably Mike comes up to Jackson’s dressing room to talk to us and the guy is (drumroll) - brilliant. He starts talking about the boxing films he watches and is analyzing not just the fight skills but the mental acuity of every fighter he mentions - Patterson, Louis, Schmelling. It’s amazing, My jaw was open the whole time. He seemed like just the big overgrown kid in a first grade classroom who just needed a friend.

Then Jesse hit him up for money, and I tuned out after that…  So much for my story.