Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

'Rag BY MIKE CHIBBARO At first glance, it*s hard to feel sorry for a man like Jake La Motta. As a teenager growing up in the Bronx, La Motta was nothing more than a street . jBL- N 'ah Jg. Woody hazard Bv DAV Like cigarette packages, th "Side Effects" should be reqi people that the contents may 1 No one will get cancer from of humor, most of which was ( Yorker and The New Repub one's sides, bust one's gut or fi Depending on one's taste, 01 and each of the 16 contains en entire day. ARGUABLY, THE most hi is a biting piece of satire c contains several bogus descr by eccentric characters acros One such sighting goes as beach house, but could not chicken in the icebox that I f wife dropped off, and tiptoec looking at the clock. It was f certain of this, because our V twenty-one years and is alw; that our dog, Judas, was actir his hind legs and singing. 'I e room turned bright orange. , A boo ^Un|| ingE punk. He survived off of nickel and dime larcenies and defended his honor and turf with an ice Dick given to him by his father. Around the age of 17, La Motta viciously beat up an elderly I t #* j^^^HJ^HH^HIHLr ^ Allen's' ous to re ID BAKER ie dust jacket of Woody Allen's lired to feature a label warning >e hazardous to their health. reading Allen's third collection )riginally published in The New ilir hut nnn r?milH pacilv cr?lif racture one's ribs laughing, le story is funnier than the next ough funny lines to brighten an larious story in "Side Effects" ailed "The UFO Menace." It iptions of UFO sightings made s the country. follows: "I was in bed at my sleep because of some fried nit pntifloH tr? I wroito/1 'till ?>->?. v.1% viivivivu iv. * ttuilv^u 1111 11 ft y i into the kitchen. I remember >recisely four-fifteen. I'm quite kitchen clock has not worked in lys at that time. I also noticed lg funny. He was standing up on njoy being a girl.' Suddenly the kt first, I thought my wife had k 'Spil \ i;l by riiuid liorcli^i'Hvc C 1 ibcrt Moss lull' ] man with an iron pipe. as a professional boxer, La Motta purposely lost a fight for the mob in order to get a chance at the title. In his novel, he confesses to beating his wife and raping his best friend's girlfriend. After retiring from fighting, he opened a bar in Miami where he was later convicted for soliciting prostitution. DESPITE A BACKGROUND that would make only Satan proud, La Motta is able to reveal his life story in a sincere and honest manner which leaves the reader actually feeling sorry for the Raging Bull ? Jake La Motta. "The Raging Bull," the book on which United Artist's recent movie was based, is the autobiography of one of boxing's most notorious champions. Unlike the movie, the book tells the former middleweight champion'scomph story. From the book's * -tset, La Motta is obviously trying to explain some of the mysteries surrounding his scandalous life. He's not necessarily looking for sympathy, rather, he is Side Eff jaders' t caught me f iting between m< Then I looked out my window, a gigantic cigar-shaped aire ireetops in the yard and emi transfixed for what must hav our clock still read four-fifte Finally, a large, mechanical el and snatched the two pieces < nuioklv rptrpatoH " Allen concludes the tale: " accelerating at great speed, > reported the incident to the Air I had seen was a flock of bin Quincy Bascomb personally would return the two pieces o only received one piece." In addition to UFOs and sij include absent-minded prof* Abraham Lincoln and P'ren sterling jab is unforgettable, a: "SIDE EFFECTS" more t volvement in last fall's disapp< Memories," which provided e\ rapidly burning out. "Side Eff was only a momentary setba master of humor. ked' "w 3Y MARK PLATTE Because of its very nature, "The Spike," a fictionalized account of Soviet espionage in the United States, is not to be taken that seriouslv Rut it is so well-written that the book takes on an air of alarming truthfulness. We are told of the separate lives of first, Robert Hockney, a radieal, left-wing Berkeley graduate who turns journalist after exposing eovert Central Intelligence Agency action in France, resulting in the suicide of the head of the French news agency. Cnnnr.^1.. tU, *?r - I ucv-uiiuiy, llltTC IS IVllCniit'l Henard, an employee of the suicide victim, who is l>eing manipulated by Soviet intelligence in exchange for money. The manipulator, Viktor Barisov, a KGB agent is heading a plot to alter all Western news agencies into tiard attempting to show the world he is not the crazed animal the media frequently made him out to be. His story begins in the poverty-ridden tenements of the Bronx, where, as the son of an Italian immigrant. La Motta fought for his existence in an often cruel and prejudiced world called America. In this ghetto La Motta developed his "survival-of-the-fittest" value system. IN THE FIRST chapter, La Motta relays a story that epitomizes his youth. He tells of a time when he complained to his mother that some other boy had stolen a sandwich from him at school. When La Motta's father heard this, he slapped young Jake in the face and handed him an ice pick. The elder La Motta said to his son, "You don't run from anybody no nore! I don't give a damn how many there are. Use that (ice pick) and dig a few of them. Hit 'em with it, hit 'em first and hit 'em hard." La Motta said the phrase, "hit 'em first and hit 'em hard," stayed with him all ects' Lealth *als and set fire to the house, where to my amazement I saw :raft hovering just over the tting an orange glow. I stood e been several hours, though en, so it was difficult to tell, law extended from the aircraft )f chicken from my hand and The machine then rose and, /anished into the sky. When I Force, they told me that what ds. When I protested, Colonel promised that the Air Force f chicken. To this day, I have ?hters thereof, Allen's targets issors, graduation speeches, ch murder mysteries. Each s is the book as a whole. han makes up for Allen's inminting comedy film, "Stardust /idence that Allen's genius was ects" proves that "Memories" ck in the career of America's itii tr Soviet thinking. T11E LIVES OF these men spill into a wild 10-year tale, which finally leads to the infiltration of Soviet agents into U.S. politics. Hockney is the first to discover the predicament, but he is discarded as a maniacal liberal from his college days of demonstrations and attacks on the CIA. The book begins slowly, with different names and locations coming into play throughout the painstaking 200-page introduction. But once the action begins, the description borders on brilliance and stunning surprises become commonplace. Tho illlthnrc fnrnirtn a ttv MUVIIV/I O , lUi V/I^ll correspondents Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss, have woven a very credible story into events which have shaped U.S. politics, such as Watergate -hitt: his life and became a motivational key in his boxing career. He said this particular advice was the only good thing his father ever gave him. me door is not only an account of La Motta's complex life, but it is also an indictment on the professional boxing world. La Motta justifies intentionally losing a professional fight, explaining that the loss was the only way he would ever get a shot at a title bout. After reading La Motta's explanation, it is hard to blame him for fixing the fight. La Motta develops a guilt motif in his autobiography. He tells of his savage past with an obvious inflection of regret and guilt. It is this sense of guilt which seems to mysteriously loom over his life. AS A YOUNGSTER in the Bronx, La Motta mugged an elderly bookie named Harry Gordon. The newspapers incorrectly reported that Gordon had died from the wounas mulctedBy an jnknown assailant. Throughout the book, La pi.g?^aBy >& . *^^Mk fl[ > x ^^^Hv *"* ' mmm u Woody utlifu and the Iranian conflict, with Kn^K ?^nn 1 " M n -4-4 uum icdi ctllll llCllllOUS characters to create a keen insight into a frightening situation. However, their use of a great many characters has taken some personality out of the important ones, such as Hockney. We never really feel the young journalist experiencing any emotion. Instead, he leads an unbelievably successful life with rewards falling into place easily and quickly. Hockney does face some crisis, but the Berkeley graduate continues, undaunted, like a glorified James Bond in the newspaper business. TO TIIEIK CREDIT, the authors bring so many elements into the novel that it's hard to believe they are able to tie them together into a scorching climax. There's ing Moota relays a deep sense of guilt for this brutal attack. Several years later, on the night in which La Motta won the middleweight championship in 1949, Harry Gordon showed up at La Motta's victory party. On what should have been the happiest night of La Motta's life, the champ is overcome with guilt. Upon seeing Gordon, La Motta reflected, "Here was the greatest night of my life and all I could think about was all the wrong things with my life. I could see myself on the street in the Bronx froilinrf aM uaiuiig U1U liailjr as IlC was going home, hitting him with the pipe, pushing him into the vacant lot, hitting him again, taking his wallet and running off...I've just won the title, Harry Gordon is alive so there ain't no murder wrap against me, there never was one. Shouldn't I be happy, out there drinking and having a good time? Instead of which I was wracked with all this." "Raging Bull" is the story of a real fighter. Today,he's still lighting ? lighting for forgiveness. - ?/M^^RNHRH 4^P '|H3 HilB^ilytf ^^^r~^t^/tryC-^?^-':?y-^Hf ilif SBBBhhrsb ^ Allen lness nothing in the book that suggests any type of political action being ridiculous because the political situation is so life-like. "The Spike," the term for a newspaper story not printed, centers around Hockney's search for the truth from 1967 and the unwillingness of his editors, political friends and family to believe the damaging news he had unearthed. The book takes Hockney from California, to New York, Vietnam, Paris, Home, London, Geneva, Washington, and ultimately, back to New York and Washington where the facts that are bared make the Watergate scandal seem trivial. Although the story sometimes borders on the incredulous, it is worthwhile reading and extremely vibrant in its main point.