Sunshine and Olly

by Jonathan Blaustein

Thanks, everyone!

I was pretty honest yesterday, and asked for what I wanted.

I hoped for digital connection, and you delivered.

Lots of love came my way.

Truly, I appreciate it.

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Among the most powerful messages to arrive, via multiple digital platforms, were people sharing their own cancer experiences.

All of which were more serious than mine.

As I wrote yesterday, what I had is supposed to be mild, and treatable. (A carcinoma.)

My particular misery came from misdiagnosis.

So many people out there are dealing with life-changing, super-scary, cancer shit.

It’s an honor to use this platform to give more exposure to the issue, because it opens opportunities to offer empathy and kindness to others in our community.

A big win all around.

So let’s hope all of you facing major surgeries, or bouts of radiation or chemo, come through swiftly and well.

We at Sunshine and Olly are here for you.

That said, I ended yesterday’s post by (mostly) promising a photography column today.

So let’s get to it.

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About a year ago, I conducted a live email interview with Lori Grinker, a photographer in New York.

I’d recently tried out the process with Dana Stirling, and it worked perfectly.

I’d ask Dana something, she’d write back, I’d ask again, and so on.

The whole thing probably took 20 minutes.

With Lori, though, it just didn’t come together.

Call it Mercury in Retrograde, but while I ended up with passable text, (it wasn’t a complete fail,) at the time, it just didn’t read well enough to me.

Probably it was burnout, as that was more or less the end of writing about photography for a year.

Sorry, Lori, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just didn’t vibe with the material we created.

But I promised you when Sunshine and Olly began that I’d review your book, and here we are.

It’s perfect for today, as it features a trove of terrific images of one of the most famous men in the world:

Mike Tyson.

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The book is called “MIKE TYSON,” and there was a show at Clamp in NYC as well.

Still, had I run with this last April, it would have been cool.

Mike Tyson.

But in the year since, he’s back to being MIKE TYSON.

Why, you ask?

Money.

First, from the Saudis, and then from Netflix.

To begin with, Mike was paid by the Saudis to promote the major crossover fight between former UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou, and Superstar boxing champ Tyson Fury.

It was held in Riyadh last year.

Tyson was seemingly an important Ngannou trainer, and everywhere on IG and TikTok, but then it came out he was doing high-level spon-con as much as anything.

(They say he was also a mentor.)

Mike looked great, and is as charismatic as ever, but in this new age of supplements and growth hormones, he also seemed like a dangerous tank of a man, even at 57.

Like he could still take off a head with a patented power hook.

Somewhere, the idea planted a seed.

And that seed became the new Netflix summer mega fight with Jake Paul.

(Netflix’s first foray into live exhibition sports, after they also bought the rights to broadcast WWE.)

Because make no mistake.

It will be an exhibition.

No way the Paul money machine takes a risk.

And all fight-game people know there’s no getting over the 30 year age gap.

But Tyson’s so strong, and skilled, he won’t take any damage.

We’ll see lots of clinches, a Philly shells. (Defense.)

Like what Floyd Mayweather did against the other Paul brother.

And everyone, everywhere, will watch.

Because he’s MIKE TYSON again. Like he was when Lori Grinker made these photographs for 10 years, capturing his rise and fall.

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It began in 1981 when Mike was 14, living in the Catskills with Cus D’Amato and his partner Camille.

Mike had been a local tough in Brownsville, but up there, they helped get him on track.

He was so big and strong, no one believed he was his actual age.

According to Cus, and as history has since proven, Mike is also very smart.

Especially about boxing.

A savant, like LeBron James is in basketball.

And seeing it all play out in so many photographs, an inside seat on the private jet?

It makes for an incredible book.

I was a boxing fan at the time, and saw Mike Tyson live in Atlantic City.

He was a phenomenon of and about the 80’s, back then, and the book gives it to us.

(That he’s now a 2024 version of a super-star is to his credit.)

But the book goes beyond style, and breadth.

We see a lot of Tyson, but the most personal shots in the book are just amazing.

Anyone will have favorites, but to me, seeing him miserable in the dentist chair, and then in the HBO green room holding cake, after getting his ass kicked by Buster Douglas…

…just the perfect connection between photographer, subject, and a moment in time.

Great job, Lori!

Sorry the interview didn’t work out, but thank you so much for sending the book along.

It’s a piece of American cultural history, for sure.