|
The America at Night
Files
|
Audio File: Richard Hirschfeld, Telephonically
Impersonating Muhammad Ali, Pledges to Help George Bush
in Presidential Campaign
I know Muhammad Ali very well. I've spent hours, days,
nights, weeks, months, talking with him in all sorts of
conditions. I know what his voice sounds like when he
is wide awake and when he is sleepy, when he has taken
his medicine and when he hasn't. And I know how he answers
the phone. So when I first heard Dave Kindred's audio
tape of what he told me was Richard Hirschfeld impersonating
Ali throughout a 1988 telephone conversation with Kindred,
I was shocked. I heard a phone ringing and ringing, and
someone finally answering, whispery soft, in words made
out of high tones and low tones, almost nothing in the
midrange—only the hiss of air rushing across his
vocal cords—and my first impression was that Kindred
was wrong, and it actually was Ali speaking on the tape.
But after a while I realized that it wasn’t Ali,
though it was far and away the best Ali impression I’d
ever heard. By the date of the conversation with Kindred,
Hirschfeld had had dozens of hours of practice telephonically
masquerading as Ali, calling senators, calling Vice President
Bush, even leaving a message for President Reagan, while
working his con. Hirschfeld had the voice down. The entire
conversation runs for thirty-nine minutes, and my copy
of the audio file is of poor quality. Below, you can listen
to the first six minutes and forty-four seconds of the
conversation. Because of file size constraints, I've cut
the conversation off just after Hirschfeld asks, "What
about the presidential thing? Are you gonna be involved
in that too?" Hirschfeld, as Ali, says "Yes,
I am." Kindred says, "In what way?" In
the voice of Ali, Hirschfeld responds: "Well, it’s,
it’s, I told George Bush if he needed me I’ll
be there. I’m gonna help him." When I heard
Hirschfeld speak these words—after discovering that
Hirschfeld was in the middle of a merger between a company
chaired by John Kerry's campaign treasurer and a Muslim
Turk who was the target of a major government counterterrorism
investigation—my blood ran cold. |
|
|
click below to play MP3 file
|
|
|
|
