Move like someone who never loses

Wednesday 6/25/25

I've noticed where people mention in their bio on social media something about bariatric surgery. Then they post before after photos of themselves, and repeatedly say things like, "I did that."

Did you? Or did you have a procedure done? When someone says, "I did that," in this context, I think of someone changing their diet, exercising, not drinking. The daily effort and dedication over a continuous period of time. It's important to be healthy. To be healthy for yourself and for your loved ones, so you can be there for you and for them. And I understand that someone who has that procedure may have to do work to get themselves to a place where they can have it done. But I wouldn't personally choose to speak or think this way.

We are so quick now to take credit for anything we can take credit for. Doesn't matter if it wasn't something we did or if it was something done by someone or something else.

Remember that press I mentioned regarding my Beatles book who only wanted to know--after insulting me several times over--how many followers I had on social media? I haven't gotten into the specifics yet--that will be its own entry in these pages. They would rather have me be someone who posts the following:

5 types of men you should avoid:

- Sneaky men.

- Cucked men.

- Male feminists.

- Unpredictable men.

- Men with vices they can’t control.

Learn life.

If I tell you that that's some typical idiot male with a chin strap beard, you won't be surprised. If I tell you he has thousands of followers, you won't be surprised. If I told you that's what he posts all day--and you can imagine his kernels of wisdom along those same lines--you won't be surprised.

This is how it works. How it is.

The person people should follow will have zero followers. The smartest person people should look to will have zero followers. That's the person to pay attention to. Everyone has it backwards.

Learn life indeed.

You want one more from this fellow?

Stay locked in. Because consistency creates presence. And presence builds aura. Move like someone who never loses. And that movement will create momentum. New YouTube video is out now. Watch it here in the comments:

But if he had a book that was trash? Well, then he could do some business.

Red Sox squandered another stellar Garrett Crochet start. Roman Anthony is hitting .114. He's also hitting second in the line-up. How long are you keeping him on the big league club? I marvel at how poor defensively so many of these alleged top prospects are. How are you a washout defensively already in your early twenties? You're not thirty-five and heavier and with bad knees. You were never good defensively.

I think the reasons are two-fold. Baseball isn't played anymore. Not as the sport that baseball was. It became less of a game, and more just a series of a few particular skill sets. The game is no longer baseball and everything that means, it's instead the singular practice of launch angle. The focus is on something like that. Not the entirety of baseball as a game. Additionally, there's this kind of after-the-fact belief that if you're athletic you can play the field, and that's enough. The techniques and fundamentals aren't learned.

I watch Jarren Duran, who is nearing thirty, and he has no clue how to play the outfield. He can't read a ball off the bat. His approach is to use his speed to race after the ball. He doesn't know where he is on the field. Last night he turned a routine foul fly ball into a harder play than it was. The dimwits posted it on social media, saying, "Wow, amazing play!" but it ought to have been routine. He's horrible at judging the ball and taking the right route. But he was a Gold Glove finalist last year? Come on. I can't be the only one who knows. Am I?

As for Duran: I'd trade this player this summer. You've seen the best of him. I think he drags down your club with his attitude, to say nothing of his slurs and whatever is going on there. Last season is still fresh enough in the minds of people who don't know better from them to think he's a star. And he could help the right team this year. But he's not someone that will help the Red Sox moving forward over the long term, and by long term I mean three or four years in this case.

The Walker Buehler signing has been a disaster. He gets pummeled every time out now it seems. Such a Red Sox type of signing, too.

The Celtics traded Porzingis. Needed to move on from him. He's a player who could have made such a difference for them with a high-low game. When he was on, he changed their spacing on the floor. The offense was more fluid. But the problem with Porzingis is that he's soft. This is no gamer, he's out muscled, bodied around. And while we're at this, I'd listen to what teams are willing to offer for Jaylen Brown. I think the league overrates him.

I hear all this talk that the Celtics should tank, etc. I thought Jaylen Brown wanted to be the guy? The sheriff, not the deputy? So if you had that guy, and you had Derrick White, and some other nice pieces, you can't win 50 games and be the third seat in the East minus Tatum? Haliburton won't be a factor, so the Pacers will slide down and maybe out out of the playoffs. And then, because he had his surgical procedure so soon, you could maybe get Tatum back...let's say...around game number 70. Couple weeks to try and ramp it up. You don't think it's on the table that that team could do something in the playoffs?

But despite what people think about Brown, it also seems like they don't think he's a guy who can be the guy. I'm just saying I'd be open. People do stupid things. Someone could give you something that helps set you up better moving forward and as far as the Celtics go, and winning another title, the Tatum injury may have a real silver lining to it. Because it lets you reset and reload, and I think the Celtics need that. They also have to change how they play. I'm doubtful that they will so long as Mazzulla is the coach and they worship at the altar of analytics. The thing I don't get about them doing this is that Brad Stevens is in charge. Right? He can't think this is the best way to play. A mandate could be issued from the top. It's not like Mazzulla could override that.

The heat was brutal yesterday. Oppressive. That air up in your face. Feels like it's coming at you. I did nothing. Normally I'd take weather like that as a challenge and would have been running stairs at City Hall, but I'm so focused right now on the Monument. I need to rack up as many circuits as I can if I'm going to meet this goal.

There's a strong chance the Monument is closed today. I can't be losing these days. I also can't not run stairs three days in a row, so if I walk to Charlestown and find the Monument closed, I'll just have to run the stairs outside. But the heat index could definitely be at 89 or higher by ten this morning.

Downloaded some George Hamilton IV and Connie Smith Bear Family box sets.

Watched 1950's D.O.A. for the first time in a while. The picture gets more intense as it goes along. It's quasi-humorous for a while there towards the start of the flashback. I don't know what they were thinking, though, with that slide whistle effect when Edmond O'Brien's character sees an attractive woman. Doesn't fit with the picture at all. In real life, O'Brien was quite the philanderer. Wouldn't stop having those affairs. But it's a very good film overall.

The sequence that begins with O'Brien's character in the car with the psychopath Chester--who is of course driving him somewhere to execute him--is really well done and viewers today would say that it's "modern"--that is, they'd be surprised that this scene could be slotted in some current fare and wouldn't seem old-timey. Especially as the scene comes to its climax in the drugstore (which is suggestive of the drugstore so central to Tension). The pharmacist throws a jar off of Chester's skull and a cop shoots him dead.

This was a great gambit for a film--the main character in effect having already been murdered but may also stay alive long enough to find his killer. As I watched the film, I thought about how this character knows he'll be dead any time now, but he still does things like closes doors. I don't know. It struck me. He apologizes. I'd say this hit me kind of hard, given where I'm at right now. As I think more and more about the end. Because I can't go on like this. But you're not gone until you're gone. You still close a door when you leave a room. If you bump into someone, you say you're sorry.

That's kind of a hell of a thought in an entry that is also talking about Celtics moves. But there it is.

Last night I lay in bed working on a new story in my head. It involves octopuses.

By the by: There's no shame in losing. Everyone loses from time to time. There's shame in not trying, not doing your best, not competing, denying others their fair chance to compete, trying to create an uneven playing field, and hating the better man because he can beat you. Acting like you're someone who never loses--or has never lost--just makes you an insecure fraud. In other words, a loser. But: Were I to post the likes of that, no one would like it. Because, again, this is the truth, it's not what everyone else says or could, and that's how things work at present.