What A Drag It Is...

Getting old. Then again...

“I don’t have the guts to be in this sport anymore.” So sayeth Mike Tyson. Not after losing his last fight. After he was pummeled into submission by Kevin McBride. Way back in 2005. 

At the tender young age of 58, Mr. Tyson squared off against Jake Paul – a 27-year-old YouTube sensation who knows the expression “never meet your heroes” doesn’t apply when $40m+ is on the table. 

For his part, the former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion added $20m+ to his bank account for throwing 97 punches in eight rounds, as compared to Mr. Paul’s 278 punches. Or the 30 to 50 punches per round Mr. Tyson unleashed in his prime.

Not to mention throwing the fight, which should have been billed as an exhibition, not a licensed boxing match.

Be that as it is, the lesson broadcast to 108 million viewers was the same one Clint Eastwood shared in Magnum Force: a man’s got to know his limitations.

Age being the main limitation all of us face. Leading to what people call “retirement.”

For those of us fueled by ADHD, trauma, low self-esteem, ambition and greed, that’s easier said than done. Even when someone with a lights-out left hook isn’t trying to murder you. Even when disgruntled naysayers aren’t yelling…

Get the hook! 

The phrase was born in Vaudeville, Whoville’s twin city. In the early 1900’s, the theatrical variety show format was wildly popular in the U.S., showcasing a cavalcade of comics, singers, magicians and dancers. Especially dancers. Risqué dancers.

For those of you who don’t know the difference between champignon Basquaise and championship boxing, dictionary.cambridge.org reliably informs us that risqué is the French word for something “slightly rude or shocking, especially because of being about sex.” 

Reliably but not elegantly.

I haven’t seen sentence construction that clunky since Chinese scammers tried to hook me on Plenty of Fish using ungrammatical love notes. A seductive skill set replaced by AI bots that love me long time.

I blame Cambridge University Press’s humans for their dictionary’s syntactical abomination.

While “because of being about” isn’t nearly as offensive as their crosstown rival’s Oxford comma, I reckon Cambridge’s lazy lexicographers failed to live up to their Uni’s motto Hinc lucem et pocula sacra.

According to Severus Snape, that translates to "From here, light and sacred draughts.” The word “draughts” because of being about beverages. No doubt alcoholic.

Then again, maybe draughts was originally pronounced “drafts,” referring to the castles inhabited by England’s landed gentry before Labour Party death duties robbed genetically-challenged aristocrats of the cash flow they needed to fuel cavernous fireplaces and install Everest double glazed windows and doors.

Or maybe “sacred draughts” because of being about the UK name for checkers. Although Google’s Gemini AI reckons “While some cultures may hold certain games in high regard, checkers itself does not have religious or sacred significance.”

Tell that to members of the Fédération Mondiale du Jeu de Dames. If nothing else, members of the international checkers association adhere to the sacred screed “There Ain’t Nothing Like a Dame.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Where was I?

During Vaudeville’s amateur nights, audiences felt free to vocalize their displeasure with a given act.

Responding to the crowd’s boos, catcalls and occasional airborne vegetable, promoters would yank the unpopular performer from the stage with a long pole with a hook at the end (originally designed to pull back the curtain). 

I don’t know if anyone was yelling GET THE HOOK! at the Tyson v. Paul fight. As far as I know, no one is yelling that quaint phrase at me. Not yet. But I see a curved pole in my peripheral vision, creeping in from stage left. 

This dread of forced exfiltration will come as no surprise to my fellow Baby Boomers. When you reach the age known as GOML (Get Off My Lawn), you gradually become aware that your social and financial capital is waning.

Yup, it’s waning men. Some more than others.

According to the Social Security Office, men who retire at age 62 have a 20 percent higher mortality rate than men who retire at an older age. How much older damn you!

At the tendentious age of 65, I often get the sneaking suspicion (a.k.a., an unwelcome reality check) that my best days are behind me, with death lying dead ahead (so to speak).

Given that I now have two motorcycles and a girlfriend, make that I feel that my most productive days are in the rear view mirrors. That I will never achieve the career heights, the relevance my middle age.

Fuck That Shit!

Yes, well, there are chronologically-challenged men, women and they them’s who take Dylan Thomas’ middle finger salute to Joe Black to heart.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,” the alcoholic Welshman advised his readers. “Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

This from a guy who didn’t make it to 40.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong. I’m not prone to violent outbursts of any kind, sort or description. Although I admit I’m plenty peeved that I can only turn off my condo’s kitchen light at the mains.

MPD FTW

For the record, I’m no more likely to hit the links to wile away the hours than I am to trade my Triumph [sic] for a mobility scooter, or shuffle off to shuffleboard. Or Buffalo.

What keeps me from retiring from the field of prattle? Curve balls.

By staying engaged, by trying new things with new people, weird unexpected shit keeps happening that keeps me on my proverbial and literal toes.

No, I’m not talking about herpes, although that late-in-the-fourth-quarter discovery taught me a valuable lesson. (Aqua was wrong. Life in plastic isn’t fantastic.)

I’m talking about taking on a client with Multiple Personality Disorder (not shown). A client with three personalities. An incurable condition. But not intractable.

I hypnotized her multiple personalities to work together as a team. A tribe. The result has been gratifying for all concerned, on all sorts of levels.

My quintupled client’s success taught me that acknowledging and accepting our disparate often conflicting fears and dreams is key to chilling the fuck out (to use the psychoanalytic term).

Know thyselves? The inscription on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece was that close!

Just as I’m close to closing this post with my final thought about the Tyson v. Paul fight. Which came to me via wrestler Eduardo Gory Guerrero Llanes (above). “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”

Make of that what you will.