John McEnroe versus Serena Williams...

[bottle]

Maybe if you guys had gone to one of the Ivy League colleges you so love to despise you would have learned to criticize, but to do so on substance not surface.

[bottle]

Give me an epic any time over a haiku.

[bottle]

stroke, do you know anything about success and failure? About success, what? About failure, what?

I am not aware that you have given us any information on those two scores.

And yet, every time we read anything by anyone, we need to assess the credibility of that author lest we undully dismiss him.

[don_budge]

Smile and the world smiles with you...

Bottle, what a epic loser, if Tomic were on this message board, I think he would have his own thread with a snappy name like A New Years something.

Yes...what exactly is an epic loser? Well it is certainly a person who doesn't learn from their mistakes. A person who is doomed by repeating the self defeating behavior. Most people try to duplicate the rituals that lead to success...but the psychopathic loser is one who does the opposite. The comparison with Tomic is an interesting one. Poor pitiful Bernard. The victim.

Wasn't it the very same Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the very same novel who wrote through one of his characters..."the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has aquired during the first half". Change. Adapt. Get a new game plan...you are running out of time.

Somebody's horse lost the big race. What to do? Continue to moan and groan to the point where you alienate everyone around you? Know your readers he once said. But can't you see that all of the reader's have been alienated...to say nothing of the good woman. You find yourself in dire straits and all you can think of is to blame some fictional character named don_budge and the current President of the United States of America. Your only goal in life is to be an antagonist to two beings that have nothing to do with your day to day existence? What's wrong with this picture?

I haven't directly responded to any of the insults for the past six months. Why bother...there is no end to it. Why sink to the level of your opposition? My strategy...passive aggressive. The silent treatment. Let the enemy destroy himself. He seems to be doing a very good job of it and I haven't lifted a finger in this regard. Certainly my karma is divorced from his. I won't take any responsibility for his demise. Whether he pulls himself together is none of my business nor my concern. Because of the hostility. The anger. The bigotry.

Look inward for the root cause of your own problems. Perhaps it is "The Devils" that have manifested themselves in your soul. The Possessed...he called it. The anger is uncalled for. Especially in public domains. It shows a lack of regard for one's own self image. A detachment from reality. Lack of perspective.

Smile and the world smiles with you...cry and you cry alone. Grow up. Grow a pair. Just Tango on.

[bottle]

Barf!

You can be so fatuous, don_budge. And pompous. And stupid. And humorless!

[bottle]

Think I'll add the word "unsophisticated" to # 35. And I'm sure there will be other words later-- wouldn't want to tie my hands. But what is this crap about me being a failure? Says who? And on what evidence. It it's true, I certainly need to know about it. But I don't think anyone has made a convincing case. I think it's all just Trumpian blather as usual, from dwarves, who are tiny little people and pretty ugly too.

[bottle]

Smile and the world smiles with you...
Smile and the world smiles with you...cry and you cry alone.

So we should live by cliches? Besides, Jimmy Durante had too big a nose. Or was it Nick Bollettieri who sang that?
(Watch out-- here come the Latins. They're gathering up chewing gum and forming phalanxes right now.)

[bottle]

Smile and the world smiles with you...
Yes...what exactly is an epic loser? Well it is certainly a person who doesn't learn from their mistakes.
WHAT MISTAKES? IDENTIFY THEM OR FOREVER SHUDDUP. (I am a professional writing coach so I can say that. But if I am the fictional projection of Donald Trump I prefer innuendo to identification of anything.)

"the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has aquired during the first half". Change. Adapt. (SURE. Start by putting a c before the q in "aquired." AND DON'T PUT DOWN A QUOTE JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE USED IT BEFORE. There needs to be a good reason, a new reason. Unless you mean I was quick into the water in the first half of my life so should be quick into the water now. You've so diminished my love for Dostoyevsky. I didn't think anybody could do that.)

Somebody's horse lost the big race. (Me? Are you kidding? I challenge that.) What to do? Continue to moan and groan to the point where you alienate everyone around you? (I'm not doing that. I have informed a few people about what has happened in my life). Know your readers he once said. But can't you see that all of the reader's (sp x-- no apostrophe) have been alienated (...nice try at a Trumpian lie) to say nothing of the good woman (Hope and I are close friends). You find yourself in dire straits (dire because I live in a black neighborhood? James Baldwin said: "Some day white people are going to wake up and realize that there aren't enough black people to go around." My black neighbors are polite and considerate and funny and I can't say enough about them.)

and all you can think of is to blame some fictional character named don_budge and the current President of the United States of America. (Hmm. Very interesting. A fictional character. Two fictional characters, I'd say. Now I know you didn't vote, but if you had, it would have been for Hillary Clinton, right? THAT is what it would mean to create a fictional character. No, don_budge is too close to home. But if you insist, I won't argue. A big part of your life is a lie.)

Your only goal in life is to be an antagonist to two beings that have nothing to do with your day to day existence? (It's amazing what people come up with after they have internalized the current political scene. Don't you realize, sir, that we spar every day? And that if I wanted to be a substitute teacher although I don't it would be in a Betsy DeVos charter school where the regular teachers don't want to show up?)

I haven't directly responded to any of the insults for the past six months.

(But would you know the difference between insult and criticism any more than Trump would? I don't think you take criticism well or at all.)

Why bother...there is no end to it. (Because I won't buckle, eyes glazed over, the only thing you really think you can count on?)

Why sink (rise) to the level of your opposition? My strategy...passive aggressive. (Maybe you can apply this to toilet training.) The silent treatment. (Oh yeah, very silent-- been to a Burger King in Sweden lately?) Let the enemy destroy himself. He seems to be doing a very good job of it...(What arrogance. The score could be 6-0, 6-0 and you would say you won. Just like Donald Trump. You've created an o so ugly character there in the political section of don_budge. Next time you create a fictional character could you make him more interesting?)

Certainly my karma is divorced from his. (Can you decide that? Did we instruct the two separate teaching pros to contact us for the balance they saw in our writing abilities?) I won't take any responsibility for his demise. (Nobody's asking you to.)

(But I think I will nevertheless blame you for something now, for draining psychic energy which I need. So I'll group you with Hope's psychologist friend Pam-- who without knowing enough advised Hope-- and thank you all three for reducing my life expectancy. Because you certainly do your best to make life suck.)

Whether he pulls himself together is none of my business nor my concern. Because of the hostility. The anger. The bigotry. (Hostility and anger are the only response appropriate to you and Trump. Bigotry? Oh, save me. The false equivalency meme again and again and so tiresome. If it quacks like a bigot it's don_budge.)

Look inward for the root cause of your own problems. (Are you going to write a self-help column? Make sure to touch on etiquette and always be as trite as possible and use the word "disgraceful" a lot like Emily Post Fruitcake Trump.)... The anger is uncalled for. Especially in public domains. (The anger is called for. And the more public the domain the better.)

Tango on. (Your one good idea.):

[bottle]

My Former Doubles Partner, Whom Now I'm Going To Learn From

“I never cared what anybody wrote about me,” Hepburn said, “as long as it wasn’t the truth.

“Life’s tough for everybody, and that’s why most people become its victims...The natural law is to settle. I broke that law.”

[bottle]

For some reason I have in my files a letter written on behalf of Steve Navarro by Steve's tennis student Gustav Adolfsson

From its last paragraph: "In conclusion I can only say that Steve has just all what you can expect from a tennis coach and I have not met many people who are so helpful and sympathetic as Steve. Sure, he has good ideas and way of looking at things, but more than that we have worked wonderfully well together, and he has asked me on several occasions when things have not been easy, "Have I ever led you on the wrong track ...? Agree completely. No, he has not led me wrong. But at times I have wished that I had him as a coach a few years earlier ..."

To me this is the real Steve, not the fictional don_budge writing on behalf of that other quacker Donald Trump.

[bottle]

Bottle, what a epic loser, if Tomic were on this message board, I think he would have his own thread with a snappy name like A New Years something.

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a pipsqueak!

[bottle]

"He then tried the trick on Mrs. Bolton, on Linley, the pit-manager, on the engineer-- on anybody who had come near him. Silently putting them down and robbing them of their own life. He would ring for Mrs. Bolton: then when she came, ignore her presence entirely."

from JOHN THOMAS AND LADY JANE by D.H. Lawrence

[stroke]

Smile and the world smiles with you...



Yes...what exactly is an epic loser? Well it is certainly a person who doesn't learn from their mistakes. A person who is doomed by repeating the self defeating behavior. Most people try to duplicate the rituals that lead to success...but the psychopathic loser is one who does the opposite. The comparison with Tomic is an interesting one. Poor pitiful Bernard. The victim.

Wasn't it the very same Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the very same novel who wrote through one of his characters..."the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has aquired during the first half". Change. Adapt. Get a new game plan...you are running out of time.

Somebody's horse lost the big race. What to do? Continue to moan and groan to the point where you alienate everyone around you? Know your readers he once said. But can't you see that all of the reader's have been alienated...to say nothing of the good woman. You find yourself in dire straits and all you can think of is to blame some fictional character named don_budge and the current President of the United States of America. Your only goal in life is to be an antagonist to two beings that have nothing to do with your day to day existence? What's wrong with this picture?

I haven't directly responded to any of the insults for the past six months. Why bother...there is no end to it. Why sink to the level of your opposition? My strategy...passive aggressive. The silent treatment. Let the enemy destroy himself. He seems to be doing a very good job of it and I haven't lifted a finger in this regard. Certainly my karma is divorced from his. I won't take any responsibility for his demise. Whether he pulls himself together is none of my business nor my concern. Because of the hostility. The anger. The bigotry.

Look inward for the root cause of your own problems. Perhaps it is "The Devils" that have manifested themselves in your soul. The Possessed...he called it. The anger is uncalled for. Especially in public domains. It shows a lack of regard for one's own self image. A detachment from reality. Lack of perspective.

Smile and the world smiles with you...cry and you cry alone. Grow up. Grow a pair. Just Tango on.

too good, particularly the Tomic insight

[bottle]

Both don_budge's wife and mine thought don_budge and I should just avoid one another (there's fiction in there somewhere).

But neither read everything we wrote and knew the score.

Understand this please, reader. Out of conviction, I don't ignore, I react. I call a pipsqueak a pipsqueak, a troglodyte a troglodyte, and a Hitlerjugend a Hitlerjugend. And know that rich boy Dostoyevsky's characterization in wealth concentrated 19th century Russia of idealists as "rabble," a word just dripping with venom, is one of the weaker moments in all of his fiction.

If that judgment, mindlessly repeated over and over by don_budge as if it is the Nicene Creed, is the ultimate in human contempt and the sockdolager of all putdown, as he thinks, be it known that my contempt for the behavior described in post # 42, and earlier in this thread and in others where the name of Serena Williams has ever come up, far exceeds it.

That behavior is the ultimate in human slime, the lowest of the low, far worse than somebody described as "rabble" because he would like to improve the world. No one should want to be like the man described in that paragraph by D.H. Lawrence.

I prefer that people be upfront and say what they think and not gloss over stuff and play mind games. And make a real effort not to be bigots. And let stuff go more as I now shall try to do (except when the subjects that always must be addressed come up).

[bottle]

Smile and the world smiles with you...

This post is dedicated to Pippy the Dwarf as well as to the fictional character don_budge, a non-real person who believes at most 10 per cent of anything he says. 10splayer is different because he is funny-- well, sometimes.

I'm perpetually grinning at the inanity of don_budge's continued take on current affairs. So why isn't the whole world grinning with me?

Because Donald Trump more than ever frightens it. And the fictional don_budge, the closest thing we have to Donald Trump himself here at TennisPlayer, similarly churlish and thin-skinned, is constantly spinning, nice in tennis but horrid in real life.