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The Real GOOD Loser, A Story That Could…
Chapter Twenty-Five: Finale Part One of Three: Mind-Blowing
“To believe in yourself, to believe in one another…that’s fundamental to being alive.”
—from the show Ted Lasso; episode titled Signs
The date today is Tuesday, February 22nd, 2050…. I am the Boy Who Lived.
Another explosive crack of thunder disrupts the sound of trumpets. This storm was unexpected but it’s a good one. What my wife is doing with trumpets in her performance tonight I don’t know, but the sound of them now makes me think finding a quiet place to take a quick nap might be tad bit delusional of me.
The camera people scattered about liven up this house even more. That’s on me though as it was my idea to invite them in here…
“In a world only sprinkled with truth, it’s about time we discover what’s real. Let’s open that gate and see what’s really going on in there…Why not?”
That’s how we pitched the idea I stole from Pras that first year. It was just supposed to be a gimmick to get people talking. But then it happened for real and once something happens for real people get used to it. The fact I’m still dealing with it now is a gentle reminder that I’ve been in this house for far too long.
Turning a corner, I waive at a few friends behind their desks, walking down the hall away from them the meeting room on my left is full of those who have come inside to escape the storm, taking a quick right, I avoid them by cutting through the empty dining room and head towards my small office.
I call this small office my Think Tank. It’s where I go to read or get some writing done. My intention for this room today however is to use it for this all-important nap of mine.
Approaching the door, I see Katelyn vacuuming inside. She’s a member of the staff and will insist on leaving if I enter. Pretending to look busy I walk with faked purpose past the door and feel her eyes follow me as I do. She’s always looking at people like they’re up to no good; a predisposition of character that at this moment might be warranted.
Thrown off by this change in destination, I stop in this short hallway to think of where I might go take this nap. A picture on the wall steals my attention. Taken at my twins’ high school graduation, me and Dwayne Johnson stand together with a large group surrounding us: The Master Strategist and The Sledgehammer that stole everyone’s attention—Who would have ever imagined it?
“Hope is the best medicine of all.”
The quote engraved on a golden plaque below this picture is something I told myself even when I couldn’t believe it was true. Even when I thought this thing called hope might kill me. Looking at this photo now—with a heart full of it—I’m grateful I was right to believe.
It all seemed like a joke at first. When it all suddenly became a possibility those that fought against us the hardest gave themselves a nickname: The Bully Rabbits. “He lied and deceived and tricked us into listening to him!” they shouted. Eventually we cuddled them into submission of course. In time even they proved no match for The Rock.
Reflecting on everything that has happened is Mind-Blowing.
At this graduation Dwayne introduced me as The People’s Secret Agent. “One like the many come to investigate the few and lay the smackdown,” he said in true wrestler fashion. “So that we—THE PEOPLE—might together believe something again…. If you smell what the rock is cooking!”
A smile grows on my face remembering this now. In this photo everyone is trying to imitate that eyebrow lift Dwayne’s wrestler character used to do. My eyes focus on Kevin Heart; atop Dwayne’s shoulders he’s doing his best not to laugh. Hearing those trumpets again, I place both hands on my hips to stretch.
I’ve since been to places I never knew existed and continue to discover things in this world I still struggle to understand today. I’ve been exposed to some pretty cool advances in medicine, but nothing has much helped with this troublesome back of mine. I tell my wife these joints were overused a long time ago when she teases me.
Taking a deep breath, the smell of this historic home has me attempting to piece together the journey that brought me here….
That 2024 election made something like this inevitable I think. Optimists who had hoped that election would mark the low point for American society were in for a rude awakening then. With everyone talking in the years leading up to that election I had my head down preparing for the day I might have the chance to say a few things myself.
“A President’s job today is not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it.”
I read that in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy while I was doing my best to be patient. Released in the late 1970’s it supported my belief that we Americans had long been conditioned to believe each of us were some Enemy Of The State. The title of a movie released in the year 2000 was just one of the many pieces of entertainment I pointed to that planted the seed.
“How do you take advantage of a vulnerable population?” I asked the readers and listeners of the story that would give me a platform to be heard. “It’s obvious: You condition resentments and feed fears: make people hate everyone and everything…DER!”
I was watching the show Shameless when Frank Gallagher said something that had me writing that back then. That show had us Americans literally laughing at how messed up our reality had become. In my story I referenced newer shows and movies that people could maybe relate to. But the seeds dividing us had been planted into our entertainment from the very beginning.
The answers were in my story. I tried not shoving them in peoples’ faces though. I wanted people to find them…like I had to.
The book 1984 was released in the year 1949 and talked of an intrusive government narrowing the aim of thought and destroying the power of words by the year 2050. “Being a minority of one did not make you mad or insane.” Words in that book both comforted and taunted me. Many fears envisioned in that book I could relate to—like what it said about the distraction of gambling on the masses—but many others were incorrect in my opinion.
“Government manages a country but no longer leads it,” I finally said when given the chance to speak. “Our behavior is being studied as consumers, not enemies of the state anymore——like these books and movies and shows continue to tell us. Those running political PAC’s and those with money are in charge now. Our paranoid and scattered and hate-filled minds are being exploited…Not for control, but for profit.”
Writing my story, I needed to be confident in my opinions. And I was. I just wasn’t confident people would ever hear them or agree with them.
“History will have us all looking back at what is happening now with some level of shame.”
My mind remembers the day Donald Trump was shot in the ear during a July rally leading up to that 2024 election. Me and some friends were playing cards above the garage at my parent’s house when I used this carefully constructed line about us all looking back at what was happening with some level of shame. I said that believing it would be un-disagreeable and was once again proven wrong.
My good friend Spence took offense to my words that day. He was excited to see what Mr. Trump would do to get our country back on track and would never be ashamed. Trying to ease tensions around the poker table that day I said something about us all just fighting over money: “You’re never gonna change that,” my friend replied in that moment.
The not-really-United States had become a place where the only thing someone like me could count on then was disagreement—which was exactly how they wanted us I thought. I was working on putting the finishing touches to my story together then. Comments like my friend’s made me feel crazy and delusional for believing I might be able to makes things just a little bit better.
Fortunately, time would prove that crazy and delusional, mixed with a heavy dose of passion, patience, and persistence, can change the world—Who would have ever imagined it?
That 2024 election and everything that happened before and after had to happen I think. People like to feel a part of something; even if that something only serves as a place to aim a person’s anger temporarily. Like schoolyard children, we often need to fight and see things not get better to try something different. Sometimes we have to fight over and over before we learn our lesson. Sometimes we never do. Luckily…most of us finally did.
We were drowning in conspiracy theories, misinformation, disinformation, scams, and what we called “clickbait” back then. It was a truly exhausting time to be alive. It was the fear mongering that eventually broke the damn though. My mind remembers that semi-fictional documentary titled The Misery Index for some reason…
That film brought viewers through a predicted future where many of the predictions were considered fact at the time. Predicting “job scarcity” by the year 2030, that film claimed the 2020 Covid Pandemic was used to investigate U.B.I.—Universal Basic Income—as Governments across the world needed to find the best way to stimulate a global economy that depended on constant spending and infinite growth.
Presented as a “Semi-Fictional Documentary” that film showed revenue on gambling websites skyrocketing when stimulus payments were given during that Covid pandemic: “Would people use U.B.I. to support their families?” —It’s narrator mockingly asked its viewers— “Or would people waste that money on the endless pursuit of…more…free…money?”
Most of us knew the game being played on us with entertainment like that by then but the film was super entertaining and so we all still watched it. And so, it still made its money and sufficiently scared us at the same time. It had the doubling effect of having many of us finally deciding enough is enough though. What we were seeing on the news everyday might have had more to do with that. That you couldn’t make up if you tried—or could you?
“It’s darkest before the dawn.”
So many awful things happened in real life that seemed like something that could only happen on a screen once. This line about it being darkest before the dawn sounded like a b.s. line to some fairytale back then. But perhaps we had finally seen enough bad? … Perhaps The Universe was preparing us to finally be capable of believing something good? — Maybe it did all happen for a reason?
Had people listened to me earlier, maybe I could have prevented some of the ugliness of that time, but everyone knows you can’t change history. Thankfully you can most definitely change the future though…
“Hello Leominsterites Unite,” I wrote on my town’s Facebook page on September 11th, 2024, “I think to have written a story that will change the world and need some hometown friends to read it to see if I’m crazy or not. As people that might know me, I suggest reading the epilogue first. It doubles as a Query Letter to literary agents explaining what this most fabulously magnificent story is all about. This post on our local Facebook page is written into the story somewhere that you can read for free if you so choose afterwards. Looking for a distraction from all the mess. Or perhaps something to look forward to? Then this story of hope might be for you.”
My good friend Keith was the only person I much talked to about my story in the years I was working on it. He said he envisioned it creating an explosion someday. That explosion sort of started with that post I made on our town’s Facebook page.
The world was looking for a way to organize and fight against what was happening around us then. But yelling was getting us Nowhere Fast—an Eminem song sort of hit the nail on the head back then.
On my website I let people pre-order a self-published version of my story for thirty dollars if they wanted. The Venmo account I had them send that money to had a picture of me next to a horse I had taken when I was living on The Farm after leaving that halfway house. Given X2’s recent purchase of a racehorse, it was unplanned nice touch I thought.
I wasn’t the horse she or anyone else was betting on back then. But today I’m both proud and slightly embarrassed to know how much those self-published books are worth. Selling hope during such dark and turbulent times turned out to be an extremely wise investment—Who would have ever imagined it?
The year after I made that post on my town’s Facebook page, those who questioned my sanity got to watch me sitting beside Miley Cyrus on the Jimmy Fallon Show. That night Jimmy asked how I came up with the ending to my story: “Endings are always common sense” —I sort of joked— “when you’re from the future.”
What I said in that moment now hangs on bedroom walls all over the world with this silly picture of me against a white backdrop my son had taken from the back seat of my car. Those words remind dreamers like me that our endings are never common sense and are always subject to change.
On Jimmy’s show that night Miley told the story of how I blamed her personally for some of the world’s problems: “Was it you who started that whole ‘Free The Nipple’ thing?” she told Jimmy I asked her when we first met.
I didn’t really ask her that—not like that at least—but that was how she told the story that night.
In her rebellious youth, Miley said girls should be able to walk around shirtless like boys. By the time we met, young girls weren’t leaving much to the imagination. When my young neighbor used those words Miley said about shirtless girls on me once it made me uncomfortable. Hollywood had a profound impact on society is all I was trying to say. But I wasn’t blaming her “personally” for it.
It was the entertainment industry in general I was calling out for constantly pushing uncomfortable on us; claiming it artsy or whatever. To me it just felt like too much, too often. Like all the shooting and guns and violence being used to entertain us.
When I was working on my story Miley said her New Year’s Resolution was to “Read more and meet a turtle”. Hearing that had me feeling like the universe was maybe trying to bring us together. With how I was ending my story at the time, the turtle thing fit—it kinda looks like a turtle. If the universe was comparing me to a turtle however, it was because of how long it would take me to finish that story.
In my story’s final version, I pitched Miley this idea for a videogame: “Let’s get people making music together in new and fun ways,” I wrote. “If my boys can learn to play Fortnite so well, why can’t they learn to play instruments and make music in the same way. VR technology is begging for something like this——and you’re the perfect person to do it.”
“You’re talking about creating a Rockband on steroids,” Miley said when we first got together and talked about it. She quickly got investors on board and before I knew it we were making public appearances promoting this game of ours.
On Saturday Night Live she demonstrated what it would let people do by inserting her own lyrics into An International Affairs instrumental version of the song Higher Love. “This world’s a mess,” Miley sang, “a f’n mess. Yeah this world’s a f’n f’n f’n f’n f’n mess…and we’re all here to help fix it.”
I can’t remember exactly how that song went but that was the gist of it. Her getting all those celebrities to sing that song with her that night got people all over the world believing in this power of possibility my story talked about.
A few years earlier, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce had started dating. My mother’s friend made a comment about it creating an “economic boom” to me once. I thought that was the dumbest thing I ever heard at the time. But then that’s sort of what Miley and Me did ourselves as we became something like an unbreakable force.
People wanted to be a part of something. Some wanted to just rebel. Regardless of one’s approach to changing the world, no one wanted to follow the same script anymore and so we did our best to create one that might include everyone. It’s truly amazing what people can do when they start dreaming together.
Our first New Year’s in front of the world, I reflected on listening to Miley sing Madonna’s Like a Prayer while I worked on my story. “I had to be careful playing it around my boys though,” I teased her, “because your thonged ass would show up on my phone whenever I did…. thank you for that by the way.”
With the world basically falling apart around us, it was all sort of fun and games for us at the beginning. That all sort of changed the night of the Oscars. That was the night this spark we started caught fire in a sense…the date was Sunday, February 22nd, 2026.
To my right stood Timothee Chalamet; the actor I hoped might play the role of the teacher in the television show inspired by my story someday, and to my left was Steve Harvey; who I had showcased in my video from ten years earlier. Preparing to announce the winner of Most Unifying Character In Film—an award my story gave birth to—the three of us partook in some friendly banter.
Tim asked what parts of my story were true and what parts I made up. I told him and the millions of viewers watching, “It was always an eight or a two on the Sprinkle Scale.” Steve then gave me a serious face and asked the question that would change everything. “I really want to know though,” he said. “In the real world, do you identify as Democrat or Republican?”
Presented with this question, I knew however I answered it would result in the potential loss of half my support. “Well Steve,” I said that day; attempting to present a charming and non-confrontational smile, “I prefer to identify as Divergent.”
Steve laughed at me that day—like he was supposed to. “You sly dog,” he said, “Is that what you’ve been carrying around in that tiny brain of yours all this time?”
In the video of that moment that is now legend, you see Tim put a hand on my shoulder after a long applause: “You did it,” he says to me, “you made it real.”
Getting choked up on stage that day was not part of the act. There were a lot of moments like that. Like the world in front of me was spinning and flipping upside down. My heart I thought might explode right through my chest in that moment. Either that or I was gonna throw up. Instead, I just cried…in front of the entire world.
That word Divergent became something like a global identity to people. It became synonymous with The Resistance:
Our mission is to unite anyone and everyone in creating a future brighter than this reality. Not removing borders necessarily but instead offering an emotional bridge to all the broken-hearted people living in this world. To seek out peace and new life on this internet connected planet: TO BOLDY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE!
It sounded silly so we made it silly. But holy shit did it work. To many across the world, this became the answer The Beatles sang about in that song Let It Be.
Standing in this hallway now, the picture in front of me was taken three months after those Oscars. This was the day Dwayne first teased the idea of running a Divergent Candidate in the next election. Many famous people are sprinkled into this photo.
To Dwayne’s immediate left is Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Cuban. Marc C had become a trusted business consultant to me and Mark Z was there to give every graduate a new car that year. I told him he could do that as payment for me advertising Facebook in my story and for all the headaches it caused me.
Product placement was the future of advertisements back then; my story showed people what I meant. After this graduation, our town looked like that scene from the movie Mr. Deeds where everyone is driving a red Ferrari. The cars Z gave—(enter name of car here)—were much more modest, but it was still totally awesome.
To my immediate right in this photo is Adam Sandler and Melissa McCarthy. Adam had become a quick friend to me after I pitched him that idea for that Tommy’s Boy show. And Melissa was there because it was her we secretly planned to run as our Divergent Candidate in the next election. We didn’t announce that then; this was just us stacking more dominoes at the time.
Distrust and jealousy were suffocating all that made humanity good and there seemed to be no way out. We needed to give people something fun and good and exciting to get together and talk about. We needed to create common experiences for people to participate in to fight against the mountain of resentments dividing us.
Watching rich and powerful people come together and collaborate in cooperation gave birth to a sense of hope this world had not felt in a long time. Even to those that didn’t believe in miracles, or divine intervention, or magic, it all seemed rather magical.
That was certainly an exciting time for a lot of people, but a truly unbelievable time for me personally. Being asked to make a cameo appearance on that show Ted Lasso seemed like a big deal after this graduation…come to find out that was only the beginning.
I was voted People’s Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive the following year. I dedicated the award to Lauryn who said I was too old to make it big. That was also the same year I got married again and made the only hole in one I’ve ever made playing beside Rory McIlroy in that celebrity best ball golf tournament we had put together. Uncle Marsh’s Detroit Lions even won the Super Bowl that year.
Two years after this picture was taken the United States elected its first ever Divergent Candidate. That two-party-left-right-conservative-liberal-red-blue-baloney had finally met its match—thank God.
Taking another deep breath, I decide I’ve done enough reminiscing for now.
Turning from this picture, I take a few steps to the door leading to my large office. Opening the heavy door, I see the tall windows behind my desk have their shades drawn; making this an ideal setting for this all-important nap of mine.
Getting here wasn’t easy. At times I felt so painfully alone all I wanted was for someone give me hug and tell me it would all be okay. Being alone like that is some people’s dream—it was mine for time—but the hopelessness and depression and sadness I felt then made me realize how important feeling connected to other people really is.
“The passion to participate is a gift,” I tell those that listen to me now.
In moments like this I do still find myself reminiscing fondly on my past though; when I had all the time in the world to take a nap if I wanted. It’s made me see life as a constant struggle between wanting more and wishing for less.
Lifting my feet onto the couch in the center of this room, I lay back and let my head fall onto a small pillow. Interlocking my hands I place them on my chest and close my eyes.
All my success has resulted in me being called a lot of names over the years. Many of those names have been mean, dumb, or preposterous. The funny ones I remember most though. The one I can still whisper into my wife’s ear to make her laugh whenever we are in public together is still my all-time favorite: “I am The Vagina Whisperer.”
Nel was right: third time was the charm—she gets me.
I’ve since found no master of puppets pulling our stings. Many try but they just dangle strings in front of us; and hope we strangle each other with them; out of anger and frustration. Most of them aren’t pure evil either. Just greedy as hell mostly—and slightly stupid maybe.
There is a lot of excitement about tonight’s celebration. The speech I am to give will be heard by millions that feel now like I once did; alone and scared and hopeless maybe. Reminded of this, I decide to mentally rehearse as I try to fall asleep.
Visualizing myself doing something is key to getting it right I’ve found and so I picture my audience.
In front of me is a world that needs me to be more than what I am. They need me and I need them. We are a team. Not many of us are where we want to be yet…but we are all working on getting there—TOGETHER.
*
Speech to be made on February 22nd, 2050
—JoJo Day—
“A Day To Celebrate Our Inner Child”
[Walking on stage the song Numb/Encore by Jay-Z & Lincoln Park plays; start speech on the words “Get ‘Em J”]
It gets better. That’s what I wanted to tell my children. But I had learned to Show Not Tell. And so, I wondered… How would I show them?
I decided I’d have to build them a better world. And so I am here today, telling you—and anyone that chooses to listen—that it does…in fact…get better.
Never before had our actions and behaviors been so easily recorded. Not liking the actions and behaviors I was observing, I made a choice to look at humanity for what it could be rather than for what it was: “Just endure,” I told myself, “Eventually they will believe…Why Not?”
A vision of how to build this better world crept into my mind like a caterpillar and made my brain its cocoon. We can be angry and mad and sad together, I thought, as long as we are together in our P.A.I.N. we can create something better.
That vision—that idea—that dream—that living thing in my head would die in there, or it would turn itself into a butterfly and take flight in this world. Looking out at you now—as President of these United States—it fills my heart with joy to see that thing in my head…whatever it was…taking flight right before my eyes.
(Pause for applause as butterflies are released)
We Americans envisioned ourselves as leaders. But could we openly accept responsibility for our destructive behavior and creating this US vs. THEM world that had become more and more counterproductive? Could we work in cooperation, out of mutual respect, to end a cycle of hate and distrust and paranoia?
“Violent revolutions are not the answer,” I said, “but perhaps Revolutionary Ideas can be.”
Education was a tool used to make our world a more productive place for hundreds and thousands of years. I suggested a titanic sized pivot in the model: “Education should now be aimed at making our world a happier place,” I said.
With endless battles to be fought, I saw this as the one offering the path of least resistance at the time.
More time in school should be spent understanding how entertainment is shaping our perception of reality. On top of doing what is best for our children, entertainment might be this countries number one export: “Why not give our children the tools necessary to produce that export?” I asked.
We needed to grow. To confuse and rethink. To ask ourselves this most fabulous and magnificent and powerful question: What type of world do I want to spend the rest of my life being a part of?
You had ideas that needed to be discovered. Stories that needed to be told and dreams that needed oxygen to breathe in this world. We needed you to do amazing things. We needed to learn how to lift each other up and not drag each other down. We needed to learn how to be kind—to ourselves and each other. We are no experts at any of this today but continue to work on it. And for that we Americans are once considered leaders in this world.
The most important element to the success of any healthy ship is trust. Trust between captain and its crew. We did not trust the Government or the Corporations we relied on to keep this country afloat. Something needed to change. As the captain of this ship today, I continue to strive to create that which makes strongest: Trust.
None of this has been easy. But I feel lucky though knowing many of you have become more open-minded over the years——Speaking of feeling lucky…
In my previous life the idea I would ever be lucky seemed laughable to me. I realize now I was never meant to be lucky. Rather I was always destined to be successful. And…as my wonderful wife here likes to tell me: DESTINY ALWAYS WINS!
(Look at Destiny and pause for applause.)
When I first shared my story with the world I was a stranger reaching out his hand to those like me who felt like they were drowning. With hope in my heart, I dreamt of opening eyes to new wonders. Today I reach out my hand out once more with the promise of taking you over, sideways, and under, on a—
“—Dad.”
“Dad…”
“Dad…wake up…”
The Teacher’s Playlist:
Cinderella Man by Eminem
“There’s a storm coming the weatherman couldn’t predict.”
*
(End of Chapter 25)
Recovery High School 