Saturday, May 14, 2005

Caffeine fueled Saturday morning rant

A Navy sailor in San Diego refused to board his ship bound for Iraq because he said he’s against the war. Isn’t that like a member of PETA applying for a job as a butcher?

I just saw something odd: a very attractive homeless woman begging for money. Here’s my question: how lazy is our society when we can produce a woman who doesn’t have the initiative to be a stripper or a hooker?

I took a spin class with my lovely wife this morning. Should have known I was in for trouble when incredibly fit-looking people were setting up I.V. drips, defibrillator machines and puke buckets next to their bikes. Man oh man.

In all due modesty, I can ride a bike pretty damn good. Hardly ever get passed going up Torrey Pines, a rather long steep grade, on my mini-triathlon bike. Can go over 30 mph for 40 minutes on the stationary bike at the gym.

But this spin class stuff is a new animal. It’s about working out, not about riding a bike well. In fact, I’m not sure many of those people have ever ridden a bike outdoors since they were in third grade. They are just spin class machines. Half the time I was lost. The instructor was yelling “Gear Three. Now gear four.” Problem? No numbers on the dial to make the gear higher. When I asked why there wasn’t an odometer of any kind the instructor said;

“Some people complained that that made it too competitive so we took them off.”

Classic example of the “Trophy for everyone” school of the pussification of American. Last time I checked, the Tour De France didn’t have an award for trying.

If you rode a bike as hard as you do in spin class in the real world you would end up a stain on the back of a parked truck. Just as we were winding up the hour work out, it really got ugly; not only were we standing and grinding in high gear gasping for air and dripping sweat like we were in Equatorial Africa being chased by Zulu with a dart gun, a song by ABBA came on the speakers. My word, haven’t we suffered enough?

It reminded me of the time I was having the nastiest cut, dig and scrape gum surgery you could have and to loosen up my near rigor mortis muscles, the dental assistant flipped on the radio. The song? Phil Collin’s “Sussidio.”

I stopped the dentist, stood up and said;

“Listen, I’m a tough man, but I have my limits. I can take you digging into my jaw bone or I can take “Sussidio. I cannot take both.”

Here is how I measure a workout.

Light work out: T.V. Sitcom sweat stain on shirt. You know, that two to three inch circle below the collar they give Ross on "Friends" when he comes out of the gym? Like that. Enough to indicate the actor worked out but not enough to put people off of their frozen dinners.

Moderate workout? A movie actor workout sweat ring below collar six to eight inches.

Hard workout: Sweat they give a movie actor who is running in a teeming jungle. Total saturation, hair, hat, shirt. That was today.