"Is your remarkably sexist drivel intentional, or just some horrible mistake?" -Lisa Simpson
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Ummm, its intentional. I love to debate, and I love to get a rise out of people, and one of my favorite ways to do both is by being intentionally sexist.
Note: I don't actually believe my sexist drivel. I've veered way too far to the left to actually mean it. However, my views on equal rights/politics have no correlation to my being an ass for the sake of being an ass.
And by "sexist", i mean way over-the-top sexist. Saying you don't think Hillary Clinton should ever be president because she's a woman and would have mental breakdowns once a month? Meh . . . too believable of sexism. I think 70% of the South actually backs that thought. Saying that a woman's best jobs are either in the kitchen cooking or typing memos for her boss? Come on, that's too Mad Men. That's like, cool retro sexism or something. And it was already done to perfection by one of my favorite comedians, Andy Kaufman.
NOBODY was better at getting rises out people just for the sake of it than Andy Kaufman. He created several personas (a foreigner comedian, a lounge singer). He wrestled women. He got slapped by Jerry Lawler on Letterman. He fought a producer on an SNL ripoff . . . and it was all bullshit for the sake of bullshit. If you were smart enough to be in on the joke, then he was a genius. But if you were on the outside, he was a fucking asshole. And he was the best at it (even though I was 4 when he died. I may be smart (on occasion), but not smart enough to get Andy Kaufman at 4).
More fake-sexism after the jump below
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Item #41 - Play the Ponies at Suffolk Downs
"No more peanuts until you pick a winning horse"
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This is Tablelegs.
Tablelegs was my hamster in grad school. Not grade school. Not middle school. I had a hamster in grad school. And he was the man.
Another very middle school thing I did in grad school? Cover my walls in posters. Like, every poster I had, in an attempt to cover up all available wall space. This included posters of Scooby-Doo and Kelly Kapowski. But, I at least I had a good excuse - I didn't want my place to look like it hosted 70's key parties. You see, my 420 square foot studio apartment was wall-to-wall wood paneling, and 80% of the floor was covered in orange and brown shag carpeting. It was like if John Holmes had a ski lodge. So it wasn't so much what was on the posters, so much as how much space they could cover ("but Alan, why didn't buy some updated posters, and perhaps frame them, so you looked like an adult?" Because I was a poor grad student happy to have enough spare change to buy a 12 pack of Natty Light. Stop judging me)
Anyway, Tablelegs was awesome. He was my little homie while I lived away in a little cow town (see many many previous posts for explanations and bitching). He lived to be 2 and a half year old, and yes, there were some tears shed when he died. He was a trooper, and he was also a little speedster, often waking up in the middle of the night because he wanted to go for a light 30 minute jog on his wheel. But this was fitting, as Tablelegs was named after a race horse.
More after the jump (this is the first time I'm trying the whole page break thing, where you click below to continue reading. Hopefully it will make the front page a little cleaner. And hopefully it actually works).
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This is Tablelegs.
Tablelegs was my hamster in grad school. Not grade school. Not middle school. I had a hamster in grad school. And he was the man.
Another very middle school thing I did in grad school? Cover my walls in posters. Like, every poster I had, in an attempt to cover up all available wall space. This included posters of Scooby-Doo and Kelly Kapowski. But, I at least I had a good excuse - I didn't want my place to look like it hosted 70's key parties. You see, my 420 square foot studio apartment was wall-to-wall wood paneling, and 80% of the floor was covered in orange and brown shag carpeting. It was like if John Holmes had a ski lodge. So it wasn't so much what was on the posters, so much as how much space they could cover ("but Alan, why didn't buy some updated posters, and perhaps frame them, so you looked like an adult?" Because I was a poor grad student happy to have enough spare change to buy a 12 pack of Natty Light. Stop judging me)
Anyway, Tablelegs was awesome. He was my little homie while I lived away in a little cow town (see many many previous posts for explanations and bitching). He lived to be 2 and a half year old, and yes, there were some tears shed when he died. He was a trooper, and he was also a little speedster, often waking up in the middle of the night because he wanted to go for a light 30 minute jog on his wheel. But this was fitting, as Tablelegs was named after a race horse.
More after the jump (this is the first time I'm trying the whole page break thing, where you click below to continue reading. Hopefully it will make the front page a little cleaner. And hopefully it actually works).
Monday, August 8, 2011
Item #40 - Indoor Rock Climbing
"Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it ain't over now." - Bluto
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Last year I lived with 2 gal friends, Jill and Danielle. They're both running freaks, and because of the constant exposure to them, and their freakish running habits ("it's 25 degrees out, but I need to keep up my training, so I'm ONLY going to run 16 miles today"), I slowly made the final transition from soccer-player-who-runs to soccer-player-AND-runner. I began to up my mileage, and slowly went from running 3 miles to running 4 . . . and 5 . . and 6 . . . and 7. And around that point, Danielle decided to get me drunk enough that she could take advantage of my body . . . by getting me to sign up for a half-marathon she was running on Memorial Weekend, despite me never having run a race over 5 miles. The half marathon was on May 30. I signed up for on April 30. That . . . was a mistake.
Over the course of the next month, I trained as reasonably much as I could train. I went to 8, then to 10, then to 11 miles. Granted I hit 11 miles a week before the race, and most training regiments apparently say you should be hitting that 3 weeks before the race, but who cares? I'm a bad-ass. I'm 31 years old, play 3 soccer games a week and only sub out when I get dragged to the sidelines kicking and screaming. I have no stop button . . . or at least I have no stop button for the 70 minutes that out soccer games last.
On race day, I felt pretty good. Despite the rookie mistake of missing the first water station, I hit the turn (it was an out-and-back race) at around an 8:30 per-mile pace. Probably a faster pace than I should have been setting, back again, who cares? Bad . . . . ass.
At around the 8 mile mark (coincidentally about the length of my soccer games), I got caught by Danielle. Up to that point, I had actually thought she was ahead of me, so to finally see the veteran runner catch me at that point kind of gave me a runner's high . . . that lasted all of about a 1/4 mile. I then promptly waved good-bye to her and sent her on her merry way, as my body decided to say "Hey dummy. You're 30. You've never run a race over 5 miles. You want to run a half-marathon? Maybe you should have put a little planning into it, fuckhead." I tried to reason with my body, but all my engineering logic is sadly located north of my equator, and the dogged legs in the south ended up winning the argument (actually, that's the usual case when it comes to arguing with any part south in my southern hemisphere, especially my Cape of Good Hope (too many geography metaphors? Whatever. Look at map. It makes sense, I swear)).
So with 4 or 5 miles to go, the occasional walking began. A good 45 seconds worth, about every 4 minutes. I ended up finishing the race in 1 hour, 57 minutes and change, with a 8:59 pace. BUT . . . who cares. I am a bad-ass no more. I finished. I finished in a decent time for a first half-marathon. But I walked. And to continue the half-baked sexual metaphors, it was the difference between sex and masturbation. Sure, they both get you to the same finish line, but one is a way more satisfying way to get there, and far less embarrassing than the other. Sigh. It was a tough realization to face - I fought my body, and my body won.
When I was in Chicago last month, I went another round with my body, this time with the Northern Hemisphere, as I went indoor rock climbing with my friends Megs. Megs works at a college as a rec sports something or other (sorry Megs. You can define this in the paperback version), and she has full access to their facilities, which includes an indoor climbing wall. So I jogged a mile over to her work from where I was staying, we geared up, and we attacked. Oh, one thing I should mention - my lifetime preperation for this moment was about as thorough as my half-marathon training.
Besides mandatory weight lifting for 6 weeks in gym class in high school, and a very brief period before I started actually getting off my ass and running where I thought I could sit on my couch and do a few curls for 10 minutes and develop a 6 pack overnight, I haven't lifted. I find it boring, and I kind of just figured I'd wait until (maybe) having kids and then gaining my Dad Strength (you cannot beat your dad at arm wrestling until you've owned a house for 5+ years and had kids for 2+ years. Its science). So me climbing a rock wall was like bring a knife to a gun fight, as pictures from the chest waxing post clearly show that I do indeed lack guns.
So yeah, the rock wall. The wall itself had 2 parts. The main part was 10 feet up, and just a giant wall of grips. To get there, you could either use a ladder and start at the bottom of that section, or, you could first traverse the very bottom part of the wall - the much tougher lower section that actually went into a 30 degree inversion. Being hard-headed and forgetting anything my body had previously told me about no longer being a bad-ass, I went the inversion route . . .
. . . and I failed. I got my hands on the grips on the main section, but couldn't overcome the inversion. So I tried again . . . and I failed again. So I tried again . . . and I failed again. So I then said fuck that, we got the ladder, and I started at the bottom of the main wall . . . and I failed again.
My self-proclaimed-god-like legs were worthless, or at least, I made them worthless. At this point, my spotter finally got it through my head that I should have been using my legs for the majority of the climbing, while only using my arms and hands to hold on to the wall. Up until now, I had been doing 90% of the climbing with my weak-ass arms, and bringing my legs along for the ride. Big mistake, especially after initially trying the inverted route, which absolutely crushed my forearms. I was then lowered down, so I could watch Megs take care of the wall (sans inversion) in her first try, furthering my embarrassment. Also furthering my embarrassment? The 15 children that were there for a summer camp and watching us the whole time. "Hey kids! Do you know what the word emasculation means?"
So after seeing Megs conquer the wall, I decided that quitting is for quitters, and that I should give it one more try . . . and I succeeded. I rang the bell. Hooray for me. I'M A MAN!
Bu the damage had been done. Like the half-marathon, I had finished, but I had basically "walked" my way up the wall with multiple stop-and-go's. Success and failure all at once. What a country!
Sadly with my upper body stamina, the whole indoor rock climbing excursion only took about 10 minutes. I was sweaty. I was tired. Afterwards, I needed a nap. I finished after the girl, and that was after she had made me feel embarrassed . . .
(insert final sexual metaphor here)
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Last year I lived with 2 gal friends, Jill and Danielle. They're both running freaks, and because of the constant exposure to them, and their freakish running habits ("it's 25 degrees out, but I need to keep up my training, so I'm ONLY going to run 16 miles today"), I slowly made the final transition from soccer-player-who-runs to soccer-player-AND-runner. I began to up my mileage, and slowly went from running 3 miles to running 4 . . . and 5 . . and 6 . . . and 7. And around that point, Danielle decided to get me drunk enough that she could take advantage of my body . . . by getting me to sign up for a half-marathon she was running on Memorial Weekend, despite me never having run a race over 5 miles. The half marathon was on May 30. I signed up for on April 30. That . . . was a mistake.
Over the course of the next month, I trained as reasonably much as I could train. I went to 8, then to 10, then to 11 miles. Granted I hit 11 miles a week before the race, and most training regiments apparently say you should be hitting that 3 weeks before the race, but who cares? I'm a bad-ass. I'm 31 years old, play 3 soccer games a week and only sub out when I get dragged to the sidelines kicking and screaming. I have no stop button . . . or at least I have no stop button for the 70 minutes that out soccer games last.
"Too Much, Too Soon" - my half-marathon training / many a girls response to my advances
On race day, I felt pretty good. Despite the rookie mistake of missing the first water station, I hit the turn (it was an out-and-back race) at around an 8:30 per-mile pace. Probably a faster pace than I should have been setting, back again, who cares? Bad . . . . ass.
At around the 8 mile mark (coincidentally about the length of my soccer games), I got caught by Danielle. Up to that point, I had actually thought she was ahead of me, so to finally see the veteran runner catch me at that point kind of gave me a runner's high . . . that lasted all of about a 1/4 mile. I then promptly waved good-bye to her and sent her on her merry way, as my body decided to say "Hey dummy. You're 30. You've never run a race over 5 miles. You want to run a half-marathon? Maybe you should have put a little planning into it, fuckhead." I tried to reason with my body, but all my engineering logic is sadly located north of my equator, and the dogged legs in the south ended up winning the argument (actually, that's the usual case when it comes to arguing with any part south in my southern hemisphere, especially my Cape of Good Hope (too many geography metaphors? Whatever. Look at map. It makes sense, I swear)).
So with 4 or 5 miles to go, the occasional walking began. A good 45 seconds worth, about every 4 minutes. I ended up finishing the race in 1 hour, 57 minutes and change, with a 8:59 pace. BUT . . . who cares. I am a bad-ass no more. I finished. I finished in a decent time for a first half-marathon. But I walked. And to continue the half-baked sexual metaphors, it was the difference between sex and masturbation. Sure, they both get you to the same finish line, but one is a way more satisfying way to get there, and far less embarrassing than the other. Sigh. It was a tough realization to face - I fought my body, and my body won.
When I was in Chicago last month, I went another round with my body, this time with the Northern Hemisphere, as I went indoor rock climbing with my friends Megs. Megs works at a college as a rec sports something or other (sorry Megs. You can define this in the paperback version), and she has full access to their facilities, which includes an indoor climbing wall. So I jogged a mile over to her work from where I was staying, we geared up, and we attacked. Oh, one thing I should mention - my lifetime preperation for this moment was about as thorough as my half-marathon training.
Besides mandatory weight lifting for 6 weeks in gym class in high school, and a very brief period before I started actually getting off my ass and running where I thought I could sit on my couch and do a few curls for 10 minutes and develop a 6 pack overnight, I haven't lifted. I find it boring, and I kind of just figured I'd wait until (maybe) having kids and then gaining my Dad Strength (you cannot beat your dad at arm wrestling until you've owned a house for 5+ years and had kids for 2+ years. Its science). So me climbing a rock wall was like bring a knife to a gun fight, as pictures from the chest waxing post clearly show that I do indeed lack guns.
So yeah, the rock wall. The wall itself had 2 parts. The main part was 10 feet up, and just a giant wall of grips. To get there, you could either use a ladder and start at the bottom of that section, or, you could first traverse the very bottom part of the wall - the much tougher lower section that actually went into a 30 degree inversion. Being hard-headed and forgetting anything my body had previously told me about no longer being a bad-ass, I went the inversion route . . .
. . . and I failed. I got my hands on the grips on the main section, but couldn't overcome the inversion. So I tried again . . . and I failed again. So I tried again . . . and I failed again. So I then said fuck that, we got the ladder, and I started at the bottom of the main wall . . . and I failed again.
So after seeing Megs conquer the wall, I decided that quitting is for quitters, and that I should give it one more try . . . and I succeeded. I rang the bell. Hooray for me. I'M A MAN!
Bu the damage had been done. Like the half-marathon, I had finished, but I had basically "walked" my way up the wall with multiple stop-and-go's. Success and failure all at once. What a country!
Sadly with my upper body stamina, the whole indoor rock climbing excursion only took about 10 minutes. I was sweaty. I was tired. Afterwards, I needed a nap. I finished after the girl, and that was after she had made me feel embarrassed . . .
(insert final sexual metaphor here)
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- Thanks to Megs for the free indoor rock climbing
- After having done generic yoga and then hot vinyasa yoga, Friday I did bikram yoga (thanks to Katie, Sarah and Malinda), also done at 100+ degree temperatures for 90 minutes. It was a quality ass-kicking, and I dug it more so than the hot vinyasa (though maybe it was just teacher dependent). The vinyasa was like going on a distance run - a constant exersion of of a moderate amount of energy. Bikram was like playing soccer - constantly going back and forth between going as hard as you can and taking short breaks.
- Friday - bikram yoga in Harvard Square. Saturday - degenerate gambling at the horse track (post forthcoming). Sunday - an exhibit at a Boston Library (another post forthcoming), followed by an impromptu 3 person pub crawl . . . I am a man of many faces.
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