So I’m like 3 months away from my 40th birthday, and I have a particular goal of dropping 20 el-beez. LB’s. Pounds. Lard Bricks. I wanna drop ’em by the Friday prior to the Super Bowl. I know I can do this, but I’m also stumped about how my droppage seems to have stalled. Admittedly, the past weekend of Halloween and eating like a foraging bear (candy, date night, pizza party and cake for the youngest’s birthday) didn’t help. I put on 3lbs since last Thursday morning. 3. It’s probably retained water and frankly I could feel it and my face looked it. So if my body will store it that easily, it can lose it that easily.

So what’m I gonna do? Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of violent minds meeting great opposition to mediocre dreams ~ Oprah Lincoln. Or whomever said it, people mash-up and misquote so many Faux-tivational quotes these days, even with the internet to validate against. Ridiculous. I have a dream that one day we will not be judged by the choosing of our quotes but by the accuracy of their citation.

So my plan is as follows:

Eat less crap: I need to be strict with my intake. Depending on which expert you ask, nutrition is 80% of the success towards weightloss. Some say 70%. I’ll gun for 76.47% and see where that lands. I can’t afford a “cheat day,” so maybe, MAYBE, one cheat “thing” a week. But not 1 crap-pile a day for 3 days. Come on, dude… Come on…
You can eat like this if you are THE ROCK. Or turn your heart into A ROCK.

It’s hilarious the games we play with ourselves about crap eating. “Oh just a little isn’t gonna be a problem.” Right. Put a cake out at your workplace and sit by it. Nobody will touch it, no matter how many people come by. Now walk around the corner, and hear the woodchipper that is your coworkers scraping the last of the buttercream off the lid. Do right by you, but no games, Geoff.
Eat more boss: My ideal meal is about like this: Roasted salmon with broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, sweet potatoes. And then right to bed. I need to get away from food, and in the house the best place to get away from food is when I’m asleep. So, eat well, then stop eating. I like the Paleo path best, and I rarely eat breakfast. I’m not hungry until about 11:30 anyway, so why force food into my face when I’m usually behind schedule anyway? No, skipping breakfast doesn’t slow down your metabolism when you’re like me, which is “kinda fat.” So shut up.
Lift Some Heavy Shit: No, not my ass off the couch, ha ha, so funny I forgot to laugh. I finally have found the joy of proper squat technique, dumbbell deadlifts, and pushing heavy stuff around. I did circuits for a while and looked good but wasn’t very muscular for a dude walking around over 240. For cardio I like either HIIT on an elliptical, hill sprints, or road raging.
Sleep More: I seriously have to get to bed earlier. 11:17pm ain’t cuttin’ it.
Stop worrying about it: I need to chill out a bit on this. I know what I need to do, so now I just need the consistency of doing it. This isn’t a diet, this is a lifestyle.
Stay Motivated As All Hell: Not sure what I need to get super motivated, like whatever blind self-allegiance Guy Fieri has that keeps him from assessing his life. I need that. Maybe it’s seeing 4 of 6 abs. Maybe it’s being under 12% bodyfat for the first time since kindergarten. Maybe it’s just that I need to prove to myself that I can do this. The ultimate goal is to drop 35lbs by April 2014. Mostly, I need to do this for a better quality of life in a few years as my boys get older. They aren’t going to do LESS in life from here on out.

So I’ll post some stuff here in the “20 by 40” posts about what’s up with my bod and how it’s going. May even get some “BEFORE” and “LATER” pics if I’m feeling froggy. Sorry, this was kinda boring and self-indulgent, got low blood-sugar, gotta find some work cake.

November 5, 2013 1

Pretty Much Paleo Pancakes

1/4tsp Baking Soda

1/4tsp Sea salt (It’s all the rage)

2Tbsp whey protein powder (the more grass-fed/organic/isolated the better), vanilla is best

2 eggs (from the closest thing to “homeless” chickens as possible)

1 pretty ripe banana

1Tbsp Almond or (GASP) Peanut butter

2Tbsp coconut flour

First, get your family far away from you so you can get some head-space and just make some awesome pancakes for them. Usually they just slow down everything you’re doing.
Throw the ‘nana, nut butter, eggs into a bowl and beat ’em til smooth. That’s what I did. You can do it differently but don’t bitch if it sucks.
Sift in the protein powder, give it a couple turns.
Sift in the salt, baking soda, and coconut flour. Turn ’em til smooth. Maybe beat it again to smooth it up.
Smoooooooth. Ya feel me?
Let it sit a bit, get all together.
Heat a pan up to just-past the mid-point on the burner.
Ideally you’re dropping some coconut oil in that hot pan til it melts. Swirl it all around, coat that pan like the back of a Summer fling on a Tahitian beach resort chaaaaaise. Smooth.
Then drop some of that batter in there and PAY ATTENTION! The high-fat content will get the cakes browning up pretty quickly so don’t get yourself in a burned cake mode. Try a test cake, drop like a quarter-sized dollop in there, see how it goes.
Taste test! How’s it? Good!
Now you can do what comes naturally when making cakes. Do it up. Make a few big ones. Make a couple little ones.
Enjoy. Feel the power.

Nutritional Information:

Calories: enough
Fat: good for you and enough
Carbs: just a bit, maybe like 50g total if you eat the whole batch yourself
Fiber: 8g or so
Protein: like 30g or so.

I’m sure a strict Paleotian is preparing a response to this and getting their crossfit shorts in a wad, but please remember:
I’M NOT TRYING TO CHANGE THE WORLD OF PALEO EATING THROUGH ONE RECIPE THAT WORKED OUT WELL FOR ME AND MADE MY KIDS FORGET ABOUT REGULAR PANCAKES. Also, eat sh*t.

Don’t feed the trolls, feed your beast.

November 3, 2013 0

Cold and F-You Season

Just a friendly reminder from your co-worker…

Just because you’re coughing up “less” blood doesn’t mean you’re “on the mend.” Stay at home.
You missing 2 days of work = 2 days of work missed. You getting 4 people sick = 4-6 days of work missed. Stay at home.
Your kid’s sickness doesn’t mean that kid should be socialized with other kids so that other kids’ immune systems can be exposed to your kid’s sickness and everybody takes a step forward in the “strong immune system” line. You are not allowed to compromise anybody else’s health based on short-sighted, negligent, selfish parenting. We’ll get through the 3 year-old’s party without you, your annoying fashion choices, and your overuse of the word “amazing.” Stay at home.
If I can hear you coughing and blowing your nose from 3 rows away, that’s too close. Stay at home.
Stay at home. Until March, if necessary.
Wash your hands. Wash ’em again. Soap and water’s fine. No more superbugs.
Stay at home.

October 7, 2013 1

The Political Party Parent

In my 4 years of parenting I’ve noticed quite a few things that are likely my own internal judgments come to light…

I am a somewhat hyper-vigilant observer, which is a great help for cultivating material for the stage and this blog, but a terrible trait for, you know, enjoying life. It often makes me, as my wife calls it, “annoyingly uptight.” My uptightness, however, is also the same trait that causes me to hover around my kids in unfamiliar situations until we all know the lay of the playland, keeps them from thunking their head off the ground because I was socializing or phone-gazing or not being at all involved in their play time. That level of involvement/concern/uptightness doesn’t make me “better” parent, but it sure as hell keeps my kids out of harm’s way, aggressive dog’s way, and “over-tall sharply-elbowed aggressive shit-head kid with phone-gazing parent’s” way.

One parent type I’ve run into is who I call “the Political Partier.” I’m not sure they even realize what they’re doing, but this is the parent who shows up at a kid’s party… WHICH ARE ALWAYS A GREAT WAY TO SPEND A FOOTBALL WEEKEND DAY INSTEAD OF WATCHING FOOTBALL ON ONE OF 35 DAYS OF THE YEAR… and doesn’t really “count.” Example? SURE, here ya go….

Couple with 1 kid. Mom and kid come to the party. Dad comes, too. Didn’t have that counted on their RSVP, but hell, we can swing another few inches of the party-sub and a juicebox, dig in! BUT… he’s almost a ghost. Sits in the corner, looks at his phone the whole time, doesn’t mingle, doesn’t really make it known his kid and wife are there, nor how he’s related to any of this. Here’s the Political Issue…

His mere presence now forces the host of the party’s significant other to assess any of that couples’ future parties as “go-worthy.”

What’s the problem? Well, now I would… just using myself as an example, not saying this has ever happened… I would have to ask “is HE going?” when they are hosting a party that I really don’t NEED to be part of. And if he’s going then I have to go because I can’t look like the guy who’s not involved with his family, right? I mean, how many times does the daughter of a mom in your youngest kid’s toddler socialization group turn 2 and have the party at an indoor petting zoo for blind animals? Once? So yeah, big day all around, better tape up my face and go. Paying for another gift and card and taking day off from football isn’t enough. Gotta BE THERE, Dad.

OR, just not go. Take the older kid off for the day while mom and youngest goes off to do their thing at the party. Identify with your other kid in your own space for a while, and bond there. Get your own slice of cake somewhere. Don’t buckle. Get out. Do what you have to do and enjoy it.

Which is a great thing to do as long as you can let go of the other parents judging you.

October 7, 2013 0

To Have Died Young In One’s Prime

I started down a path that would have likely led to some disgruntled comments from people who would know of whom the original post was about. And therefore I retracted that information. But I will say this:

When people lament the loss of a life, “snuffed out too soon, gone before their time,” you have to really look at the circumstances around the death before we assign an appropriate check-out time. When Brittany Murphy died a few years ago after a drug overdose, there were a LOT of people outside the Murphy camp but emotionally invested (for whatever reason) in her life, saying she had died too young. Yes, she was young. But you’re never too young to die from the illnesses you refuse to treat, such as drug addiction or flammable colon gas. And how many people tried how many times in how many different ways to get Brittany healthy? Ultimately it was a psychological drive to drugs, which then killed her, which had gone unrooted and untreated, and perhaps untreatable. It’s sad. And it’s even more sad when it happens to somebody who isn’t famous, who didn’t have any money to handle expenses, and leaves behind a family to pick up the pieces. And by “family” I mean children, not a co-dependent spouse or lecherous entourage lacking any discernible talent.

And at the same time, I noted the following in a moment on-stage a few years ago, while pondering the deaths of young people.

Young men between the ages of 15 and 27 do dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb and stupid stuff more than anybody else, based solely on testosterone, lack of forethought, and a throbbing life-boner. Driving drunk, driving fast, mohawks, energy drinks, fraternity drinking, borderline date rapes, parking lot fights, etc. Therefore they should all be defaulted into Organ Donor status. Perfectly healthy crop of lungs and hearts and kidneys can be harvested for the poor folks waiting for one of these dipshits to roll his Jeep or mis-judge the cross-wind of a bridge jump. I still can’t believe I’m alive considering the [OMITTED FOR LEGAL CONSIDERATION AND BECAUSE MY KIDS MAY READ THIS ONE DAY] for an entire month.
The loss of realized potential is what is most crushing. The time to share Life with that person ends, BAM, done. Nothing more. Grief sets in and confuses and crushes and drives people to sadness and despair and rear-window “In Memory Of” decals. When that life ends there’s nothing more that can be capitalized upon; no professions, no vacations, no kids or grandkids or victories on competitive cupcake bake-offs.
The person to which I thought of and referred to, originally, died before he hit 30 years old. Model-like good looks, dashed in a tragic accident. He’ll never get older than 28. He’ll never wrinkle, or gray, or sag. He’ll never wake to the cries of a screaming child 3 times a night and suffer a day of fatherhood and work and tiring of the Grind. Because he drove too fast for the conditions, and an accident happened. Really very sad, for the rest of us who are going through all of that. Nobody will ever know what he looked like as a fat, balding, bitter desk jockey. Lucky bastard.

So before we wail and groan when a life goes too soon, please look at the circumstances of it for a Reality Check. At what age is somebody NOT “too young” to die? I am hoping to die much like my great-grandfather, in his sleep at the age of 91, shot by a jealous lover.

September 27, 2013 0

A New Set Of Tireds

Just before she lay down her beautiful head to sleep the other night, my wife took the water glass from next to my laptop (I was working on a presentation for the next day around 9:15 that night), sipped from it, and said…

“I’m f***ing tired. The house is always dirty, I’m being disrespected, I hate this house, if I’m not here cleaning I’m off doing a bunch of other stuff just to keep the boys busy or in school, and I’m sick of it.”

So, what did I do to respond? What COULD I do?
She was done for the day. She had gotten up pretty early to go workout, raced home to get our kids in the car for preschool and general out-of-house tasks (what non-stay-at-home parents call Life or Work), and they were going a bit nuts the rest of the day. I got an earful when I got home from the kids, after a long day and meeting with a local entertainment comedy talent mastermind. Kids will wear you out. They will grind on you and they will break you down and they are unreasonable under the age of 5 or 19 and will just beat on your brain walls and sometimes you want to tell them to shut their damn mouths and go the fuck to sleep because you are a grown up, sex has been had, you’ve thrown an angry punch, and paid taxes but not enough to really help this flailing society you want to build a wall around to protect them, so go to sleep.

But you cannot do that. I cannot. I’m an adult. I’m nearly 40. I have embraced and accepted all facets of Parenting, which is a much more advanced form of caregiving, and shouldn’t ever be equated to having a pet. [ed. note; Equating child-rearing to pet care is on the same shelf as equating an compound femoral fracture to a sprained finger. It’s minimizing to do so, and you should really not do it, or I will punt your dog right down the frozen aisle of this Trader Joe’s it’s not even supposed to be in.] Because I’m an adult.

And no, you cannot flip out on your kids at the ages of 4 and nearly 2. You look like a complete asshole, first, because the kids don’t fully fathom the rage and the cause. You only scare them, you don’t teach them. And it’s much much much more frustrating than you’d think it may be to tell a kid for the 5th time who knows what you’re saying to put.
on.
the.
monkey.
underwear. Then they cry, and it’s like…

“Why are YOU crying? You did this to yourself! 5 times I’ve asked you to put your monkey underbips on and you keep trying to put your bobo on the gorilla pillow! Put your monkey underpants on, don’t put your business on the monkey!”

As adults, we’re supposed to be in control of things. I’m not. I control very little. I control myself, usually (except I’m a bit of a choc-o-holic, GUILTY!), but sometimes I just have to ask somebody at a grocery store “What’s going on here?” I know what’s going on. They are blind to anything else around them, dead-stopped in the aisle, looking at their phone. I promise you, ma’am, you are NOT about to get a prescient message that has the PowerBall numbers. I can’t always control what happens to me, but I can control whether or not I tell somebody their head is in their ass.

So here’s what I did the other night.
I wrote a note to my wife and left it up on the monitor for her to see in the morning.
This is what it read:

I have a great marriage to a man who loves me and works hard to provide for our family. He doesn’t gamble or drink or tattoo or buy cars and shit we don’t need.
I have 2 great sons who are young and sometimes they are just little kids who don’t know any better while trying to be funny.
I get tired and that’s OK
My house is a house, not a hut, not on fire, and not a pit in a shitty jungle.
I woke up today healthy. This is a good start.
My sons woke up today healthy and with food in their house. This is a good start.
My sons have two parents who love them even if my sons don’t know it yet.
We will be in a new, better-sized house soon and we’ll do it the right way so that we don’t destroy our family financially.
I am a great mom and wife who does what she can to make every day matter to my family.
For all of these things, I am grateful.

Here’s what I did NOT do, after she made her statement of frustration and walked away with my glass of water while I worked on my presentation…

“Hey hon? Hon?
Could I get that water back?”

September 18, 2013 0

My Two Cents: A Simple Business Lesson

This is a quick lesson about customer service and making money for people who don’t or haven’t pondered the actual importance of customers and money to their business.

My gym/fitness club has a fitness beverage/smoothie counter in it, operated by a franchise. It’s a little overpriced but super convenient when I’m in a rush and need to pound 70g of protein and a banana and almond milk and don’t have a NutriBullet plugged in the Honda. Which is more frequently than you may imagine.

On the counter is a “$1” basket, where you can buy, for $1, any number of sample-sized items. Amino acid powders to mix in your water, help you move along in the workout. Maybe some Energy Boosters to pop before you change into your sweatpants so that when you’re about ready to do some sit-ups, you’ll feel energized… like enough energy to nakedly grapple a gawddammed rabid bear BECAUSE THOSE PILLS HAVE ONE GEAR AND IT’S GONNA HAPPEN WHETHER OR NOT YOU’RE ON THE ELLIPTICAL AND YOU’RE GONNA FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE A CHAINSAW DICK, CAPTAIN KHAKIPANTS…

i pulled a packet of amino powder out the other day, it was clearly labeled “FOR INTRA-WORKOUT FOCUS AND ENERGY – NOT LABELED FOR RESALE”. But I don’t care, it’s a dollar, and I had a $1 bill on me and I needed workout focus and energy, labeling be damned.

The gal working the counter rings me up… $1.08
Sorry, what? 8 cents over a dollar? Taxed on an item you’re not supposed to be selling? I just look at her and say, “Oh, I don’t have any change, can we just do the dollar?”
She’s like “Umm, sorry, it won’t let me.” SO HERE’S THE LESSON

I said, “Ah, ok. Sorry, I don’t have any change.” No sale. Not then. Not in the future.
You either make a dollar on a free item, or you lose a dollar on a free item due to 8 pennies worth of misprogramming. And hopefully hear the message:
Getting some of something you need is always better than getting all of nothing.

I had this issue with a local vacuum & sewing machine repair shop, too. We were given a very nice, ridiculously powerful vacuum cleaner that takes special bags we usually have to order online. A local business sells them for $22.99 for 6, so you can see how many ways this vacuum sucks. Online we can get them for $17 + $3 shipping. We walked into the local brick & mortar and said “Hey, we have $20 for these bags.”
The lady behind the counter with enough time on her hands to barely look up from her magazine said “Hmm, those are $23, though.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have the $3, I have cash ready to buy one of these 7 packs, can we do $20?”

She looked at us with distrust, like we’re trying to pull a fast one on her. Well, nobody gets one over on this gal. Nope. No dice. Wouldn’t budge. Also, wouldn’t be adding any money from us, then or in the future, into her till.

The customer doesn’t always have to be RIGHT. But you have to have a customer in the store before you can even have a discussion with them, let alone build the relationship, appreciate their business, and try to upsell them on a real nice Dyson you just repaired.

If you run a business and have a set price for something, remember that price is what you HOPE the customer will pay for the item. Why stop there? Why not sell 1 pair of over-embossed sweatpants for $180, instead of 6 pairs at $50? Less work for you, right? I’m not saying you should haggle over every little item you want to buy; it’s not a garage sale, it’s a place of business. But don’t let 8% cost you 100%. Do the right thing.

Oh, and have some food samples out.

August 30, 2013 0

A Theory On Conspiracies

I don’t fully accept that every crowd-involved moment in society is merely an act of nature’s will, moving us in the direction a Critical Mass event dictates. We don’t get swept up in a riot, we get into the crowd we KNOW will riot, and do nothing to get out. Nor do I fully believe that socially-impacting events (like Egypt’s tragic killings, the Boston Marathon bombing, or the Teen Choice Awards) are engineered, or even have their proverbial balls started a-rolling, by some cabal, klatsch, triumvirate, or shadow improv troupe. America’s ability to gather and gung-ho for a cause is incredible, but we’d like to leave the tear gas and face-shooting to the thugs.

What I do believe is that much of what human societies react to are Fear, Oppression, Despair, and Threat. When I hear gun-nuts (and I’m not talking gun owners, I’m talking bottom-rung Doomsday Preppers with half-finished escape tunnels in their garage) bemoan gun control, I want to remind them that if a military force DOES decide to come for those guns, they will in fact wrest it from those cold, dead, dirty, masturbating hands. And that those hands will be deadened by either a sniper’s bullet or a drone strike, not by a 19 year-old Pfc knocking at the trailer door. So when a threat is made evident, and fear washes in, and violence results, I believe there are groups who take a very keen interest in seeing the nature of the ripples in the pond. A conspiracy theorist I know, who is also a great guy but totally and understandably anti-social (not asocial, he’s truly anti-American-society after his brother’s war-ravaged mind left him suicidal and addicted to drugs, and a few divorces) once told me why he believes that a cabal’s puppet-strings can be found in the periphery of such moments.

His theory is that the groups are always experimenting not only with what drives humans, and groups of humans, to rebel or react, but HOW they do it, the success rate, and if it’s conceptually transferable to a military act FOR the people. That is, how can a military application come from crowd-sourced videos and tips from the Boston Marathon bombing, wherein cell phones and street cameras and TV footage and facial recognition software helped identify the suspects? That seems to also allow for people to either take the military side to happily send images for review, or a conspiratorial air of wondering who among us is spying within? Big Brother is watching Step Brother watching Little Brother…

A woman recently walked in to a local grocery store and caused a full evacuation and bomb squad involvement. She’s getting a mental evaluation. Her backpack was void of anything harmful. 19 years old… Hmmmm…. Did she think this up herself, to gain attention and power? Did somebody pay her to walk in and do this to see what happens? Where is she now? This is worth following.

Somebody keeps taking nips off my Half-&-Half in the work fridge, so I’ll have to lace it with something to see who passes out or powerdumps at their desk. I want to believe, that people are good, but man, sometimes people just really let ya down. And I wonder what it would take for Americans, tax-hating, vacation-paid, partial-benefits-loving Americans to fill the streets with shouts and raised fists. So far it’s just WTO and pro-sports championships.

August 14, 2013 0

I Will Maim Teenagers Drinking At Playgrounds

To The F*ckstain Who Smashed Beer Bottles at the Kid’s Playground:

You must be a teenager or somebody else with a very minimal view of the world. You cannot possibly be a good human being at this point in your life, but it will get better if you decide it will. Until then, you are the reason there are cameras popping up at every street corner and playground. Big Brother ain’t watching, YOUR BROTHER is watching. And I’m pissed.

I did plenty of dumb stuff when I was young (as recently as last week in fact). Fine. Happy? Good. But the fact that you drained a couple Coors Lights, in BOTTLES I might add, which means you have no idea how to properly drain the Silver Bullets, is only the beginning of your idiocy. These are probably your step-dad’s garage beers, or something left behind from a July 4th BBQ your mom threw up after. This isn’t an adult’s beer, a discerning man’s beer of choice. Then, as if drinking the last of it, probably with a blossoming young lady who thinks you “bad” or “dangerous” because she doesn’t yet understand Life, as if the last sip was a 3-yard dive for a winning touchdown… you spike the bottle into the cement, shattering it. Shards left behind in the high-traffic area of an elementary school playground.

And you blue-ball it all the way home, smug and buzzed on watery beer and Axe bodyspray. We’re watching. We’re carrying stun-guns.
And dustpans.
Decide right now which you’d rather have.

July 22, 2013 0

Gym Neighbors

If you’ve ever worked out in a public fitness facility, like a Gold’s Gym or a high school weight room or “The Y,” and I’m not saying that you have NOT, you look fine for now…

But if you have ever been in such a place you know there are some rules. And if you DON”T know the rules, well you’re the reason I’m writing this. These rules are the most-basic etiquette for behavior in a gym, and the people most likely to break them? THE YOUTH.

The disrespectful, self-entitled, “Fuck you I am on the way up and over your dying ass” Youth. And idiots.

Wipe It Down, Dry It Off

You’re sweating out hot sauce and beer gas from the weekend, all over the elliptical machine which you’ve cranked to Level 4/Mall Walking. As you marinate the machine you release your toxins and begin to feel a bit better. Hopefully if you’re only doing cardio you’re doing HIIT cardio, and not planning on trying to hit 49min of boring stuff. HIIT’s where it’s at. And you’re drippin’ your biodiesel all over the machine. This goes for the fixed-weight/pulley machines, too. You sweat it, you wet it, you wipe it.

Fine. That’s part of the gig and the machine can take it. When you’re done, you get a towel of any kind, as clean as it can be, and any kind of cleaning/degreasing spray. You spray that on the machine or the towel (I get the towel damp, don’t wanna hit other gym-goers with spray) and you WIPE OFF ALL THE SWEAT YOU CAN WIPE OFF OF THE MACHINE. Not the floor areas. Anything that a human has to touch or look at after you head off to your Zumba!!! class. Clean it up. No sweat left behind.

PENALTY: $10 for the first machine, $20 for each one after that. Suspended membership, picture on the wall. SHAME.

Weight Management

Sweet chocolatey Gregg Avedon this eludes far too many people. Two principles of managing free weights to keep in mind.

1) Handle Your Load: Lotta guys still doing that “Pick up the heaviest weight I can, drop it on the floor, kick it to my bench” move with the dumbells. If you can’t carry it 5 feet, you really wanna be pushing that over your face? Or do you need attention? Because you’re damaging the floor, the weights, and your reputation. 10 perfect reps of a weight you can handle for 10 reps are far better than 4 grunting spasms under a weight you can’t count to. How do you plan to…

2) RACK YOUR FUCKING WEIGHT: More precisely, re-rack it. You put whatever it was, a 3lb red-microsuede medicine ball or a 45.5kg plate, right back where you found it. Something in it’s place already? Find the next place it fits. You don’t’ leave it on the bar in case somebody randomly wants to hit a quick set of 315lb squats. You don’t tuck the 35-lb’ers under the bench and walk over to wonder what your legs would look like if you worked ‘em out. You put ‘em back on the rack by the other 35’s, or in between 30 and 40.

PENALTY: $1/lb of unracked weight. 2^nd offense = Being spotted on the bench by an older Greek man with loose shorts and no underpants. 3^rd offense = Suspended membership. SHAME.

HOLD THE BALL
If you like to play basketball, or “hoop” as white people call it, you’re probably gonna take your ball that you own from the locker room all the way over to the basketball court. If you’re inside for the duration of the trip to the court and you have a basketball in your position, hold it. Don’t bounce it. Don’t dribble it across the entire facility. BOMP BOMP BOMBOMP BOMP BOMP BOMP BOMPBOMPBOMPBOMP stop it, hold the ball.

We wouldn’t allow a guy with a bass drum strapped to his belly like a marching band pounder to hammer out a 2:4 beat from the Spin class over to the Stairblaster without glaring. Why should you, bouncer of the ball, be any different? Because you have a tanktop from a Summer camp? You’re wearing retro Pippen’s? Shorts below the knee are not a pass to act like you’re about to create a highlight reel in the Under 25 game. Hold the ball.

PENALTY: Anybody can approach, defend, and hand-check you across the weight room and gets to keep your ball if they knock it outta your hand, then puncture it with an ice pick while your smelly cousin watches.

Phone Down, Weight Up
The Youth are into this new workout craze where you do a set of something, then fill the next 3 minutes by scrolling through the smartphone to see something. I don’t know what. But it requires being totally still, sitting on one bench or standing in one place or walking around with your head down and almost bumping into people.

If the facility has a WiFi server, every 10minutes just send out a blast message that reads “KEEP CALM AND PUT THE PHONE AWAY”. Keep it moving. Other people have actual friends to socialize with.

So there ya go. Anything else happening in the gym is up to you. Most of us are paying too much money to lift weights with dumbasses. You can be an animal without being a savage. Stay dry, rack it, and hold your stuff. Good advice any time.

March 22, 2013 0

Tag: Humor