Emerald Bay November 3, 1906


Emerald Bay February 17, 2008

 His most honorable Cap'n'Numb Skully soakin' 'iz shiverin' timbers on the very night b'far...

ticket to ride

February 20, 2008

http://www.xanga.com/El_Directore

Musings and Ramblings

Well hi there!

So where does a guy who essentially invented the blog go for months at a time? Why, to the gym, of course! That's where I met Henry.

Ain't he somethin'?

When I was young, my mom schooled me proper.

   "Son, " she said. "People don't care if you have a thought in your head as long as you have a great bod. Take it from me! Don't waste a lot of time developing your character, or of developing anything resembling moral fibre, because essentially, people are pretty shallow in most everything they say and do.

   "So if I can give you any one piece of advice at a young age, it's  that you should get buff, and then EVERYONE will think you are awesome! You can get both guys AND girls, AND you can even become the governor! Because people couldn't care less about your mind, your kindness, your humor, intelligence, thoughtfulness, nor character.

   "Read my lips. 'They're all about surface looks. So son, go out there and get buff!'"

As a youngster I took mom serious. Seriously for those few  of you out there who have some regard for correctness.

Well, those of you who know me know that I didn't listen to my mom at all and pretty much took the exact opposite of her advice. I developed my mind. More's the pity.

Well, I was pretty guilt-ridden because of my mom's hopes and dreams and all, and so I signed up and joined a gym last year.

The first thing I noticed was that the guys who work in those places seem pretty gay, but I had no prob since I'm a drama guy anyway. Nothing new, these guys are just HELLA buff for powder puffs.

M'bad.

Anyway, I went in and every single person working there had huge muscles, hard bodies, and tatoos. Evidently the Eminem look comes with the territory.

Anyway, the guy there was a pretty nice guy for a hustler, and before I knew it, I was on a tour of the place. The first thing he did was to take me upstairs, where rows and rows of people of all shapes and sizes were running in place, watching FOX television, which is once more Rupert Murdoch-owned, the same guy who controls thoughts AND runs Myspace. Here's a picture of the very buff and sexy Rupert Murdoch:

Rupert Murdoch, the picture of health. This guy
OWNS Myspace and FOX. The guy clearly
is everything young people aspire to. What a hunk
of man! Henry, you lookin', dawg?

************************************************************

As I looked around, I noticed immediately that half the people there were hard-bodied, serious vanity investors, young and all about being there for hours on end.

The other half were heaping lumps of cellulite sadly running, jiggling, huffing and puffing trying so much to look like the magazine covers that were running circles around them. They reminded me of this fellow I used to know named Bernie the Burnout. He once tried buying Spandex and riding his bicycle around so he'd look like he was going to get into shape. Here's a picture of Bernie:

Is this guy buff or what?

I knew instantly which category I was in. I asked the guy, "Uh, is there something else I could do?" I kept staring at the weightlifting machines, because THOSE contained THE magic secret, I KNEW that. Those weightlifters are just guys with too much time on their hands, but I knew that all the bicycling in the world wasn't going to make Bernie buff. So I looked at those weightlifting machines, and dreamed of being princely, muscular, with lines, man, cut to perfection. Yeah, screw Bernie. I mean LOOK at him.

******************************************************

The guy walked me swiftly past those machines however, as if to say, "Uh, yeah don't even go there!" and he walked me into some room with big balls in it. Now I'm not a big ball kinda guy, so I asked if there was anything else. He said the big balls could help me do some miracle thing called Pilates. And then some girl started rolling around on the big ball. He asked me if I wanted to do Pilates.

A little comic book cloud formed over my head, and inside the cloud, a screw appeared, and then a baseball.

"Uh...you got ANYTHING else?" I asked. For some reason I suddenly felt like Brahms.

I could see the guy was viewing me as a lost cause. We walked back past the "ellipticals", which I imagine are the machines that give one bragging rights, because they gauge how fast you run, how steep your incline is, how many MILES you log, and finally, how many calories you burn. They should also gauge how near you are to death. I decided to give that one a go.

There was this little Asian lady on the elliptical right next to me, and of course I wanted to see how she was doing. She was going around 3.0 speed, and had already run about .5 of a mile. Well, I have this sort of natural competive nature, and before I knew it, I was silently challenging her.

 I decided to crank my machine up to 5.0 and run my own circles around her. Within a half hour, I had gone over two miles, burned over 350 calories, and felt amazing. I kicked her ass all over town, and I felt utterly ecstatic.

Until I got OFF the thing.

*    *   *  *   #
~*   * % & **~
*             *

I stumbled into the little Asian lady and held on to her like the town drunk hanging on to a lamp post. She hit me with her shopping bag, and I stumbled over to the stairs and almost tumbled ass-over-elbows over the rail and onto the main desk.

At the desk, this buff black guy with a dark moustache and goatee glanced up and smiled. "How may I help you sir?"

"Dude, there's a crazed Asian woman upstairs and she wants to beat me to death with a shopping bag! Is there a place I can hide?"

"Well sir, this IS highly unusual." He had some sort of gold tooth in his mouth. I looked past him to the pool area right behind the desk.

"Do you guys sell water goggles here?"

They didn't. I noticed the pool area and that the only people in there were Asian men and women in their fifties and sixties, bouncing around in the water. I figured at least I don't have all those young hard bodies around me intimidating me. I took off to the store, bought an expensive pair of goggles, and went in to the pool area.

Now I'm a good swimmer. I have strength, endurance, and I was on my swim team for a year in high school. So I finally had found my niche, I felt.

I had two hesitations, however:

1)  I didn't want to take off my shirt, because there's a reason I needed to get in shape.

and

2) I didn't want to take off my hat because I NEVER take off my hat. Not even in a pool. I just turn it around and dive in.

I turned my hat around, left my black tee shirt on, and instantly glided through the water like a human torpedo. It all came back, the smoothness of swimming, the water shooting by, the clean strokes, and the ease with which I could endure. I decided to swim thirty laps, down and back being one.

I moved along at a gracefully amazing clip, pulling water, as I like to put it, when I felt I needed a cool down after ten laps. So I found it was restful do this sweet elementary back stroke to keep my heart rate low. I pulled the goggles up and breathed, knowing that I could easily do this for an hour each day.

I "visualized" myself not all muscular, but toned and healthy when suddenly I accidentally swept my hand across this hefty lady's ass. She glared at me with comic-book disdain, and I uttered something like, "Sorry!" She had a raised eyebrow as though I touched her ass on purpose. I just spit out some water and kept gliding. She gave me a second glance and returned to her Disney ballet.

I kept going and going when I began to take notice of a pattern taking place. I glanced to my right and noticed that there were TWO entire lanes of ladies of similar bent, all hopping on one foot. I swam three more laps, ignoring it all and just wanting now to get in great shape, when I looked up and saw that they had all now switched to hopping up and down on their OTHER foot.

Meanwhile, in my own lane, some old fellow was doing what seemed like Tai Chi exercises, posing in these absurd positions every ten seconds or so. I almost killed the guy every time I would fly past him.

Soon however, I was able to put it all out of my mind and just keep swimming, finishing 30 laps and putting in an additional half hour on the elliptical. I thought of all those people jumping up and down on one foot, or of Tai Chi guy, and couldn't figure out for the life of me how any of that was going to get many of them in shape. I'm guessing the gym got plenty of exercise counting all their money.

*******************************************************

I finally finished my entire "regimen" and hopped in the TOOONDRA and took off. As I drove past all the muscleheads and all, I was less impressed with all of their cut looks and all. I figured most of them have WAY too much time on their hands, and I would prefer not spending every waking moment on vanity.

I mean, I'm guessing I'm not going to look too much like Henry, the guy at the top of this page any time soon. I also thought of how important it is for us to be healthy and yet how sad it is for people trying to lose, trying to get those muscles, trying to look like the magazines and television ads that bombard us daily with long-haired Fabios riding bicycles that go upside down, and young, beautifully cut women with huge cleavage telling young girls that if they don't look like THEY do that they just aren't working to get it.

The whole thing is manipulation.

It's no coincidence that Rupert Murdoch and his FOX cronies have put all of us in a state of feeling inferior and not up to the Arayan buffness that seems to make everyone admire people who are "hot". Well, I'm happy to see that we now worship everything on the surface.

It keeps me from having to develop a mind, a thoughtful presence, any sort of consideration for good deeds or, heaven forbid, developing anything resembling deep thought or intelligence.

Who needs that when you have good looks and rippling muscles?

Personally, I prefer developing kindness, humor, intelligence, thoughtfulness, and character.

Peace, and sorry ma. 

I'll leave the buff look to the buffers and lookers.

I'm gonna go somewhere and read.

A waist is a terrible thing to mind. Ask Bernie.

Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/El_directore