01/15/2007: "New Gym Observations"

Hi All,

So I’m back at the gym now. I was running for a long time there, just running, but now it’s a wee bit too nippy for that so I joined Talisman Center in Calgary, where I can jog on the track, but since I’ve got the time I thought I’d get back into weight lifting on a really low level.

It’s like immersing yourself in a cold pool again. Got to go slow. Not just for the sake of my body, which has surrendered mucho muscle, but even getting back into the lifestyle of the gym is a weird thing.

A few things I’ve (re-)noticed:

MUSCLY PETES:

I call all the giant guys at the gym, collectively, Muscley Pete. Matters not to me wether your name is Jim or Orville or Phineas or Increase or Brubaker or Fats or even Pete: if you’re a giant be-muscled dude at my gym, to me your name is MUSCLY PETE. The whole “Pete” suffix started last summer, when my brother came out of his bedroom in the morning in the rattiest, oldest, holiest, should-have-been-tossed-in-the-ragbin-ten-washes-ago pair of underwear I’d ever seen, thus earning him the nickname “Tattery Pete.” That nickname didn’t really stick for too long since me and my brother make up new nicknames for each other all the time, but the “Pete” portion did stick around. Some of my other favorite all-purpose nicknames are: Toughie LaRue (a generalized greeting), Kegger McGregor (for my heavy-drinking buddies, or just a buddy who’s gotten himself paralyzingly drunk), Taffy Sanchez, Fat n’ Sassy, Fatty Stacks ... this, actually, is my brother’s creation: Fatty Stacks is a hypothetical basketball player he made up, who only played one game because he was so good he got banned from the NBA for violating the fair-play policy since he could dunk from half court and swished every shot even as far back as the opposite inbounds line; and, oh yes, according to Graham he weighed in the neighborhood of 500 pounds—hence the “Fatty” moniker. I regret never seeing his one and only game, wherein he supposedly made Michael Jordan cry. Ol’ Fatty Stacks. Graham’s other classic basketball nickname was when he took the name “Samaki Walker”—a real player, recently with the LA Lakers—and re-jiggered his name to “The Milwaukee Stalker.” Yep, ol’ Samaki Walker the Milwaukee Stalker. Quite a baller, that fellow.

Where was I...? Oh, yes, the Muscly Petes. Not to be mistaken for Tattery Pete, of which, to my knowledge, there is only one. The Muscly Petes are always needing spots, you see, because many are lifting weight the equivalent of a VW microbus stuffed with circus clowns. A “spot,” for those of you not in the weightlifting culture, is when you help a guy who is lifting a quantity of weight that he feels uncomfortable with, helping as needed. Usually bench press. Though not mandatory, most good spotters—and I like to consider myself a good one—spout inspirational phrases such as:

“That’s all you, baby, all you!”
“You’re in it to WIN IT, baby!”
“Live strong or die, baby!”
“Show that weight who’s boss, baby! SHOW IT!”
“You’re ripped, baby! You’re HUUUUUGE!”

In fact, I would say spotting is one of the only times you can refer to another male, especially a Muscly Pete, as “baby” and not get your spine twisted into a creative pretzel shape. So I take advantage of that opportunity.

My point is, I feel oddly grateful every time a Muscly Pete asks me to spot for him. I think of myself as a good spotter, which is pathetic as I really don’t do anything. They ask and I always shrug and say, “Yeah, no problem” then stand over the bar as they do their thing, maybe adding the odd, “That’s all you, man,” then Muscly Pete will say, “Hey, thanks, man,” or “For a scrawny douchebag, you can spot alright” and I’ll say, “Hey, no worries” or “I’m working on that whole scrawny thing—I’m afraid the douchebag part is permanent” and wander off feeling pretty darn good about myself for no tangible reason at all.

And quite honestly, I’m still a bit of a Bony Ben at the moment, so they better be able to handle the weight pretty much on their own or they’ll end up as the musclehead formerly known as Muscly Pete, on account of the six months in traction to treat their crushed larynx.

FASHION:

Another thing about the gym is the fashion. I already did a blog about old man’s fashion at the gym, so there will be no more on their high socks and short shorts and pasty blue-veined thighs bridging the two. Today there was a guy doing biceps curls with giant wraparound sunglasses on. He was like The Gym Terminator—except he was fat and bald and I could hear Cindy Lauper coming out of his headphones. Perhaps there was some medical reason for this but he was tanned and didn’t look especially anemic so albinism seemed a stretch. Maybe he was on a break from a Texas Hold ‘em poker tournament.

Then there was this person on the stair-climbing machine. Little spandex action going on: low-cut on the bottom, a little something to keep everything in check (or so it would seem) up top. Showing a little midriff. Nice legs. Nice glutes. Long dark hair. This person was faced away from me so I couldn’t see the goods completely, but my snap judgement was, “Hey, that’s a pretty fine specimen of femininity.”

Of course, the person turns around and is a DUDE.

This registered as a temporary blow to my worldview. I mean, it wasn’t like there was a “stirring in my loins” beforehand, or any sort of Harlequin sentiment like that, but still, it struck me as an act of wilful trickery—was this dude trying to get other dudes to check him out, trying to snare us in a beartrap of our own thwarted expectations? The long hair, okay, I can get it. The shaved legs ... well, some guys do that sort of thing. I wouldn’t want to deal with the ingrown hairs, but to each his own. The nice legs and ass—well, a guy’s got as much a right to a fine ass as anyone, I suppose.

But the little spandex two-piece—What, to quote Jerry Seinfeld, is the DEAL with that? I’ve never seen a guy wearing one of those. What, other than a rampant set of man-cans, would you need one for? And even if you were cursed with a manly rack, you’d wear the spandex under a tee shirt or something. I mean, other than a set of wooly leggings immortalized by Jennifer Beals in “Flashdance,” the guy had the whole female gym-strip down pat. (Okay, so women don’t wear leggings anymore. In a perfect world, MY perfect world, they surely would.)

And the guy didn’t even seem to be pursuing the whole feminine angle.

He had a GOATEE, for god’s sake!

A case of the whole “good from far but far from good” chestnut. Well, hey, good for someone, maybe. Good for whoever digs goateed, shaven-legged, spandex-sportin’ lads with flowing raven hair. I'm sure there's a website out there dedicated to that sort of thing.

Maybe he was European. Maybe that’s why The Gym Terminator was wearing sunglasses: to check out Glen or Glenda in the spandex two-piece. Certainly all the Muscly Petes couldn’t help but take a gander.

Then again, neither could I.

Maybe I’m just trying to indict other people to avoid focusing on the fact I thought a dude was sorta hot.

Ah, so what? So I took a look at a fella. Who cares? Who am I to say what anyone can or should or shouldn’t wear, anyway?

Kudos to you, willowy long-haired dude with a goatee in a spandex two-piece. You go on with your crazy pansexual badass self!

All best, Craig.