Had Another Weird Team Workout . . .

. . . at the same gym as my other post, and this time it was doing a series of exercises with what can only be described an over-sized, weighted, foam billy club with a knob on the end. The instructor had what you expect in an aerobics lady: She was athletic and spunky. But then I started getting glimpses again of why this gym is super weird.

The other four in the group were regulars, so they all evidently get weekly updates about the instructor's upcoming wedding as she leads us. Here are the details from today's session:

- She can't wear her mother's dress as planned because, as it turns out, her mother was 93 pounds when she got married (Instructor can't weight a whole lot more than 100, but she has muscles and a big, muscley butt.

- Also, the dress was losing its luster. However! Not to fear because she's going to surprise her wedding party with mom wedding dress handbags and use it to make her garter. That's actually kind of an awesome idea.

- She's taking a picture in front of Wrigley Field wither her husband to give to her mentally challenged sister who is a savant about Chicago Cubs facts. That's actually kind of sweet.

Okay, I guess I'm not really making fun of this chick. Sorry. I'm just used to that approach on this blog, but I'm more tolerant of people these days. I just find what's fun or interesting about them even if it's a little weird or annoying.

For instance . . .

At one point she told us that at the gym she used to work out at, there was Sexual Harassment Fridays, where all verbal harassment (no touchy!) was fair game. Apparently, even the customers knew about this, and Friday, despite usually being one of their slower days, became one of the busiest!

That's actually a terrific idea - if you had the right staff who knew how to be sleazy funny in a tongue-in-cheek way, like Larry on Three's Company. Come to think of it, most personal trainers kind of have a Larry vibe.

Anyway, I'm kind of thinking about signing up for a membership at this joint after all my free sessions, if for no better reasons than the funny stories and the potential harassment.

"Where the F#c@ is the relationship?"

I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've posted. I have had this great post I have wanted to do, and I've been putting off writing it because I want it to be really good. Ultimately, I feared that it wouldn't be as good as it would have been a few years ago, but the more I thought about it, if posts were better back then, it's because I had so much less going on in my life. So, I'm just going to let this one rip, and if it's not as funny as it should be, so be it.

Here it is.

My roommate and I signed up for a gym package through an email coupon thing where we get 10 private/team training sessions for $48 total, and our first one was a mixed martial arts (MMA) class. This was exciting because I know that it's some of the toughest training in the world. Ex football players have started doing it and have said that what they did for pro football was nowhere near as demanding as MMA stuff. I also thought I'd be learning how to break arms, choke people, flying knees, spinning back kicks, liver punches, kidney punches, and all kinds of stuff. I did learn some things, but more about personality disorders than fighting.

The instructor came out, and he was immediately weird. If you met him at a party, you would know right away that he was a harmless guy, but he would get on your nerves, so you had better find another room to be in. That type of guy.

We started out with a lot of yoga poses that were actually really tough, and it was the hardest part of the class. Then he had us acting like various kinds of animals, circling around the mat. At this point, I had an open mind, thinking maybe it was like Mr. Miyagi, where you're painting the guy's fence and house, finishing his deck, but you just had to trust him that it would make you a karate master. That's where I was at until I was acting like my tenth animal, the class was nearly over, and I hadn't punched, kicked, or wrestled anyone.

It was a lot of sitting on the mat and learning stuff, which sucked because I wanted a workout. It was a lot of spiritual crappola and life lessons and lectures from a guy who looked to be five or six years younger than me. Yes, he was in really good shape, I'll say that for him. He could slowly move into a handstand and hold it, which is really tough, but while he would do things like that, he'd make really nerdy noises, like "zip, zip, zip!" He was totally socially awkward. At one point, while we're lying on the mat learning stuff, he says, "Would if I were to suddenly get Jenny into a full mount?" And as he says this, he rolls over and mounts my female roommate just above her waist as she's lying down. This was about 15 minutes into the session. He just met her a few minutes prior. He was also always making jokes that weren't at all funny and saying, "You guys need to lighten up!" I was doing a lot of smiling to make him feel better because he was zooming around the room making intense eye contact with everyone. He may have been on blow . . .

Finally, he has us on the floor doing some grappling, and I remember thinking it odd that he wasn't even watching us while we were doing it to tell us if we were doing things right. It turns out he was off chewing out two of his regular students. When he gets back from that, he puts them in front of everyone and says, "Everyone, I have a big problem today. I told Ron and Bill here to stop going so rough, kicking one another in a drill like this, and I tell you two to stop (Now looking right at these two. And yelling at them) and then I turn around, and you're doing it again! If you want to act like that, you can find another studio! You guys are supposed to be brothers! What have I told you is the whole theme of this month? Relationships. Where's the fucking relationship? You know what? That's it. I'm too upset. We're done for the day. Let's wrap it up."

We then did his bowing ritual thingy, and when he opens his eyes again, he's eerily calm . . .

"I'm sorry I let my temper get the better of me, and I'm sorry that I cursed. You just have to understand, this is my life." (I believed him) "And when I see shit like that" (cursing again) "it just upsets me greatly. Ken, Jenny, I'm sorry you had to see that . . ."

He then apologized and lectured for ten minutes, he cut the session that we all paid for by another ten minutes, and I feel like only the uncomfortableness gave me any kind of workout, somehow. Actually, I believe it was the chimpanzee movements that really hurt my ass for the next couple of days. So, I got an ass workout and a great story that would have been told greater a few years ago.

Stage Direction: Three friends are watching the Chicago Blackhawks game in the corner of a bar at a Northside watering hole

Layne: God bless America! Who in the hell ripped ass in here?

John: Totally not me. I'd tell you.

Layne: True. He'd tell the whole bar. Feck, how could you just just rip like that? We're breathing here!

Feck: It's not me. I know I'm leaning like this against the bar with my ass sticking out like I'm blasting one out there, but you know I just don't like to sit down. It's my AD/HD.

Layne: Well someone fucking unloaded in here, and it wasn't me.

All three suddenly become engrossed with the happenings of the TV as Blackhawks go on a two on one break . . .

All Three: Goooooooal! Yeah!

John: Yeah! This series is over. We got this.

Feck: Totally, but . . . what's that . . . Jesus! It stinks like the worst butt ever in here!

Layne: Okay, that time it was me. I admit it.

Feck: Yes, I knew it! Yuck! And that last one was you because it smelled precisely like this one.

Layne: Well, that's because we're all eating the same pizza - thus the same product.

Feck: No, dumb ass, it's got nothing to do with the fuel going in - it all smells like the same stinky anus: yours!

John: This is a disgusting conversation. Can we just plug our noses, close our mouths, and sit quietly like this for the next 34 seconds, which is roughly how long it took Layne's last fart to subside?

Quiton "Rampage" Jackson and "Sugar" Rashad Evans will finally do battle next weekend after a long wait because Rampage had to cancel the fight to get into his role as B.A. Baracus in the A Team movie. These two absolutely hate one another, and the war of words has been heated and constant over the past year.

Who doe Dr. Ken want to win, you may ask? Naturally, I'm pulling for the more funny guy, Rampage. Here's a quote I just heard from him, and I'm paraphrasing here because I'm too lazy to check it again on my DVR:

"You know that feeling when you're a kid when you just want to go to sleep and wake up on Christmas morning? I want to go to sleep, wake up, and open Rashad's face."

He's funny and Rashad, while a good fighter, has never said anything funny, and he seems like kind of an asshole. So, here's what I want to see again on May the 29th.

I had to get measured for a tuxedo the other day, and when the gal asked if I wanted to use the same measurements from my last measurement from December, I said that I'd like to get remeasured. Why? Because I have been pumping iron, so I'm thinking that my dimensions are going to be unbelievably huge now, right? When she was done measuring, I asked her if she could tell me how my measurements stacked up against December's.

The results?

Turns out only my neck got bigger.

That's just about the worst thing she could have said. If my waist went down or my chest went up, even if just a half inch in a favorable direction for either one, those would be good things, but my neck just getting fatter?

What a bummer, but I have worked out every day this week. Also, I have my first mixed martial arts training class on Saturday, so maybe I can put a dent in this fat neck of mine . . .

You're It, Seven Readers!

I was playing tag with a seven-year-old the other day, and just while I was wondering how in the heck we decide who starts out being "it," she got down on one knee and started touching each of our shoes in succession to the tune of . . .

Bbubble gum, bubble gum in a dish
How many pieces do you wish?

Dr. Ken: Uh, three?

One, two three, and you are it!

Now, when I was a kid, it would have been . . .

One, two, three, and you are NOT it. Not because you're dirty, not because you're clean, just because you kissed a boy behind a Playboy magazine.

Fucked up, right? But not as fucked up as this . . .

My mother and your mother were hanging clothes
My mother punched your mother right in the nose
What color blood came out

Other Person: Blue

B-L-U-E and you are not it
(then the Playboy magazine riff)

I always wondered what the dispute was all about with those mothers hanging the clothes. Maybe your mother took a clothes pin from my mother when my mother wasn't looking? Also, it's awful sexist to pigeonhole the moms into domestic duties like that, right?

Some do One Potato, Two Potato, like this:

One potato, two potato, three potato, four,
five potato, six potato, seven potato more.
Icha bacha, soda cracker,
Icha bacha boo.
Icha bacha, soda cracker, out goes Y-O-U!


I didn't look this one up, but I'm guessing it comes from Ireland with all that talk of potatoes and soda crackers.

Another one goes:

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he hollers, let him go
Eeny, meeny, miny moe

A much more offensive, outdated, racist version substitutes the word "nigger" for "tiger," and then says:
If he won't work, let him go

Yikes. How horrible! I'm glad school children aren't using that version anymore, but I'm sure PITA is offended by kids condoning grabbing poor tigers by their toes.

A couple more things:

When you were playing Hide-n'-Seek, Kick the Can, or Ghost in the Graveyard, and you wanted to indicate that you could come out from hiding without losing the game, did you ever say:

Olly, olly oxen free!


Also, what did you call the safe place to stand or the safe thing to touch in a game of tag, for instance? Was it goal, ghoul, base, or something else? Also, if one guy is touching it, could that guy reach out to grab the hand of another person to keep that person safe through touching the person touching the safe haven, and then that person could reach out to grab the hand of another, and so on, like so many paper dolls? And did you call this effect "electricity?"

Let me know, Seven Readers.

Regards,

The Same Idiot That Inquired About the Bicycle/Big Wheel Ice Cream Store

I feel like I talk about toilets a lot on this blog, but this is the only topic I had in my phone memo thingy for today, so here goes . . .

When I went into a bathroom today, I went right for that first stall because I remember reading somewhere that the first stall is the cleanest because people want to be away from the door or away from the people using the urinals. I was thinking that a good way to remember this trick is to sing it along to Cat Stevens and never Sheryl Crowe:

The first stall is the cleanest.
Baby, I know.
The first stall is the cleanest.

Hot for Not So Hot Teachers

Although more-and-more males are getting into the education field, it's still a female dominated profession. In my experience in schools, I've found that because of this, many women get way more excited about not-so-great male prospects so long as they are dudes. If you're having trouble meeting women, and maybe you want to inspire young people and enrich their lives (but mostly the getting chicks thing), you may want to consider a career change.

Trust me when I say that even if you're not too great looking, you'll make out like a bandit. Actually, I have discovered what constitutes a hot male teacher, and if you believe in this theory, you can't fail.

Are you ready?

Here is all you need to be the sexiest man alive to female teacher as one of the lone male teachers in the building:

No tits and most of your hair.

This Morning . . .

. . . at around 6:00 AM, the kids who live downstairs woke me up with loud rambunctious play. Again.

They carried on for around thirty minutes, it seemed, and when my alarm went off at 7:15, even though I promised myself I wouldn't use the button that has ruined our country, each snooze button interval of sleep felt so very good because it was that exact time of REM sleep that those little kids keep denying me.

Every couple of dreams was about these kids, and in the only one I can remember - a particularly sadistic one - I was looking for DVD's to play loudly in retaliation. My selection? Well, I considered an AC/DC in concert DVD but opted for Andrew Dice Clay's "The Dice Man Cometh." Not that I actually own any Dice DVD's, or an AC/DC ones for that matter, but in the dream I thought it would be nice to blast some dirty nursery rhymes by an angry Jewish guy who thinks he's Italian. That would be really screwed up to expose my young neighbor kids to a host of four letter words just because they wake me at the worst possible time on a daily basis; that would be truly sick.

However, when the final snooze went off, the one where if I didn't heed the call, I'd surely be late for work, I left the phone vibrating on the ground when I got in the shower for it to buzz loudly for the people below over and over. Just like I had to listen to that kid sing the Batman theme song over and over and over . . .

Destroy

Some mornings I listen to these DJ's in Chicago named Sherman and Tingle because they're funny, and they have a guy named Paul the Perv who gives me the traffic times in a Buffalo Bill voice from Silence of the Lambs. The other day, for whatever reason, Sherman, or maybe it was Tingle, was saying that every holiday his grandma takes a dump in the bathroom and stinks it up to all hell. What killed me about it was how he said it: "She goes in there and just destroys!"

That's a great way to say it, and the doctor urges you to use that word in that sense by the end of the week.

That's Doctor's orders.

I Had a Good Facebook Update Idea, . . .

. . . but I think people on FB are tired of hearing about my loud as hell neighbors with their out of control kids waking me up every morning. So, I'm going to do a FB update for you, my beloved seven blogger readers:

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater had a little payback while working out today by playing Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" in the dynamic of very, very loud."