Prove Your Strength
Excuse the belated nature of this article. Come to think of it, it’s now nearly 6 months since it occurred, but as this ‘zine is here, in part, to document experiences that are perhaps not completely of the mainstream nature, this here experience shall be documented. Since this happened a while back, I am in the position to include a bit of follow up directly into this piece. I’ll keep verb tense as consistent as I can.
And so, nearly six months ago, May 15th of 2011 to be precise, Beelzy and I have been lucky enough to attend a pretty amazing event. Proven Performance Gym held their first Strongman Competition, which, despite the sport’s name, also had a Women’s division. I was on a health kick at the time, working out pretty consistently at CrossFit Riverdale, where, without initially realizing it, I actually began Strongman training. My workouts were having my parents whimpering about how I’m going to bust an ovary, but, unperturbed, I kept heaving large balls of cement, and wandering around with hundreds of pounds of metal balanced on my shoulders. Observing a Strongman Competition was a natural progression and on June 26th, I actually went through with it, and entered Lightning Fitness’ first Strongman Competition. It was called “Battle of the Thundergods” and the trophy was a frigging mallet. I mean, of COURSE I did it! But we’ll stick to May for now.
Rained a bit that day
The day began early as balls. Since Beelzy and I were at the time stationed in the Bronx, it took us about three and a half hours to get on over to Massachusetts where after an adorable breakfast at a mom and pop diner/bakery, we met our tense looking gym mates at about 10am. The crew collected in the parking lot next to the Proven Performance gym where they nervously eyed some seriously loaded barbells. Read more »
The Knot and the Tying Thereof
We live in America, where numerous choices, endless information, and reality TV can ensure that any event, nevermind an important one, can become a complete nightmare.
So when Beelzy finally grinned sheepishly and said, “Wanna get married?” and I nodded, we decided we were going to run away to Mexico to get the deed done there. Then we found out that you need a blood test and then have to wait around for several days, and the marriage won’t actually count, so you still have to go to a courthouse or something in the states. We decided to elope elsewhere.
Even eloping turned out to be somewhat problematic. Not knowing very much about weddings, I turned to the Internet, and was given a variety of indirect advice by column writers. Eloping is all good and well, but the consensus was, that if you actually have people who give a single shit about whether you live or die, they’ll be pissed that you sneaked off to get married and didn’t even tell them.
So we told folks. Mom tears flowed a little, but at that point we decided to get married in the Smoky Mountains, in Tennessee, which is totally not close to NYC, and we didn’t really expect anyone to want to drop a few hundred bucks just to get there. Turns out we were wrong, and before long, we actually had guests. (Now I understand that weddings are excuses to throw all thoughtfulness to the wind and demand unreasonable things from people which will generally be acquiesced to.) And although on one hand, I started freaking out about what to wear, on the other hand, it was nice to know that on this day, which would be pretty important, we didn’t need an innkeeper and photographer to be our witnesses. Read more »
How I Lost My Full-Body Callus at Spa Castle
Date: 6/13/11
Venue: Spa Castle, 131-10 Ave Collegepoint, NY 11356
Event: A day’s worth of sitting around in saunas, swimming, eating Korean food– to culminate in an assult by a tiny near-naked middle-aged Korean woman with scrubby pads.
The day began as many days of mine begin… with a crazy-ass workout where I do something previously assumed to be impossible (like lift 300lbs). Afterwards, I promised my aunt to go with her to a spa I’ve never heard of, but which she raved about. I’ve never been to a spa before, therefore this can’t be an objective comparison to other such establishments… but something tells me “other such establishments” are far and few between. You be the judge.
The place is called Spa Castle and is touted as a luxurious experience for an unusually low price. In fact, their slogan is “Welcome to Paradise.” $35 on a weekday ($45 on a weekend) will get you into 4 floors worth of hot baths, saunas, food courts, lounges, bars, massage chairs, rooftop bade pools with jets of waters beating different bits of you, a fitness center (for an extra $5) and an opportunity to be surrounded by naked women. If you’re a woman too. Sorry about that… I know some of you just got excited. The place is open from 6:30am until 11:30pm and you can hang out as long as you like once you pay the entrance fee. For more money you can also get a variety of treatments, mostly massages, more on that later.
It all began quite excitingly with me driving back and forth in front of the place not understanding where to park until my aunt finally saw me, and waved me frantically towards the front where an honest to god valet quickly sped off with my car to an unknown location at no charge (I got the car back, just so you know). We finally entered, paid, and were given little magnetic watches, each with a number that served as a locker key as a well as a way to keep a mounting tab without concerning yourself with things like money or cards, or pants in which to carry them. Read more »
Crossfit For Your Life (#1)
Last night, around 8pm, I was at the back of what looks like an abandoned building, in a courtyard with walls decorated with such aesthetically pleasing implements such as a rusty saw, and coils of rope. Objects strewn around me included tarps, pallets, and huge round boulders. I was watching folks, their forearms covered in gooey tree sap, lifting these monster rocks, throwing ‘em around, grunting, shivering in the wind, cracking jokes. Then it was my turn. My hands around the freezing stone, squeezing like hell with my forearms, I heaved, thought nothing would happen, and then felt it move, upwards! Where I wanted it to go! And upwards some more, and then up to my chest, and damnit! But I just lifted a 112lb stone, which two months ago I could barely move. A giggle, turning to mad-scientist-worthy guffaw leaves my lips in slightly hysterical ecstasy. Where the hell was I, you ask? Why, the gym.
aaaarrrggggggh!!!!muahahahahahaha. That's sound effects for you.
Galapagos Art Space weekly smites with The Floating Kabarette
Event Date: January 29,2011
Venue: Galapagos Art Space
Performers: Jenny Rocha and Her Painted Ladies, the Red Hook Ramblers, Maine Attraction, Miss Tickle, Cole Zocca, Amazing Amy, Bastard Keith.
While looking for wedding venues for my sister I stumbled on an NYC gem – Galapagos Art Space, a performance space housed in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), Brooklyn. Although I realized that my idea of what a wedding could be didn’t really match with hers, I did decide to check out their weekly occurring Floating Kabarette. First of all, because I wanted to know if anyone would actually be nearly nude and in their 1600 square foot lake, or was it to be aerial acrobatics, again, nearly nude?
Well, turns out it’s mostly the latter, which is still totally fine by me. The indoor “lake” I was so excited about is actually more of a pond, with wooden decks covering a great portion of it and housing tables and booths for guests who were wise enough to show up early and claim the lower level of the building. Read more »
Tromeo And Juliet
I don’t have cable, so my choices are the 3 channels my TV still gets, which means news and sitcoms, both equally vacuous and depressing, or Netflix. So I watch lots of old movies and pilots of shows that aren’t even on the air anymore. This is how I stumbled upon Tromeo and Juliet, directed by Lloyd Kaufman from Troma Entertainment.
We’ve all been subjected to the idiotic lunacy of the Shakespeare original. Now that I’ve seen T&J, the fact that I had to suffer through and try to like the original is justified. Read more »
Pipers, Better Than Peppers
Event Date: September 7, 2010
Venue: B. B. Kings Blues Club
Bands: Red Hot Chilli Pipers (Main); GIRSA (Opener)
When telling people that I was off to see the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, I was first met with a flurry of jealous looks and then confusion, as the phonemes caught up with the temporal lobe. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are not peppers, they are Pipers, and they certainly earned the capital letter I just bequeathed upon them.
On September 7th, this band (used semantically to represent a great number of people come together for a single purpose, rather than a few guys who decided to play music together) graced the stage of B.B. King’s to bring to New York a spectacular set of Bagpipe Rock, and Folk, and what have you. Read more »
Let The Right One In vs. Let Me In
“Let Me In” is the 2010 American version of “Let The Right One In” a 2008 Swedish film directed by Tomas Alfredson. I watched “Let the Right One In” (to be referred to as LTROI hereafter) at home on a lonely night when I was in a weird mood and wanted a movie to match. It left an impression. I wasn’t sure how to feel about “Let Me In” (obviously to be referred to as LMI hereafter), directed by Matt Reeves. I referred back to my experiences of The Grudge, both the Japanese and the American version and since I found merits in both versions, I thought this would be a similar experience, so I tromped off to the movie theater, with some vague memories of how it was all going to go down.
After I watched the American version, I came home, and instantly sat down to watch the Swedish film. I was unsure of how I felt and that left me troubled.
The American version is faster paced, with many of the small side stories (primarily to do with the neighbors) completely cut out. Also, it starts in media res and then cuts back to two weeks leading up to the event. This allows you to be shocked to attention so you can sit through the actual plot of
the story before either gore or heart rending angst can be tossed your way to keep you interested. Maybe the American audience is just so inured to pain and horror in our movies that the producers didn’t think we could face up to the plot in its original order and at its original pace. If you are not the type of person who can sit through a number of scenes where nothing of import appears to be happening, then the US version is probably all you need to get from this story. However, the original invokes much deeper and more genuine feelings for the main characters. Read more »
Repo Men: An Inflight Movie Review
Flying has become a bit more pleasant these days. Sure, you have to get to the airport ungodly early and are now in danger of a cavity search due to a concealed umbrella, but at the same time most international flights now have individual TV screens and a pretty decent selection of movies.
Repo Men is one of the movies that caught my attention as I forced myself to stay awake on a trip from the UK back home (screw jetlag, I’m not gonna let it make a subhuman out of me any longer than necessary). I read the quick summary and it sure rang some bells. The plot is basically about repossession of past due human organs, now why does that sound familiar? Well, maybe because of Repo! The Genetic Opera.
Since I am currently on a plane and therefore cut off from the lifeforce that is Internet data, I can’t tell which movie came first (obviously I found some internet now, and yeah, The Genetic Opera (2008) has 2 years on Repo Men(2010)). In either case, despite the similarity in plot line, they are completely different and both excel within their genre. Read more »
Playing on the Edge of a Cliff
The Cliffs of Moher are apparently Ireland’s largest tourist attraction. And like the good tourists that we are, we got on the bus from Dublin and made the 4 hour journey over to the West side of Ireland to see the Atlantic from 700 feet away, vertically.
The Visitor Center is worth mentioning as it is in fact an enormough Hobbit burrow, built into a hill, so as to not mar the landscape. Inside is laid out in the flat sheets of stone mined from the surrounding areas.
The cliffs of Moher themselves are a true wonder. Extending as far as the eye can see, they are properly jagged with water endlessly working to erode the rocks from below. Read more »
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