Judgment free zones don't apply to men

Eric Stagno

One of the reasons many people don’t go to gyms to workout is due to the intimidation factor.  People who are out of shape or don’t have a perfect body-type feel self-conscious at the gym because they imagine that the bodybuilders and fitness instructors are silently judging their skinny arms and flabby butts.

A gym chain called Planet Fitness calls this gymtimidation. To combat this form of imaginary bullying, the Planet Fitness people have created a “Judgement Free Zone” so people who have never done a jumping jack in their lives can feel comfortable pedaling a stationary bicycle at the gym in their yoga pants once a month or so while drinking a malted strawberry milkshake can do so without feeling body-shamed.

Or, as Planet Fitness puts it, “As we evolve and educate ourselves, we will seek to perfect this safe, energetic environment, where everyone feels accepted and respected. We are not here to kiss your butt, only to kick it if that’s what you need.”

Boy, talk about a mixed message. The statement starts out sounding very progressive and tolerant with a hippy-millennial vibe that makes it sound like the gym is a safe-place for metrosexual snowflakes who would have flunked gym in high school if public schools still required it. However, the last sentence reveals that familiar Arnold Schwarzenegger-Hans-and-Frans-Charles Atlas tone indicating that they will “pump you up you pencil-neck girly man.”

Recently, a man in Plaistow, New Hampshire, tested the “Judgement Free Zone” in a way that Planet Fitness hadn’t anticipated.  Eric Stagno, age 34, walked into the local gym and according to Captain Brett Morgan of the Plaistow Police Department, “stripped down right there in front, left the clothes and belongings at the front desk, walked back and forth across the gym a couple of times and then settled in over at the yoga mats." According to reports, police arrested Stagno while he was in a “yoga-type pose.”

First of all, ew.

Second of all, for the sake of the arresting officers, I’m hoping it wasn’t the downward facing dog.

Third of all, ew.

Other people at the gym complained of feeling “sick,” “unsafe” and “disgusted” by the presence of a naked man exercising in their midst. Stagno countered by saying “he thought it was a judgment-free zone.”

Well played, Mr. Stagno. Unfortunately, progressive tolerance only applies to themes consistent with progressive ideology. You would have gotten away with it if you had self-identified as a gender other than the one you were born. Details.

Apparently, the naked work out idea is catching on. A man named Brody Tyler Young was arrested in Nashville for doing naked jumping jacks in a women’s bathroom at a McDonald's restaurant. He had locked himself in the bathroom all day and wouldn’t come out despite pleas from the restaurant manager. I’m wondering what how these pleas sounded.

Did the manager use a familiar tone?

“Brody Tyler! You get yo naked butt out a dat bathroom rat this very instint, or I gonna call yo mama. Dis ain’t no Planet Fitness.”

Or maybe the manager used a more formal approach.

“Mr. Young, as the duly appointed representative of this Nashville McDonald’s franchise, I order to you come out with your pants up.”

These incidents are an outrage. When a cisgender man can get arrested for doing yoga poses and jumping jacks in the nude, it tears at the very fabric of our constitutional jock straps. Rise up, cisgender men! Fight for your right to be weird and disgusting like everyone else. You have nothing to lose but your yoga pants. 

Grunt envy

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 15 March 2015 under the title, "Exploring 'gruntology'".

Living in a military town, you may be aware that different military services have unique grunting noises that military personnel use in certain situations.  When I was in the Air Force, I was mostly ignorant of this fact as we did not have any specific grunting noises we had to make back then.  However, when I began to encounter people from other branches, I noticed them making some odd sounds.  I initially just chalked it up to a chemical imbalance of some sort or the side effect of having too small of a vocabulary, but over time I began to recognize there was meaning in these noises.  Now, I understand that each branch of the military has a service-specific grunt that comes complete with a proud heritage and improbable story of origin.  The study of these sounds and their origin is known as gruntology. 

According to Yahoo Answers, which is never wrong about anything, the Air Force says hoorah, the Marines say oorah, the Navy says hooyah, and the Army says hooah.  These sounds must make for some great conversations at joint service picnics. However, I’m not sure any of this is right. 

Being in an Army town, I know the soldiers say hooah, or huah, or hua, with the spelling, depending on who you ask.  I remember they were making a sound similar to that when I was on active duty, but I don’t know what the proper spelling was.  It seemed soldiers used in a variety of situations with different meanings depending on circumstances.  If they said the word like a question accompanied by a thumbs-up gesture, it meant the soldier was asking you if you were having a good day.  Or at least an Army day.  At other times it was used in the place of yes or yes sir or sometimes a lot more. 

“Private Flounder, did you clean out all the garbage cans and polish my riding boots?” Asked Colonel Niedermeyer. 

“Hooah!”  Replied private Flounder to Colonel Niedermeyer, with great enthusiasm. 

In this case, Private Flounder was telling Colonel Niedermeyer that he dumped the contents of all the garbage cans into his riding boots and then shot holes in them with his rifle.  A complete paragraph of useful information provided in a single grunting noise.  Brilliant military efficiency. 

The Marines have a similar grunting noise that is often spelled, oorah or hoorah, but to me always sounded like aahh-ooh-rah. The Marines pronounce the first syllable with a unique nasal tone that immediately sets it apart to the ear of a trained gruntologist.  I once spent a year at the Marine Corps base at Quantico and became familiar with the different pronunciations and meanings of their service-specific grunts. 

The first thing in the morning, I was often greeted by Marines in the hallways of our hallowed learning institution with a curt, “Urr.”  At first, I took this to be a warning, like the growl of an angry dog, but I soon realized this was just Marine shorthand for “Good morning.”   The rest of the time, they communicated with variations of oorah depending on the circumstances and their level of excitement.  If you were asking them a simple question requiring an affirmative, you’d get the two-syllable “oorah” answer.  If you were asking them to do something absurdly difficult or dangerous, you’d more likely get the full three-syllable “aahh-ooh-rah” response, sometimes accompanied by them dropping to the ground and doing pushups.

I’ve read the grunt sound, hooyah, came from the Navy SEALS, but that it is now becoming popular in the rest of the Navy.  However, when I was working with naval personnel once upon a time, they preferred the more pirate-sounding, “aaarrr.”  Sailers usually emitted the sound when you asked them if they wanted to do something that was dangerous, morally questionable, or personally degrading.  There was no change in pronunciation, but the more excited they were, the longer they dragged out the “rrrrs.”

The Air Force doesn’t have a service grunt which has caused the organization to have a bad case of grunt envy.  They have tried over the years to come up with something grunt-worthy but have consistently failed.  A little over a decade ago someone tried to get the phrase “air power!” accepted as the service grunt.  However, it violated all the requirements of a service grunt—it was composed of actual words, it couldn’t be used to answer any question, and it didn’t have a macho-stud-hoss sound to it. Their best solution was to steal the Army’s hooah because they used to be part of the Army, but I don’t think anyone said hooah during the days of the Army Air Corps.  Airmen could use the sound that pilots make when they are pulling Gs, but that would sound like they were making a bowel movement. It is probably best if airmen don’t say anything at all. Leave the grunting in the other services where it belongs.       

               

  

Confessions of a llama queen

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 8 March 2015 under the title, "Not me, I'll never be a llama queen."

The world was treated to yet another absurd social phenomenon recently when the Twitter-Tumblr-Instagram universe exploded due to the combined effects of runaway llamas and the mysterious blue-black dress controversy.  It was an inane social media maelstrom of such enormous magnitude that even Kim Kardashian couldn’t resist becoming a part of it by posting about the dress. 

The llama event occurred right here in Arizona, where once again, we showed the world our impressive ability to distract ourselves from anything important that might be going on.  The llamas are certain to appear from behind the Curtain of Distraction in a future ASU basketball game.  Move aside unicorns, here comes the llama train. 

The two escaped llamas, which evoked a police response that hasn’t been seen since the Tison gang went on a rampage in 1978, paralyzed the news world for hours.  The llamas were in Sun City, of course, an epicenter of golf cart gang activity.  Sun City is to golf carts what Sturgis is to motorcycles.  The llamas, however, proved too fast for the golf cart wranglers.   Llamas, as it turns out, can run up to 28 mph.  Golf carts typically move at about 15 mph.  It was no contest. 

As someone who works with horses, I particularly enjoyed watching squads of llama catchers trying to surround and catch the llamas with outstretched and flapping arms.  Llamas are prey animals.  They didn’t see a group of loving human beings trying to hug them and make them safe.  What the llamas saw was a pack of terrifying, wing-flapping, beady-eyed predators who were obviously intending to make llama-burgers out of them.  Whenever I see this same activity in the horse stables, I always make a point of sitting on the porch, popping open a cool one, and watching the hilarious show to follow.  It just never gets old.  

To make sure that nothing was missed during the harrowing ordeal, at least two helicopters were scrambled overhead to film the unfolding drama.  The news anchors covering the story live proceeded to emit a torrent of horrible puns and rhyming phrases about the llamas.  Banners like “llama drama,” “llamas on the lam,” “llamas on the loose,” and “llow speed chase” scrolled shamelessly across the bottom of TVs throughout the nation during live telecasts of the event.  Well, loyal readers, I would never resort to such lame llamanisms in my column.  I’ll never be a llama queen. 

Once the story about the llamas broke, the Twitterverse exploded.  Even the Arizona Cardinals got in on the action, offering the llamas one-year deals to play ball for the Cards.  Silly idea, but they do need some help at the running back position.  Too bad llamas spit.  Although, who wouldn’t love to see Richard Sherman of the Seahawks get blasted with llama spit while trying to make a tackle.

 The other story that vomited onto the internet was the story about the blue and black dress.  Some people said the dress was black and blue, others white and gold. All I saw was ugly.  I didn’t matter to me which hue the dress was, it was hideous no matter which angle you viewed it.  If someone had worn that dress on the red carpet when Joan Rivers was still around, she would have spontaneously combusted into a cloud of botox vapor.   

The dress caused all kinds of strife throughout the country.  People became angry and fought with one another.  The nation is no longer divided into red states and blue states.  Now, we are divided into blue-black states and white-gold states.  Our sense of reality has been destroyed.  We no longer know what color our favorite football team is wearing. Are we cheering for the Panthers or the Saints?  The scientists who always clear these things up for us have calmly explained that the visual difference is due to primal biology.  You see, our caveman ancestors had to learn how to see things in broad daylight after having spent all morning in their man-caves watching the Panthers and Saints play on their cathode ray television sets.  Their brains had to interpret the reality of the visual world outside the cave once the light entered their corneas, bounced around their nasal cavities, and exited out through their left ear holes.  Well, I don’t know about you, but that explanation clears it up for me. 

Now, everyone is wondering about the black and white llamas.  Were they black and white or were they blue-black and white-gold?  I’m pretty sure the guy that lassoed the llamas from his pickup truck wasn’t sure what people meant when they asked to lasso the black one first.  He probably just closed his eyes and tossed the rope, hoping he didn’t come up with Kim Kardashian.  He heard tell she spits. 

The curtain of distraction

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 1 March 2015 under the title, "Taking pride in the 'curtain of distraction.'

It is not easy being an Arizona State graduate deep in the heart of Wildcat territory.  I am the only member of my family who didn’t get his undergrad degree from the University of Arizona, which means family gatherings are a hostile environment with endless jokes about the Tempe Normal School.  In the movie “Dumb and Dumber To,” even the Farrelly Brothers couldn’t pass up a shot at ASU.  When Jeff Daniel’s idiot character, Harry Dunne, looks through his mail that had been collecting at his parent’s house for twenty years he finds an acceptance letter from Arizona State.  Haha, Farrelly Brothers.  Haha.

It is not the first time that ASU has been ridiculed in pop culture.  In an episode of “The Simpsons,” Homer’s straight-laced neighbor, Ned Flanders, notices that Homer made it into heaven after a flood wiped out the entire town. Ned remarks, "Looks like Heaven's easier to get into than Arizona State."  In an episode of “30 Rock,” Alec Baldwin’s character Jack Donaghy says while discussing parenthood, "A parent is the one person who is supposed to make their kid think they can do anything -- says they're beautiful, even when they're ugly, thinks they're smart, even when they go to Arizona State." Even Sierra Vista Herald’s Matt Hickman mentioned in one his columns last fall that ASU was once a “party school full of idiots.” 

Oh yeah?  Well, I’m a proud alumnus of ASU from the time when it was still a party school full of idiots!  (I guess that clears up a question I had about which side of the “Idiots & Friends” page I belong.)  However, things have changed for my alma mater.  It is a much more serious school now where students dedicate their energy to bettering themselves and becoming scientists or something.  According to my detailed research of Playboy’s annual list of top ten party schools, ASU hasn’t been on the list in years.  Well, almost two.  Okay fine, but on the 2013 list they barely made ninth place, and last year U of A was fourth.  So take that Wilbur!

Yes, it appears ASU is well on its way to becoming a respected institution.  The Tempe Normal School is finally becoming a place where parents can confidently send their youngsters to an institution of higher learning without worrying about the unnecessary distractions of a university know primarily for the quality of its Beer Pong program.  That is until parents hear about the Curtain of Distraction. 

For those of you who don’t follow sports or read the paper or surf the internet or watch the news, you may not have heard about the Curtain of Distraction.  Since ASU students couldn’t get on the Party School List last year, they found another way to get noticed.  The Curtain of Distraction is set up on ASU’s basketball court in the student section.  The students have erected a curtain which opens whenever an opposing team basketball player prepares to take a free-throw.  Once the curtain opens, anything may emerge from it.  All of it is designed to distract the player making the free-throw.  Amorous unicorns, Elvis impersonators, crazy old ladies, man-eating sharks, pregnant clowns, synchronized swimming teams, and countless other frightening images have emerged from this curtain.  Opposing team free-throw shooting percentages have plummeted as a result.  How could they not?

If I were a basketball player, I’d consider this a godsend.  I couldn’t hit a free throw from the foul line if my life depended on it, but the Curtain of Distraction would provide a great excuse.  “Sorry, coach, but I got distracted by the fat, hairy, semi-naked guy imitating Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball.”  Any coach would accept that excuse.  In fact, there are a great many situations in life when we can use the Curtain to blame our failures.  We no longer need a dog to eat our homework.  Now, we have the Curtain of Distraction. 

“Sorry honey, I forgot to pick up the milk on the way home.  During lunch, I saw a clip of the ASU game on ESPN, and a guy in a lactating cow suit emerged from the Curtain of Distraction causing me to become lactose intolerant.”

“Sorry boss, I forgot to do the monthly budget report last night. During the ASU game, a couple of unicorns emerged from the Curtain of Distraction and starting making out with a man dressed like Richard Simmons.  I became temporarily blinded and violently ill and couldn’t do the report.” 

You get the idea. 

For you Wildcat fans who claim nothing good ever came out of Tempe, now you know better.  Thanks to ASU, we all now have a plausible excuse for inexplicable failure.  Fear the fork, Wilbur.  

Music diplomacy

Ambassador Alice Cooper

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 27 February 2015 under the title, "The history and possibilities of diplomusic."

The exchange of gifts between heads of state is part of the ritual diplomacy designed to show respect and goodwill.  Sometimes, the gifts have a symbolic meaning or are designed to show off the best of a nation’s craftsmanship or quality.  On the Official Website of the British Monarchy, it is noted that the Queen of England has received some interesting gifts over the years including a collection of seashells from Seychelles and a pair of cowboy boots from President Bush the Elder. The website also mentions she received a dozen cans of tuna but doesn’t say who gave them or why.  Obviously, they didn’t come from President Bush the Younger, or it would have been twelve cans of chili instead.    

However, President Obama set a new precedent in 2009 when he gave the British Monarch an iPod with music loaded on it.  I’m not sure what music he loaded, but I’m hoping it was the Top Ten Hits from Queen.  Nothing else would make any sense.  At least she could rock out to Bohemian Rhapsody.  Perhaps it was the Obama gift that inspired Secretary of State, John Kerry to take James Taylor to Paris with him last month to play, “You’ve Got a Friend” to the President of France to soothe some hurt feelings.  High diplomacy at its best. The country that gave us the Statue of Liberty and French Fries gets in return a sappy old song sung by an old, balding, soft rocker.  It could have been worse.  Kerry could have taken Billy Ray Cyrus and had him sing “Achy Breaky Heart.”   

Although Kerry probably cost America one of her closest allies, he has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for diplomacy.  Instead of giving questionable gifts like cowboy boots and iPods to foreign heads of state, our national leaders could bring a musician along to perform a song to convey our feelings. No more tuna cans for the Queen, now we got diplomusic. 

The possibilities are endless. For instance, instead of imposing economic sanctions on countries that are doing things we don’t like, we could send Alice Cooper to sing to them.  What nation wouldn’t be intimidated by hearing Alice sing, “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and then by watching him chop the head off a doll with a guillotine?  For really serious foreign policy situations, we could have Ozzy Osbourne go along and have him bite the head off a live bat.   If we wanted to skip diplomacy altogether and provoke an instant war, we could use Kanye West.  We’d only need to send him to whatever award presentation a given country was having and leave him there for about fifteen minutes.  We’d have to make sure NORAD was alerted first. 

If we had diplomusic in the 80s, we could have had Madonna wear one of her cone bras while accompanying President Regan to negotiations with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear warheads.  Too bad Miley Cyrus wasn’t around when Reagan was giving his Berlin Wall speech back in 1987.  As soon as he got done saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Miley could have come swinging in naked on a heavy steel ball singing, “Wrecking Ball.”  The Soviet Union would have collapsed on the spot, and the Cold War would have ended two years earlier than it did.  Of course, Miley’s tendency to stick her tongue out all the time might have resulted in another war with Germany, but sometimes risks must be taken in high-stakes diplomacy.

We know that the Chinese respect the tiger, so why not send Katy Perry on a diplomatic mission to China.  She could ride into Beijing singing “Roar” on that giant tiger she rode in the Super Bowl.  She could bring those dancing sharks, too.  No sense in pulling any punches. However, the Chinese might counter with “Gangnam Style,” so maybe we’d better not go down that road.  It could result in Mutually Assured Pop Music Destruction. 

Of course, we could also use diplomusic to foster trade relations.  We export a lot of beef to Asian, so maybe we could send Lady Gaga over in her meat dress to facilitate beef exports.  Better not send her to North Korea though, I heard Kim Jong Un had his uncle eaten alive by starving dogs.  There’d be nothing left of Gaga but a nose ring and an armpit tat. 

On second thought, maybe diplomusic isn’t a good idea.  Sending James Taylor to Paris may have been pathetic, but at least it wasn’t dangerous.  I’m not sure you could say the same if we sent Justin Beiber over there.  Some things just can’t be forgiven.  I mean, look what he did to the Steelers last season.