Day 59: Shoulders and Arms and Ab Ripper X.

Back with a vengeance. Lazarus returns! Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Allow me to reintroduce myself. Here's Johnny! Just like a sadistic Jack Nicholson poking his head through the bathroom door, my arch nemesis has axed his way back into my life, from the grave, from retirement, and onto the top of my butt. That's right people, the gregarious, annoying, evil, torturous, snarling, pain-inducing bastard is back: my butt-cut has returned. Bigger and blacker and not nearly as entertaining as Chris Rock. 

Some of you may have some questions like how can a cut on your butt be gregarious? Or, I understand how it could be bigger, but how did it get blacker and why was it even a lighter hue of black in the first place? These are important questions and I intend on answering them. Gregarious? The first thing that comes to mind is Tony the Tiger. That guy is the pinnacle of gregarity (not a word - it should be gregariousness - but it sounds way better so I'm officially adding it to the English language. And no, YOU can't do that, but I can). He's in a word, engaging - constantly, demanding and getting your attention. He is outgoing almost to a fault. When my sweat drips down the deep, muscular channel known as the small of my back - that, really, at this point, small children could water-slide down - and into my butt-cut, it engages and grabs my attention in a way a lovable, but clearly coked-up Tiger never has. So, yeah, its 'gregarity' outpaces what I once considered the 'pinnacle of gregarity' - and that's a lot of gregarity. Thus, it is gregarious.

OK, Bomber, fair enough, your annoying yet engaging explanation proves that your butt-cut can be gregarious. But, how can it be black and then even blacker? For that matter, how did Chris Rock get blacker? He followed that stand-up with 'Head of State', 'Down to Earth' and 'Osmosis Jones' - that shit is white-washed formulaic hogwash. Yes, hogwash - and, further, it is clear that his gritty Def Jam comedy days were his blackest, so how the fuck can he say he got blacker? He's following the Eddie Murphy trajectory.

For one, he's only following the Eddie Murphy trajectory in the sense that he's a great, edgey, black comedian that has been given the deserved opportunity to make movies. And, granted, 'Head of State', was a failed attempt at lightly underlining and satirizing the instutionalized racism embedded in the very fabric of our system, but at least he's not making movie after movie about shuffling kids around in mini-van from one crazy, unforeseen situation to another. And, he's still, to this day, respecting the craft that got him there - standup. Kill the Messenger was vintage Chris Rock. You know what vintage Eddie Murphy is? Delirious and Beverly Hills Cop - both of which were made when Reagan was still President. And, what the hell does this have to do with working-out or my butt-cut? No one likes long-winding, what the fuck are you doing right now, tangents, that seem to lead to nowhere, but mediocre punch-lines. You're writing is like a bad episode of Three's Company. Stay on point...why the black butt-cut?

Well, firstly, do you remember elementary school art class? When you mixed dark red and brown together you would get black. Well combining that knowledge with the fact that I wipe up, should give you your answer. (Some of you who are sticklers for colour theory may be thinking that to make black you really just mix a bunch of colours together. Well, my butt-cut also has some yellow, purple, and blue around it, so there you go. But, really, if you're sitting there contemplating whether the proper fundamentals of colour theory are being pursued in a joke that involves me wiping poo into an open wound, then you may be missing the point). 

Moving on, I had to start the workout later today. I was at my parent's house trying to get my 12 pounds of monthly laundry done and by the time I was finished, hit the road, braved rush-hour, and sufficiently rocked out to Florence and the Machine, it was 9 o'clock. So, there I was, 9 at night, nose-dripping, throat 87% clogged, about to begin my workout. You can't say I'm not commited. I wrassled Shoulders and Arms to the ground and made it bow to my will. I immediately moved onto Ab Ripper X, but as I wrote above, another foe entered the ring, laying down a bullshit tag-team while the ref wasn't looking. "What are you doing ref - come on! - really, yelling at a fan for 5 minutes? That's just not believable". As I sat down, I realized he was coming, drapped in his ominous black-cape with Hell's Bells blasting through the speakers, powerful pyrotechnics rocketing up into the rafters, he entered the arena. 

I'm a rolling thunder, a pouring rain. 

I'm comin' on like a hurricane. 

My lightning flashing across the sky. 

You're only young, but you're gonna die. 

.......

I'll give you black sensations up and down your spine

If you're into evil, you're a friend of mine

The powerful, the evil, the scary, the gregariousss...BUTT-CUTTTT. I braved the onslaught of tag-teamed pain - thank god - but this song describes every aspect of what I feel when butt-cut is around. Read it - from the top - that is my emotional state in the form of a song. 

Highlights: The V-up, roll-back (a sit-up where when you come down from it you rock back up, touching your toes) exercise was a lesson in the almost bottom-less depth of pain a human being is willing to withstand in order to do what they beleive in. Mel Gibson should make a movie about what happened here today. I was like William Wallace and Jesus Christ rolled into one. It was truly amazing.

State of Mind: I feel a wave of bloodthirsy rebelliousness washing over me like grains of jagged glass. I want to usher in a new era of political freedom or an entirely new conception of God. I am not sure which yet. I am unemployed, so maybe I'll do both.

Rating: P90X.