You guys are a collective group of ass clowns.
That’s right, you! Every one of you chuckle bunnies that read the blog, follow me on Twitter or are “friends” with me on Facebook are insensitive, pathetic knuckle-draggers who should be hunted up and put into camps. And by camps, I mean those camps. I’ve been put myself out there, telling you about my inner fears, personal tragedies and professional short comings with not a single word about what was going on behind my back. I’ve been an open book for 123 blogs over the course of two years and yet not a single member of the massive interweb has had the common courtesy to write, tweet, send a messenger pigeon or swing by the bar to fill me in on the big secret.
And to those friends and family that I see in the real world, go suck a fire hydrant. You’re services as confidants and amigos are over. I’m moving on. Sayonara, Suckwads! Papa Benny is on the new pal train. Destination? As far away my $23 can take me. Hopefully, it’s far away from you backstabbing, lying pigs.
[I don’t know how to spell a spit sound but rest assured, I just hocked a loogie on the floor.]
Dry your eyes, you backwater, chowder puke monkeys. I’m done with the collective lot of you. I hope a wet bar towel saturated in SARS, rotting chicken livers and full blown AIDs gets jammed down your two-faced throats and your dog gets run over by a street cleaner—a slow moving street cleaner driven by a drunk pedophile who dabbles in taxidermy. You know, somebody you might find in the mirror when you were coming up with your grand cabal to keep me out of the loop and fill me with your treacherous lies. The only thing that could make all of your deception palatable is if every last one of you put a corn cob rolled in soiled kitty litter in your butt and begged for forgiveness. Maybe and I mean MAYBE, I’d accept your apologies and allow us to move forward as pals. Maybe…
Probably won’t happen because there isn’t one person in this group of turkey chokers that has the honor and decency to pay me the common courtesy of giving me a much needed heads-up. There isn’t one person with the moral fortitude to send me a warning sign, some sort of proverbial flick off the nose that something is afoot and maybe I should address it. No way, Jose! You guys just decided to relish in the free funny and let me go through the last two years completely ignorant of the growing problem facing not just me but more importantly, you.
I know its water under the bridge now but I might as well tell you why I’ve decided to discard any and all relations I’ve made with every single person I’ve met over the last 38-years:
How come nobody has told me that I’ve become a porker? A fat piggy who feeds his face with crap food washed down by tankards of booze? Where was the chum who said, “Hey, Ben! Maybe you should put down the Boston cream pie and try eating a carrot. Maybe you don’t need to drink a baker dozen worth of brews and it wouldn’t kill you to do a push-up. Why are your tears made of blue cheese dressing and how come you bleed queso? Maybe you should drink a little more water and less Schlitz Gays? Have you thought about going for a run or were you going to eat 1,900-calories in the truck on your way to work?”
Or simply, “Hey Benny, you look like shit.”
That would have been nice. Some sort of mini-intervention that could have put me back on track to a healthier life style. Besides extension ladders, nothing is more of a threat for white middle-aged men than heart disease and instead of small encouragements to try living a little healthier, you’ve all tempted me with heavy, cream based meals and gallons of hooch that puts me into a zombie-like state unable to do anything but veg out in front of the television and make bowel movements that could stop a tank.
Jolly fat man, my 42-inch waistband! You’ve been killing me with kindness and you should all be ashamed of yourself. You wouldn’t put a mirror with beautifully cut Columbian marching powder in front of a drug addict or give Romney the White House, so why would you tempt me with delicious baked goods and Beef Stroganoff? Huh?!?
Instead, I had to find out about this on my own. I went to Steiner Aquatic Center on Tuesday to do a follow up on a high school swimming story. While waiting for the meet to begin, I wandered around the facility and decided on a whim, that I would step on the scale. It was one of those you’d find in a doctor’s office with the weights on a lever in front of me. I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with the results, but I figure it would be interesting to see how far I’ve slipped.
I’ve always been a chunky dude. I might not have ever looked good with my shirt off but I used to consider myself an athlete. I was a pretty good rugby player in college and I could hold my own in pick-up basketball. I even boxed a couple of years ago with a little bit of success. I’ve ran four, count ‘em, four marathons and I enjoy scampering around the woods on hikes. I used to like lifting weights but 24-Hour Fitness became too much a sleazy meet-market that it was distracting to go there. It didn’t help that nobody, men or women, ever tried to pick me up. It’s very damaging to be the fourth best option.
Notwithstanding hooking up at the gym, I got out of my routine of working out. I decided that it was easier to write a blog and eat an entire pizza than sweating through a boxing workout. Finishing my evenings with multiple cocktails and snoring through the night became the norm instead of the exception. Literally licking my plate clean became standard operating procedure and not one of you trash humpers had the common decency to give me a heads up.
Before you start defending your lack of action and blame Erin, I’m here to tell you she is off the hook. She has been nothing but an incredible ball-busting tyrant when it comes to my diet. Erin has browbeat me into a sniveling mess when it comes to dinner decisions and her photographic memory with what monstrosities I’ve put in my body might very easily be her last thoughts if Alzheimer’s takes her. She has been witness to more heroic eating events in my life than I am comfortable to list and through it all, Erin has been a constant nag telling me to clean up my diet because she won’t be taking care of me when I have a massive stroke induced by poor eating choices. Because of her love and support, I think the river of ranch I might have been sailing down is still just a stream.
As for the rest of you, [additional loogie spat upon the floor]!
I say to Hell with it! If you guys aren’t going to help me, I’m going to help myself. After stepping off of that scale with a number that is between me and my God(s), I knew it was time to go back to the gym. I once fought out of Fight 4 Your Life and I knew that was exactly where I needed to go back to. Nestled in South Salt Lake, it is a bare-bones concrete prison of heavy bags, jump ropes and pull-up bars. The workouts are intense, the atmosphere is electric and the goals are simple—they want you to push yourself harder than you think you can. Because I don’t have the willpower to do it myself, I am putting my chubby, hairy mess of blubber covered in beer batter in their capable hands.
I went to my first class today at 5:30 and I thought I was going to die. My stomach was in civil disobedience after today’s midday meal and I was unable to stop the howitzer flatulence shooting out of my bottom. I was crampy, sore, completely out of shape and barely able to finish the first half of the workout. It was a miserable series of burpees, push-ups, sit-ups and jump lunges. To make matters worse, Angela made us run at the beginning of the class. My moobs swung freely across my chest and I could hear Gabrielle’s trumpet off in the distance between my sobs and grunts. For 30-minutes, I pushed myself through the fierce workout poorly but without quitting.
We wrapped our wrists and went to work on the heavy bags. I always loved the second half of the workouts but I could barely lift my arms. They felt like they were covered in bacon fat dipped in cement. I approached the bags and went to work trying to remember my combinations: jab, straight right, left hook to the body, left hook to the head, straight right. It was a mess. But something magical happened. While hitting the bag fruitlessly, I channeled my old self. I pivoted on the ball of my left foot, swung my hips clockwise and unleashed a left hook that clapped off of the bag.
Smack!
For one moment, I felt like Iron Mike, Sugar Ray Robinson and Chris Brown all rolled into one. In golf, they always talk about having the one stroke that makes you want to come back and do it again. For boxing, it is the single punch. A perfect punch thrown confidently and with authority that sounds like wrecking ball destruction and doom for an opponent. In the closing moments of the workout, I found my one punch that’s going to get me back to Fight 4 Your Life on Thursday.
And I did this without you donkey riding tool bags. I hope you’ve enjoyed slowly poisoning me with your phony-baloney smiles and tubs of marinara sauce. It stops today. I am on my own and I am not going to let you bog me down with your poor decisions. I am on to your schemes and I am not going to fall prey to it again.
Unless it is a peanut brittle shake from the Creamier in Provo. Holy Toledo! That’s a good shake.
Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin. Yep, SLC PubCasts are coming. He feels bad about the Chris Brown joke. That guy is a horrible person.
Raskin's Rhetoric 