Kids, this is why cocaine is a dangerous, nasty drug. Don't do it.
You think it's allllll good when it's 1977 and you're the queen of the Milwaukee disco scene, gettin down every weekend with the glittery people 'til the wee hours and having AMAZING conversations with your new best friends as the sun comes up, and you all just GET EACH OTHER so much and it's magical and you're destined for greatness, you just gotta be.
But then suddenly it's 1982 and you're wearing white stirrup tights and hell-bent on showing the world just what kind of CA-RAAAAZY AWESOME PARTY STARTER you really are! It's not over for you yet. Hell to the no, it's not over yet. YOU'LL SHOW EVERYONE!!!!
See if you can make it all the way through that clip. It took me a couple tries.
Also, I've replayed it half a dozen times, and I swear she says, "Move that Jew little boogie body!" at 1:49. Am I wrong on this?
So I was watching the televangelist channel last night, learning about a special offer to pay my bills supernaturally with the power of God -- gotta love Robert Tilton: the man's been sued for fraud, investigated by the government and exposed on the national news, yet he just keeps on scammin' -- and I saw this:
Made me wonder what other religious workouts are out there...
"Mormon Muscle Burn"?
(Btw, that image was taken from the very real website HotMormons.net. You won't be saying hasa diga eebowai after feasting your eyes on these hunks!)
"Klezmer Cardio Party"?
"Buddha Belly Blast"?
How about "Pontius Pilates"? No good? Don't think Christians would go for that? Probably not.
I was going to play it straight today with a plain ol' video and some "fresh start Monday!" jibber-jabber, but I was also going to stop my drinking for the weekend after the (AMAZING) Saints-Texans game yesterday. Instead, I found myself talking to some new friends over Manhattans at a swanky hotel bar with Little Richard in the house (he was hangin' -- no big deal), and I learned about this little oddity, "Color Me Beautiful." So here we are.
C'est bizarre, non?
Workout video parodies are pretty old hat, yes, but mix it with an art-school director (Christian Simmons for Savannah College of Art and Design) and some aggressive, symbolically dubious blasts of paint, and you get "Color Me Beautiful."
I just followed along with the first episode of "The Jack LaLanne Show" from 1959, (which you can watch on YouTube or at www.jacklalanne.com), and though I'm not sweating, I'm smiling. I'm also thinking about high-fructose corn syrup.
I'll explain that later. First, the good stuff:
LaLanne, founder of Trimnastics and the "Godfather of Fitness," was an impeccably-torsoed he-man everyman who invited himself into American living rooms and basically invented workout videos. For this, World of Sass owes him a great deal.
A bodybuilder and nutritionist at a time when "feeling the burn" meant "social disease," LaLanne was aware he was pushing a new concept. So he structured his half-hour TV broadcast with "Trimnastic" exercises the average housewife could do in her living room -- or while sitting down with a cigarette and a cocktail in hand -- interspersed with 1- to 2-minute-long morsels of wisdom, encouragement and self-promotion.
He was smart, this Jack LaLanne. (I'd like to start calling him Trimnasty, because was just that balling.) Trimnasty often starts out episodes by addressing the children inevitably left in front of the television set, asking the boys and girls to go get their mothers and "tell her that Jack LaLanne is waiting!" Sometimes, as a reward for doing his bidding, he shows them how he can "blow up" his muscle.
This guy is chock full o' plainspoken corniness like that. He wears a silhouette-hugging, waist-cinched jumpsuit and black ballet slippers. As he goes into an exercise, you know it's time to follow along by the jolly live organ accompaniment playing "Daisy Bell" or "That's Amore." When LaLanne tells the audience to take a deep breath, the organ gives a big wheeze to join in the exhale.
Seeing as at-home fitness as we know it was still in its infancy in the '50s, it makes sense that the program comes across to a modern audience almost as a kids' show. However, though the calorie-burning aspect of LaLanne's routines are mild by today's standards, they're full of classic moves you just can't argue with, many of them taken from ballet and basic calisthenics. Stationary leg and knee raises, relévés, hamstring curls and pedal kicks haven't gone anywhere; it's just the intensity and the soundtrack that's changed.
VIDEO: "CardioSculpt," from the Crunch series, available on Netflix instant streaming STYLE: Circuit training-style combo of light aerobics and quality dumbbell exercises INTENSITY: For beginners, moderate to intense. For intermediate and up, light to moderate. STRUCTURE: Just over 30 minutes total; brisk 4-minute warm-up; 20 minutes alternating aerobic and weights exercises; 4 minutes floor exercises; 3-minute cool-down. GIST: A pretty solid 30-minute workout that gets your heart rate up, but focuses more on an all-over tone than serious cardio work. Interesting variations on classic exercises make the workout challenging and semi-fresh even for more advanced folks. The cardio exercises are so-so, and the look and feel is definitely same-old, same-old.
Some days are going to be sloggy. Meh. Comme ci, comme ca. The usual. Not every day can be brazzle-dazzle, dancing on a lighthouse with Helen Reddy and wearing amazing sailor pants. But a meh day is better than a terrible, awful, no-good day, right? And looking back, you realize it wasn't that meh at all, because it was just another day of wins and losses, ups and downs -- another day of being alive.
Sometimes, circumstances -- misplaced your fave videos, tired of your workout routine and needing something new in a pinch, just generally feeling pissy, etc. -- require us to do the more "meh" workout, because it's better than no workout. More important, it can save us from slipping into "Whatever, I'm getting cheese fries" regression. Or worse, (unless you're the Fat Boys).
Friends, I want to tell you about a magical place called Clubland.
I've been racking my brain trying to encapsulate as thrilling and fantastical a place as Clubland, because it can't be contained in a single video or review. Its goodness shines across the sassosphere. It lights up my life. It is my special funtime workout sweet spot happy place, the single best thing to happen in my fitness career thus far. Okay?
Clubland is the (my) collective term for two UK workout video series, both put out by house music labels catering to the raving, clurrbing, foam partying young people of Europe. They are: Ministry of Sound (the biggest and oldest) and the namesake Clubland. The fitness videos -- only available for sale in the UK, which is a damn shame -- are a perfect synthesis of rigorous dance-based aerobics, fly-girl/boy choreography and strength training. They are Cher/Di and you are Tai. They want to dress you up and be your slightly superior but ultimately got-your-back friends. They hit all my marks for a successful workout video. Here's why:
1. They're long enough (70-90 minutes) and challenging enough to count as real, fuck-yeah sweat-fests, which is where so many "20-Minute Hot Bodz!" workouts come up short. According to American College of Sports Medicine/American Heart Association guidelines, 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5 times a week is only enough to maintain one's weight. To lose weight the right way, you're looking at 50-90 minutes of mostly-cardio exercise 5 days a week, plus regular strength training. Ouch. But take heart! Read on...
Look at Mel B! Totally hot, totally charming, totally working it in this video, "Totally Fit: Mel B." Totally check out this preview:
Former Spice Girl toning and moaning in the sun? I'm interested! The workout breakdown (warm-up, 25 minutes cardio, 40 minutes targeted toning, cool-down) looks good and the moves seem interesting enough, although Mel seems to be doing an awful lot of counting. When will instructors of the world learn? No grown-up likes being treated as if they can't count to 8, so don't count every rep every time! Unless it's a turbo-mega-overdrive thing or a Billy Blanks minion-survival thing, which this clearly isn't. Just get some better background music and come in with the count when we're at the halfway and/or almost-there point. K?
Speaking of better music: I guess Mel B doesn't own the rights to the Spice Girls catalog? Because if she does and she didn't use this workout video as an opportunity to release new Euro-house remixes of Spice Girls songs, then the world really is an unfair place.
Aside from the counting, this video seems promising. She's got sass, a brassy and encouraging bedside manner, and -- it must be said -- some marvelous tits that she and the camera lo-hoooove to show off as they sparkle in the sun. Ain't nothin wrong with some good old-fashioned boobular distraction, right?
Wrong, if you're this lady [on Amazon.com]:
I did like the workouts, but after doing it a few times I started realizing that a lot of the camera angles are focused on her chest, stomach, and between legs (I'm trying to put it nicely). I quickly began to feel uncomfortable putting this video on in front of my children because it's clear this is also meant to be used for adult "entertainment". I ended up throwing it in the trash.
C'mon, lady, Mel was just givin' you everything! All the joy it brings. Yes she swears.
