Jenn, Lance & Me

Jenn Shelton keeps popping up in my life. You might be thinking "Who's Jenn Shelton?" She's a minor celebrity. A world-class ultra-marathon runner and a pretty good writer. She had a bit part in Christopher McDougall's massively bestselling Born to Run. Mostly as comic relief. The book made it seem like when she wasn't winning races, she was either lost, or drunk, or wiping out. I read an interview with her once where she said she was unfairly portrayed in Born to Run. To paraphrase: “Maybe everything written about her was technically correct, but it still wasn't fair. And not great for her career.”

Possibly, it wasn't fair, but I doubt it was bad for her career. The very fact that I read an interview with her suggests that Born to Run put her on the map. Maybe not in the ultra community, but definitely for the rest of the running world. I read Born to Run years ago, but suddenly I'm bumping into her left and right, figuratively, of course.

Last week, on a beach vacation, I read Scott Jurek's Eat & Run, his 2012 autobiographical account of his unlikely ultra career. In this book, he name-drops Shelton three or four times. As if he's trying to capture some of her status. The irony of this is that in McDougall's 2006 book, Shelton is portrayed as a star-struck kid when she meets Jurek. Now Shelton is the star. Wholesomely pretty, always smiling in pictures. Self-deprecating, acting like she doesn't have her life together. Living day-to-day, but on her own terms. She represents everyone's wild little sister. She's one of the few marketable ultra-runners.

When I returned home from the beach, I had two Trail Runner magazines waiting in my mailbox. Six weeks ago, I grabbed one in a book-store. I loved it and decided to subscribe. This always ends the same way. I'll buy a magazine at a newsstand for an absurd price. I'll see that I can subscribe for a whole year for a few dollars more than I just paid for the one issue. I wait and wait, and when the magazine arrives, there are two of them. The new month and a copy of last month, the one I've read three times while waiting for my subscription to start. Not only did I overpay for the first copy of the magazine, but I wasted eight percent of my new subscription on a magazine I've already memorized.

Jenn Shelton is a contributing editor for Trail Runner. And so far – two magazines worth of content – a pretty good one. An engaging, clean, thoughtful writer. In the July issue, she writes about a Grand Canyon running adventure with Lance Armstrong. If I have a hot-button, Armstrong is it. OK, I have more hot-buttons than I can count, but Armstrong is high on my list. Before I even started reading the article, I was crafting a letter to the editor in my head – full of contempt and smug self-righteousness. This kept my mind occupied on a scorchingly hot eight mile run.

Armstrong isn't a hero, he's a cheater. "Everyone else does it" isn't an excuse. He has no place in competitive sports, even for recreation. Gains made on performance enhancers don't disappear when the cheating stops. He dumped his wife after she nursed him through cancer. He dumped his girl-friend, Sheryl Crow, when she got cancer. I'm a counter-culture type – disdainful of those embraced by mass-media and the rest of the masses. Lance Armstrong was the anointed "prince of the fitness crowd." With his EverythingSTRONG brand and his stupid yellow bracelets. It made my eyes roll, and my head shake every time his name was mentioned, which, at his peak-popularity, was several times a week. I enjoyed his fall from grace. His clipped wings, his plummet from the clouds.

See? I'm really down on this guy. Judging him without really knowing anything about him. Unfair? That never stopped me before.

Eight miles is a long time to mull over a single subject. Eventually I softened a bit. The trail racing community hasn't banned Lance, so he has joined it. And why not? It's a perfect fit. The sport is littered with broken souls and checkered pasts. Substance abusers trading one addiction for a (questionably) healthier one. Runners who have hit the woods, not just for solitude, but to escape society. The mentally ill, the lonely souls, ex-cons, the chronically injured. It seems like every time I read something about the trail running, I'm reading about redemption.

I fit right in. A long history of alcohol abuse, social anxiety, OCD, and Tourettes. I've been a lifelong runner, but as a trail runner, I feel like I've finally found my sport. I might even say I found my identity. But this is something I work to avoid – gaining identity from activities. I've spent too much of my life putting myself in boxes : a runner, a writer, a drinker, a liberal, a guy with OCD. I took these definitions, I drew a circle around each of them, and I said "these are me". Over the past few years I've worked to switch my thinking. To see myself as something more than the contents of these circles.

There is something about trail running that appeals to the beaten-up crowd. The misfits who feel uncomfortable in polite company. Those who prefer to compete against themselves rather than against others. Pace is all but meaningless on an ungroomed trail. Speed is sacrificed to technical-ness. The ability to navigate through a rock-garden without turning an ankle. Crossing an ice-glazed stream without dunking your feet. And of course there are the hills. Hills on the roadway are rounded down to save gas, to protect car engines. Natural wooded trails tend to follow the most efficient route. Sometimes this includes switchbacks, but usually the trail is a straight line up a hill. The fastest way to the top.

The hills and terrain can be brutal, even scary. And for many (most?) trail runners, this makes a running path even more appealing. There is an element of metaphorical self-flagellation in the trail community. Embracing punishing routes as preferable, maybe even enjoyable. As if the purpose of the run is to serve penance for our weaknesses, our vices. Society won't punish us, so we need to punish ourselves.

My beach trip last week was to North Carolina's Outer Banks. There is a park there that consists of nothing but sand dunes. All of my runs in North Carolina were run barefoot on soft sandy beaches. Uneven foot-strikes and poor traction. An attempt to toughen myself up. But my favorite run of the week was hill repeats on the dunes. Simultaneously burning my quads and calves with effort. And the soles of my feet with scorching sand.

I saw hundreds of runners in North Carolina. Virtually all of them on the bike path adjoining the main roadway. I saw a few on the beach, but in hard-packed sand down by the water. None in the soft, uneven sand where the tide rarely reaches. And certainly no one running the dunes. I have to believe that if Jenn Shelton or Scott Jurek or even Lance Armstrong were there, they would be blowing past me with a big grin on their collective faces. Running away from – or possibly chasing after their demons.

After reading Shelton's essay, I'm unable to write a rebuttal. There is nothing to rebut. Jenn is not apologetic for Armstrong. In fact she's kind of mean. She calls him a prima donna. A guy motivated by a soft bed and a good meal. Not as mentally tough as the trails-heads in her circle. But she also calls him a friend. She is not judgmental of his past sins. They have nothing to do with their relationship. They like to run, to joke, to poke fun at one another. Besides being a great runner and a fine writer, Jenn seems to be a pretty good person as well. I'm glad I'm getting to know her.

Tidal Wave City

A crashing wave, packing unusual force and energy. The water hits the beach and runs. Walls breached. Houses swamped and washed away. A senseless loss. Built too close to the sea. But it's expected. Tidal Wave City has run its course.

This is a beach game. An extravagant sand castle built just below the high-tide mark. Moats, roadways, out-buildings, walls. Walls, decorated with sea shells. Hours to complete the city. Until it gets washed away.

This game has been going on for centuries. Probably millenia. When prehistoric tribes came to the beach to fish, to collect salt. And played with the name Tidal Wave City? For at least for forty-five years. My brother Dana and I might have made up the name. Or possibly we got it from some older kids or even my father. Regardless, now I play it with my kids. And they will probably play it with their kids. At least if parent/child interactions don't change too much.

My father didn't play with me on the beach. Sometimes we would fish together, but we wouldn't play. I don't remember any other dads playing with their kids either on beach vacations. People have changed. Parents playing with their kids is no longer unusual. Especially digging in the sand. Either the adults are less mature or less inhibited. I'm guessing the latter. We are saddled with a much smaller sense of propriety today than our parents and grandparents were. Personally, I like digging in the sand, building Tidal Wave City. It's more fun than fishing, especially since there are no fish left in the ocean.

I'm at North Carolina's Outer Banks right now, Nags Head Beach. We are as far south as possible before it is no longer considered Nags Head. It's pretty quite here. This is where development turns into national seashore. Pennsylvania schools let out exceptionally early, the season hasn't even started yet. The shops are still hiring and many of the rentals are empty. We pretty much have the beach to ourselves.

The last time I visited was twenty-five years ago. Approaching this vacation, I was told time and again that I wouldn't recognize the Outer Banks, things have changed so much. This is true, I don't recognize anything. But the last time I was here it was truly a beach vacation. And a drinking vacation. Up at ten a..m., volleyball on the beach until three or four, beers until bedtime. We didn't get out much to explore the town.

I'm sure we went to some restaurants, but I don't remember which ones. I don't remember how the town looked. But at the time I was in marathon training. I needed to log a shortish “long-run.” Something less than ten miles. I don't remember having any trouble finding a quite place to run. My recollection of that outing is a sleepy beach-town. Half built neighborhoods and a wide sandy shoulder. It isn't like that now. Every inch is of these islands is developed, right down to the park. A bike path adjoining the road is pretty much the only running option now. This vacation, all of my runs have been on the quiet, almost empty beach.

One of the constants in Tidal Wave City is that a portion of the population pushes closer to the sea. They are the 'smart' ones. The outliers. The ones with the prime real estate. The best view. All human building is temporary, but some is more temporary than the rest. Although Tidal Wave City is a child's game of destruction – a game with a certain and inevitable outcome – it is also allegorical for humanity. It is human nature to want a home in the most beautiful spot. Or the most useful spot. But it is foolish to think that our ever evolving planet is not going to change. It is the responsibility of humanity to hedge its decisions with knowledge. Those outliers are always the first to go.

When I look at a map of the Outer Banks, I see a real-life Tidal Wave City. It's a thin strip of land, and it hasn't always been here. And undoubtedly, it will be gone again. The other day I was watching a documentary about the changing nature of the Currituck Sound – the body of water that lies between the northern Outer Banks and the North Carolina mainland. In this documentary, they showed how inlets opened and closed over time in the peninsula. They showed where the last inlet closed up “for good.” This change was so recent, it is remembered. “For good” implies forever, and this is simply wishful thinking.

The next time an inlet opens on the Outer Banks, billions of dollars in property and infrastructure will wash away. It will be national news. People will blame the government for not taking the proper precautions. The Governor will appeal for disaster relief. And the insurance companies will get a financial bail-out. This will be an unforeseen act of God. Except we already know it's coming.

Tidal Wave City happens again and again. The rebuilding New Orleans; the houses littering the slopes of Mount St. Helens since it's last eruption; San Francisco; New York City. It is all temporary. These are places where nature will ultimately win. It may be next month or it may be next century, but calamity is as certain as the next high tide.

Humans are destined to repeat this mistake. We posses an innate ability for optimism, especially to get something we really want. Maybe we just secretly enjoy the destruction that comes at regular intervals from the choices we make. I know I enjoy watching the waves inch closer and closer to Tidal Wave City. And when that exceptional wave breaks and runs, I always feign disbelief. My kids and I shout out “Ugh!” As if we are all bummed out that our hard work has washed away. But really, this is the point of the game.  

A Girl and a Band – my memoir of finding Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth – so cool, they’re hard to like. The band started in 1981. But it took eleven years to catch my attention. Before the internet, discovering a new band was hit or miss. DC's one 'alternative' radio station, WHFS was gearing up for its corporate sellout in 1983, and its ultimate twenty year decline. The least commercial rock station in town, I had it on all the time. To the best of my knowledge, they never played a Sonic Youth song.

A common way to get hooked on a new band was to hear it at a friend's house or in their car. Of my friends, I was the most avant garde, the most experimental. Many liked the post-punk alternative music we heard on WHFS, but they were also still stuck in the seventies and sixties. Hippy music and classic rock. Until I caught on to Sonic Youth, it was unlikely that any of us were going to hear them.

Or you needed to read about a new band in a music magazine. For me, Spin Magazine was the most likely source for this. I now know that Spin wrote about Sonic Youth, and they even had a band member, Kim Gordon, write articles about other artists. But in the eighties, after reading about a band, if you wanted to listen, you still needed to buy the music, typically a whole record album from a store, to give it a try. I was never sold.

And every now and then you might hear a new band in a bar or a club. Played as filler music before the band came on, or in between sets. But Sonic Youth was a New York thing. The DC bands and clubs just weren't into them.

So it took me eleven years to actually hear the band. Long after they stopped representing the 'youth' in their name. In 1992, most of the band members were well into their thirties. By this time their name was familiar to me. In fact, my brain made a mis-connection. I thought they were the same group as Musical Youth. The early eighties pop-reggae band who had a hit with Pass the Dutchie. So in truth, Sonic Youth was not a band I was seeking out.

* * * * * *

I met Stacey in Spanish class. Yes, as a thirty year old, I decided to retake Spanish. I took it in high school, but none of it stuck. I struggled with the language, and I battled with my teacher, Mrs. Eddy. I even managed to get suspended as a result of some verbal sparring I engaged in with Mrs. Eddy. She called me a baby, I called her a bitch. My excuse is that I was seventeen.

I was bored. I wanted to meet some new people. I was looking for some redemption from my horrible high school experience. In a language class, not only would I be exposed to a new crowd, make some friends, but I would do something useful at the same time. It worked out well. While my Spanish skills only improved marginally, I met the woman I would date for the next five or six months.

It was never a great relationship. It teetered on the edge of something pretty good and something terribly awkward. We didn't fit together at all. She was hard for me to read. Large areas of her ‘being’ seemed off limits, behind a fence. She was a feminist in a way that I didn't understand. Talking about sex seemed verboten – I felt like she thought it was disrespectful towards women. She also seemed hipper than me. Only two years out of college, she was still building her life, still deciding who she was going to be, what she was going to do. But around her I felt pedestrian, a sellout with my corporate job. Lacking control – I often drank too much, and became embarrassing at parties. She hated my friends, she thought they were yuppies.

The relationship wasn't going to last, so I broke it off. Poorly. Over the phone. There were many aspects about dating Stacey that were positive, but for me, two things stand out as her lasting legacy. One is how she sat me down after the break up, when I was getting my leather coat back from her. She gave me some feedback on how immature it was to call off a half year relationship over the phone. I think her exact words were "Sit down, I'd like to give you some feedback on that breakup..." One last time, proving that she was more together than me.

Her other legacy is turning on to Sonic Youth.

We saw the documentary The Year Punk Broke in a small, grungy , independent theater in DC. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and simply going into this empty, dirty, beat up theater felt like a very punk/New York thing to do. I rarely went to movies, and I never went to documentaries. I saw being in a theater on a sunny afternoon as blasphemy.

To "sell" the movie to me, Stacey said there would be lots of scenes with Nirvana. The movie is made from footage of a tour that Sonic Youth took with Nirvana in 1991 – the year Nirvana released Nevermind – the year punk broke into mainstream rock. Watching this movie turned me into a Sonic Youth fan.

I guess I’d call Sonic Youth a punk band. But not in the way that any other band is a punk. The music is noise. Artfully crafted noise. It appeals to some, but probably not to many. At times it is musical, even poppy, but mostly it is dissonant, scraping, agitating. There are melodies, but usually they are subtle. For me, the music is about energy.

When I think of Sonic Youth, I think of fire, various types of fire. Songs that remind me of uncontained house-fires – burning with building intensity until they explode into mayhem. Songs that are like igniting a charcoal grill with far too much lighter-fluid – a flash, a roaring flame until the fuel is spent. And then settling into a simmer. Or even songs like a campfire on a very wet day. Smoldering, on the edge of combustion, creating ash, but never making the leap into a real fire.

I'm rather unimpressive as a Sonic Youth fan. My intersection with the band was brief. I only own a few albums. The most commercial albums they made. The three albums released just prior to my 'discovery' of them – Daydream Nation, Goo and Dirty. But these three albums are fantastic, and probably represent the high-point of their career. I'm sure they are dismissed by real Sonic Youth fans as their sell-out albums. Their attempt to reach a broader market. A mistaken desire to bask in some corporate cash. But typically what appears to be a sell-out is an acknowledgment of greatness. The band hits stride, the world notices, and major labels are attracted. A chance for the suits to cash in on all the hard work. The hard work already completed. Like Nirvana's Nevermind. Like Green Day's Dookie.

Most of my music listening today is centered around my spin class. Twice per week, I pull together an hour of music designed to motivate, educate, shock and appease a cross-section of athletes. They range in age, backgrounds and musical tastes. The Sonic Youth songs I use most frequently, Dirty Boots, Tunic and Sugar Kane, are not typical material for spin class play-lists. At least where I live. But they are long songs that build in intensity and have enough musicality in them that no one ever complains. Some other songs I have used, Kissability, Mildred Pierce and Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit, are a little rougher. When I use these songs, I expect, and I receive, some push back.

I only saw Sonic Youth in concert once – a 2004 show at DC's 9:30 Club. Thinking back, I remember enjoying the show, but a decade later, all I really remember is the volume. A night that remains in my mind as the loudest, most uncomfortable concert I ever attended. Loud enough to make me dizzy. Loud enough to cause muffled hearing for days. Today, my hearing sucks. Ask my kids, they'll say my favorite word is "WHAT??" I've been resisting much needed hearing aids for a few years now. When people ask if my hearing loss is genetic, I always say no, it's Sonic Youth. But this is a wasted joke. In my small, rural town, no one has heard of Sonic Youth.

* * * * * *

I started writing this essay because I just read Kim Gordon's memoir, Girl in a Band. I wanted to write a review. I didn't like the book and I wanted to bash on it some. The book started well. The first chapter about Sonic Youth's last show was a clever way to set up the book. And then as expected, it went to Kim's backstory. In every biography I've ever read, the early years, the section before fame and wealth, is my favorite part. Learning about influences, family members, defining experiences. I got none of this from Girl in a Band.

What I got was a bunch of self-promoting and pretentious name-dropping. Long passages about artists that no one knows. And quick mentions of artists that no one knows. There must be four hundred people mentioned in the book, but to tell this story only a handful are relevant. I felt as if Kim was trying to give a shout-out to everyone she ever met.

I was also offered several confusing, contradicting points:
In one passage, she applauds an artist for her outspoken views against DC's straight-edge ethos of shunning drinking, drugs, sex and consumerism. But the next paragraph goes on to describe the straight-edge movement in such glowing terms, it isn't clear why she appreciates the artist for bashing it.

I was also confused about her romanticism of New York in the seventies. She spends a whole page describing the disintegrated state of the city. The rampant crime and drug use. The inability to walk the streets because of the danger. Then she spends the next paragraph ridiculing the clean-up of these problems. Complaining that New York is no longer real. A Disneyland version of what it once was. As if the only real city is one that you cannot use for fear of your life.

Towards the end of the book, Kim lost me altogether when she stated that a man cannot be a full partner in raising a child. Using her ex-husband as an example – the man she has spent a couple hundred pages describing as a self-absorbed, selfish man – she says that "no man can can feel the necessary urgency" required to properly comfort a crying child. And then she tries to prove this point by suggesting that she was the only one in her house who could handle the family's laundry.

Kim Gordon's inability to write a compelling memoir has not fouled my appreciation of Sonic Youth. Reading this book, despite it's flaws, was a worthwhile trip into my past. It gave me a chance to reminisce about people, events and songs that don't get much of my attention any more.

Undeniably, Sonic Youth is cool. They essentially invented a genre, and they challenged fans of punk to appreciate it. They transcended the hard driving beat of the Ramones and Black Flag. They stuck a finger in the eye of the bands who rely on melody or image to hook an audience. They created noise, energy, tension and anxiety with the same instruments that the Partridge Family used to play "I Think I Love You."

And if nothing else, they created the prototype for the hot-punk-girl-bass-player.

Don't Believe the Hype

Packet pickup, the day before a race. Old acquaintances see each other and nod. "Hey, are you running the half?"

"No, I'm running the 5K."

"Well, at least you're running."

This didn't happen to me. I read it in Runners' World, in the "Ask Miles" section. He gives advice on how to avoid running faux pas. And this was a faux pas. He eloquently pointed out why. All distances are hard. Hard if they are raced, not run. Anyone who has trained specifically to do well in a 5K knows this. Speed-work, hill-repeats, striders, mile pickups. Four mile high-tempo runs. None of this is as fun as going long on a warm, breezy Sunday morning. But this "Ask Miles" response is practically the only place I see this acknowledged in Runners' World magazine.

With the exception of a rare article about the new collegiate runner to watch, the message I get from Runners' World magazine is that the 5K is an entry-level race. Real runners race longer distances. Specifically half and full marathons.

This has annoyed me for years. Probably because chronic knee and calf problems have limited my runs to under five or six miles for a couple of decades. My only marathon was in the early nineties. At that time, half-marathons barely existed. The next common distance-race was the ten- mile. Which happened to be my strongest distance. Something about the way I'm designed allows me to hold a high tempo-pace for just over an hour. Everything after that is guts. Or at least requires some conscious pacing earlier in the run.

Runners' World is a magazine for the masses. And the masses of runners are in it for enjoyment, not actualization. And a surprising number are in it for weight-loss. Just look at the popularity of the Blerch franchise (also heavily plugged by Runners’ World). I might even suggest that many runners are lazy. It is far easier to build distance than speed. And building speed at longer distances is easier than building *fast* speed for a 5K. For most runners, non-elite runners, improving at the half-marathon or marathon is about gaining comfort with the distance. Not so for 5K. Most runners are already comfortable with the distance. A strong performance means shaving seconds off of a your last time. This comes from strategic training, diet, drills, and the grueling speed-work that even the most hard-core runners hate.

With my injuries, I've raced a lot of 5Ks over the years. And every now and then I decide I want to push out a good time. This makes for a rough month or so. I live in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. For a strong race here, performing well on hills is mandatory. Training includes long hill repeats with quick active recovery. This simulates pretty much every race I've done in my county. Every hill you hit, there is another one right behind it. Some are long, some are short, and they all hurt when cruising at a barely sustainable pace.

It's funny that I'm thinking about this now. I'm running a trail-half on Sunday. Through changes to my form, my diet and my other workouts – and sticking exclusively to trail-running – my knee and calf problems have improved. I won't say they are gone, but they are letting me increase my mileage at a slow but steady pace. I noticed this in January, and I've been pushing my weekend long-run all winter. And I love it.

Just like all of the other runners I know, for me the lure of longer races is omnipresent. After my half marathon this weekend, I'm contemplating training up to a 50K. The shortest "ultra" race. The thought of racing 5Ks just doesn't appeal to me. It isn't that I don't respect the distance. There is just a limited return for the effort and the cost. Why commit twenty-five dollars and an entire morning for twenty-two minutes of racing. Twenty-two minutes of all-out effort, suffering and pain. And that doesn't even take into account a month or two of nasty training.

The other problem, I hate to admit, is the lack of "cred" I get from racing shorter distances. A fast time for me isn't fast enough to impress anyone but me. After a recent race, I was packing up my stuff to head home. A spectator asked me how I did. I said I didn't really run as well as I planned. I missed my goal by almost a minute. She shook her head and said, well you finished, that must make you feel good. Whoever she came to watch – her husband, her child, her sister – for them, finishing was the goal. For me, there were splits to consider, my age-group ranking, my overall time. I came in sixteenth, second in my age group. But I ran a very bad race.

When running a long, technical trail race, to some degree, there is some joy generated in simply finishing. Or at least joy in finally being done. And after two or more hours in the woods, there are many race segments to look back on and evaluate. How did I run the flats. Am I happy with my performance on the hills, on the technical sections. Did I finish as strong as I could have. There will be parts where I can improve, and parts where I impressed myself. It won’t be all good or all bad, but something will be good, pleasant to reminisce. Later, people will see my name in the rankings, and look at the distance, and think "Wow!" And none of it will be as hard for me as a twenty-two minute 5K.

So while I completely discount the Runner’s World mantra that the 5K is an entry level race, now that I’m again physically able to run longer races I will. Not because the 5K is too easy for me, but because it is too damn hard.  

Coffee Break

"Wow, that is an orange jacket." The check-out lady at the IGA, commenting on my raincoat. I stopped in to buy a coffee on my way to a meeting. The jacket is orange, but not obnoxiously. More like pumpkin soup than a traffic cone. People comment on the color frequently. Enough for me to have a prepared response.

"Right, I rarely get shot at when I’m wearing it." This flippant statement will seem incongruous to most readers. I expect this. I grew up in a close-in Washington, DC suburb. As an adult, I relocated into the city. Orange as a safety device is not understood by city folk. But ten years ago, I moved to this rural setting. In my new town, hunting is a popular sport.

I own three coats. A heavy winter coat, worn a handful of times each year – on very cold days when I'm outside for long periods – sledding with my kids, on snowy hikes, at the New Year's Eve fireworks. A mid-weight fleece jacket for all other cold weather occasions, layered over sweaters or flannel, depending on my destination. And my raincoat. Which, besides being orange, is completely waterproof, even in summer-time cloud-bursting thunderstorms. Primarily though, I wear it as a windbreaker. My go-to jacket for any weather that doesn't involve frozen precipitation or woolen caps.

As the cashier gives me my change, she says "Well, I like it anyway." I walk out into the early-spring morning wondering if I received a complement.

Aging

Just what the Internet needs, another ranting blog-post slamming Obama. But this will be different. Today, I'm going to focus on Michelle. I'm not a tea-party republican, I'm not anti-government. I've even been known to utter once or twice "Hmmm, what's so bad about socialism?" Predictably, I voted for our president, twice. I respect his wife's focus on healthy eating and childhood obesity. So this can be viewed as an inside attack, 'picking on my own.'

Over the past few days, I’ve walked repeatedly past the March issue of "Cooking Light" magazine lying on my coffee table. Each time I saw it, a subconscious thought registered in my head. “That cover-model sure looks a lot like Michelle Obama.” After several passes, I finally picked up the magazine. It was Michelle Obama, sort of. This Michelle Obama was twenty-eight years old. Youthful, smooth skin, completely wrinkle free. It said “Michelle Obama” next to her, so I’m pretty sure it was her.

I flipped to the article, but I didn't read it. I think it was about the importance of family meal time. I just looked at the pictures. Throughout the article there were additional photos of the young woman from the cover of the magazine alongside images of the Michelle I know from TV. The adult. The over-fifty Michelle. The one with wrinkles.

We've all seen Mrs. Obama a thousand times over the past seven or eight years. There isn't a lot of mystery to her. She's fit, she's smart, she's a mom to two teenagers. Her fiftieth birthday milestone last year was heavily reported. What is gained by putting her on the cover of a magazine looking barely older than a college student?

What is gained is more and more women – women and men, actually – comparing themselves to an impossible standard. More adults trying to combat the natural aging process with increasingly drastic interventions. It starts early with make-up, comb-overs and hair dye. And too frequently, it culminates with cosmetic surgery.

All of us grow old. Everyone. Men go bald, hair turns gray. As skin ages, it wrinkles, it blemishes and sags. There is a difference between trying to look your best and trying to turn back the clock. A line that can be easily crossed when engaged in a never ending battle with the effects of time.

This has been in the news a lot lately. Beyonce's recent photos showing her up close and without makeup – her fans aghast, she's not flawless. Cindy Crawford's leaked lingerie photos. Not airbrushed, and showing a woman with a great - but not perfect - figure. And some seriously sun-damaged skin. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi with what is starting to look like a planned series of selfies showing the pair on the beach in their unmade-up glory. These are society's most beautiful women. And they do have blemishes, they do age. And this is important for us to see.

Air-brushed magazine covers help perpetuate low self-esteem. Or in many cases, even create the problem. They take our role models, women and men, and alter them so they look better than us. More handsome, more beautiful, and of course, younger They wipe away twenty years with a computer program. And the only way to mimic this in real life is through expensive and potentially dangerous medical procedures.

I feel it is the responsibility of our most public figures to set an example. Age gracefully, age healthfully, but please age. In the real world, Mrs. Obama is doing this. She says she eats well, she certainly exercises. She looks great for the fifty-one year old that she is. By portraying her as a young adult on the cover of Cooking Light magazine, the message to the rest of the over-fifty crowd is we look old, we need to improve. We shouldn't look our age.

The Best Songs You Won't Hear in Spin Class

Energy, anger, humor, disdain, resignation. A driving beat. Guitar, bass, drums. Raw and sparse. A recipe for punk rock. It cannot be pulled together like ingredients for a cake. It forms naturally, holistically. And at times, it's art. It's not for everyone. Many don't like it. Or they don't understand it. I've tried to change this. A little education, exposure in my very small corner of the world.

In my rural town, there is a ‘community center’. It is much bigger than our population would suggest. And truly one of the centers of our community. In a region where three out of four people are overweight, this is the place where the exercise crowd congregates. This is the place that I instruct spin classes.

I'm an introvert. I thrive in one-on-one situations. Not at the front of a room, performing. But music and exercise are important to me. I know a bit about each. Enough about music to pull together a clever playlist – multiple decades, various genres. Enough about exercise to coach a challenging workout – a mix of drills to improve strength and fitness. It’s not surprising that I've put this all together, for pay. Although at $9.00 per class, it’s more of a hobby than a job.

I hoped to be a DJ at my college radio station. This was thirty-five years ago. Freshmen were not permitted to do this. A year of academics before distractions. By my sophomore year, the station was closed, funding concerns. It later reopened, but I had graduated. I missed my chance to spin tunes - until now.

I branded my class Punk*Cycle. The other classes were pop, country. And classic rock, but not the Stones and the Who. Not T-Rex, the Kinks, or even the Doors. They used Foreigner, Journey, Manfred Mann, Yes. I wanted a cycle class thatrocked. The Clash, the Pixies, Social Distortion, the Offspring, Green Day, X. High-energy, beginning to end. The oldies that helped shape the musical revolution of the seventies. Louie Louie, Paint it Black, Surfin’ Bird, Break on Through. The bands that predated the punk title – New York Dolls, Blondie, Patti Smith Group, the Stooges. I thought I would draw out the closet-punks. That repressed group of spinners enduring the crap they heard in the rest of the classes – like me.

This is not a city. Small-town Pennsylvania. The people President Obama accused of "clinging to guns or religion". Afraid of change, of the outside world. He's right. People around here are not edgy. There weren't any closeted fans of punk rock. Not a single person said they were attracted to my class for the music. But over time, I started hearing people say how much they liked the music. I doubt they consider it punk, pre-punk, post-punk, neo-punk. They just hear it as a rocking set of music in an exercise class. And now they sing along.

My all-punk-all-the-time playlist became boring, at least for me. Two classes per week, every week. I needed more variety, and longer songs. (Good) classic rock, reggae, new wave, blues, even some contemporary pop. It has all found its way into the class. Show tunes when I want to be ironic. The mix is defiantly counterculture. Not a radio mix. An adult mix. Almost everything is old, decades old. But it’s new to the people in my class. And they still enjoy the music. They say so all the time. Music-wise, it’s as varied a class as you’ll find. Every genre is considered. But the class still skews towards punk.

Punk is the music that speaks to me. Motivates me. Gives me my edge. Makes me laugh. So I play punk. I play it for myself, and I'm happy that my class seems to enjoy it. At times, I go too far, and I'll do it again and again. Suicidal Tendencies' Institutionalized. Marilyn Manson's Sweet Dreams are Made of This. Master of the Puppets by Metallica. When these songs start, there is a collective groan. A sense that the class will indulge me this one time, but let's not do it again for a month or two. But there are twelve songs that are off-limits. A dozen phenomenal songs. Banned by decorum, by expectations. These are the best songs I won't play -- unless I'm sure it's my last class – ever. They are just too rough for polite society. Profane, divisive, shocking. And if I can't play them in class, at least I can post them on my blog.

Caution *all* of these songs contain extremely bad and/or offensive language, but oh, what a playlist they would make. (Please contact me if any links are broken)

Body Count -- Ice-T's 1992 masterpiece about violence in the 'hood. This dude is pissed.

Don’t F*** Me Up (with Peace and Love) -- Rocking and funny. Unfortunately, Cracker uses too many F-bombs to avoid.

Star Star -- A Rolling Stones classic from 1973. If you don't know why it's banned, just listen. Believed to be in response to Carly Simon's Your so Vain(this song is not banned, but I don't like it), allegedly written about Mick Jagger.

Killing in the Name Of -- I actually have used this song, part of it. Up to the four-minute mark. Then the song completely falls apart in a way designed to give a teenager's parents a heart attack.

Bad Habit -- From The Offspring's "coming out" album, Smash. An energetic driving-song with an attitude problem -- and a really profane road-rage release. Oh, and Smash, the album's final, its title cut. Not so nice either.

Orgasm Addict -- Almost forty years old. Early, early punk. And as inappropriate as any song since.

Repo Man -- Iggy Pop's theme song for the kooky and brilliant movie by the same name. I actually use this one from time to time, but I need to be very aware. If I miss my volume cue, the back-to-back F-bombs leave half the class red-faced and the others falling off their bikes laughing.

Dark Center of the Universe -- Even NPR's Linda Wertheimer loves this one. She is the person who introduced me to Modest Mouse. Unfortunately the frequent refrain of "F*** you over" makes it unplayable.

Gigantic -- A love (lust?) song by the Pixies. Sexually charged and perpetuating stereotypes. Nothing good can come from playing this song in a family gym.

Look! No Strings! -- A great cut on Chumbawamba's best album. Multi-layered as a parfait, both musically and lyrically, But... it is easy to read it as disrespectful to Jesus. Bummer. I love this song Susej em kcuf ho!

Not Now James, We're Busy -- I use almost all of the songs from Pop Will Eat Itself's "This Is The Day... This Is The Hour... This Is This". Great fast songs for a variety of drills. But this one goes too far. 

Scrap -- Girl-group metal-core rockers L7 compare Christianity to being high on inhalants. I doubt anyone would catch the meaning of the lyrics during a workout. But these people get up at 5AM to take my class. I really don't want to offend anyone.