Running a 5K Road Race — Punch In the Face

I’m trying to get back to my fighting weight.  Problem is, I haven’t been in a fight since before the Roller Skating Party in the Fifth Grade.  So now I have to lose 150 pounds in time for beach season.  It’s gonna be rough. 

 

So I’ve started running.  I have one goal when I’m running and only one goal:  to stop.  That way, when I go for a run, I run as fast as I can for as long as I can, so I can get back to sitting around the house doing nothing. 

 

In a rush of testosterone and physical optimism, I decided to run a 5K road race.  Nothing like an incredibly barbaric activity to shock my body (back) into shape.  Plus I don’t mean to brag, but I ran a little in high school . . . Freshman Cross Country Champ.  Bishop Gibbons High School.  Big Ten Conference.  That’s right — I know what I’m doing.  I also had a secret weapon:  at the end of the race, I’d start to yell “AISH!” with each breath.  I’d really AISH it out.  It was my Call of the Wild that would intimidate the competition and propel me to victory.  

 

I showed up at the 5K road race ready to race.  Just one problem:  I’m not Cross Country Champ.  I haven’t seen him for a long, long time.  As I walked up to the starting line, the darnedest thing happened:  Cross Country Champ appeared out of nowhere and started walking next to me.  Before I know it, we’re in step with each other — and he got right into my head:

 

Cross Country Champ [looking around at the Competition]:  What a joke.  I’m gonna kick some A-$-$ (aka A-double dollar signs) today.

 

Me:  Listen, kid.  You haven’t been around for a while — more than 20 years.  I know you were great – you were the best. But that was a long time ago.  Let me handle this for now – we’re just gonna take it nice and easy.

 

Cross Country Champ:  [Ignoring Me] Huh?  [bouncing up and down like a caged animal] I don’t like that guy over there. Who does he think he is?  We’re taking him down.  [shouting] Hey – You.  Yeah you.  Gibbons is in the House!  You hear that? [cheering] G-I-B-B-O-N-S that’s the way we spell success. Go Gibbons.  Go! Go! Go Gibbons! 

 

Me: [shaking my head and trying to lead the Cross Country Champ away from a sure physical confrontation]

 

Freshman Cross Country Champ:  And who’s this guy over here?  I think he’s giving me the eye . . . [to another runner]  We’ll settle this on the course!  If you can keep up . . . [back to Me]  I’m sorry.  Were you saying something?

 

Me:  Forget it.  Let’s just not die.

 

Freshman Cross Country Champ Guy leads me up to the front of the starting line and . . .

 

BANG!  We’re off. 

 

Cross Country Champ takes us out of the shoot like Tom Cruise running through the airport in . . . every one of his movies.  We’re 30 steps into the race, and I’m already spent.  In full-out panic mode, I start to “AISH” it out.  It appears to have little impact on my present competition.  After that, I pretty much blacked out.  I vaguely remember telling some guy who passed me to “go get ‘em  . . . for all of us” but, even now, I don’t know what that means.  Or what it could mean . . .  

 

After the race, having regained consciousness, I was leaning over a post-race table of snacks — bananas, muffins and PowerBars — and I had one final thought before being re-checked by the EMT’s:  if I’m too weak to unwrap the PowerBar package, how am I ever going to get the power inside me?

Friendless and 35 — Punch In The Face

I just got tickets to the big game.  You know — the game where everyone who’s anyone will be this weekend.  It’s gonna be huge, and I’ll be right in the mix.  And I don’t just have one ticket.  Me gots four of ’em.   That’s right.  Let the positioning begin, fellas.  Will it be my pals from my Thursday poker night?  Or maybe the guys from the Monday night flag football league.  I can’t forget my Saturday morning running club buddies — they love going to the big game.  There’s only a few problems:  I can’t play cards (can’t even shuffle cards), I’m pretty sure a flag football league would be the 7th layer of H-E-double hockey sticks for me, and the running club doesn’t exist.  Check that — the running club exists, and I always picture myself jet-setting around the country with a bunch of others runners kicking A-double $ in Masters’ competitions, but my bed’s too cozy to get out of bed to join them.  So what I’m saying is . . .

I’m friendless. 

It’s a fact, and I say it without any self-pity.  Okay, maybe an ounce of self-pity.  But I honestly don’t take my friendless-ness personally.  Maybe I should take it personally, but I’m convinced that whether or not a Gen-X’er has friends comes down to a 4-factor test based on the following:  1) age; 2) marital status; 3) familial status; and 4) employment status.  Let me walk you through these factors to illustrate my point.        

Age

If you’re 35, you’re certainly not too old to meet new friends.  But definitely in a “friend valley” age-wise.  I’ve got none of the friends I had at 25 (okay — 2, but we’ll keep it at “none” for dramatic effect) and I won’t have my 50 year-old friends for several years.  I wish I could say the loss of my friends from 10 years ago was due to dramatic circumstances that ended in knock out, drag out arguments in the middle of a barren city street at 3:00 a.m.  But I can’t.  I pretty much lost all of my old friends because I don’t go to Dave Matthews Band concerts and I don’t know what a Fantasy Football League is or how it works.  Actually, I know what Fantasy Football is, and I play it all the time in my mind:  I imagine I’m running punts back against a defense of swimsuit models who are trying to tackle me with big pillows.  So, there you go — Fantasy Football.  What I don’t understand is:  how do they form leagues around these football fantasies?  Would I have to join a “team” of weirdo’s who share the same football fantasy as me?  Maybe this is why I don’t have any friends . . .   As for my 50 year-old friends, I just haven’t met them yet.  I’m looking forward to it, but I got about 10 years before I lower my friend standard to the point where I’ll call someone my friend because we meet for a round of golf every Saturday.

 Marital Status

Fellas, I’ll make this one short and sweet:  if you’re married, you may have a couple of “married friends”, but no real friends to speak of.  All you have is your wife’s friends.  And their husbands.  That’s it.  

Familial Status

This’ll be even shorter.  If you have kids, you don’t have friends — you just have other tired parents at 3 year-old birthday parties at the petting zoo.  That is if — if — you even have enough energy to nod at these other people while your feeding apples to the llamas.

Employment Status

Got a job?  You don’t have friends.  You have the “Krazy Krew” from work that teases you about the fact that you like to order the same thing from the Chinese take-out place each week.  And they try to convince you to call the local morning show to request some Bon Jovi each Friday — a lil’ Bad Medicine before the weekend. 

So, there you have it.  A simple equation: 35 +  Married + Kids +  a job = me and three empty seats at this weekend’s game.  If you see me at the big game, feel free to mock me.  Heck, beat me up in the parking lot.  There’s nothing I can do about it.  My posse of friends left 10 years ago.  I don’t really know my wife’s friend’s husbands.  The petting zoo parents are napping. And the Krazy Krew at work doesn’t really exist — I work at home, and the Krazy Krew is entirely comprised of the cat.  And my Curious George doll.  Now that I think about it . . .  I’ll get ready for the beating now.   Feel free to Punch Me In the Face.  It’ll be poetic justice.

Vacation — Punch In The Face

Two types of vacation:  the  “Go Somewhere” vacation and the “Do Nothing, Go Nowhere” vacation.  I’m not down with either type. That’s right, Sports Fans:  Vacation, A Punch In The Face.

First, the Go Somewhere vacation.  Being from the Northeast, that typically means going somewhere in the Caribbean.  Ah, the Caribbean.  Nothing like the natural tension between  an essential tourism industry and intense poverty.  I can hear you now:  But C-ROC, the people in the Caribbean are so nice.  I’m sure that’s partially true, but let’s not confuse smiling with being nice.  I’d grit my face and smile too if making my living depended entirely on whether or not a couple of drunk co-ed’s from Kutztown State decide to have their hair braided.  But C-ROC, the weather and the beaches are so beautiful.  Yeah, I get it.  But every time I’m on a vacation in a tropical setting, I keep thinking:  What am I doing here?  I feel like there are only three types of people who really deserve a tropical vacation:  1)  soldiers just back from the war; 2) celebrities (hey, what else are they going to do other than pose for paparazzi photos while they frolic in the water?); and 3) migrant workers.  If you pick lettuce 15 hours a day, you need a week in an ocean view cabana.  Me?  I’m hunched over a computer in a temperature-controlled office three steps away from a Keurig coffee maker and a drawer full of Power Bars. That’s right K-cups and Triple Threat Bars — a vacation in my mind with each sip and bite.  Plus, I like being home — that’s why I live here.  I like Chili’s for Dinner, Dunkin’ Donuts for dessert, and Target for after-dinner entertainment — don’t knock shopping for black athletic socks until you tried it.  The Go Somewhere vacation isn’t for me.

That leaves me with the Go Nowhere, Do Nothing vacation.  I’d get to stay home.  It really doesn’t sound that bad — I can already taste the Chili’s Chicken Tenders and feel those thick black athletic socks snug around my calves.   But I’ve tried that, and even though it’s okay for a day, I just can’t take it.  Having time to actually do the things I enjoy reminds me of how much of my actual life I miss out on every day.  I don’t want to have those thoughts — thoughts of being able to spend more time with my family and friends, and exercising without guilt or panic.  In fact, these very thoughts are exactly the reason why I keep my nose to the grindstone.  As an old cowboy once told me, “No need to be ponderin’ the meanin’ o’ life . . . you’re here now, and, God willin’ you’ll be here tomorrow.  Now get back to the herd.”  (Okay, an old cowboy never really told me that . . . but I can imagine a Jack Palance-type guy with an Irish brogue telling me that and it’d really make an impression on me and my outlook on life.  After all, Palance could do one-arm push-up’s at the age of 87.  I could never ignore such a combination of wisdom and brute strength.)  So, following that fake advice, I’ll just keep my head down.  Buried in the sand.  Like an ostrich.  Hey, it’s cool and dark down here.  Not too shabby.

Finding Out Someone Else Has A Punch In The Face-Themed Blog — Punch In the Face

Well, this lasted long.  5 days, 2 posts and 1 killer old school rap  01-punch-in-the-face3, and I get a stark Punch In the Face:  Apparently, someone else already has a Punch In the Face-themed blog (on another blog site).  Look, I get it.  It’s the Internet and no idea is completely original.  And no, the themes aren’t exactly the same — my life is a Punch In The Face, and this blogger’s listing people she wants to punch in the face.  You see?  Clearly the two blogs theme-atically distinct.  But still, I kept holding out hope that my Mommy was telling me the truth:  that I really am special.  This latest revelation is evidence that, so far, no dice on the “special me” front. 

So, where do I go from here?  Do I just fold down my laptop and limp off the blog battleground with my head down?   You wish.  You wish I’d leave my legions of fans:  the fourth graders bumping the Punch In the Face mp3 on their iPod’s as they prepare for a grueling day of pop quizes and frustratingly small juice boxes; the salesman ordering a white-on-black Punch In The Face t-shirt from my members-only fan site; and the 5th-year lawyer at the white-shoe law firm whose only respite from the endless stream of billing his time in 6-minute increments is when he stuffs a print out of today’s PITF blog in his $200 trousers and sprints off to the bathroom for a daily dose of the Gospel According to C-ROC . . . 

That’s it.  I can’t just leave my millions of dedicated disciples.  I can’t leave you to fend for yourselves in this cruel, cruel world.  You’re very fragile.  You’re barely hanging on to the pathetic existence that you refer to as a “life.”  Need proof?  You’re reading this.  Wait . . . come back, I was kidding. 

As I thought long and hard about whether I should just throw in the blog towel today, I took an item out of my fan mail.  It was a letter — brown and tattered, and it had been folded over eight times.  I carefully unfolded the letter like an ancient treasure map.  Even though I’ve read this note before dozens of times — hundreds of times maybe — I have to see it, feel it, on days like this where my personal foundation has been shaken to the core.  The letter is from Alejandro, a 9 year-old boy from Acapulco (“Alejandro from Acapuloc”, isn’t that adorable?) , a place I haven’t been in about a decade.  The note — written in such simplistic Spanish it makes me blush — has only 4 precious words: “Tu Eres Mi Papi.”  Powerful.  Even as I type this, a tear is gently rolling down my cheek.   Wait.  You don’t get it?  How can you not get it?  Don’t you see? I’m this kid’s hero — I’m Alejandro’s personal David Ortiz. 

Well, Tu Eres Mi David Oritz, Alejandro.  Tu Eres Mi David Ortiz.

I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.

Granite Counter-tops — Punch In The Face

Granite counter-tops. The ultimate symbol of GEN X’s obsession with materialism and our need to look good even if we don’t feel good.  Hey, I got ’em, and they make me feel great.  That’s right:  they look good and they treat me even better.  They shine and wink at me when I walk by.  They tuck me into bed at night.  They tell me all sorts of crazy stories about the time they spent in Central America.  But, secretly, I hate them because I need them:

ME:  I can’t be a selfish, soulless loser.  I’ve got granite in my kitchen, dammit.   

GRANITE COUNTER-TOPS [gleaming in the sunlight]:  You got that straight, brotha. 

Don’t get me wrong — I’d love to be able to blame our collective  obsession with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and wide-plank hardwood floors on Flip This House, Flip That House, Flip Their Houses, Flip Run’s House, etc.  But I can’t.  I can only blame the obsession on our over-inflated ego’s and collective sense of entitlement.  Need proof?  Watch any of the shows mentioned above (I’m not sure when Flip Run’s House actually airs . . . I think sometime after Making the Band and before Brett Michaels Picks A Skank — check your local listings for exact dates and times) or their progeny:  Moving Up, Property Virgins, House Hunters, House Hunters Int’l, etc., and you’ll invariably see the following scene:

NARRATOR:  Chelsea is a 31 year-old social worker and her boyfriend Brandon sells sunglasses at a kiosk in the mall.  They’ve been searching for the perfect home for them to share and their tastes are very specific:  Brandon needs a 1,500 square foot theater room. . .

BRANDON:  I need some space where me and my boys can chill.

NARRATOR:  . . . and Chelsea requires a chef’s kitchen with glowing granite countertops, heated floors, oak cabinetry, and two chef’s ovens . . .

CHELSEA:  I’d really like to get into cooking someday.

NARRATOR:  . . . but, so far, they are very disappointed in the properties that are in their price range.  Let’s see how they react when they visit this modest 2-bedroom ranch in their price range.

[CHELSEA AND BRANDON ENTER THE KITCHEN, SEE WHITE APPLIANCES, FORMICA COUNTER-TOPS AND LINOULEUM FLOORING, AND IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO VOMIT]

Well, we can’t blame Chels and Brandon for having high standards, can we?  After all, their collective income is just above the poverty level, so they deserve to live like a cross between Russell Simmons (before he split up with Kimora) and Martha Stewart, right?  Not quite.  Before jumping on the Chels and Brandon rationalization train, think about this: what did our parents do when they were faced with the same situation (i.e., buying a starter home within their budget)?  They bought it, moved in, got out the Fantastik spray, cleaned off the older counter-tops and — gasp — put their stuff down on it.  That’s right — they lived with it. So, when you’re applying for a $50,000 home equity line of credit to update your kitchen, ask the age-old question Gen X never seems to ask ourselves:  Do I really need it?

Answer that question for yourselves, kids.  And, as always, do as I say, not as I do — I gotta get back to wiping down my beautiful granite counter-tops.  In fact, as I look at my reflection in the granite right now, I can hear them saying something to me. 

ME [leaning over the granite, listening — searching — for the wise message]:  What?  What are you saying to me?

COUNTER-TOPS [To me, in a loving hush]:  You’re a winner.

A Punch In the Face: The Gen X’ers Guide to Being 35

Here is an MP3 of the instant classic “Punch In the Face”, an old school rap I wrote and recorded at Legacy Funk studios in New York.

01-punch-in-the-face2

“Punch In the Face” — or “PITF” –, chronicles my personal frustrations with growing up and — let’s face it — growing old(er). If a prophet (like, for example, the bum muttering to himself at the bus station) tapped me on the shoulder in 1995 and told me that, in the ’09, I’d be working myself way too hard, living in a house I can’t really afford, and having absolutely no time for exercise, art and creativity, I’d have laughed in his face and gone back to ironing my flannel shirt. But now, here I am: doing everything I can to afford granite countertops and 18″ rims — the items that, for me, act as a false security blanket when I question my personal success.

A few tidbits about the tune:

1)  The first voice you hear is my 12 year-old nephew asking me: “Unkie C-Roc, what’s it like to be grown up?”  The answer: it’s a Punch In The Face. The sooner you kids realize that, the better off we’ll all be.  In addition, PITF is about hope, unrequited love and the American way (well . . . no it isn’t, but I always wanted to write a song that was about all 3 of those things and, since I’ve at least written and recorded this song, I’d like to try to shoehorn its meaning into all three categories. Also, when you stop to think about it, aren’t all songs really about hope, unrequited love and the American way?).

2) Heating with propane IS a Punch In The Face . . . $$$$

3) Muamar Qadafi is also a Punch In The Face.  The Libyan Dictator is about to make a comeback — I can just feel it.

4) The song is best listened to bumpin’ in your car . . . so, by all means, download it/ burn it — and bump it proud.

5) Enjoy. And, even if you don’t enjoy, lavish me with false praise – my ego is so big, I won’t be able to tell the difference between legitimate praise and sarcasm.

One final note: Please, no “Boy, you have too much time on your hands” comments. Frankly, I don’t have much time at all. But, when the sweet lil’ Baby Jesus whispered this tune in my ear, I had to write it down, record it, and send it out to the masses – starting with you.

Take Care,

Chris (aka Unkie C-Roc; the JV All Star)