The Really, Really, Really Petty One

I don’t think there is any way to not come out looking like a douche bag after writing this blog, but I can’t not write it. I mean, the precedent is set. I’ve had douche-bag entries before. (Remember the one where I cried about my rather nice, cheap, well-maintained gym?) So, here it goes. Send any complaints to my PR rep ashleigheaux@ashleaigheauxPR.biz.

Anyway, there’s this guy.

He’s a very handsome guy. Crazy handsome. OBSCENELY handsome. And he has a social media presence. Well, honestly, it’s more than a presence, he’s an influencer—100s of thousands of people follow him.

So he got online famous being hot and then posting videos. Some of them are about his insecurities like…bad hair days and…well, I think that’s it. There’s nothing wrong with him. In other videos, you’ll see him dance poorly or do push-ups. It’s all very, very, very, very bland. Like white rice bland. 80’s sitcom bland. It’s just a hot guy doing things. Never did I see one of his videos and think “Wow. That guy’s good at that thing.”

But people DO. They love his blandness. They adore it! If he posts about his insecurities, people will respond with block paragraphs wishing him well and giving him advice. Block paragraphs! I don’t even text my mom block paragraphs. They send hearts and emojis and laugh at stuff that I wouldn’t even call a joke. Not even joke adjacent. It’s like…okay, you made an observation about something. Is that funny?

White Castle is cheap.

Traveling is fun.

Love is for everyone.

These banalities ooze from his Instagram like honey from a…bee? Or something. Anyway, the people love it.

They love it so much that he started his own marketing firm. He actually tells other people how to get Instagram famous. Which…this is the part where we enter the social media uncanny valley… what? What is actually happening?

It’s like if someone really, really hot got famous playing drums, but they played the drums poorly. BUT THEN they started charging for drum lessons. It doesn’t make sense!!

So, you’re hot. Which is how you got famous…but like what are you telling people to do?

I kept following him to see what else would come up. And, yes, if you’re one of those perspicacious readers, you know that I am also part of the problem. I’m following him (due to his hotness) and watching this all unfold. But, at this point, the trainwreck was so far removed from reality, that it was like watching a train crash into a blimp on the moon. I COULD NOT LOOK AWAY.

This same thing happened another time when I saw a celebrity post about a book of poetry. I looked up the book and could not believe what I saw.

Of course, the poet is very, very attractive.

But the poems… Guys. The poems.

I got an MFA. I went to school with poets who spent hours crafting four or five lines of poesy.

This guy was probably at his desk using ChatGPT.

Love, I get it.

It’s a lonely, burning sensation.

Just above the heart.

And in your eyes.

^^That poem I just threw together and may be better than the actual poems in this book.

But I read maybe twenty of them because I couldn’t not. I just didn’t understand what was happening. This guy got a book deal based on phrases that may have once been on a Snapple cap.

Likewise, the other very, very hot influencer is posting bland “help” videos on his business account. One was just about how you should believe in yourself.

WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH MARKETING? …OR ANYTHING?

My friend and I were discussing the bizarreness of this phenomenon, and then he took it a step further and looked at how much the hot marketing guy was charging.

Y’all…it’s a lot of money. And based on the “tips” he posts, he’s just googling “how do I get more followers” and then sending people the results for a consulting fee.

The weird(est) thing about all of this is that it doesn’t make me mad or anything. Like I’m not jealous of the chatGPT poet or the hot marketer, it actually brings me a lot of joy.

To put it in another way: As a middle-aged man (yes, I’m there now), life turns out to be kind of a disappointment. Dreams don’t come true. You don’t accomplish what you want to accomplish, and you start to realize that well, this is it. And as a part of the retrospection, you get down on yourself:

“I should have done this…”

“If only I had pursued this at a younger age…”

“Maybe if I’d had more courage while I did X…”

But chatGPT poet and hot marketer help me flip the script. Because they illustrate that nothing really mattered anyway. There’s no rhyme or reason to success. Things happen, people have bad hair days, consumers pay money to hear bland advice or poetry from hot people, and that’s just kind of how things are. The world is gloriously absurd and there’s no reason to be down about anything, because it’s all kind of a cosmic joke.

That’s not meant to be nihilistic or bleak. For me it’s really helpful. I should keep writing, keep doing book coaching, keep blogging, and keep laughing. Things aren’t good or bad, they just are, and that’s pretty freeing. And kind of hilarious. 

So I encourage you to do what you love to do, because someone out there is doing it a lot worse and making a lot of money at it. Now, please show your support in the comments because I’m having a bad hair day. Like, really bad! *sad emoji* *cry emoji* *money emoji* *money emoji* *money emoji*

 

Bonus Content:

I’ve been playing with chatGPT. (It started with work and has been very fun.) Anyway, here are two love poems generated by a bot that are better than hot poet.

 Love is a flame that burns so bright,

A force that fills both day and night,

It brings us joy, it brings us pain,

But without it life would not be the same.

 

Love is a garden we tend with care,

Nurturing each bloom so rare,

Through seasons of sun and stormy weather,

Its beauty endures and blossoms forever.

And a final one I asked to be about a hot influencer who is bad at poetry. Honestly, it’s an A+ for this robot. Would like and subscribe to its poetry account.

Words may stumble, meter may falter,

But eyes are drawn to this influencer's alter,

Charisma oozes from every pore,

Their poetry may be bad, but their looks? Adore!

The Count, The Countess, and Me

It's very hard to find people who love books the way I do. Not like "Oh, that was fun!" Or "I didn't like that one!" But full, 100%, balls-to-the-wall investment in a story: a full appreciation of both the good, bad, and gloriously ugly bits of storytelling.

Last summer Ernesto and I went to Dublin for Bloomsday. (He's such a good sport.) It's a day in the city where everyone celebrates James Joyce's novel Ulysses. People are partying, drinking, reading, and talking about books allll daaaay. It's pretty amazing. Very few times in my life have I been to a thing where it was NORMALIZED to be talking about literature, making pretentious jokes about Buck Mulligan, and standing in line to look into a pharmacy because it has a special soap that was mentioned in a book.

But after such literary highs, there are inevitably literary lows, and I was having a hard time getting into any books post-Dublin. I'd read stuff, sure, but the books were like...fine. I also don't like a lot of modern books. Especially the literary ones. It feels like people just write really nicely, run out of steam, then give you an ambiguous ending and hope you connect the dots.

So, after many disappointing books, I went back to my old standbys, one of which is The Three Musketeers. The book is bananas: intrigue, mystery, murder, duels, war, secret love affairs. And on and on. It's so much friggin' fun. Dumas puts the story in fifth gear and slams on the gas. You never know where it's going to go. 

I told one of my best friends from college about it (who has requested that in this blog, for anonymity, she be referred to as Countess Fosco…which is baller, tbh), and she suggested that we read one of Dumas' other books together so we could enjoy the chaos alongside each other.

It has been absolutely AMAZING.

We chose The Count of Monte Cristo and, kids, it's a wild ride.

The Countess and I are both literary nerds, and we are in awe of how this book works. It's 1200 pages long, but, never, at any point, are there any boring bits. You just jump from one coocoo saga to another.

There is this amazing thing that Dumas does where a character will enter the narrative and then tell the absolute CRAZIEST story you've ever heard. Oftentimes, you don't even know why you're supposed to care. One particular highlight in Monte Cristo is a moment when an innkeeper tells a twenty-page anecdote about a local bandit. You have never seen this bandit in the story before. You have no idea why the bandit is in the story at all. BUT IT'S A GREAT STORY. And halfway through the story, the person you thought the story was about DIES and you just pick up with another person in the story.

At another point (in another fabulous digression about an orphan), there is a secret love affair, a love child, a Corsican bandit, three murders, and one woman burned alive (so, yes, four murders). That's not even part of the book—it’s just like a tangent to tell you about this one person who doesn't even show up for another hundred pages.

IT'S NUTS.

Every Tuesday for the past two months, Countess Fosco and I have jumped on a call and proclaimed our awe of Alexandre Dumas. It's been a long time since I have had a book I can't put down, much less one from 130 years ago that's over one thousand pages long.

The book became so extreme and unpredictable, that my friend and I started doing bets each week, picking a character or event and then saying where we "thought" things would go. 

We were almost never correct.

One character is introduced to the story, comes back in, commits a murder, goes to jail, THEN STILL COMES BACK INTO THE STORY. 

Today we have The Last of UsThe White Lotus, and Stranger Things to talk about around the watercooler, but I can't even imagine what it was like in 19th-century France with everyone anxiously waiting for the weekly paper to see the next installment of Monte Cristo. Like, would it be a domestic scene where the Count is talking about poisons? Or is it going to be another "Oh, here is a guy who will tell you the craziest thing you've ever heard in your life about something tangentially related to the plot...for now"? YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW.

Either way, it has been an amazing reminder of why I love books so much in the first place. After years of being taught novels across two degree programs that no one actually likes reading but you're supposed to, it is great to jump back into something that shows no compunction about throwing bandits, betrayal, murder, love children, secret affairs, and war stories together in a story blender and then serving it up sloppy joe style. Then capping it off with narration like:

"On the steps d'Avrigny met the relative whom Villefort had mentioned, an insignificant personage both in the family and in this story, one of those beings who are born to play a purely utilitarian role in the world."

That is alpha writer shiz right there. Like, Reader, don't worry about this guy, he is just here to move the story along. Your old pal, Dumas, doesn’t want you to waste any concern on him—someone will be murdered in two pages who you should worry about.

The Countess and I have even thought about doing a seasonal podcast where we pick a crazy serialized Victorian-era novel and then talk through it week by week. I have vowed against podcasts, but your boy is struggling with creating content for his book coaching business, so it may be a creative necessity. Also, Victorian-era serialized novels include things like bandits, love affairs, demonic possessions, spontaneous combustion, and love children, so it's not a bad thing to build content around.

A few years ago, Countess Fosco convinced me to read The Monk. The plot would take me way too long to recap. Suffice it to say that there is an evil Monk, and the climax is a battle between nuns and townspeople and an actual visit from the devil himself.

To summarize: Monte Cristo is dope. Victorian serialized novels are coocoo roller coasters, and enjoying a crazy serialized story whether on Netflix, HBO, or in a novel format is an amazing way to connect with your friends.

Although this blog’s narrative digression didn't include a love affair or international bandits, I hope it was at least kind of interesting. If not, direct your feedback to the comment box. Next month I can tell you about my buddy Charlie. He was possessed by a demon, killed a nun, then fled to Madagascar, which is where the actual story begins…

Good-bye, LA (Fitness)

It’s been a while, so it’s obviously time for me to complain about the gym.

Sadly, this entry isn’t about any fun gym characters. I have been at LA Fitness so long that I’m well-acquainted with everyone, and anyone new who comes in is remarkably banal.

There was a fun revelation about this man that I thought was gay. (Like, 98% thought was gay—he was too well-groomed to be straight. Yes, he was well-groomed at the gym…somehow?) He and I were always on the stair steppers together, but he really didn’t talk to anyone and despite his really great hair, there was no clear sign that he was a friend of Dorothy. Then, one day, he brought a friend in with him during a gay festival weekend and it all made sense. The “friend” looked exactly like him but was a fabulous as they come. He literally said, “Let’s pump some muscles!” when he walked onto the gym floor. (Honestly, was a very big fan and would have traded him for my stair-stepper friend in an instant.)

Anyway, turns out this blog does have characters!

But, the big revelation in this post is that I switched gyms. It was time. And LA Fitness had gotten absolutely bonkers.

To be fair, the LA Fitness I went to was very nice. Like VERY nice. But, I don’t know how that equated to it being a magnet for early gym goers.

 For context, I’ve always been a morning person. Even in high school, I had a 0-hour class, so I had to be up at 6 and in my jazz band seat at 7:15am. This has usually been great for me and my fitness life. There just aren’t a lot of morning gym people.

For instance, I love telling people that I go to the gym in the morning, because, often, they act like I just said I killed someone.

“I went to the gym this morning and—”

“YOU WENT TO THE GYM?! THIS MORNING?! MY GOD.”

So, while being a morning person does cause disdain in many, it’s been great to get a workout in and be left alone.

But, for some reason, this LA Fitness in Chicago is the mecca of early risers. I had to keep getting up earlier and earlier to not be bothered by people. Like…how do I wake up at 5am and go to a gym with 6 squat racks and some days NEVER FIND AN OPEN ONE.

Also, why is someone always on the calf raise machine? ALWAYS. And there is also a literal line for the leg curl machine. You can tell a lot of women and gay men go to the gym because people are working glutes 24/7.

I tried to think creatively about it. Like, “How can I avoid crowds?” A couple days I experimented going in at 10am, but…you guessed it…it was also FULL. In my old gym, I could roll in anytime between 5:30-7 and not have to take a ticket and wait in a queue to get a dumbbell.

To be honest, the other times are even worse. Morning folks tend to get in and get’er done. The reason they’re in early is to get it out of the way and get to work (probably). But once you go later in the day, people have nothing but time. The amount of people setting up elaborate filming apparatuses is honestly shocking. This one man had two bicep curl barbells stacked on each other so he could film himself doing lunges. One morning, a woman was using two free-standing benches so she could film herself doing thrusts. THOSE ARE HIGHLY COVETED LADY. GET YOUR TICKET AND GET IN LINE!

I know that this is all a me problem. When I’m at the gym I have unnecessary anxiety about who is there, what machine they are on, what I need to get on next, and why people are talking so much. But, as it is a me problem, I have tried everything at LA Fitness to fix it.

Alas.

It was wearing on me to the point where I would unnecessarily bring it up to complain.

“Did you guys see the game last night?”

“Don’t even get me started on the gym!!!”

“I said ‘game’…”

“It’s always busy! And this one guy was filming his lunges and he…”

It did always make me feel better, though, because if I brought it up with someone who had been to this LA Fitness, there was an immediate moment of bonding.

“THAT PLACE IS THE WORST!”

One of my buddies fled the gym, but then got an insurance break for LA Fitnesses (Fitnessi?) so had to return. When I talked to him about it, it was like he was returning to the front in WWI.

“I…I’m going back, Tedd.”

“It’s just not fair. IT’S NOT FAIR! You had a life out here! Don’t let them take it away from you!”

Finally, I brought it up with a guy on my bowling team. (Correct. I now bowl. That may be a whole other blog post.) Anyway, I was complaining, and he said his gym was close to where we lived and there were less than 500 people there in the morning. The next day he sent me a video of the gym floor and it was abandoned.

Serendipitously, when Ernesto had to get a new gym membership, we discovered this same gym offered a couple’s discount, so I finally moved on.

I think the most bizarre thing was the weird sense of nostalgia I had leaving LA Fitness. I wondered if I should say good-bye to the classic gym characters that I saw every day.

“Good-bye ambiguous-sexuality-well-groomed-man! Farewell terrifying woman who barked at me when I tried to use her tricep extension attachment! Sayonara man with 300 Instagram followers who considers himself an influencer and films everything! Hasta la vista bald guy who shares looks of mutual respect with me every so often!”

As of last week, I started at the new gym. Aside from the surging body image issues I have now (there…are a lot of people on performance-enhancing drugs there in the morning), everything is going pretty great. I can actually use machines and there isn’t a lottery to use the squat rack. I did get yelled at for trying to use a rack that some guy had evidently claimed, but, you know what? After he yelled at me, I went to another one…which was open!

In the end, I think I learned a couple valuable lessons: One, if a man is very well-groomed, it’s an inevitability that he will bring his flamboyant, gay lover into contact with you sooner or later, and two, when something makes you miserable, you should just leave it. So, good-bye LA Fitness. This song’s for you.* 

*This song is explicit. Do not play with sensitive ears present. But definitely play it as you drive by an LA Fitness. Tysm.