Blowing Hot and Cold
In early January, the temperature was about 70 degrees. Right now, it's 11 degrees -- 21 below freezing -- and with the wind chill, it's said to feel as if it were -5.
The winds are gusting at between 16 and 20 miles per hour.
Yet I was just on the subway and, as far as I can tell, they've decided there's no need to turn on the heat on the trains.
This refusal to warm the bones of rail travelers is something I first noticed last winter. A transit worker told me they didn't wanna make the trains too comfortable for bums and stuff.
So on account of this, everybody should suffer?
Man, people are dumb.
At a branch of my gym frequented by Russians, most of the men throw water onto the sauna mechanism to make the room hotter. This is how it's done in Russia (and elsewhere), where a traditional unit heats a bunch of rocks and water thrown onto them releases the "dry" heat.
But my gym doesn't use these traditional units. They use electric units, which are not designed to have water thrown on them. As far as I can tell, throwing water on these units is like throwing it into a toaster -- you're basically just dousing hot, electrical coils.
And boy, it smells like all kinds of acrid, toxic crap is released into the air when the coils are doused, turning an activity that members engage in to improve their health into something that diminishes it. Yet pointing this out to said dousers virtually always draws the response, "Everybody else does it."
So, the Russians refuse to accept that things are different here and the other gym members refuse to believe that Russians, though experts in sweat, may not always be right. And people throw bags and bottles of water onto the bare heating coils, even when there is an area on the sauna's mechanism for rocks.
Yup, even when given the option of doing things traditionally, these idiots throw liquid on everything in sight, figuring the more hot things they get wet, the sweatier they'll become. And nothing is more important to a sauna-using man than sweat.
He'll use every trick -- cold tissues on the thermostat, blocking out air with towels under the door, whatever -- to make the room as hot as he can, so he can sweat the toxins out of his body, even if it means -- as it seems to with the hot coil-dousing -- that he'll be breathing in new and potentially more dangerous toxins in order to do it.
Of course, that's just the "Brooklyn Belt" branch. At the Irving Place branch of the New York Sports Club, members will take the heat however it comes, as long as they can rub each others schlongs in the process.
It was a regular whack-fest when I was there recently. And the festive ones didn't seem concerned with their aim, even though I asked my bone-rubbing neighbors to be careful, lest I be doused with reproduction fluid. They smiled indulgently but continued, "willy" nilly.
Prudently, I shifted to the steam room and when I emerged, I saw through the sauna door that the jerk-geometrics of the room had increased, er, geometrically. It was like looking at a large, semi-abstract flesh sculpture.
I didn't rat 'em out, but within a few days, both the sauna and steam rooms were conveniently "out of order".
My sister and nephew are here from Virginia. I don't think I'll be getting him a guest pass to the gym.
Actually, he wants to go ice skating in Rockefeller Center. But it's freezing out (which I guess is good for skating, but . . . ) Couldn't he have fun just watching New York television?
It's not like we haven't done stuff already. We went out to dinner last night with my uncle and aunt. They recently found this blog (actually, I inadvertently led them to it via the sig on my e-mails, but who expects someone to click on that?), so it was important for me to somehow convey to them that things are not going as badly as this piece of silly web entertainment led them to believe.
I don't think I was too successful.
__________________________________
26 January, 2007 @ 14:03 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer
(special note -- i'm reprising my edinburgh fringe show from 2004, 'bridge-burner", for one performance, sunday afternoon in new york. showtime is 4:45 pm, 1/28. location is jimmy's no. 43, downstairs at 43 e. 7 st, west of second av. in the east village.
hope you can make it,
andrew)
review of show
sound of young america endorsement
The winds are gusting at between 16 and 20 miles per hour.
Yet I was just on the subway and, as far as I can tell, they've decided there's no need to turn on the heat on the trains.
This refusal to warm the bones of rail travelers is something I first noticed last winter. A transit worker told me they didn't wanna make the trains too comfortable for bums and stuff.
So on account of this, everybody should suffer?
Man, people are dumb.
At a branch of my gym frequented by Russians, most of the men throw water onto the sauna mechanism to make the room hotter. This is how it's done in Russia (and elsewhere), where a traditional unit heats a bunch of rocks and water thrown onto them releases the "dry" heat.
But my gym doesn't use these traditional units. They use electric units, which are not designed to have water thrown on them. As far as I can tell, throwing water on these units is like throwing it into a toaster -- you're basically just dousing hot, electrical coils.
And boy, it smells like all kinds of acrid, toxic crap is released into the air when the coils are doused, turning an activity that members engage in to improve their health into something that diminishes it. Yet pointing this out to said dousers virtually always draws the response, "Everybody else does it."
So, the Russians refuse to accept that things are different here and the other gym members refuse to believe that Russians, though experts in sweat, may not always be right. And people throw bags and bottles of water onto the bare heating coils, even when there is an area on the sauna's mechanism for rocks.
Yup, even when given the option of doing things traditionally, these idiots throw liquid on everything in sight, figuring the more hot things they get wet, the sweatier they'll become. And nothing is more important to a sauna-using man than sweat.
He'll use every trick -- cold tissues on the thermostat, blocking out air with towels under the door, whatever -- to make the room as hot as he can, so he can sweat the toxins out of his body, even if it means -- as it seems to with the hot coil-dousing -- that he'll be breathing in new and potentially more dangerous toxins in order to do it.
Of course, that's just the "Brooklyn Belt" branch. At the Irving Place branch of the New York Sports Club, members will take the heat however it comes, as long as they can rub each others schlongs in the process.
It was a regular whack-fest when I was there recently. And the festive ones didn't seem concerned with their aim, even though I asked my bone-rubbing neighbors to be careful, lest I be doused with reproduction fluid. They smiled indulgently but continued, "willy" nilly.
Prudently, I shifted to the steam room and when I emerged, I saw through the sauna door that the jerk-geometrics of the room had increased, er, geometrically. It was like looking at a large, semi-abstract flesh sculpture.
I didn't rat 'em out, but within a few days, both the sauna and steam rooms were conveniently "out of order".
My sister and nephew are here from Virginia. I don't think I'll be getting him a guest pass to the gym.
Actually, he wants to go ice skating in Rockefeller Center. But it's freezing out (which I guess is good for skating, but . . . ) Couldn't he have fun just watching New York television?
It's not like we haven't done stuff already. We went out to dinner last night with my uncle and aunt. They recently found this blog (actually, I inadvertently led them to it via the sig on my e-mails, but who expects someone to click on that?), so it was important for me to somehow convey to them that things are not going as badly as this piece of silly web entertainment led them to believe.
I don't think I was too successful.
__________________________________
26 January, 2007 @ 14:03 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer
(special note -- i'm reprising my edinburgh fringe show from 2004, 'bridge-burner", for one performance, sunday afternoon in new york. showtime is 4:45 pm, 1/28. location is jimmy's no. 43, downstairs at 43 e. 7 st, west of second av. in the east village.
hope you can make it,
andrew)
review of show
sound of young america endorsement
posted by Andrew J. Lederer at 9:48 AM
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