Sweating Elephants
"Does it strike anyone but me," I asked the volunteers around me while walking along P____ St. towards the corner at N____ St.,"as somewhat ironic that the national mascot developed to get children involved in sports activities as a way of improving their health and fitness is . . . an elephant?"
I kid you not, faithful and long-suffering readers. An elephant.
It's name?
Pachy Playfair.
Yes, Pachy Playfair.
Pachy as in Pachyderm. From the Greek word pachy, meaning thick or fat. [I choose not to address here the fact that, when pronounced, his name becomes a racial slur.] Whose brainchild was this? And how much was s/he paid to come up with it? Did this person get a success bonus? Or is this person laughing hysterically from behind a thick shroud of funny smoke?
I am telling you the absolute truth, but I'm afraid that, having just googled Mr. Playfair with total lack of success, you'll have to trust me on this one. He's a guy dressed in a yellow warm-up suit, red P on the front and red Pachy on the back, big clowny shoes, and a huge gray elephant head, complete with long protruding trunk.
When called upon to serve, he bounds up onto the stage (ok, he doesn't bound, because he can't see his own feet in that suit - he is guided like an elderly woman taking very ginger steps as if the next one will send him off a precipice) and, well, stands there. He waves sometimes, and then he sticks out his right hand (he's also wearing elephant gloves, of course), and makes what is presumably a thumbs-up sign. You can't tell, though, because of the glove.
Plus, I think his gloves were on the wrong hands, which can't help.
Oh, and fair (Pachy PlayFAIR) is not just a word, kids - it's letters stand for something like Follow the rules . . . and . . . Include everyone who wants to play. Try as I might, I just can't remember the A and the R. I'm so sorry. They were so catchy, too. Dammit.
Anyway, Takeoutlawyer got a job. It starts on Monday. Today is Friday, and I thought I'd spend my last day of sweet sweet weekday freedom helping to create some community in the neighborhood next to mine. I'm sure my hood could use some community too, but this one needs it even more. So I went to this volunteery thing in S____.
Now, I've been to other things like this, and there's always a kick-off set of speeches by various people. This one had LOTS of speeches. I had no idea it was going to be full of such luminaries as the US Surgeon General, the head of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, and the head of the President's Council on, uh, Volunteering, or something like that. There was also a very famous former football player, which, even with my almost complete apathy towards spectator sports, I thought was kinda cool. I know he was very famous, and not merely famous, because I recognized his name. At one point, one of the speech-givers threw a t-shirt to the Surgeon General, who was sitting next to the football player, and the football player intercepted it. It was funny. You see, the football player was a, well, he played a position that involved making interceptions. Cornerback, maybe? See why it was funny?
And during all of this, we're out in the hot sun. Very hot sun, very humid air.
Did someone say hot? Humid?! It must be time for ANTOINE!!!
One of the ten (counted 'em, ten) luminaries seated on the makeshift stage was this dude who, if he needed a bra, would probably wear a C cup. No, he didn't have man-boobs, just really, really big chest muscles. In fact, he had big everything muscles, that I could see. And he wasn't hiding any of it. In fact, he had a really tight red shirt on, and what looked like "active" pants. (I don't know what active pants are, but that word seems to fit.) Long curly hair, celebrity sunglasses, and a French accent completed his image.
I hadn't thought too hard about who he was or why he was up there, but his presence (not to mention his countenance) disquieted me for some reason.
After the speeching was done, the MC called on Antoine to step up to the mic.
"I'm sure you all know our next guest, physical fitness star ANTOINE!!!"
The roar of the crowd around me was deafening and, thinking back, this might have been the moment when, without changing my position, I somehow found myself much closer to the front of the crowd, instead of in the middle-rear, where I much prefer to hang.
Antoine did some of those call-response things that I can't stand and in which I absolutely refuse to participate. [House everyone doink?! (Hooray!) What deed you say - I can't hear you! (Fuck off, mutant!)]
Then he said he was going to wake us up a bit and teach us how to exercise AND have fun at the same time, and he turned on the music.
By this point, I was basically front row among the crowd. Nowhere to run. ABBA started playing (Dancing Queen, I think), but apparently that's not what Antoine wanted. He finally got the right song going, and led us in a fun physical fitness exercise in the 100-degree heat.
As it began, I saw my choices as three:
1) play along like a good, game volunteer (yah, not likely);
2) make some show of participating, like by clapping or doing some simple movement with the music (now, the danger here is getting sucked in once you start); and
3) stand stock-still, watch, smile, and put out vibes that say "yeah, this is nice for the kids. Get them kids dancing and moving. Not me, though, dude. No freakin way."
First choice was, obviously, out of the question. Number two got the ding as soon as I saw that his first move involved the hips. I'm not about to start moving my hips at the front of this - or any other - crowd without good music swirling around me and a few beers swirling inside me. So I just stood there and thought, hey, this, in addition to Pachy Playfair, is great fodder for Takeoutlawyer. Excellent. I just took it all in from that point on.
Ignored the repeated calls to participate, was relieved when the song ended, dismayed when Antoine ignored the crowd's silence as he asked if we wanted to do another song, and, finally, thrilled when it was time to move on and actually break into teams to plant flowers in the tree boxes and get rid of graffiti.
Met up with my team and its leader, Alice, who ended up being a very cool Americorps volunteer from Colorado, and broke the ice with a question about pachyderms.
I kid you not, faithful and long-suffering readers. An elephant.
It's name?
Pachy Playfair.
Yes, Pachy Playfair.
Pachy as in Pachyderm. From the Greek word pachy, meaning thick or fat. [I choose not to address here the fact that, when pronounced, his name becomes a racial slur.] Whose brainchild was this? And how much was s/he paid to come up with it? Did this person get a success bonus? Or is this person laughing hysterically from behind a thick shroud of funny smoke?
I am telling you the absolute truth, but I'm afraid that, having just googled Mr. Playfair with total lack of success, you'll have to trust me on this one. He's a guy dressed in a yellow warm-up suit, red P on the front and red Pachy on the back, big clowny shoes, and a huge gray elephant head, complete with long protruding trunk.
When called upon to serve, he bounds up onto the stage (ok, he doesn't bound, because he can't see his own feet in that suit - he is guided like an elderly woman taking very ginger steps as if the next one will send him off a precipice) and, well, stands there. He waves sometimes, and then he sticks out his right hand (he's also wearing elephant gloves, of course), and makes what is presumably a thumbs-up sign. You can't tell, though, because of the glove.
Plus, I think his gloves were on the wrong hands, which can't help.
Oh, and fair (Pachy PlayFAIR) is not just a word, kids - it's letters stand for something like Follow the rules . . . and . . . Include everyone who wants to play. Try as I might, I just can't remember the A and the R. I'm so sorry. They were so catchy, too. Dammit.
Anyway, Takeoutlawyer got a job. It starts on Monday. Today is Friday, and I thought I'd spend my last day of sweet sweet weekday freedom helping to create some community in the neighborhood next to mine. I'm sure my hood could use some community too, but this one needs it even more. So I went to this volunteery thing in S____.
Now, I've been to other things like this, and there's always a kick-off set of speeches by various people. This one had LOTS of speeches. I had no idea it was going to be full of such luminaries as the US Surgeon General, the head of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, and the head of the President's Council on, uh, Volunteering, or something like that. There was also a very famous former football player, which, even with my almost complete apathy towards spectator sports, I thought was kinda cool. I know he was very famous, and not merely famous, because I recognized his name. At one point, one of the speech-givers threw a t-shirt to the Surgeon General, who was sitting next to the football player, and the football player intercepted it. It was funny. You see, the football player was a, well, he played a position that involved making interceptions. Cornerback, maybe? See why it was funny?
And during all of this, we're out in the hot sun. Very hot sun, very humid air.
Did someone say hot? Humid?! It must be time for ANTOINE!!!
One of the ten (counted 'em, ten) luminaries seated on the makeshift stage was this dude who, if he needed a bra, would probably wear a C cup. No, he didn't have man-boobs, just really, really big chest muscles. In fact, he had big everything muscles, that I could see. And he wasn't hiding any of it. In fact, he had a really tight red shirt on, and what looked like "active" pants. (I don't know what active pants are, but that word seems to fit.) Long curly hair, celebrity sunglasses, and a French accent completed his image.
I hadn't thought too hard about who he was or why he was up there, but his presence (not to mention his countenance) disquieted me for some reason.
After the speeching was done, the MC called on Antoine to step up to the mic.
"I'm sure you all know our next guest, physical fitness star ANTOINE!!!"
The roar of the crowd around me was deafening and, thinking back, this might have been the moment when, without changing my position, I somehow found myself much closer to the front of the crowd, instead of in the middle-rear, where I much prefer to hang.
Antoine did some of those call-response things that I can't stand and in which I absolutely refuse to participate. [House everyone doink?! (Hooray!) What deed you say - I can't hear you! (Fuck off, mutant!)]
Then he said he was going to wake us up a bit and teach us how to exercise AND have fun at the same time, and he turned on the music.
By this point, I was basically front row among the crowd. Nowhere to run. ABBA started playing (Dancing Queen, I think), but apparently that's not what Antoine wanted. He finally got the right song going, and led us in a fun physical fitness exercise in the 100-degree heat.
As it began, I saw my choices as three:
1) play along like a good, game volunteer (yah, not likely);
2) make some show of participating, like by clapping or doing some simple movement with the music (now, the danger here is getting sucked in once you start); and
3) stand stock-still, watch, smile, and put out vibes that say "yeah, this is nice for the kids. Get them kids dancing and moving. Not me, though, dude. No freakin way."
First choice was, obviously, out of the question. Number two got the ding as soon as I saw that his first move involved the hips. I'm not about to start moving my hips at the front of this - or any other - crowd without good music swirling around me and a few beers swirling inside me. So I just stood there and thought, hey, this, in addition to Pachy Playfair, is great fodder for Takeoutlawyer. Excellent. I just took it all in from that point on.
Ignored the repeated calls to participate, was relieved when the song ended, dismayed when Antoine ignored the crowd's silence as he asked if we wanted to do another song, and, finally, thrilled when it was time to move on and actually break into teams to plant flowers in the tree boxes and get rid of graffiti.
Met up with my team and its leader, Alice, who ended up being a very cool Americorps volunteer from Colorado, and broke the ice with a question about pachyderms.
posted by Takeout Lawyer at 5:33 PM
3 comments
