Sauna Talk 04/11/06
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 02:19PM Today’s sauna conversation was fairly uneventful. I shared the room with only one other guy and he was reading the paper. However, he kept commenting aloud about things he was reading. I would just look over and wonder if I was supposed to respond. Usually not. One item that did lead to a brief discussion was the NFL’s flexible scheduling. Here’s one story on why they’d like their TV lineup to be more dynamic.
But yesterday’s saunversation is a completely different story. The little sweat chamber contained a southern, conservative guy, a bitter blue-collar guy, and a quiet, hunched over fellow who rarely says anything but when he does it’s usually very thoughtful and poignant. Oh, and me.
When I squeezed in, doing my best not to keep the door open too long, the intense discourse was already underway. The southern, conservative guy was going on about the United Nations but I'm sure of the specifics.
He looks a little bit like an actor. I don’t know which one, but maybe a pudgy Ed Harris. Anyway, he shall now forever be known by his Playhouse name, Southern Conservative Guy. And you really have to give him credit. No matter what’s being discussed, perhaps lunchmeat, he’ll worm his agenda into the conversation.
“Yah, pimento loaf is a treat but you know those liberals will screw it up.”
But SCG’s persistence can be a bit overwhelming. He’ll follow you anywhere to make sure you get his point. While I smile and nod and say innocuous things like “yah, evildoers are bad” he’s followed me into the pool, strode the elliptical next to mine and even joined me in the showers. There are no curtains or stalls in the men’s locker room of the Englewood Rec Center and I can only think that two naked guys soaping up and chatting is anything but conservative.
Hunch gets a mention in this saunversation because when it gets ugly, and it will get ugly, I look to him as bastion of reason.
What’s funny about political saunversations is that no one ever actually says names of people or parties. Participants dance around certain events or ideas, offering gesticulations of acceptance or anger. For example, during yesterdays partisan perspiring Bitter Blue Collar Guy demonstrated with his hands “that guy’s house of cards falling.” ‘That guy’ he explained “has all these fratboy friends like the FEMA guy who screwed up New Orleans and now this Homeland Security pedophile!”
I knew who ‘that guy’ was. Hunched Over Guy nodded agreeably, if not somewhat reluctantly, during BBCG’s sermon. So he knew, too. SCG might have but you could tell he wasn’t listening. He’d long ago clocked out and was formulating a new plan off attack. He would get to us; he’d somehow bring all of us together on his side of the line.
SCG posed a question. “Did you see that black congresswoman hit that cop and now because she’s black she’s going to get away with it?” He’d gone ahead and torched the old house made out of the political deck. Now he was building with race cards.
Hunched Over Guy (I’d give him an acronym but it’s HOG) began his slow descent off the upper bench. There are two levels: the lower bench for sauna rookies and the higher bench where it’s much hotter. He scooched off his perch. His hunch was extreme. It bent his point-of-view to the floor so he had to peer out of the corner of his eye to see his way out of the saunversation.
He was gone. I was a bit nervous. SCG had just tossed a really hot button into the conversation and was hoping someone would push it. I tried my best to wriggle away from it by saying “anyone in congress thinks they can get away with anything.”
Bitter Blue Collar Guy balled up his towel and dabbed his bald spot. He was getting ready to speak. I was hoping he’d go with my suggested “all congress people are bad” instead of SCG’s “black people get away with violence” angle. I did not foresee how much he’d enjoy pounding SCG’s button.
BBCG jumped all over it. He started with the Katrina disaster, which is about where he’d left off, but then went on to elaborate on “hordes of black people invaded nearby cities” and how “those Mississippi cops did their best to keep them out of their towns” but “they just expected to be given cars and houses and food.” He even did this very rough Uncle Tom impression and all I could do was watch and wonder if I was on camera. SCG lit up like his dream girl had just said ‘yes’ to prom. He and BBCG had found common ground. They’re conversation grew in volume and speed as they raced (no pun) to beat each other to the next depressing revelation. I felt like I was involved in something dirty and didn’t want anyone walking in and thinking I was an accessory to this love session.
I stood up and headed towards the light. But I have this problem of not being able to leave a room without trying to drop some kind of memorable message. Usually I go for a funny line but in this situation I hoped to leave these two with some shred of doubt. Some statement that for just a moment would make them pause and think.
I stalled while I searched for something brilliant. “Well, it’s getting hot in here,” I said thinking very little of the actual temperature. Neither of them was fazed. SCG scooted closer to BBCG. The two were like first dates finally breaking the awkward silence. Oh the relief! Racism brings harmony!
As I opened the door to leave I couldn’t think of anything that would break their passionate verbal intercourse. But having nothing to say rarely ever stops me from speaking.
“That new Spike Lee movie is pretty good, ” I blurted. They looked up at me like I’d just shouted something in Mandarin. I should have left then. But I continued. “It’s not like a lot of his other stuff.” Then I backed out through the door and into something fleshy. It was a woman waiting for me to get out so she could get in.
She gave me a pleasant but kind of condescending smile. I imagined it as more of a smirk really. She didn’t say anything. She just moved to an upper bench. SCG and BBCG exchanged pleasantries with her.
All that awful stuff pouring out of those other two and all she heard was my very loaded phrase. She heard that I didn’t like it when Spike Lee tried to change the world. No I only liked him when he entertained whitey. That’s what she heard. This stupid statement that I really didn’t even mean; it was merely a concession to keep the other guys interested. I’d compromised. I was sure she’d heard me. I watched her face as she sat down. Was she disgusted? Did she even care?
“Hey, buddy,” oozed with the drawl of SCG. “Close the door.” And that was one thing that all three could agree on. I was the idiot letting out all of the hot air.
Oh the joy of bringing people together.
Reader Comments (1)
The NFL thing scares me. I think a huge part of football's success has been its predictability. High schools play on Friday night (mostly), colleges on Saturday, NFL on Sunday.
When’s the Bronco game? 2 p.m., Sunday, just like almost every home game.
Part of the decline of baseball can be placed squarely on the goofy-ass scheduling, starting games almost at random between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. on every day of the week. If you had a free afternoon, you might (remote, but possible) say, “What the hell, the Rockies are in town – let’s go catch a game.” Then you would be frustrated to learn that the game actually started 3 hours earlier, so they could better accommodate the 16 people who actually still go to Rockies games.
To move games around like this is simply fucking with fans who have already taken out a second mortgage for seats at Invesco Field or anywhere else. Its some network executives trying to add drama to something that doesn’t need any additional bullshit.