Sauna Shenanigans, ep. 2: Fantastic Mr. [Silver] Fox
or: Some sort of play on "Marco Polo," maybe...?
Another gym-related anecdote; this one (regrettably) involving slightly less nudity and (perhaps more regrettably depending on what you tune in for) fewer soaking wet, very proudly naked men hell-bent on separating me from/kidnapping my underwear. (Zero of said men, in fact. But fret not, we haven’t heard the last of them… not by a long shot…)
Anyway. There’s a middle-aged guy (well, maybe he’s a little younger) who also goes to my gym. He’s about 6 foot 1 or 2, and clearly in good shape. He kind of looks like he could be a “Silver Fox” or “Salt’n’Pepper”-haired model for Rogaine, or maybe a posterboy for a high-end Turkish hair transplant clinic or something. Point being: he’s kind of a stud, though it pains me to admit it. (I take comfort knowing he’s probably pumped to the gills with ‘roids. With that vascularity? At your age? You’re not fooling anyone, pal.)
His studliness is in spite of his dress sense, too, which makes it even worse: every time I’ve seen him in there - perhaps a dozen or so times - he’s worn some variation of a sleeveless shirt, capri-length shorts (à la early Nadal) and high-top basketball shoes. I guess he pulls it off pretty well.
My bitterness notwithstanding, I’d like to propose that his [arguable] studliness doesn’t excuse his behavior, which is… unseemly. At best. As far as gym etiquette goes, I’d rate Mr. [Silver] Fox’s as: Less Than Satisfactory. (A C+, perhaps.)
Not that he’d care; it’s kind of his brand.
I think there’s a level of gym confidence people reach - warranted or not - where they know they can get away with being annoyingly conspicuous. The influencers filming themselves stretching or squatting, as mentioned last time, for example. Or the guy who looks like a dollar-store version of Robert Lewandowski (50+ years old, still dies his hair jet black) who does an elaborate monkey bar ab routine, most of it upside down/hanging from those special ankle boots or straps.
In such a small gym, though, I can’t help but feel that there’s simply no pleading ignorance; if you go into the middle of the floor, you know very well that everyone else in the room is either facing you or, if not, has a clear line of sight to you from whatever mirror they’re in front of. You’re putting yourself on show, so the show better be good. You’ve at least show us something objectively cool. Like benching the weight of a small car, for instance. Or doing box jumps to show off your 30” vertical leap. Or having big ol’, perky Double-D’s. Make us an offer we can’t refuse.
But our Fox’s show is, I regret to report, not very impressive at all.
His workout of choice consists exclusively of “sparring” with the heavy punching bag that hangs in the middle of the gym floor. On paper, it doesn’t sound too bad.
The thing is, though, that he never actually touches his opponent. Any hammering the bag takes is what could only be called a theoretical one. Indeed, the “sparring” that occurs is more of a Cold War: peacocking, veiled threats, demonstrations of strength, etc.
So, as it stands, he basically just dominates the bulk of the gym floor - the punching bag, for whatever reason, pretty much hangs at the crossroads of each of the main stations: cardio, weight racks, yoga mats, etc. - which forces everyone else to watch what looks like some [seemingly] inexplicable little dance.
To an eyewitness, it’s highly reminiscent of Mac’s trademark shadow-karate in It’s Always Sunny [in Philadelphia], for anyone familiar. Mr. Fox, though, compared to the fictional Mac, very clearly takes himself far more seriously. Straight-faced, no-nonsense; ruthless, methodical, highly efficient. No mercy. I like to imagine he shows up having just watched half an hour of alpha male motivational videos. This sort of vibe:
Maybe I’m just a hater. (I definitely am.) But I really do swear I’d find the whole routine slightly less insufferable if he actually made proper contact with the bag on any of his vicious punches or strikes or kicks or head-butts or elbows. If the audience could see that he was really giving the thing a well-drilled, military-grade pummeling, I think we’d all feel better about having to give him and his shenanigans a wide berth. Or we’d at least be forced to fear/respect him.
Who knows. Maybe he takes more of an “eastern” approach…? À la:
Anyway, I spent several months judging (silently, of course) this graying, attention-starved weirdo, watching on as he circled his cylindrical, oblivious enemy, prowling around it, as if he was trying to sneak around and ambush it from its blind side, intermittently doing a combination of different moves in the bag’s direction before going back to sussing the bag out.
It was like he was a character in Mortal Kombat (or one of those games) whose owner was mashing the buttons, but hadn’t figured out how to move the character towards the opponent:
Alternatively, it was like he was an evil henchman in a cheesy action movie - I’m thinking something with Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan - where the gang of villains encircle the lone protagonist who manages to win thanks to the [evidently braindead] baddies only approaching one by one, while making sure to throw ghost punches and kicks in the background to look busy.
But obviously nobody would ever train for the role of “combat-ready, intimidating henchman;” that’s not a real job. Right?
…Right??
I’m sure you see where this is heading.
One day, after I hadn’t seen him for a few months, I was in the changing room when he happened to come in and start changing into his gym clothes (capris, etc.). An older guy sitting on a bench across the room shouted out to him.
“Hey, Marco! Long time.”
“Yes. I was working. Very busy.” (Foreign accent - southern Europe, maybe.)
“Nice. Away on another shoot?”
“Yes.”
“Movie or TV?”
“Movie.”
“Where were you?”
“Portugal.”
“Lovely. How’d it go? Did they have a lot of action scenes for you?”
“Yes. I was very busy.”
“Great. Do you have any other roles coming up?”
“Yes. Another film.”
“Brilliant. Where’s that one gonna be set?”
“Morocco.”
“Lots of fight scenes in that one, too, hopefully. You still do stunts?”
“Yes. It will have both. I’m very excited.”
They carried on for a few more minutes, but I didn’t catch the end, having already stormed off in frustration. (I’d rather get told off by the bald, naked sauna guy again than have to put up with this.)
I liked my version of the story better, in which he was just some douchebag loafer who just wanted to show off his muscles/voluminous hair. Nope. Turns out he actually was a professional stunt-double and therefore actually did have a perfectly valid excuse to make us watch as he shadow-kickboxed for fifteen minutes (failing to even work up a sweat in the process) before leaving. Shit.
Still, I (as his biggest hater) refuse to rule out that he doesn’t enjoy the attention at least a little bit, but on the balance of things I fear he wins this round.
(…Albeit not nearly by a convincing enough margin to make me swear off judging books by their covers altogether.)
Anyway, he and I made peace in the following weeks. Turns out, he’s a pretty nice guy. I’ve actually hired him to be my Professional Intimidator. (He’s on retainer - cheaper than you’d think.) He’s tasked with tracking down anyone who reads these posts but isn’t subscribed.
When he finds you (which he will), he’ll stand in your general vicinity and shadow-box in your direction until you sign up.
And we wouldn’t want that now, would we?