Jokes about race, sexual orientation, religion and, yes, nationality are typically considered in bad taste and inapropriate.
95%+ of the people who walk into a health club here in the U.S. are there to improve their (surprise!) health, not to become some kind of bodybuilder. It sounds as if you have no idea what the current “gym culture” here in the U.S. actually is.
Or is it that you simply don’t understand the value of exercise? Do things like yoga, basketball, swimming, resistance and cardio respiratory training, corrective exercise training, and physical therapy seem silly to you?
I have a number of clients who come to “The Gym” specifically to recover from injuries, surgery, and disease. Among my clients, for example, is one who is fighting brain cancer, Glioma to be exact. He is still on Chemo and just finished radiation treatment and needs to gain his strength and apetite back. How does that fit into your preconceived idea of our “Gym Culture”?
Loren makes good points. The “de-jocking” of the gym culture in America over the last couple of decades has been a breath of fresh air. You can find body-building culture, if you want it, but the vast majority of “fitness centers” draw from all age/gender/health-status groups.
As one who never got much of a kick out of organized sports or anything related to them, I am surprised to find myself visiting our gym several times a week these days. I look forward to it, in fact. Who’d a thunk it?
Hey, wait a minute. What’s wrong with jocks?
Part of the problem with modern society is the separation between mind and body. The denial of the physical is as wrong-headed as the denial of the mental.
Why wouldn’t you celebrate the physical? Dances with weights.
I thought Jem’s remarks were stinging but rather silly – but not mean-spirited – which is my take on a lot of English humor.
Men dressing up as women.
Thanks, David! I love a good frock! I thought it was “sheep in wolves clothing” though, or was that t’other way about? Anyway, my comment wasn’t meant to be stinging, and any sting taken maybe says more about the attitude of the stung… But I don’t want to pour oil here.
I was indeed being silly and I regret that that has seemingly caused offence and led to other stuff which I don’t think belongs here. I’m not going to take any of that any further in this thread. More admissable here is the observation that as active musicians of any kind, and especially as “folk” musicians, we belong to a cultural group most distinctly seen as cranky and frequently derided by “the majority” of “normal folks” what- and who-ever they are! I can take that.
As to rampaging religiosity, hey, some of us have a
religious temperament–that’s why we our ancestors
came here. We’re genetically predisposed.
And I’m not trying to force my
beliefs on you. If you want to be reborn as
a cockroach, that’s your affair.
heh, heh, heh…
What really happens here is that it is extremely hard to see faces behind comments (no kidding, right?). I’ve made many unintentionally abrasive comments when I meant no real harm, and probably hurt some feelings I had not intended; conversely, I’ve been in the center of many firestorms for no apparent reason. Perhaps there was irony I missed, being American and all, but my attempts to reciprocate with humor (still mad about that revolution, eh?) merely infuriated. Tit for Tat only really works as a reel, and not a way of communication. Working out in gyms and fussing about health seems like a harmless thing to poke fun at, except that we don’t know where the other person is coming from when they bring it up, who they know who needs therapy, or if they are, in fact, that person, working their way through any number of possible problems they don’t otherwise want to share with an international community.
It’s hard to poke fun in the etherworld and not be misinterpreted. Sometimes it’s cultural, but mostly it’s just the black and white of written text, smiley faces notwithstanding. If we sat in a pub and played together, face to face, there’d be far fewer misunderstandings. Since we can’t, we probably should be more careful with our attempts at humor.