Monday, November 14, 2011

I started a joke....

In 1977, Woody Allen released a film that many consider to be his best work.  “Annie Hall” was a departure from his “screwball comedies” such as “Take the Money and Run”, “Bananas” and “Sleeper”.  He demonstrated a far more mature use of humor as he explored the topics of love, relationships, and how we are affected by them.  The beginning of the film was a single shot of him, playing the role of Alvy Singer, speaking to the camera:

There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly. The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

As the film proceeds, we see that these jokes epitomizes Alvy’s life. 

I’m sure you’re probably thinking “What the hell happened to the blog about John trying to get back in shape?  What is this…At the Movies?  Is Roger Ebert going to show up here?
No such luck.  I mention this because I was thinking about an old joke my Dad always used back when I was playing football back in High School days:

What you guys lack in size, you make up for by being slow.

I never took it personally.  In a way, he nailed it.  My senior year I started the first game of the season at @ 220 lbs.  I was the biggest guy on the team.  I actually had decent speed for an offensive tackle.  We actually had a play where I pulled around right end!  Overall, we had some very good athletes, but we were never a team that you’d take one look at and think “Geesh…look at those monsters”.
In a way, much like Alvy, that joke sums up my athletic career.  I had what one of my rugby coaches called a “burst of slow”.  It was a visual thing…I actually was running slower than I looked.
 
I’ve strayed from my work out routine.  There are several reasons but when I run them through my head they really sound a lot more like excuses than reasons.  I’ve kinda been in a “funk” lately.  So last week I’ve decided that I needed to get some shorter term goals to shoot for.  As winter approaches, the season for Indoor Triathlons is about to start.  These are events where you swim, bike and then run for a prescribed amount of time and then you add up the distance you’ve travelled.  Usually these are 20 minutes per event.  A few years ago I did one.  I really enjoyed it.  I then did two the next year.  Last year I participated in the West Michigan Indoor Triathlon Series.  This was a series of three events in different venues over three months.  I also did a local one in Kalamazoo to round out the year at four.  This year I have found a total of eight events I am going to participate in.  This will force me to keep hitting it.  The events are fun.  Everybody cheers each other on. 
The first one is December 17th in Muskegon.  I have a little over a month to prepare.  I have decided that over that time period I should be able to swim a total of 15 miles, run 15 miles, and bike 75 miles.  This morning, I got up before the cows and got to the Y to swim my first mile.  Paraphrasing the old U.S. Army recruitment commercials from the early 80’s, I cracked myself up at the thought that “I swam more by 6 a.m. than most people do all day”…  You’ve got to keep your mind busy while swimming at 5:45 a.m….
So my goal to be able to run with the sprinters at the 2012 State Games of Michigan without looking like…well…me from 2011 is still intact.  I just have set a few other goals along the way.  Tonight I’ll do some yoga and if I still feel motivated, take a 1 mile trot around the neighborhood.

At the end of “Annie Hall”, Woody Allen breaks tradition with the Romantic Comedy genre.  Annie and Alvy don’t end up together.   They have a chance meeting and a nice, if not awkward conversation.  You voyeuristically see them from afar on a street corner.  The big climatic moment when they realize they are meant for each other and wrap their arms around each other never comes.  Annie waves her good-bye and crosses the street exiting the scene, film, and Alvy's life.  Alvy stands there clearly heartbroken hoping she’ll come running back.  Realizing she was gone he walks off as his voice over narrates:
After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs.

So Allen bookends his masterpiece with a couple of old jokes.  Put into context, they are anything but old jokes, rather poignant commentary on questions we all face. 
I’d love to have a great joke to bookend this posting.  A joke that was both poignant and memorable.  One that could provide some rationale to why I keep pushing myself to get out and do things crazy and absurd.  After much thought, the only thing I could come up with is…well…
“I need the eggs”