BU's FitRec Facility

Boston University’s Fitness and Recreation Center, known on campus as the FitRec, is undoubtedly one of the most impressive recreation facilities in the country.  Opening in April 2005 as a part of the brand new Student Village complex at a cost of $97 million, the facility has weight rooms, cardio rooms, an indoor track, numerous basketball courts and squash courts, swimming pools, and even a lazy river.  It certainly offers options for student to say the least.  However, earlier this semester, a particular incident stood out to me.

“I have three more sets on that.”  My friend Larry and I, both surprised, turn around to see a fellow BU student staring at us.  We were using the lateral pulldown machine and each had done one “set” of “repetitions” and were preparing to do our second when the other student barked at us.  Rather than asking us when we would be finished or if he could jump in for a quick set, this student was implying that we were intruding on his space and he needed to finish.  This is despite Larry and myself being on the machine for the past five minutes.

Since that episode earlier this semester, I began wondering if anyone else had had similar experiences at the gym.  “I had just finished my set and I put the weights down on the floor, not back on the rack,” Tom Makhlouf, a BU Senior said.  “I was going to use them again.  But someone else, literally a few seconds after I dropped them, came and took them without asking. I was so shocked, I didn’t say anything.”

“People would always hover over me waiting for a machine, acting like I was in their way,” BU graduate Matt Reville recalled.

And then, there’s over-competitive behavior. “I can’t stand kids who play basketball who take themselves too seriously,” said another BU graduate. Ryan Matsuura.  “Calling too many fouls, playing overly physical, that kind of thing.  If a kid comes to FitRec wearing an NBA jersey and high socks, you know he is full of himself.”

Finally, over-reaction: “At the rock wall, my friend had a plastic cup on her that broke,” BU Senior Arpita Husain said.  “A supervisor thought it was alcohol and tried getting her fired without even getting her side of the story.  I was there when it happened. It definitely wasn’t alcohol.”

Noticing a pattern?  I started thinking — FitRec is a reflection of society as a whole.  Follow me on this — you get a fair share of decent people who are polite and respectful, along with a share of rude individuals who seem to think the gym revolves around them.  Think about it — when’s the last time someone held a door for you?  Or thanked you for doing so?  Or worse, ignored you.  The other day entering my Student Village residence, I held the door for another student.  Instead of being thanked, I was glared at for apparently not opening the door wide enough.

Don’t get me started, please, about how people behave behind the wheel; another reflection, no doubt, of their selfish and self-centered behavior when they’re on foot: tailgating, changing lanes without signaling, failing to yield a crosswalk to pedestrians. All of which is glaringly obvious here in Boston, and frighteningly so every time I drive to and from my home in New York, down the Mass Pike and the Interstates of rural Connecticut.

A 2002 poll released by Public Agenda, “a nonprofit organization dedicated to unbiased public opinion research,” showed that 79 percent of Americans thought rudeness in society was a national problem, compared with 19 percent who felt it was not a problem.  Six in 10 respondents thought the problem was getting worse.

Sometimes I wonder whether our high-tech toys are a cause – or a reflection – of this phenomenon. Cell phones and Blackberries that connect us with friends across the country, at the same time cutting us off from those are fellow students 10 feet from us, leaving us to move around in self-contained electronic bubbles, literally unable to walk the sidewalk and talk on the phone at the same time.

Yeah, I know it’s everywhere, but somehow I expected better from my peers.

“I don’t know if rudeness is a BU thing so much as a college thing,” BU Senior John Maxwell said.  “It’s a mentality that students feel they deserve the world because Daddy’s putting them through college.”

Be sure to listen to Taken Out Of Context Thursdays 8-10 pm on WTBU.

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“Darkness imprisoning me, All that I see, Absolute horror, I cannot live, I cannot die, Trapped in myself, Body my holding cell.  Landmine has taken my sight, Taken my speech, Taken my hearing, Taken my arms, Taken my legs, Taken my soul, Left me with life in hell.”  As James Hetfield, lead singer and guitarist of Metallica, passionately growls these lyrics, 18,000 screaming fans are singing along, pumping their fists, and throwing their “devil horns” in the air.  A smile is on my face that won’t go away.

How could these shocking lyrics, from the song “One” of 1988’s … And Justice for All record, bring such a frenzy of happiness to so many people?  While some might find a song about a soldier whose life has been ruined by war to be depressing or even harmful for children, for me and everyone else in Madison Square Garden, this music is a release for the stress and pain of everyday life: deadlines for final papers, relentlessly demanding bosses, a fight with a close friend, impending financial disaster all are forgotten – or become less pressing – for a few precious hours.

Photo by Josh Friedman

Last month, Metallica played back-to-back sold-out shows at New York’s legendary venue.  The band hadn’t played the Garden since 1999 and the building was louder than I’ve ever heard it from the opening note of each show.  Looking around the audience, while there were some intimidating-looking people – muscular, tattooed — who were only at the shows to “mosh” in the general-admission floor, the crowds were a diverse group of music fans just there for a good time.

From left-to-right: Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield. Photo by Josh Friedman

I think Ray Burton said it best at the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year.  “You see them play in person and you immediately get a big smile on your face” Burton said.  “There’s something about them that just brings a smile on.”  Ray Burton is the father of Metallica’s original bassist Cliff Burton, who was tragically killed when the band’s tour bus crashed in 1990.  When I listen to Metallica, when I go to a show, everything else goes away.  It’s just the music and me for that special glorious time.

James Hetfield connects with the Garden crowd. Photo by Josh Friedman

There were musical multi-generations: mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, maybe even some grandparents and grandchildren.  Metallica’s first record, Kill ‘Em All, was released in 1983, leaving the band with a following as large in numbers as in age differential.  As a matter of fact, when my Dad and I were fortunate enough to meet Metallica before a 2004 show in New Jersey, Hetfield inquired as to who brought who.  Did my Dad bring me or did I bring him?  When I proudly told Hetfield that I brought my Dad, his eyes grew wide and he said he was impressed.

My Dad has been into music since the 1960s and has seen hundreds of rock and roll shows, including the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, just to name a few.  We are fortunate enough to be able to share and educate each other on music, with my taste being slightly louder and heavier than his.  Any show that I want to go to, my Dad will be by my side, and vice-versa.  I’ve taken him to see Dropkick Murphys at a bar in Long Island; he’s taken me to see the Allman Brothers Band at New York’s Beacon Theatre during the band’s traditional annual run of shows in March.  I once asked him who his favorite concert of all time was. “No one puts on a show like Metallica,” my Dad said.  “These four guys move around the stage like nobody else. Sure, I’ve seen the Allman Brothers more than anyone else in the past forty years, but compared to these guys, they’re so static onstage.”

From left-to-right: Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield, Robert Trujilo, Lars Ulrich. Photo by Josh Friedman

When Metallica announced that they would be playing Madison Square Garden back in February at a Prudential Center show in Newark, New Jersey, my Dad and I looked at each other and we knew what each other was thinking.  We would be there.  And sure, maybe the lyrics are a bit dark, and maybe the music itself is a bit loud and heavy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  My Dad and I pumping fists during “Enter Sandman,” the band’s most popular song, at Madison Square Garden two weeks ago will be a moment that I remember, and cherish, for the rest of my life.

Robert Trujilo. Photo by Josh Friedman

At the end of the second night, Hetfield took the microphone to thank the capacity crowd.  “We’ve had a beautiful two nights here, man,” Hetfield said.  “It’s gonna be very hard to top this one.  Thank you.”  My Dad and I respectfully disagree — it’s impossible for the band to top those two shows.

“Our main mission tonight is to make you feel better,” Hetfield said toward the beginning of each show.  Mission accomplished.

Photo by Josh Friedman

No related posts.

I only hope someone out there took the title seriously.  Welcome to the second edition of Taken out of Context (of course, Thursdays 8-10 pm on wtburadio.org).

God help us all.

One of my favorite quotes from any movie comes from Training Day.  Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) is reading a newspaper and Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) is constantly interrupting Harris with questions about the day.  Of course, Harris will be “training” Hoyt to be a member of LAPD’s narcotics division.

Harris finally puts his paper down and asks Hoyt to tell him a story.  When Hoyt fails to, Harris responds: “You don’t know any stories?  Okay, I’ll tell you a story.  This is a newspaper.  It’s 90 per cent bullsh!t, but it’s entertaining.  That’s why I read it, because it entertains me.  You won’t let me read it, so you entertain me with your bullshit.  Tell me a story, right now.”

I’ll slightly alter the quote: When I’m outside, I listen to my iPod.  I usually listen to Metallica.  If I’m interrupted, it better be something worthwhile.  It better entertain me.  If I can’t listen to my music, entertain me with your bullsh!t.

I wasn’t sure what I’d write about for my next column when I found my inspiration while waiting for an Amtrak train last Wednesday.  I’m listening to my music when all of the sudden, I hear a laugh that sounds like an dying hyena mixed with Miley Cyrus.  It continues so loud that it manages to drown out Enter Sandman.  This annoys me mildly to say the least.

I look up and see two girls who have interrupted one of the few things that keeps me sane.  Here is the conversation that follows:

“Omigosh like the worst moment of my life was when I missed my train.  I had to wait like three hours.”

“It’s like my biggest fear to miss the train, that’s why I come so early.”

“Omigod like that’s a good idea.”

Wow.  I don’t know about you, but I felt a few of my brain cells die as I was listening to this.  Then on the train, I have the pleasure of sitting next to quite possibly the loudest mother and daughter I’ve ever encountered.  For some reason, everytime the daughter, who in fairness was under 10, found a word in the crossword puzzle, there was a need for both parties to loudly scream, laugh, and scream again.  That was funny the first time; by the fourth hour, it was obviously quite the irritant.

When I got off the train ride from hell, I instantly thought of my friend Greg’s Facebook status update from the other day: “Why are some people so f*cking stupid?” If someone has the answer to that, I’m all ears.

I stumbled across a quote online but could not find the author: “The problem with America is stupidity.  I’m not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don’t we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?”

There is hope for this country though: if in fact Sarah Palin runs in 2012 against Barack Obama, we’ll have an election with educated voters on each side who are voting based on good, concrete opinions and knowledge of policies … ehh, not so much …

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Welcome to the first edition of “Taken out of Context” (sorry, cheap plug there for my radio show, Thursdays 8-10 pm, wtburadio.org).  Each edition will feature blunt opinions on a given subject.  This week’s lucky victim is Miley Cyrus.  I’ll also be posting the best segment from the previous week’s radio show.

Possibly the second scariest smile to Hillary Clinton

“My tummy’s turnin’ and I’m feelin’ kinda home sick
Too much pressure and I’m nervous,
That’s when the taxi man turned on the radio
and a Jay-Z song was on
and the Jay-Z song was on
and the Jay-Z song was on”
- Miley Cyrus, “Party in the USA”

“I don’t know, I didn’t write the song.  So I have no idea like I I honestly I picked that song because I needed something to go with my clothing line.  I didn’t write it and it wasn’t something that like I even expected to be popular originally.  It was just something that I wanted to and I needed some songs and it turned out to you know turn out for the best you know it was really unexpected so.  I’ve never heard a Jay-Z song.  I don’t listen to pop music and I like it’s not even my style of music that song even like like but it’s just really like I’m really blessed for it to have done as well as it has.  Totally totally blessed and God has definitely put me in an amazing position with amazing people.”
- Miley Cyrus, October 31, 2009, when asked what Jay-Z song she was referring to in “Party in the USA”

Now if you didn’t vomit in your mouth a little, I’m not sure you’ll particularly enjoy the rest of this column.  But I digress.

There are two issues here.  First, is this really what music’s come to?  Artists being so over-produced that they sing ghostwritten songs for a clothing line with lyrics the artist doesn’t believe in?  Second, as my friend Chris said best, “if you’re the under the age of 30 and haven’t been in a coma, you’ve heard a Jay-Z song.”

But for Miley Cyrus to say she doesn’t listen to Jay-Z because she doesn’t like pop is wrong on so many levels.  Jay-Z is pop?  Are you kidding me?  Even if you don’t think he’s the best rapper alive today, Jay-Z being called pop by Miley Cyrus is like David Ortiz calling someone fat – look in the mirror, stupid.

Jay-Z performs in Scotland in 2008.

But I can’t blame Miley Cyrus.  If you paid me millions of dollars to sell my soul and sing about things I didn’t like or know about, you bet I’d do it.  That’s why I blame each person who listens to crap like Miley Cyrus.  Tickets for Cyrus’ November 9^th concert at the TD Garden in Boston went for as much as $750 on eBay.  God bless whoever has $750 to spend on a show where the star “musician” lip-syncs songs she doesn’t believe in for a clothing line.  [edit 11/19, 4:30 pm: I was mistaken: it's Miley Cyrus' double who actually does the lip-synching.]

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