The Double Life Of A Muscular Militant
By Mickey Z.
03 May, 2016
World News Trust
Photo: Lauren Mitchell. Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
A couple of mornings a week, as I ride the subway to train clients in Manhattan, I grab a copy of Metro, one of NYC’s free daily newspapers. Metro delivers me a dose of corporate media propaganda -- with a pinch of nostalgia.
Roughly a decade ago, I regularly penned op-eds for Metro. They were going through a phase of paying edgy freelancers so I jumped in with both feet. This even included an author photo shoot! So, for a couple of years, my decidedly non-mainstream perspective -- and my decidedly non-mainstream photo (wearing a “dumpster diving team” t-shirt!) -- were on display for millions of New Yorkers to peruse during their morning ride to work or school. (Note: This was before everyone had a smart phone and spent their entire commute staring at a tiny screen.)
As someone who can remember when newspaper columnists held sway in my hometown, let me tell you, it was pretty damn cool to be jammed into a crowded subway car next to someone reading my latest article. All they’d have to do is turn around to recognize me but, alas, that never happened!
The Doorman Lobbyist
To the best of my knowledge, none of my affluent clients saw my column or photo (probably because most of them didn’t ride the subway) but that doesn’t mean my double life went completely unnoticed.
Around that time, I trained three high-powered lawyers at their high-powered law firm’s gym. This arrangement required me to check in with the doorman… or was he a concierge? (It’s funny to me that I might insult a concierge by calling him a doorman.) Anyway, doormen display one of three basic behavior patterns towards personal trainers.
The first and most common is indifference (we’re used to that). Secondly, they relate to us as fellow blue collar common people saddled with the same fate: serving the well-heeled. Lastly, in a futile attempt to align themselves with a winner, some doormen openly look down their noses at us. This was definitely the case at the law firm until a certain concierge saw my handsome face staring back him from the pages of Metro.
The guy was completely flabbergasted when he read a little something of mine called “Re-Examining Rumsfeld’s Ratio” (which talked about, among other things, the United States unselfconsciously using "Apache" helicopters to quell "ethnic cleansing"). A political junkie, the concierge now saw me as an “expert” and fell all over himself to shake my hand and introduce himself.
My new best friend could not get enough of me and it became the new norm for him to quiz me about current events before and after my training sessions. One morning, as I was passing through the lobby, he called me over and pulled out a legal pad. Believe it or not, he had written a page or two of notes to remember all the things he wanted to ask me! Yeah, just another tricky day in the life of a muscular militant…
(Note: I still get e-mails from this dude.)
Mary’s Revolution
Over the years, I did make some clients aware of my double life (a few have even bought my books and attended my talks) but since many of them were wealthy and mainstream, I typically chose not to divulge anything about my radical writing.
As a result, I sometimes found myself making up elaborate fabrications to account for why I wouldn’t be around for a day or two… when, for example, I just so happened to be heading up to MIT to lecture on U.S. foreign policy in 2003. Yep, this high school grad addressed a huge audience there on the topic of Henry Kissinger and the 1973 Chilean coup on a Monday night… and by Wednesday morning, was back in the gym -- working with dumbbells (insert rimshot here).
There are some situations, however, when it just made sense to talk about the “other” me. In 2001-2, I worked evenings in a corporate gym (cue the shame and self-loathing) in midtown Manhattan. One night, I was wearing a Yankees t-shirt with the name “Justice” emblazoned on the back (for former Yank David Justice).
A woman named Mary, probably in her mid to late 60s, asked me if I was a Yankee fan. I told her my real reason for wearing the shirt was all about the word “justice.” She smiled and declared that justice was a “noble idea.” I braced myself for the inevitable “we need to show those towel heads some justice,” (remember, this was early post-9/11 NYC) but instead, Mary told me -- albeit in a stage whisper -- she was soon going to DC to march against the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq.
After this confession, Mary looked genuinely nervous. Her facial expression seemed to ask: Have I gone too far? In my best French resistance voice, I reassured her: “Don’t worry, I’m with you.”
After that, we’d talk each and every time she’d come to work-out -- but it was usually off to the side, out of listening range. The corporation eventually phased out their gym facility but just before my last day, I saw Mary and complimented her on how hard she’d been training. She leaned close to me and whispered: “When the revolution comes, I’ll be ready.”
Mickey Z. can be found here.