PAX: Honeysuckle, Paradox, Enron, America’s Best, Ramrod, Goose

AO: Lion’s Den

By: Goose

YHC pulled in with 30 seconds to spare to meet a PAX dressed for a wide variety of weather and an FNG EH’d by Dox. (Didn’t know it was Dox until he had removed about 6 of his 15 layers. Enron wore only a sock.) After a long warmup of the usuals wherein the effort to count was a battle against a torrential river of commentary, YHC explained the game.

A list of songs would be played, and each of the PAX would vote individually (with chalk on their area on the sidewalk) as to whether they thought it was created to be a spoof or real artistic expression. The answers would be revealed at the end, and penalty exercises would be given for every wrong choice. The winner would be the PAX with the least wrong answers.

Here’s how it went down:

1. “I Wanna Love You Tender” by Armi ja Danny

a. 15 reps of each, repeating: pickle pounders, J-Los, wife pleasers, hello Dollies

i. Paradox willingly and passionately demonstrated each exercise for the FNG, tastefully noting the general theme.

b. This one is real, despite the ridiculousness and poor English. The band is Swedish, and much of the creativity of the video doesn’t translate. It’s time well spent if you can find it on YouTube.

2. “Volcano Man” from The Story of Fire Saga

a. Squats for the duration, jump squats on every “volcano/volcanic”

b. This one’s a spoof performed by Will Ferrel in a movie making fun of the Eurovision competition (and songs like #1 above). Another amazing video—look it up.

i. This one tripped up AB, which was a huge victory for YHC.

3. “Planet of the Bass” by Kyle Gordon, feat. DJ Crazy Times

a. 15 reps of each, repeating: Peter Parkers, Parker Peters, WWI situps, flutter kicks

b. Another spoof making fun of eastern European techno-pop—very obvious, but worth the gimme (some fantastic one-liners). I don’t think anyone missed this one.

4. “The Nights” by The Wellermen

a. SSH for duration, genuflection on “life”, “live”, “die”, or “father”

b. Though this one is real (no one was fooled), YHC feels like (and is trying to convince the teenagers in his house that) it sounds more like a spoof. It’s a completely meaningless song disguised as a very meaningful song. A great transition to the next one…

5. “We Will Never Die” by Kyle Gordon feat. Kody Redwing and the Broken Hearts

a. Imperial Walkers for the duration, lay down on your back and get up on every “die”

b. This would’ve been a good transition if YHC hadn’t forgotten to play it until the end. Again, no one was fooled by this spoof of hipster, millennial self-absorption, though a flippant comment about similarity to Arcade Fire struck a nerve in a certain member of the PAX.

6. “Drop Kick Me Jesus” by Bobby Bare

a. Toy soldiers for the duration, goosie on every “Jesus” or “Lord”

b. YHC proclaimed this one as a spoof, which had most of the PAX fooled and confirmed that the entire genre of country music may or may not be a spoof.

i. Later in the day, AB (whose nerve was struck by getting this one wrong), dug a little and discovered that it was, in fact, not a spoof after all, again, confirming the aforementioned confusion about the genre. It does mean there were more penalty exercises completed than should’ve been. You’re stronger now—you’re welcome.

7. “Parked Out by the Lake” by Dean Summerwind

a. Plank for the duration, merkin on every “parked”, plank jack on every “lake”, mountain climber on every “Santa Fe”.

b. YHC discovered recently (after playing the song for the M) that this one’s actually a spoof. Dean Summerwind isn’t even a real person—Dustin Christensen bet a friend that he could write a whole, listenable country song using only one phrase.

i. Should anyone try to take this genre seriously? Should it or 90’s music continue to be offered as a potential option for musical enjoyment (or exercises), especially since we now have apps that could literally play anything else?

Despite the mislabeled “Dropkick me Jesus”, one PAX stood out as having the most discerning ear—the soon to be named Ramrod got only that one wrong (not wrong), whereas all other PAX missed either two or three. Though YHC isn’t settled on the name, the PAX were introduced to the newest injury-necessitated replacement exercise designed to be harder than the exercise it’s replacing: Goose Merkins. This is a merkin followed by 3 mountain climbers, and the PAX had to do 10 of these for every answer they got wrong. These started getting much slower and louder after about 13.

COT, and the FNG was named Ramrod, a nod to his hospital name (Canon) and his time in the Navy. We look forward to his future performances in music and trivia based beatdowns. Brass Monkey’s upcoming 2nd Q was hyped, and TeraVanilli’s and White Meat’s upcoming (at some point) VQ’s were also hyped.

Paradox prayed us out and provided a certain level of photographic evidence.

Thanks for playing this morning, gents!

SYITG,

Goose