2002, 99 cents from The American Way Thrift Store, Burbank
First impression: These ladies have thrown you an aerobics themed
surprise party.
Second impression: The one in red is placing her upper arm into the other one’s armpit rather deliberately. The one in navy blue now looks threatening, as if she’s going to bite me.
This DVD is the one of the strangest things I have ever seen. There are two 20-minute programs. Both are bad. The first one has an instructor with a
Princess Diana haircut who threatens to “jazz up your core!”
This was another hard-to-follow dance routine, punctuated with “Did you get that? Let’s go!” Spoiler: She doesn’t care if I didn’t get it.
The accompanying soundtrack has a World Beat flavor with bongo drums and shaker things and sitars and shit. Then I notice, when the camera pans over, that the band is actually there. Playing live. For an exercise video. The musicians are all wearing floppy linen shirts of some unspecified indigenous culture. There’s something odd about the quality of the lighting – it turns out the set is lit by torches and candles. I am reminded of the scene from “King Kong” where Naomi Watts is tied to the stake as a gorilla’s hors-d’oeuvre.
I clicked over to the cooldown portion, but it’s only three stretches. So I clicked on the second program and this instructor is Australian, hotter, meaner, and even more indifferent to my pain. The phalanx of friends behind her wear their hair loose and curled, which speaks of a wild, untamed quality. They are a coven of witches who cast spells with their abs.
I turned this DVD off and just did some stretching while I watched The Daily Show. Then the phone rang.
Thrift Store Fitness 