As winter has sat on our faces with its historic polar vortex, one can and must fight back. In lieu of a soul-saving emergency trip to Puerto Rico and midnight strolls along Coronado Avenue sensually absorbing the Atlantico's oceanic thickening of the night's warm breeze, there is one and only way to beat this polar vortex shit: Johnny Go Winter Time Aerobics. Two perfect tunes to warm up to, both by the sexiest bastards of all time, the Rolling Stones: The groove of "Love I Strong” is somewhere between slow and medium-paced, confident and determined. Mick is out for some ass and he's going to get it. "Love is strong and you're so sweet/you make me hard and you make me weak," a good lyric to loosen up to. Do lots of hip shakes as you march in place, wave your arms like a bi-plane making passes at King Kong. "I followed you through swirling seas/down darkened with silent trees," Continue hips, arms and legs. Next song: the Stones--again. "Has Anybody Seen My Baby" is living proof the Stones are the best white R'n'B band that is, has and ever will be. Marvin Gaye is channeled here, the groove oozes and it's time to do girly-girl push-ups for you V-is-for-vagina types; you V-is-for-Viagra-types; and Marine hand-clap push-ups for you dudes who have that winter time wiener blues thing between your legs. Only five, then back on your feet, doin' what you did in “Love Is Strong.” Now, we get into the meat of the matter. Put on the Beastie Boys fourth album, "Ill Communication." "Rhymin' & Stealin',” its massive drums (stolen from Zep?), will have you doing everything you've done so far but just much more exaggerated--knees go up to your highest rib, or preferably your chin, or for you cosmic fat-asses, kneecaps bouncing into your over-hanging cliff of a gut. Do it! --arms don't stop, as if you're punching NSA drones swarming around your first spring anti-war/anti-capitalist barbecue (vegetables only, no pig). --drop for five tummy crunches, cheating allowed. MAIN LYRIC YOU MUST CHANT TO: "Ali Baba and the 40 thieves/Ali Baba and the 40 thieves." Tis good to sing while you move, gets the capillaries kicking out the nicotine scum in your lungs. "The New Style", another Beasties basic huge drum machine sound (I guess drum machine, what do I know?). Just HARDER, class, HARDER! How you're going to storm the 1 percent's country clubs to free the illegal Mexican help if you don't have revolutionary stamina. Thank the vortex! The next three songs--”She's Crafty,” “Posse In Effect” and “Slow Ride”--are excellent IF you're doing just the Beasties for an entire anti-vortex/anti-capitalist work out. But for our purpose we skip 'em and get to "Girls" with its crazy, speedy doo-wop groove. (Requires much running in place but very fast.) Drop and give me five anti-NSA crunches and then five Peace Corps push-ups. OK, we hit our main heart-pumping stride with... “Fight for your right to party!” "You wake up late for school man you don't wanna go," wafts overhead as literally every muscle group and action is activated: jumps, swoops and wild hand gestures stolen from Uma Thurman and John Travolta's dance scene in Pulp Fiction. Shoulders! Hips! Neck and head! Move, rotate, jump, sweat, goddamit, troop! "Kick it!" "You ask your mom but she still says no!" More, harder, faster! "You gotta fight...for your right...TO PARTY!!!" At this point you MUST air guitar to the power chord riff. And you must complete jumps and 180 degree twirls so you end up facing backward. Then again, so you face forward. Then again, backward, then forward. Heart rate at this point: 140 beats per minute. Fuck the North Pole, Canada, global warming, American imperialism, cable fees, college football, etc. This song is a godsend. Can you feel the cellulite shrinking? We're halfway done. Let us indulge the Beasties a little more with "No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn," a sort of reprieve from the all-out boogie of “Fight For Your Right.” How- some-ever, do not under ANY circumstances omit "Brass Monkey," one of the most underrated Beasties tracks ever and if you participate in the raps your ability to shout at a government lawyer will be greatly examined. Learned that from Abbie Hoffman during the Chicago Seven trial. He meant a lot to me in the tenth grade. OK, so far, good. But here is where the men are separated from the boys, the riot grrrls from the Forever 21 knobs, and the weak from the strong. We're putting on the greatest overlooked Iggy Pop album in history: “Instinct,” his 1988 L.A. hard rock album populated with cats from Guns N' Roses, an ex-Sex Pistol or two, and other cats with claws and power chords. A tremendous album--and it is HARD AND FAST. Wimps die during this part of the Newt-Gingrich-On-A-Spit workout. Opening track, “Cold Metal”--ridiculously powerful, it requires legs spread wide and then complete one-fight jumps into the air, repeatedly. Then major punk rock dance movements with many palm-out pushes as if a line of riot cops is invading your space. You think our comrades in the Battle of Seattle went to war out-of-shape? Jump! Dance! Push that invisible refrigerator of a cop out of the way! All power to the Ig! Right on! "High On You," track two, keeps the energy UP. "Terrorist in my heart" intones the Ig who sings with remarkable feeling and emotion through this Sex-Pistols-give-Billy-Idol-a-five-fist-enema of an 80s glam-rock. You're sweating now, aintcha? Yee haw! "Strong Girl," a great song, somewhat slower, heavy on the floor tom and bass drum. VERY much an ode to a woman of strength. Hillary needs to do aerobics to this song. She needs to do SOMETHING. "Easy Rider" and "Power and Freedom," tunes that seriously talk some good shit lyrically, are the climax of our pro-people/anti-corporate/women-take-back-the-night work out. Much energy will be available to you, more than you thought you had, if you've followed my scientifically calculated moves. Much of the rest of the album is actually introspective, good to listen to, as you go through the movements. Every song on Instinct is danceable, the way the Clash used to be and almost nothing is now. As you cool down to “Tom Tom,” listen for Iggy's thoughts on love and money: "when all the wealth in the world/ain't worth the faith of one girl." And if you lose your faith in her during a horrible winter, then may I prescribe going through EACH track of EACH album EVERY day until your inner grin returns thanks to dancing, the Stones, the Beasties and the Ig--and production of the most essential human fluid, sweat. Snows do melt, I promise.