Blogs and Stories
My Great Fake Bake Experiment
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If having a killer tan could turn Sarah Palin into a vice presidential candidate, what could it do for me?
Albany, N.Y., is an indoor tanning mecca, a hotbed of hot beds. There are more than 800 tanning salons in the greater capital region. Four-term Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings presides over ribbon-cuttings with a year-round bronze. At the historically Catholic college where I teach, students grow more preternaturally orange as winter progresses.
I have never fit in here. I was pasty-faced even for Brooklyn, and when I moved to this tanner’s Valhalla I became even more freakishly white. And so, half anxious to fit in, half curious to learn the appeal, I decided to embark on an experiment in which I would join the ranks of the fake-baked to see how a deep, midwinter tan could change my life.
If Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi could see me now, he’d compliment me on my tan, just as he did our president-elect shortly after the election.
Day 1
When I arrive at Miami Sun Tanning on the outskirts of town, I tell John, the manager and owner, that I want to get as tan as possible before Christmas. He takes me under his wing. “We’ll get you on a special program,” he says, and points me toward my first bed: the Solaris X2 by TanAmerica.
With its glowing handle and purple mood lighting, the X2’s interior recalls a Chevy van I once owned. Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” blasts from its speakers. I put on my sun goggles. Memories of summer days at the Jersey Shore, my ancestral homeland, fill my head.
Day 2
I take the train to New York City for a poetry reading in the East Village and notice immediately how pale everyone is. Silently, I pity them. Is it the New York poets’ desire to retain a Keatsian tubercular countenance that holds them back from the joys of lampbeds on Christopher Street? Or is it the creative class’ aversion to the déclassé trucker tans of the manual laborer? My first-stage tan is subtle to the eye, but already I’m feeling superior.
After all, I’ve now joined the ranks of Real America. One in four teenage girls has tanned indoors, and men, who make up about a quarter of all tanners, represent the industry’s fastest growing demographic. Tanning is as American as a monster truck rally. Britney Spears’ acolytes tan. The Gotti boys tan. Sarah Palin tans, and she effectively coined the phrase Real America. As the newest member of the $5 billion tanning industry, I feel closer to my country. Patriotic, even.
My poet friends, ensconced in their elitist New York hipster bubble, are clueless about my new look. “You look good,” an old poet friend tells me after the reading. “Did you lose weight or something?”
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Day 3
Last week of classes before winter break. Flurries swirl in the air. As I field final exam questions, a few of the browner students cast sidelong glances. One finally speaks up. “Did you go to a tanning salon?”
I smile, and cop to my new tan. Like a real-life version of Facebook, I have SuperPoked the students with the “Talk About Tanning” meme. We cross-chat about which salons they go to, compare monthly package prices, place arms side by side to compare hues.
If I were Malcolm Gladwell, I’d brand Day 3 the tanning tipping point. If I were Thomas Friedman, I’d devote a chapter to this new, flat world of tanning. Me, I’d just call it my first day as an official card-carrying member of the fake-tan club.
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Very entertaining. More from you would be deeply appreciated.
Please....google up some pictures of melanoma!! If you are worried your daughter doesn't recognize you now with a dark tan imagine the horror she'll feel looking at you when you are racked with cancer! The US Department of Health & Human Services, Public Health Service, National Toxicology Program Report on Carcinogens states that UV solar radiation, and use of sun lamps and sun beds are "known to be a human carcinogen." Women who visited a tanning parlor at least once a month were 55% more likely to later develop melanoma than women who didn't artificially suntan. Those who used sun lamps to tan while in their 20s had the greatest later risk, about 150% higher than similarly aged women who shunned tanning beds. Ok - you're not a woman but as you reported in your article, women make up the higher % of users. This blog should be pulled or at least a warning posted about the dangers to readers who might want to try this "experiment" at home. If you want to feel an endorphin rush have sex, sing, or excercise!
I LOVED it! Great take on what is becoming more and more a way of life for so many in this country!
I do not like the beds, thoughts of future cancer melt downs run through my brain BUT I have done it when I had something important coming up such as a Ball.
This past December when I had to help host a local generosity ball I decided to try the spray on...NEVER again. One bath and it's gone. Get any part of the body wet and it runs like a hooker standing outside the car of Hugh Grant.
...I have to admit, you look better with the tan! Tell the wife to get over it or there are tanned women on the other side of the fence!!
Funny how those stats reported above don't seem to have any facts as to times and duration...kinda makes me wonder if in fact the information is factual? I mean once a month and you raise the chances to 55% of getting cancer??? How many years of once a month? LOL 1 time? If your going to strap on that "brain from reading an article" then you, and we, would be bettered served by more true facts and not one site on the net that apparently blurbs.
Are people more worried about pasty skin than cancer or wrinkles? Or is the next article in the series about Botox and Rejeuvaderm?
As an Albany resident I am pleased to see Jerry Jennings tan get the attention it deserves. This also gives me the chance to share with the world the nickname he has in my house: PermaTan Man.
i think agree with noesis. i very much like the humor in your article, but i wonder if your writing style is getting bonus points because the article i read previous to this was the bag lady part 3 (heinous).
i would definitely like to see more!!
PS. ignore the humorless cancer-obsessives who will inundate this comment section. uhhh...satire anyone??
I really like Obama's tan!!
This is very very funny. He should keep the tan, he looks much better. Also, there was an obit recently in the Times of a dermatologist who believes that tanning doesn't cause cancer. So there's hope.
You got arrested four different times with four different tans? Impresive.
I loved this article, very funny, very self aware and so true about the different ways the left and right demonize this vanity.
I spent the year I was 20 enjoying my tanorexia. I am naturally very blonde and fair, and I was so dark that my complexion came out strange in photographs. I look back and cannot imagine how I let it get that bad - I just went regularly, increasing to the point I lay there for as long as they'd let me.
I worry now, nearing 30, that a year of taking my zen time in a tanning bed permanently damaged my skin... but I absolutely loved every second. Even the weird smell became enjoyable, because it triggered my happy and relaxed feelings of tanning.
Oh! the tan phobia's "we're all gonna die" with sun exposure/tanning beds. While googling, google Vitamin D and the NEW avalanche of data showing sunlight Vitamin D deficiency causing earliest deaths from everything, including melanoma cancer, and the NEW linking of hiding from the sun with Autism. Can't get enough in a pill or from food, humans need hours a day in the sun. Can't? use a tanning salon then!
I never though looking 'tubercular' looked healthy anyway....
freelisa, while you're googling Vitamin D deficiencies, also look up how long people need in the sun to get Vitamin D. Not long, if its regular. and you can do it clothed, as the Vitamin D goes through clothes.
Maybe its coz i'm Australian, and skin cancer is the most common cancer in Australia, that i think tanning beds are heinous. Funny article though
Thank you.
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