Professional Bodybuilding Contest
About The Ironman
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Life has become a swift race. I don’t want to put on the brakes, but I’m not going to floor it either. Coasting is out. I’ll maintain a firm grip on the wheel, watch the curves and let it rip on the straightaway. It’s a good ride with good company and I pretend I can pull over anytime I want to. I live in a land of make-believe.
Laree and I drove down to LA last week for the 15th Annual Ironman Pro show, which included for the first time a three-day fitness expo of at least 100 vendors, 30 stage events and 120 seminars. The whole affair took place at the Pasadena Center where the 2004 People’s Choice Awards were staged. No dump.
You know how special occasions are; you anticipate them, you live them and you re-live them in your memory, and, if all goes well, you don’t really know which is the best part. Let me share a few of the highlights of our recent excursion.
We left our digs in Aptos later than planned (sound familiar?) and headed out in the rain and darkening skies for our destination 350 miles south. The traffic thinned, the rain stopped and the daylight vanished about 75 miles down the coast. This is good, ‘cuz the highway dried off and opened up and the miles went flying by.
Our plan to stop for the night somewhere along the way evaporated with the rain, time and measured distance. By midnight two wired bombers are looking for a vacancy in a Best Western in Pasadena, the Sheraton full to capacity. We found a room on the other side of the tracks; the door was wide open (strange) and stuffy, the bed was low to the floor and the mattress was less than firm and sloped toward the center. Boiling-hot water bubbled from the bath faucet at a quart a minute, making a gushy sound that neither Laree nor I found amusing. After I applied my big mitts to the handle and cranked with no success, I wrapped a bath towel around the spout to muffle the noise. Swell.
Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite. Four AM we wake up and our bedroom is now a steam room -- mist drifting from the bathroom like early morning fog, water dripping from the ceiling and collecting on the walls forming rivulets and we’re soggy. Welcome to the 24-hour Pasadena Sauna Motel. Sleep and soak. Super swell.
We make it to the Sheraton very early, check in and have breakfast. It’s Friday. Our skin is still wrinkled, but the ice water is delicious and our spirits are rising as our core temperature drops. Large people are beginning to emerge from elevators, appear around corners and gather in the lobby. A lot of deltoids and dyed skin ready for tomorrow morning’s prejudging. Entering a major pro show is no day at the beach and the bodies look like they could use a sauna and a night’s sleep. Never mind.
Who’s that? Is that Chris Dickerson? Yes, of course. I haven’t seen Chris in 30 years. He stops by our table; we shake hands and shake heads, smiles all ‘round, and promise to catch up later. I spoke to the former Mr. Olympia by phone only a week ago about the forthcoming West Coast Bodybuilding Scene. He appears in our new book by Dick Tyler and I wanted to send a copy to his home in Florida and needed his address. I can give him a copy while he eats breakfast at the Sheraton. Very cool. Chris, an accomplished opera singer, will later present the National Anthem at the Ironman. Looks good, still has his hair.
By eleven Laree and I are hauling our books and gear to the Ironman booth front and center at the Expo in the Civic Center. The place is buzzing as teams and individuals complete their displays and early visitors roam the maze of the latest muscle stuff. Bill Pearl and Judy, his wife, are there and we will spend the next three days shoulder to shoulder, meeting and greeting bodybuilding fans, autographing books and posing for photos.
There’s much more. Old friends will be gathering and memories will be stirring, new friends will be made and connections established. The internet at work.
Dick Tyler, John Balik, Dave Draper
The day becomes evening and day one of the expo is a wrap till Saturday morning at 11. Laree and I have dinner with Lou Ferrigno and a couple of old friends from the Arnold days. Did I mention it’s been raining all day? Yeah, in fact it rains continually throughout the Ironman weekend. Wet bodybuilders everywhere. No complaints, just wet. We refuse to use umbrellas.
We take a long time to order our specialties at an exquisite Chinese restaurant (I have Chinese every 10 to 20 years), agreeing to order five different items from the menu and share them. We’re excited, have a lot to talk about and the food comes in record time. Amazing. The plates go around and we dig in, making small mounds of slippery and festively colored meats and vegetables. The chop sticks are pushed aside in favor of forks and after a flurry of mild comments -- delicious, what’s this, looks like scallops, tastes like chicken, where’s the beef -- the table grows quiet but for our chomping and slurping. We know our Chinese cuisine, this is obvious.
Three minutes into the silence, the waiter returns to tell us we’ve been served the wrong food -- it belongs to that table of six in the corner staring at us. We all agree the food is fine while they’re taking it away; I’m eating as fast as I can imagine it -- whatever it is -- going into the dumpster in the alley. I actually stick the young waitress in the hand with my fork as she reaches for my plate. Our meal comes soon enough and the whole plate-sharing process begins once again. We are practiced, less desperately hungry and a bit embarrassed for not noticing the difference between Chicken Gun Pow and Scallops Cow Moo.
Good night, you guys. Next time we’ll order steak and potatoes. See you at the expo. And the rains came down.
Might I interpose a bit of muscle-building information? The Hulk eats the same foods with the same methodology as the Bomber. Obviously.
It’s not late and we go to our room with a longing for quiet privacy and a flat, firm bed; tomorrow we pick up Dick Tyler at the Burbank airport, 9 sharp. Dick is 10 years older than I, and we worked together for Joe Weider in Santa Monica in the ‘60s. He’s the author of our West Coast Bodybuilding Scene, has been a dedicated Doctor of Chiropractic for 35 years and has for that time been out of the bodybuilding scene, which he once wrote about prolifically, lovingly. He trains himself and heals others. He doesn’t know Ronnie Coleman from Ronald McDonald, and hasn’t been to a major bodybuilding show where bodybuilders achieve the proportions of tractors and trailers and trucks. Ha. He will flip.
He will also help introduce our recent publication to the Ironman spectators and visitors as soon as he resumes his composure.
By mid-afternoon fans are taking pictures of Don Howorth, Bill Pearl, Chris Dickerson, Lou Ferrigno, Dick and me as we line up arms over the shoulders, or cluster together, grinning and yakking. Gene Mozee and his famous camera are clicking away and Laree, too busy having fun, finally manages to sneak about taking a roll or two of candid black and whites.
Armand Tanny, Dave Draper
There’s Cory Everson, whose delightful beauty increases with time. We share a big hug and fond exchange; she’s the greatest. Yo, Richie -- Rich Gaspari, handsome and strong, is researching and preparing his own line of products. We’re both from Jersey, hence, we’re old buds. “Kaz” Kazmier, particularly good at lifting things, is lifting everyone’s spirits as he visits friends between scheduled power demonstrations. Scott Mendelson and his power team are a good group -- did I mention large and strong and large? -- and give me two thumbs up for the Top Squat. Or else!
So many people, so many exchanges, so much encouragement. Samir Bannout, looking very strong, grabs me from a roving crowd at the press conference to introduce me to his training partner, a building. Whenever I get anxious or feel crowded I mutter, “Aren’t you glad you’re not competing?” Whatever is going on at the pre-judging, backstage and in the hotel rooms of the competitors has got to be more frantic than missing that second meal or losing the car in the parking lot or going the wrong way on one-way Pasadena Ave, worse than a midnight sauna on a soggy, sagging mattress that will swallow you up. I love the rain.
Time for the night show. Leroy Colbert and I sit together at the Saturday night main event. We, too, are former Weider employees -- more accurately, physique stars -- and have a record that goes back to 1956. Neither of us has aged and we talk enthusiastically above the clamor of the packed house. The brave and bikini-clad gals march onstage and Armand Tanny to my right groans with approval. They march offstage, they’re on, they’re off and on again. They stand, turn, flex and smile; flex, turn, stand, smile and are off. One more time, girls, please, thank you. Someone -- oops -- forgot to judge the ladies at the mid-day prejudging. Don’t ask me how. Some are beauties, some are cuties, some are big and mean and they’re all tough. The judges work hard -- late, but hard -- and make their choices.
The Ironman contenders total 15 and I’m exposed to the most recent trend in posing and presentation. Looks the same to me. They are thick and mighty and again the judges complete their task.
While Dexter Jackson receives his award as number one Ironman and greets the spectators from the MCs mic -- an apology for not looking as good as he will at the Arnold in two weeks -- the satisfied yet uninterested crowd sluggishly makes its way toward the exit doors. “Move along, folks, you can’t stand in the aisles. Move along, we’re trying to clean and close. Move along,” says the security guard for the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. I want to yell, “we love ya, Dexter, really”; Laree is telling the security guard where to get off. At that moment rockin’ KO, Karen Orsi, my penpal, scoots by our side and saves the day. She introduces herself and her daughter and we’re all smiles and hugs.
“Move along, folks.” “Yeah, yeah.” The rain is wet, and cold.
John Balik is the man behind Ironman Magazine and the promoter of the Ironman Pro Show. We’ve been friends since Joe Gold opened his gym doors to us in 1966. He is calm, cool and collected through the whole project; his team loves him and he’s been hard at it since he bought Ironman from Perry and Mabel Rader in 1986. We’re honored to be among the invited guests and hope in the years to come to bring the champs from earlier days together for fun and memories and health for the soul. An experiment in longevity and quality of life. Worth the investment, the testing is positive.
This is more than you bargained for, pilots. Next week it’s the Arnold and I’ll spare you the details. Let’s put some bombers in the skies, people. It’s not late, but it is time. Go.
God’s speed and strength... DD
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