More from the interview... last part for here, although there is a lot more for later...
But who were you most impressed with? Which bodybuilder?
Arnold. Arnold was there every day. Arnold was training at World’s Gym. He didn’t like Gold’s Gym, he liked Joe Gold. He was upset when Joe Gold sold Gold’s Gym to Ken Sprague. Arnold and his buddies used to train at World’s Gym and when I trained there, I kept bumping into Arnold. When World Gym used to be on Main Street in Santa Monica, I used to love it, the building is still there, you can drive by it. The garage was on the bottom floor, and you walk upstairs, and the gym was basically on the second floor, and on that second floor, half of it was outside. So when you trained outside, you had a great view of the Pacific Ocean, it was like heaven up there. I eventually gravitated to World’s Gym for a while until Joe Gold kicked me out. Then after that, I trained at Gold’s.
Why did Joe Gold kick you out?
Joe Gold had a nickname for everybody. For whatever reason, I was the Black Rat. I don’t know why? That is what he used to call me every day. I had a really bad day, was fighting with my girlfriend, I was in a bad mood, I was going to the gym and I just wanted to work out. I was climbing the stairs, and right at the top of the stairs, there is a little office where Joe Gold sat with his big slippers on. I am climbing up the stairs, and as my head gets to the top of the stairs, I heard Joe Gold say “All right, here comes the Black Rat.” I had found out, whether it is true or not, I don’t know, that Joe Gold’s real name was Sydney Goldman, and that he had changed his name. When he started into me with the Black Rat routine, he was pretty unrelenting that day, he was just bugging me. So I said ‘Shut up Sid”, and the whole gym just went dead silent. He said “What did you call me?”, and I said “Sidney Goldman, that’s your real name, isn’t it.” And he flipped out. And he wrote me a check for the remainder of my membership and kicked me out.
How did you get from that situation into writing for a magazine?
I was always artistically inclined, and through various mediums, I worked a lot in metal and in wood, and I wrote. I always have written. My mother has stories that I used to write in first grade. That was always a part of my life – writing.
First time I met you was at a Sushi joint in Woodland Hills? What were you doing in Woodland Hills if you were in Venice?
Yes, I remember that. It was a good place. We had our own chopsticks that he kept in drawers for us, wasn’t that cool. The reasons I was in Woodland Hills was that I had bought a house, two block south of Ventura, right off De Soto, right around the corner from where the Joe Weider offices were. I had gotten married to the women I am still with, and we were having a baby. Living in Venice was ok, but you don’t get a lot for your money there.
Who did you get married to?
A women named Suzanne?
And you met her in Venice?
No, I met her in Florida, on the set of the Gladiators. At that time, Shelly and I were together, and we have moved to Orlando, Florida for three years. She was doing the American Gladiators television show, and they were also producing a live dinner theater type show.
Who is Shelly?
Shelly Beattie. She was my most significant relationship before Suzanne. Shelly was a bodybuilder, she won the NPC USA’s. I met Shelly at the Arnold Classic, where I was training Tonya Knight in 1991. Tonya has won the year before, where she beat Anja Shreiner, and the next year she came back, she didn’t do too well. Leaving the hotel at the Arnold, I met Shelly at the lobby. And we shared a cab to the airport. She was also on my same flight to California, and she had too many bags, so I offered to check one for her, and we ended up seating next to each other, and we hung out. Next thing you know, we ended up living together, training together, and getting her ready for the Ms. Olympia, where she took third place. I eventually quit my job, and became Shelly’s manager, and also had started by then to write for Muscular Development. Tonya Knight was an American Gladiator, she was Gold, and she told me to bring Shelly out for a tryout, and I did, introduced her to the producer, and next thing you know, she was hired, and her name became Siren. As for Tonya Knight, we were just friends. I actually introduced her to the guy that she got married for a while. We were living in California, and they were doing the tv show in the San Fernando Valley, and the show ended in 1995. Around the same time, a guy named Bill Cook said he was going to create a team of all women to race for the America’s cup in sailing. I had heard about it from John Parillo, and we went down there to check it out. It turns out I met Lou Ferrigno’s cousin Roc, who was on Dennis Connor’s team at the gym one day, and he said that
you have to come down, hang out with us at the compound, come sailing with us. At the same time, I brought Shelly to this tryout for this all women’s team, and they ended up hiring her. So we had to move to San Diego, and do this sailing thing for a year and a half. For a short while, I was on Dennis Conner’s team, and she was on Bill Cook’s team. After that ended, we got offered to do the live show, so we went to Orlando to do the American Gladiator’s live show.
So when did you start working for Muscular Development?
Steve Blechman hired me in 1989. I was in prison with Dan Duchaine and got out at the very end of 1989, and I was sitting in my empty apartment figuring out what I was going to do, and my phone rang, and it was Steve. Before I had gone to prison, I had done some segments for Lou Zwick of American Muscle, when I was the Musclechef. And Steve had bought Muscular Development a year earlier, and he wanted me to write articles, because they were sponsoring Lou’s show, and he thought it would be great to have some articles in the magazine, and he offered me a column, which I accepted, and I have been with him ever since.
Prison. What was the charges? What happened?
My prison sentence. I am just going to say it was a white collar beef. It had nothing to do with drugs? I was in prison a little under 2 years, from 1987 to 1989. I was guilty. I haven’t been to prison since.
John the Musclechef? Are you a cook?
I did a lot of different jobs trying to make ends meet over the years. I wasn’t really a chef, just that fact that I ate like a bodybuilder, and I am Italian, and everybody in my family cooks, and here I am eating chicken breasts and baked potatoes. So I had to get creative to force down the food I was eating back then. The guy I was training back then, Dean Tornican, he won the Lightweight Mr. America back in 1985, he and I were training partners in Gold’s Gym. He had done an interview with Lou Zwick for Muscle Magazine, and he told Lou about me, that I was a really good cook, that he should have a cooking segment for bodybuilders. Lou thought it was a good idea, he called me up, we talked about it, he came to my house, shot three shows, he thought it was pretty successful, then he came back and shot more.
So you know Lou Zwick? There are interesting questions about him? Tell me about him?
Lou Zwick was the first behind the scenes player in bodybuilding that I had met. I have known him the longest I have known him since 1985. I have known Ron Harris since 1985 too. The only thing I am going to tell you about Lou is that he still owes me money. Lou was always cool with me, always professional, and also a couple of guys that were working with him also said that. I still have a great relationship with Lou Zwick.
Meeting Dan Duchaine? Where you impressed with him in prison?
I had no clue who he was just through bodybuilding. I had read the first Underground Steroid handbook in the early 1980s and it was an eye opening experience. I thought the guy was pretty intelligent. When I finally got to the prison camp where they sent me after 4-5 months of jail in downtown Los Angeles, without any sunshine or fresh air, I found the weight pile there, and started training, and I hear this voice saying “Aren’t you the food guy”, and I looked at him and said ‘Aren’t you the steroid guy?’ And we hit it off right away. We trained together in prison, we hung out together almost every day, he was an amazing intelligent and diverse person who had so much knowledge in so many different areas that you don’t even think about when you think of what goes with bodybuilding. When you are in that environment, you wish, almost as much as female companionship, is intellectual stimulation. You can go batty with all of those dingbats in there. And Dan was a person you can talk about politics, arts, theater and much more.
