This is my first post of a photo. I hope it comes through.
Thought I'd give you all some idea of how awesome this guy was. In this photo, he's probably in his mid to late forties. He'd max out the bar, and then hang plates from it to get more weight onto it.
Those of us who trained in the infamous Mid City Gym in NYC in the late 80s and early 90s new Zazu as a fixture at the front desk. His name was Paul Verderosa, but was known by the names Bruno and Zazu. The Zazu term came because he used that word all the time ("...big zazu weights...nice zazu bench...etc"). He was a fixture at the annual Strongman dinner downtown as well. He was a competitor to the great Paul Anderson and apparently they were good friends.
I first met Paulie when he was around 65 years old. He'd always give us powerlifting advice, and had some amazing stories of lifting back in the day. My favorite was his description of squatting outside in the snow using train wheels up in Albany, NY. Apparently that's all that they had, and they dug 2 huge trenches on either side of the squat racks because the wheels would touch the ground otherwise. I personally saw him bench 600lbs like it was candy at age 66! He'd always let us stay past the closing time at the gym (10 pm), and we'd go until midnight or even 1 am. He'd be up at the frontdesk in sort of like a trance, looking up towards the sky, listening to Spanish music on this little transistor radio. We always imagined he was re-living some incredible workout or something in his mind. He'd be almost trance-like!
This guy would give you the skin off of his back in a minute. Truly a great human being. Sadly, he passed around 1995. He will truly be missed.
