Blog
“Uhhhhh yeah, I just rented a truck from you a few minutes ago. I’m having a slight problem with it now….”
Like I said before, the intersection of Chester Pike and South Ave is NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH. First of all it is home to the wide warriors of Iron Sport Gym but it also is the location of a low bridge. When a sign says 12’ 6” it's not a threat, it’s a promise. If you don’t want the top of your truck rolled back like a can of sardines you better figure out a new route. Much like the sounds of jacked dudes screaming when they get their swole on here this truck carnage is a semi-daily occurrence at the gym. Sometimes the drivers get wedged under the bridge nice and tight and they come into the gym and ask me what they should do…like I’m the troll that owns that bridge.
Good times.
Yep, in the MRI tube once again this morning. The Dr didn’t want to give the cortisone shot because there is a chance that I have an abscess under this mess on my foot. I have the films and have to go back to the foot Dr Friday morning and see what’s what. He put me back on antibiotics last Friday just to get rid of any remaining infection that might have been causing that pain. So if I get the cortisone shot on Friday that’ll be good because I have the Ligonier Highland games the next day. So it will be nice and numbed up for that.
Despite all this foot bullshit training is going pretty well. Paul Ferency came down this past Sunday for a throwing session and tried to tweak some form problems that I have been having. My lifting seems to really be peaking up still so I’m happy about that. If I can just be smart and stay injury free I should hit a good peak for Loon Mt in two weeks.
Labor Day weekend was super busy day here at Iron Sport. I was happy to see everyone training like champions especially Labor Day when the gym was packed all day. Summer is now officially over and it’s time to get back in the gym and hit it hard again.
My training has been hitting an up and down situation due to my foot. I’m up when I’m training and then down for the rest of the day in pain. Stepping onto this knob-o-pain is like walking on a nail, the pain is just sharp and constant. This bunion/bone growth/whatever it is has been really inflamed and swollen. Dr Corwin, the Dr who is treating it, recently gave me a five day steroid pack to take to cut down the inflammation. During the five days while I was taking it I felt some slight relief but as soon as I was done taking it the inflammation came right back. Friday morning I’m going in for a cortisone shot and see if that gives me some relief. I’m just looking to get by at least until I’m done competing in these next two contests. After my last contest of the season on Sept 20th who knows….it may require surgery.
This Sunday my buddy and throwing coach extraordinaire Paul Ferency is driving down to do some highland games practice. We will also have a strategy session for this pro masters contest I’m doing in New Hampshire on the 20th. If I’m going to throw well up in NH I just need a couple good training sessions just to get my confidence back up. I really haven’t been throwing much at all. Loon Mt NH has always been a special place for me to throw. It is a great venue for a games as well as always being a happy hunting ground for me. I have been there five times going back to 1996 and have walked away with three wins and two runner-ups as a pro there.
C’mon, how can you beat Iron Sport Gym? How many gym owners will do prodigious feats of strength on demand like I do? Pictured here you see one of Iron Sport’s female patrons in utter amazement as she holds up the souvenir I just presented her with. When the owners of Bally’s and other chain gyms are sitting around thinking of ways to trick you out of your hard earned dollars I am delighting and entertaining my members.
I received an email recently from a guy who recently graduated from Temple's Fox School of Business (Double Major: Entrepreneurship/Marketing). His name was Mark and wanted to turn his many years of toil and effort in college into Iron Sport gold. He wants to come in and pick my brain about what it is like being at the helm of a rogue gym empire such as I am. He wants to see if he can handle the responsibility of being the leader of hundreds of hungry and jacked iron warriors.
I’m pretty sure when Mark was a little baby around the mid 1980’s his parent stood together and looked down at him in his crib. They had high hopes and big plans for their precious new baby. They took the forethought to seek the advice of professional financial planners and started putting money away for a quality education which hopefully would provide him for a sound fiscal future. Their vision was for Mark to grow up and make an impact on the world, probably in the field of medicine or science, make a lot of money and enjoy financial security long into his golden years.
Cut to a teenage Steve Pulcinella at that same time in the mid 1980’s. Lifting weights, grabbing ass, jumping his jacked up pick-up truck over the railroad tracks, not a care in the world and not a thought about his future. He was a wild eyed youth in his Levi jeans and flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off trying to look tough. Not really the kind of guy you want your baby child to grow up to be like. Who could foresee that Mark and Steve would someday be on a collision course to destiny?
I have gotten emails for years from lifters all over the country who’s ambition is to own a gym just like Iron Sport. Most of them ask me the standard questions….how did you get your start? What do I need to get started? Is it lucrative? What do you do when somebody drops off a stolen shopping cart on your property? You know the hard pressing questions like that. I try to answer them all as tactfully as I can telling them that having a small “hardcore” (a term a really don’t like) gym is a pretty rough existence. It’s not very lucrative at all and the hours are largely thankless. I don’t try to purposely scare them but owning a small business of any kind is really tough, that’s just the nature of the beast. It’s just not for everyone. But Mark is taking a different approach and seems really serious about coming in here taking a look at the gym, getting in a workout and picking my brain. Who knows, maybe he has a brilliant idea to generate more revenue out of a place like mine, I hope he does. Maybe he wants to franchise the Iron Sport name all over the world making me in return a multi-millionaire leaving me free time to pursue my dream of being a rich industrialist by day, vigilante do-gooder by night.
I’ll keep you all posted on our meeting and the outcome…..Unless he comes to his senses and decides to open up a Rita’s Water Ice.
I kind of have a professional dilemma. The kind of dilemma that could only occur in a white trashy neighborhood like the Glenolden/Norwood area. Take a look at the photo below. Camouflaged in amongst the unkempt bushes, out of control weeds and the trash, just under the scenic rusty train tressle you see a shopping cart near the bus stop. This is the corner of Chester Pike and South Ave or as I like to call it the intersection of unemployment and desperation. Imagine the convenience of living in a world where it is accepted that you can shop, take the cart with you and just ditch it and jump on the bus. That’s the kind of world I want to live in.
The dilemma I am having is since it is my civic duty to remove the snow from the sidewalk is it also my job to remove and dispose of a random shopping cart?
Thus is the life of a small business owner.
Discuss.
Much like two twelve year old girls, my childhood buddy Ryan Miller and I were texting each other and giggling last night. Were got to talking about the usual stuff, old times, old friends, how much we hate being adults, etc. We got on the subject of the games we would invent and/or modify as kids to suit the number of people and the space allotted. We were not rich growing up but we sure as shit weren't so poor that we had to invent stupid games that required little or no equipment like the Little Rascals. I think most of our games was born out of sheer boredom and necessity. I’ll run down a few of these games, feel free to pass them along to your children…..as long as you don’t mind them getting hurt or possibly arrested.
I know that around Philly, New York and Boston you have games like “half-ball” and “stick-ball”. I think most of the games we thought we invented at that time were influenced by these games because we lived in surburban Philly. If only someone would have invented video games a lot sooner all of the following shananigans could have been avoided.
Step Ball- This can be played with any kind of ball that has some bounce to it, a pinky, a pimple ball or tennis ball. You will need a set of concrete front porch steps. Player one throws the ball into the steps for an unpredictable bounce as player two tries to field the ball off of the bounce. The object is for player one to get the ball either over player two’s head or get it to bounce past him for a run. Simple game, hours of fun. Sometimes the ball would not bounce back but would bounce forward and hit our front door and my mom would scream at us.
Wire Ball- This can be played with a hard ball and a glove or just bare-handed. Player one tries to toss the ball over the street wires and player one has to catch it. Runs are scored in accordance to which level of wire you can throw the ball over and make the fielder miss. We used to play this with a football once in a while too. We would eventually get bored with this and just try to throw the ball at the bulbs in the street lights until we smashed them. Darkness (and police) would fall over our neighborhood after that game.
Chink- I know it doesn’t sound politically correct but for some reason that was the name of the game. I didn’t name it that nor do I know who did but that’s what we called it. You need a “pinky” to play chink. A pinky was a cheap spongy ball that you could buy at a dollar store or in our case climb to the roof of Woodlyn elementary school and find. Two or three players could play chink but anymore than that got crowded. You need a brick wall and it was sort of like handball where you smacked the ball with your hand and first had to make it bounce of the blacktop, then off the wall and the next player had to smack it from there and keep it going. Let me get back to the roof of the school for a minute. That roof was pretty much the sole source of sporting equipment in our neighborhood. At any given time you could get any kind of ball you wanted by climbing onto that roof.
Ass Ball- It was exactly like chink except for the capital punishment aspect at the end. The player who bobbled and missed during his turn to “chink” the ball had to face the firing squad. He was sentenced to stand facing the wall, bend over and present his butt to my sadistic buddies and each of the other players got to haul off and throw the ball as hard as they could at his ass. Imagine a pinky in the butt from a range of about five meters. (oooh that sounds so dirty) The object was to inflict as much pain on the other guy as you could. Jolly good fun.
Curve Ball- Ryan’s yard and my yard together weren’t really big enough to play full-scale whiffle ball so we devised another game. It was exactly like whiffle ball and played with the same bat but we would use those little plastic practice gold balls. I don’t know remember how this twist by using the golf balls even got started but we used to have some wicked curve-ball games that would to last until it became too dark to see. The ball was hard to hit, hard to field and hard to pitch so over the years our skills got keen. I remember playing this game until my late teens in our back yard. We would put picnic tables and benches laid on their side as a home run wall for important games. As Ryan and I got older our younger brothers carried on the proud curve-ball tradition. I’m not sure if it’s played anywhere today though.
Hose ball- We only played this if we happened upon an old garden hose in front of somebody’s house on trash day. You cut the hose up in 6” long sections and put them in a bucket. Player one would use a broom handle for a bat and player two would pitch in the sections of hose. If you could hit that hose just right it would go a mile. If you were the pitcher and got hit by one of those blasts you would be running home to mom for Bactine and a taffy.
Muckle- when all else failed…. when you didn’t have enough guys for a proper game of football…. when you just wanted to cut out the strategy and gamesmanship of actual football….when you just had a thirst for tackling…. when there was a guy in your neighborhood that you just wanted to kill…. Muckle was the game for you! Also know as “catch and kill” or “smear the queer” (again, I know it’s not politically correct) Muckle was a very simple and primal game. You needed at least four and as up to maybe twenty players and a Nerf or real football. Somebody throws up the ball and whoever catches it gets chased down and subsequently creamed by all the other players. As that player is laying on the ground spitting up blood he then throws up the ball and around and around it goes. That’s it, very basic, no winners just losers. I have actually seen a kid break his femur playing muckle.
When all these games failed and it was just Ryan and myself, we would just make my younger brother Matt ride his bike back and forth in the street. We would then stand on either side of the street and try to nail him with a Nerf football. Somehow we would be trying to convince him to not go in and tell on us and that his participation in this game was somehow for his own good. Of course the object of this game was to knock him off the bike.
The official "Chink" ball....The Pinky
It’s about a month until my next scheduled highland games contest. I’m going to throw in the pro class at the Ligonier PA highland games. http://www.ligoniergames.org/ I have been competing as a master all year so far so I’m fixing to get trounced at this one. I’m at 270lbs right now and its way lighter than I have ever been in a pro meet. That is going to be a huge factor.
My big dilemma right now is that I need to make new hammer boots. But I’m torn between doing that or just retiring so I’ll see how it goes. That’s how not into competing I am right now….I would actually rather retire rather than going through the trouble to make new hammer boots. Truthfully I’m just not feeling any more rush competing but still really enjoy training in the weightroom. When the driving, the super hot days, trying to get away from the gym and the pain afterwards just seems more like work than it does fun so I tend to lose interest.
I know this all sounds like i'm down but i'm not. I'm just far more interested in the gym buisness these days than I am competing.
One of the things that is always questioned in the lifting game is “What is the best kind of routine to use?” As a gym owner I get asked questions like that that a lot. But many years of lifting as well as many years of observing people lifting I have learned something. There are a million right ways to make gains and there really is only one wrong way.
Let me first explain the one and only wrong way….no effort. You could be on the most hi-tech lifting and diet program in the world handed down from the 1970’s era Russian Olympic team. But if you don’t work it HARD you won’t make one single gain.
Almost every person you see in the gym is using some different method to all reach pretty much the same goal. No two people in your gym right now are following the exact same path. Are some of them right and some of them wrong? That’s a difficult question to answer realistically. But I would have to say “no”. I’m not going to sit here and say that you should be doing box squats or that Louie Simmons’s or any other trainer’s ideas of training are right or wrong because it always ultimately will boil down to YOUR effort in the gym.
In my opinion getting stronger or developing a better looking body is simple and I like to keep things very simple. I always say if you work ANY routine long enough and hard enough, no matter how stupid it is you will eventually get somewhere. Bust your ass in the gym and be realistic about your diet and you can not go wrong. Don’t just show up at the gym and half ass it and expect magical results.
We had a guy in the gym we would call “The Innovator”. (Everybody who’s anybody at Iron Sport has a nickname) This dude never did one conventional exercise in his life. Every thing he did was something that he made up. He would sit in machines facing the wrong way and contort himself all up doing things all upside down and ass-backwards. The funny thing is The Innovator really looked like he knew exactly what he was doing and had a catalog of a thousand wacky exercises in his head. He would smoothly transition from one heinous move to the next while we all looked on in horror. BUT….in all this foolishness and wackiness he built himself into probably one of the most flexible people I have ever seen. His arms and shoulders would bend in ways I have never seen on another human before. So there ya go, something good eventually came out of this madness.
Of course I don’t suggest you start making up a bunch of stupid exercises. What you really want is a combination of a good routine and really solid effort over a long period of time. No matter what advances come along in training, equipment, nutrition and supplements EFFORT will still be the key thing that makes the results happen.
Any comments? steve@ironsport.com
This is what your hand should look like when you are done a hard workout
Although I had a slight scare with getting an infection in my foot last week that didn’t stop me from having one of the best weeks of training that I have had in a long time. Maybe i'm just strange, but I just refuse to let things stop me from training. I don’t stop for injuries, I don’t ever feel over-trained, I don’t go on vacation… I’m like a psycho mental patient that just has to train every day. I have no idea how this personal retreat into the weightroom became an obsession with me but I know it started when I was very young.
This story will give you an example of how early in life this sickness started….When I was the 15 year old child prodigy of strength I was riding my kick ass 10-speed bike to the gym. As I was nearing the gym, I was was crossing through an intersection. A teenage girl blew the light as I was crossing, I didn’t even see her but I could hear brakes screeching up behind me. The next thing I knew I had a ’79 Trans Am shoved up my ass. The car slammed me from behind, my bike went under the car and I was sort of tangled under there with it. As her car skidded she dragged me and the bike along the ground for about another twenty or thirty feet. When we finally came to a stop and I came crawling out from under her car like the terminator. I stood up and looked at the freaked out girl behind the wheel and I remember thinking….”My bike is totally mangled, my sweat pants are tattered, but I have no apparent injuries so I’m good to go.” I reached down and pulled the wreckage of my bike out from under her car and carried it away. I walked the rest of the way to the gym, threw my bike in the trash and worked out.
After I got done I called my mother for a ride home and started off by telling her I had been hit by a car and she got all freaked out and said “oh my god what did you do?” and I said “First I did squats, followed by some leg presses, some stiff leg deads and then really burned it out with some leg curls”. I assumed she meant what did I do in the gym that day. Needless to say she started screaming at me for being an idiot. Yeah, tell me something I DON’T know mom.
If you think you are too old to learn new tricks in the gym. If you think that health club machines are the way to go. If you think that a highly experienced personal trainer can’t make a difference in your training. Just read this letter from one of my training clients I just received.
“Steve,
I have been reading your blog and enjoying your sense of humor. Your foot situation really has me concerned and I wish you the best on your recovery. As a 62 year old, I know you are at the point that you need to start recognizing that, although you are one strong dude, you are not invincible. But seriously, take care of that foot. On the subject of personal training, my four sessions with you were a real eye opener. We were doing really light weights but the squat, bench and dead lift really are a quantum leap from the machines I have been using at LA Fitness. I now have different goals for the next 12 months which include more free weights and the power lifts. So I agree with your feelings about PT and the squat. It sets a tone for working with you and helps the student to get a sense of perspective as far as training goals and how much effort the student might be willing to put into training. I am sure that you recognize that you are at a totally different level than other trainers and from the standpoint of what is commercially popular, you are at an extreme. For me, due to my age and realization of my limits, it has been good. For others it might be overwhelming. Maybe you are cutting me a break due to my age, etc. but I think your rates are really low for the knowledge and experience you offer. I was quite surprised when you quoted your rate. Best regards and good luck with your foot and the business. I will see you soon. I have enjoyed working with you.
Best regards, Tony”
Tony is a guy who doesn’t even belong to Iron Sport Gym as a regular member because of a long commute. He contacted me because he was training at LA Fitness and got bored with sitting on the same old machines just pushing and pulling mindlessly. When he made up his mind that he wanted to step up his strength levels he asked the trainers at his gym and nobody could help him. He searched the internet and discovered Iron Sport Gym, after reading and looking at the photos he soon realized that this was the place he had to be. His first workout with me was really an eye opener for him but he hung tough and welcomed the humbling experience. Tony knew that the things I was teaching him were the next logical step in his training and the path to achieving his goals. He has since progressed both working on his own and by stopping by here and there for more workouts with me. I really didn’t cut him a break on price for training, I don’t feel the need to charge an arm and a leg for that kind of stuff.
If anyone that reads this wants to do a training session with me just email me at: steve@ironsport.com and we’ll set up a time.
Thanks Tony!
So there have been some recent updates to my general health and well being lately. My right foot that has been killing me for a month has gotten worse and worse. The knob that we thought was a bunion growing on my foot has turned red and the pain underneath was getting unbearable. The skin eventually broke open and it was all weepy so it was apparent that it was some kind of infection. I tried to self treating it with hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin but it kept getting worse. “Why didn’t you go to the doctor right away?” you are asking yourself. Because I have this belief that I really don’t think that anything I can’t see can actually harm me. Things like: germs, radiation, cancer, spirits and most of the inert gasses. The feeling of superiority all goes along with the invincibility package. I had myself upgraded back when I started lifting weights as a youth.
Eventually things did get so bad and I was forced to make an appointment to see Dr Corwin who is my main man and the doc that did my most recent ankle surgery. He took one look at it and pretty much confirmed that it was a very bad infection right away. So bad in fact that he wasn’t sure if we caught it in time. He dug into the festering skin and peeled away layers of damage to get to the puss and let it ooze out. He then dug a little something out and held it up and asked me if I have a white dog. I do have a large white dog. He told me what had happened was that a while ago I stepped on something that punctured my skin and a dog hair had gotten in there and the skin healed over it. The bacteria from the dog hair infected the whole thing and that’s what caused it…..FUCKING BUSTER!
Since I was an idiot and waited too long to seek medical help I’m now involved in a whole world of fucked. I needed to get a heavy antibiotic in me ASAP to even have a shot at containing this thing. I already went and picked it up and took the first pill in my car as soon as they gave it to me. If in two days it doesn’t get better I will be off the ER to get hooked up to IV antibiotics for god knows how long. I also need to put some anti-bacterial ointment on it and pack gauze around it twice a day.
But, at least the intense pain in my foot wasn’t not enough to keep me from doing something really stupid in the weightroom and hurting myself yesterday. After doing all my cleans, high-pulls and squats I was doing some high rep box jumps and when fatigue finally set in on the last set I completely bit it and didn’t quite make it high enough. I came crashing into the lead edge of the box and tore a nice chunk out of my shin. All my precious infected blood came pouring out all down my leg. Picture my doctor just shaking his head when I showed him that open wound.
The worst part about all this going to the doctor crap was that while I was gone something really funny happened in the gym and I missed it. My brother Photo Joe was watching the place for me and he said that what appeared to be a hooker came into our vestibule. She took her top off and changed her shirt in full view of the guys in the weightroom. Unfortunately Photo Joe totally dropped the ball and failed to get a picture of that. You guys know I would have gotten one though if I was here!
Dr Chris Corwin working on my festered foot. Looks happy doesn't he?
My busted up shin after a failed box jump.
If you hire me and pay me good money to personal train you, I reserve the right to make your first workout a leg workout....and it will include squats.
…..discuss.
The Allentown Highland Games were pretty much a total bust. Very light turnout of competitors this year. I was looking for a lot of guys to really push me along but that didn’t really happen. I more or less threw like crap too. I was all over the place with my weight throws. But I did well in the caber and was really on with the sheaf. I easily went over 30’ in the sheaf but had to stop there again due to this weird thing that is going on with my neck. From the very first warm up throw my neck just spasms up. That weird motion of throwing the sheaf is the only thing that ever hurts it like that. I don’t think I have any meets now until early September so I really should practice between now and then. Any takers? I hate practicing alone.
Iron Sport will unveil a new part time employee tonight. Her name is Emily and I’m really hoping she will be a big asset to the place. She is super friendly with a great personality. I’m sure it will take about two days before all the single guys down here swear to their buddies that they have “a shot” with her but just try to calm yourselves. She will be working Tuesday and Thursday nights for now but I hope I can get her in here a little more as time goes on. I’ll try to get a picture of her to post on here tonight.
The weekend is coming up and I’ll be at the Allentown Highland Games tomorrow. I guess I’m ready to participate but I actually haven’t thought about anything throwing related since the last weight hit the ground in my last contest. I don’t know why, I have just been focusing on other stuff. Who knows, maybe not even thinking about will give me a big performance tomorrow. My training in the gym has really been lackluster the last couple of weeks too. I think sometimes I get caught up in a mode where I just worry about my business so much that just keeping the place from burning to the ground uses up any focus that I have. What hopefully will happen tomorrow is that I sleep well, wake up not thinking about the gym, drive up there and just cut loose and relax. If I’m relaxed everything will fall into place. My good highland games buddy Paul Ferency is coming out to watch and he always keeps the mood fun. Plus, if I don’t do well Ferency will heckle me mercilessly.
Full report on the weekend happenings on Monday.
Iron Sport Gym has always been know for housing some of the most brutally strong guys to walk the planet. Guys who workout like that usually cause a lot of mayhem and damage. We have always had a reputation as a place where anything goes and usually does. I always said that NOTHING could ever shock me anymore and I have seen it all. Today I walked in and the place was in the usual fucked up state that it is in every morning I come in. Weights and kettlebells all over the place, the post squat workout Jeff Fiss chalk drift near the squat racks, chalky hand prints and spit all over the mirrors, dog hair from Howard’s dog, gum on the floor, empty sports drink bottles….etc. The weight room is usually reminiscent of the Double Deuce after a massive brawl before Patrick Swayze came in and cleaned house. But I’m used to coming in and cleaning all that up so it’s nothing new. But when I ventured into the women’s locker room to clean up I couldn’t believe what I saw. The commercial grade toilet paper holder that is firmly secured into the wall with anchors was forcefully torn away from the wall! Some girl was just so enraged in there that she went nuts and just tore up the stall. I have no idea how or why this could have happened. Who ever caused this couldn’t have possibly been any crazier than me when I’m battling a deeply clogged shitter as somebody else’s poop water is splashing into my mouth. And I have never got pissed enough to bust up the wall. What would drive a woman to the brink of madness like this?
If anyone has any information on what happened please email me because I’m sure my night guy that was here at the time has no fucking clue….go figure.
Origins of Iron Sport Part 5
We never expected our garage gym in Norwood to become such an underground success. Our little secret gym was getting pretty well known. As guys like myself and Walt Gogola became more well known names in strongman and Highland Games contests at a professional level Iron Sport became known around the country as a breeding ground for strongmen. It also became apparent that the guys in our area had a thirst for a great, well equipped gym without the hassles of health club mentality. Joe and I decided to take the next step and started looking for a bigger building. We looked in Essington, Aston and a few other places and just couldn’t find anything we wanted. Just down the street from our Norwood gym was the building we are in now. At the time it was a motorcycle parts store and was called Bikers Depot. It was a newly expanded building that I always thought would be a perfect size for a gym but it wasn’t available. One day, just months after they expanded the building, I drove past it and saw a real estate sign on it saying “AVAILABLE”. My heart was pounding, I called the real estate agent up immediately and asked him to find out the details. In December of 1998 we inked the lease and we got the keys.
Unfortunately it was months before our landlord would actually move all his Bikers Depot crap out of our building. In the meantime we hired an architect to plan out the revisions we would need to do to turn this place into a gym. I was so hyped about this project that I would come into the building every night and just sit here in the dark and imagine what it was going to be like when it was a gym. It was my baby and I had big plans for it. Actual construction finally got underway but it could happen fast enough for me. Some major infrastructure changes had to take place to put in drains for the locker rooms and make the cardio area look presentable. For months all I ever heard when I ran into people was “Hey, when is the new gym going to open?” One day I got pulled over on I-495 by a Delaware State trooper who I never met before, he saw my name on my license and said “Hey, when is that new gym going to open?” I didn’t even know what to tell people at first because it took so long I had no idea when our date was going to be.
Finally an end to the waiting was in sight and my contractor projected a date for me. We firmed up the grand opening date of May 3rd 1999. There were many long nights towards the end putting together all the equipment, lugging around all the rubber matting and cleaning up after the construction. I just remember staying here with the people I tricked into helping me for 18 hours a day trying to get it all done. We opened with a bang and the place was hopping from day one. I can still remember that first night, Joe and I were nervous, what if nobody came? We couldn’t be more wrong, we couldn’t sign people up fast enough. All of our old Norwood members came over with us and everybody else wanted to join to see what the hype was all about. There was finally a “real” gym in town, all others were just pretenders
At the time that we opened the new gym I was still working full time during the day. I placed my right hand man and my highland games travel buddy Rich Costello in here as my day manager and boss of bosses. Between Myself, Rich and my brother Joe we had this place running like a well oiled machine. Joe would open the gym early in the morning and Rich would come in at 8:00. I would work 8:30 – 5:00 at my day job, drive here, work 5:00PM – 11:00PM and then lock up and mop the locker rooms and clean the gym. I kept that up for three straight years! That is some hardcore dedication but I loved it.
As time went on we expanded our strongman equipment collection, more and more serous lifters and strongmen started traveling from far and wide just to train here. The fact that we had most of the strongman equipment in the gym for anyone to use is what really put us on the map. No other gym in the country at that time had anything at all like that. You see gyms like Iron Sport somewhat now but seven or eight years ago it was almost unheard of.
Rich Costello stayed on with me for a few years and decided to move on. It was great having my best friend running my gym and having my back plus everyone here absolutely loved him. Dennis Kelley came in to fill Rich’s shoes after he left and also did a great job running the gym for a few years. These guys built the foundation of what we are all about here, a friendly no hassle gym experience. I eventually left my day job and became a fulltime gym owner and I am finally living my dream. I absolutely love running the place every day, seeing all the people come in and enjoy the gym. My biggest thrill is when I can finally scrape up enough money to buy new equipment here and there. I’m always looking to improve the gym for everyone and have big plans for the place in the future.
I’m not even going to go into a list of names of all the people who have made owning this gym the greatest thing that ever happened to me. The list would be way too long. The list of people that have helped to make this all possible would be very long as well. All of you know who you are and I can’t thank you enough. So many people have come through here throughout the years and have left an impression on me in some way. Some have stayed for a long time and have become close friends, and some have seemed to breeze through my life but each one has touched me in some way. These people not only have molded this gym but have also molded me as well.
A view of the where the locker rooms are now looking towards front desk
A view of the weightroom during construction
Big happenings at Iron Sport yesterday I just wanted to report on….First I’m at the counter sulking over the suck-ass training session I just had and a guy on the treadmill starts screaming “AHHH THE FUCKING TREADMILL IS ON FIRE!” I look over and thick black smoke is billowing out of the front where the motor is. The guy jumps off and I tell him to unplug it real quick.(because I’m smart like that) But I can see something glowing red through the slots in the front of it. I ran around because I have no idea where my fire extinguishers are and then when I found one I learned something else…..I had no idea how to use the stupid thing. It didn’t matter because the glowing ember inside seemed to have gone away and I really didn’t want to hose down my expensive treadmill’s delicate electric components. So for the rest of the day the whole gym smelled like an electrical fire.
The WWE is in town today and we always get a few wrestlers in throughout the day so that always creates a buzz. So after the 2:00 treadmill fire disaster was averted by my quick action in walks WWE wrestling legend Tony Atlas and “worlds strongest man” Mark Henry. Tony Atlas is 64 years old and looks UNREAL still. His arms are just as amazing as they were back in the 70’s when I first saw him wrestle on TV. The two of them were super friendly to all the guys here and it just added some excitement to a normally boring day.
Mike Barcelone poses with Tony Atlas
Mark Henry with Mike Barcelone and Benny Cangelosi
Origins of Iron Sport Part 4
One day in 1995 my brother Joe and I got to talking about how we were getting of tired of working out in sucky health clubs and how much we could do better. We also wanted a place where all of our lifter friends could call home and not get hassled by health club employees for lifting hard, using chalk and making noise. We made a very loosely devised plan to rent some garage space and both put up some money to purchase equipment. We had originally had our eye on a large warehouse in Woodlyn PA that needed a lot of cleaning up but was cheap. We wanted a place that was cheap enough so we could pay the rent with the minimal amount of members and keep it as a private club. The deal for that space went sour at the last minute and we ended up taking some garage space next to a body shop in Norwood PA. The body shop was more expensive but nicer and perfect for our needs. We knew we would just need to open the gym up to more guys paying $32 a month each to make ends meet.
One of the first things I did after we decided to open the gym was consult with my hero and mentor in the gym business at the time Dr Ken Leistner. Ken was a well known strength coach, author and had just opened up the coolest gym I had ever seen called Iron Island Gym in Long Island NY. He guided me along to get started and I even purchased half of my old equipment from him. It was all a gay shade of purple but it was good stuff that we got cheap. The only equipment that I got from him that is still in the gym today are the purple Kell squat racks. Ken also advised me to use York for all my barbells and plates and that was the greatest move I made in that initial purchase. York makes great long lasting stuff, it’s indestructible and will be with me as long as the gym is around.
The rest of the equipment I purchased was from a company called Reflex. We got some really monster sized power racks, benches and a few other machines made up by them. The power racks we have today are still those same ones from that purchase. Joe and I drove out to York with a rental truck and a couple buddies and picked up the bars and plates. We also stopped at a place on the way back and got the thick rubber mats for the floor. We weighed that truck down so bad that the brakes could barely stop the damn thing. Setting up the gym didn’t take long at all and we were up and running in no time. We even had a small kick-off party in August of 1995 as a grand opening. I still remembering taking my first workout all alone in that gym and good it felt.
Our idea was that this gym be a key club and members had full 24/7 access. We would collect dues and if you were current you got that month’s code to the lock. It really worked out well and over time as word of mouth spread more and more guys would come in. The only rule was that somebody we knew had to vouch for you and you were granted entry. We had no sign on the door so that we didn’t attract any walk in traffic because nobody really worked there. Some of the early members of that gym still make up the core of Iron Sport today: Ben Cangelosi, Mike Barcelone, Pat Hilferty, Mike Smith, Joe Dean, Shawn Boylan, Jason Smyth…etc.
We had some awesome workouts in that little place as well as some great times. It became a clubhouse for adult men. Even when we weren’t working out we would just all hang out down there. I installed a security camera and we never once had any theft or problems like that. It was around 1996 in that gym that the idea for “Total Night” was born. A few of us were kicking around the idea of just maxing out on the three power lifts on a Friday night after we all got off of work. We just called it Total Night and there were maybe 10 of us involved in that first one. It then became a big thing that we did every few months. All the guys who weren’t participating brought down cases of cold beer and maybe a friend or two and just cheered us on, so it more or less became a big party. We also had a website way back then. Thanks to my brother Joe being into this new thing called the internet we were one of the first gyms to have a website. We would post pictures of our antics on our site and soon the name Iron Sport had spread throughout the world!
Our first little gym had a good run but in a few years we saw the opportunity to expand.
Coming up next….Iron Sport 2.0
Ben Cangelosi flips over the AC/DC tape on our hi-tech sound system (left) Shawn Boylan presses while Bret spots him (right)
 
Origins of Iron Sport part 3
Due to the untimely demise of my home headquarters The Power Shack in 1988 I was a lifter searching for a home. I kicked around working out here and there but then finally settled on the Sports Club in Ridley. I say “settle” because it was a health club and not really a gym at the time. The weightroom was a small area tucked into a small corner of the main exercise room circa 1988. The only thing I liked about it at that time was I pretty much had the whole free weight area to myself and it was only a two minute drive from my house.
Over time more and more guys were lifting in the free weight area and an old Power Shack buddy of mine named Mark Zecca was the manager of the place. So due to popular demand, and some pull that I had there, they just kept expanding the free weight area more and more. After a few years we actually had a lot of equipment and a pretty good training environment going. And by “pretty good” I mean we had more meatheads in there than non-meatheads. As time went on my competitive juices started flowing again and I started lifting heavier and heavier and in the early 90’s started doing some strongman contests.
I guess I kind of spearheaded the mayhem that all started in there because I was the unofficial leader of the meatheads. But when you leave a group of guys alone in a weightroom well outside of the eyesight of the people who work there things quickly get out of control. The whole gym would be trashed, plates and dumbbells were constantly left strewn about the floor. We also jimmied the door open where the radio receiver to the whole club was and cranked it up real loud at night and would get yelled at my the management. There were also a lot of senior citizens that belonged there and they all hated us and would complain all the time. As more women joined the gym would look like a night club after hours, people would be hooking up all over.
At around 1991 I met a guy there who I thought was pretty talented. Ben Cangelosi was just a kid out of high school at the time but I could see this young guy had some real natural horse power. He was only about 240lbs but was benching close to 500lbs. Ben would go on to be the very first member of Iron Sport Gym when I started it and is still here bigger than ever today.
Always having the idea of opening my own gym someday I did learn something while I was there from the owner Dave Cohen. Dave’s business model seemed to be “give the people what they want”. Dave is a great business man and is keen to pick up what parts of his club that were popular and he would expand or improve that area and make it better for his clients. I also learned that if guys think you aren’t watching them they will not take care of the gym. Nobody that worked there ever ventured back to the weightroom to check on us and the ones that tried usually got ran out of there by the meatheads working out there. I remembered that one key problem and planned on a way to remedy it when laying out the current Iron Sport.
As my training got more and more serious and I started competing in bigger and bigger things I started talking to my brother about opening our own little place. The Sports Club was ok, but I was ready for bigger and better things.
This is what I had to put up with trying to be hardcore at a health club....
Origins of Iron Sport Part 2
In 1985 I was just walking through the Granite Run Mall and they just happen to be having one of those cheezy health fairs that day. I was minding my own business, probably scoping babes, when I was stopped by a couple of the exhibitors, I guess they noticed my "enourmous potential", either that or it was my stylish clothing. They had just started their own gym in Clifton Heights PA Called The Power Shack. I couldn’t believe there was actually a gym run by powerlifters for powerlifters nearby so my brother and I immediately jumped ship from Ryan’s. Nobody ever leaves Ryan’s so it was a real shock to my buddies there that I did that. I was 19 and really serious about lifting and I saw that these Power Shack guys were really going in that direction. Plus I was always looking to glean knowledge from older lifters and I wanted to learn what these guys knew.
The gym itself was on the second floor of an old factory building, in a questionable neighborhood along the railroad tracks. We shared the second floor with a little kids gymnastics school and we were right above a printing shop that was on the first floor. So every time one of us would drop a big deadlift it would rattle this old building which would result in two things happening: Debris would fall off of the ceiling below us and fall into the printing presses and we would get yelled at. Or we would disturb the gymnastics kids and a very tiny yet very mean woman named Betty Ann Cooper would come over at yell at us. The landlord eventually got sick of the other tenants complaining about us so they moved us to the one floor building next door that was better suited to our antics. The only redeeming part of the building’s location was that it was also right across the street from the Rosati’s Water Ice factory and they had a little street-side window that they would sell goodies out of. So our post workout meals in summer would be cherry water ice and soft pretzels.
The Power Shack was a really cool and fun atmosphere. The two owners Jim Gallagher and Bill Brown were both competitive lifers and were really helpful to all the lifters. Our gym would host some really great power meets and top lifters from the area would all come and lift. A lot of our core team lifters were nationally ranked in the ADFPA federation, Bill Brown, Jim Gallagher, Tony “Beef” Ardito, myself, Dave Pride, Mike Cancro, Bill Bendon, Steve Spader, Joe Santoloquito, Mindy Axelrod…..etc. We would travel to meets as a team and have all kinds of wild adventures.
The one thing Jim and Bill really weren’t though is astute businessmen. Like a lot of small gym owners they also had regular day jobs and the gym was just a part time venture for them. Even though I was still only 19 years old I could see things that they had done wrong. I even tried helping by working weekends for them here and there for free just to help keep the gym alive. I could see that the gym was taking a back seat to things that were going on in the rest of their lives and the business was starting to fail. By 1988 they had to close the doors on that version of the Power Shack. Some of the core members had kept some of the equipment that they owned and went back to the original roots of the “shack” and rented a garage in the middle of an alley and started just a “key club” private gym.
By this time I just ready to have my first daughter Alyssa and after the Power Shack folded I had been kind of over the whole powerlifting thing and didn’t really follow the other guys to the garage. A health club near my new house had just put in a small free weight area so that’s when I joined the Sports Club in Ridley PA. Stay tuned for part 3
Some of the Power Shack team members 1985
Me (left) with Tony "Beef" Ardito (center) and Bob D'Antonio (right) after a bench meet.
Today I thought I would go into a little bit about the origins and history of what we now know as Iron Sport Gym. This will be a multi part series because no one will ever read the whole thing at once because it’s probably going be boring as hell.
My brother Joe and I started our fascination with lifting at a very early age. All throughout our early teens we did our lifting in our basement and in the basements and garages of our buddies. Sometime around 1979 we convinced our parents to buy us a 410lb York Olympic set and our house became the gym of choice among our friends. That York set along with the precariously flimsy York squat stands and our toy store bench became the first rudimentary Iron Sport Gym.
Following our Uncle Fred and Strength and Health magazine’s example we started doing mostly Olympic lifts in our training. On nice days we would drag the York bar and some weights outside in the back yard so we could do full lifts without hitting the basement ceiling and also drop the bar without cracking the floor. On nice summer days it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see eight or ten teenage wannabes in our yard having an impromptu strongman contest of some sort. Yes, we were the biggest dorks in our neighborhood.
In late 1981 we out-grew the basement gym and joined a local gym in Norwood Pa called Ryan’s Gym. This place was locally famous because it was where IFBB pro bodybuilder Ron Teufel trained. (www.ronteufel.com). It was also the only gym in Delaware County at the time. It was a hole in the wall but I had some awesome workouts in the five years I was there and met some people that I’m still friends with today. Ryan’s was also were I was introduced to the sport of powerlifting. Even though I was just a 15 year old kid the older lifter took me under their wing and started taking to me to power meets with them. I know Ryan’s wasn’t my gym but I always had pride in it like it was, it was during those years that I knew I wanted a place of my own.
Photo below is my brother Joe doing what loosely resembles a snatch during one of our back yard sessions.
Below is me at 18 deadlifting at Ryan's Gym in 1984
Side story: My brother and I also cemented our legacy into Ryan's Gym history books by having a knock down drag out fight in the gym that people still talk about to this day.
Side story number two: I KICKED his ass!
Part 2 tomorrow
A lot of visitors come into Iron Sport from time to time when they are traveling through Philly. Master strongmen competitor Mike Hemlepp was sent to Philly for a business conference this week. He had heard about the gym via the many strength websites and of course through the competitive exploits of all of our members. He contacted me via email the other day and asked if he could swing by and maybe get in some event work on the strongman equipment. He stopped by yesterday and trained his ass off. I love it when guys (or girls) can walk in as strangers and just feel so at home and it was like we have known them for years like we did with Mike yesterday. Here is an email that I got from Mike today:
"Dude! I had a great time yesterday and was very stoked to get my 300+ lb log clean and press! I still have a long way to go, but I am at least going in the right direction!!
I think that we are planning to come and train with your yoke and farmers this afternoon. Maybe do some leg work so that I can get some quad endurance which I am really working on. I think we will be coming about five or six o’clock.
Your gym is awesome.
Did you once compete in the Worlds Strongest Man Contest? Did I read that correctly??
Mike"
First of all, I’m going to overlook the fact that Mike didn’t know I competed in the Worlds Strongest Man Contest. But you gotta love that kind of feedback, it really put some wind in my sails today and I almost feel like cleaning some stuff around here now. Who knows, maybe i'll put some more toilet paper in the men's room or clean up the dog hair from Howie's dog.
Pictured below is Mike turning a car over in a recent contest.
I just want to do an update on my foot. As many of you know, last summer two tendons in my ankle ruptured and had to be surgically repaired. It ended up being quite an extensive procedure that involved also cutting and slightly relocating my heel to straighten out my whole foot. The surgery was done by Dr Chris Corwin and that was at the end of August 07. I spent a long time post-op rehabbing, wondering if it will ever be the same again and soul searching. I kind of gave up any hope that I would ever throw in the highland games again but knew that I could get back to the point where I could at least lift weights normally.
At the start of ’08 as I began walking a little more normal I was able to work on some cardio. My bodyweight had really gotten high due to inactivity and that wasn’t helping my ankle heal at all. I started dropping weight at around 322lbs and within just five months had gotten down to 275lbs. My ankle was getting better with every pound I lost and I stepped up my training little by little. I even got so brave as to take one of my throwing weights out in the parking lot and try some spins and it didn’t hurt the ankle at all. I just started taking my training further and further and eventually competed again in May of ’08. Finishing that meet and putting up respectable numbers was a personal victory for me.
A lot of you have seen me training in the gym, snatching, cleaning, pressing, squatting, box jumping…etc. Some of you have seen me throwing and competing like a mad man. But what you don’t see is the damage that is still going on with my foot under the shoe. It has not been a free ride and I think I may actually be mangling my foot up pretty bad. I wouldn’t be surprised if I am going to need some off-season surgery to repair it. The photo below shows what it looks like after I vacuum the gym for an hour. You can imagine what it looks like after I train and compete. I’m also growing a pretty painful bunion on the outside of my foot near my smallest toe. I still can’t wear just any shoe or sneaker due to my foot instability. I had to do some research and find the widest and stiffest soul sneaker made which is New Balance 854 6E. They aren't the most cutting edge stlyish kicks in the world but at least I can almost walk normally in them.
Hopefully my foot doesn’t get any worse than it is now. I would love to go one full year with NO surgery.
This past Saturday was the Blue Crest Highland Games, he is a short recap….it was HOT! Here is a longer recap: I had an ok day, I know I bitched about this enough that day but the throwing area was a little downhill and slanted off to the left. So on my stone and weight for distance events I would was taking one slow, safety throw and then would toss two huge bomb fouls. I just couldn’t stay behind the trig, my blinding speed and retard strength was just too much to contain. Sam Grammar who was running the show thought it would fun to do two cabers and he brought a nice one that we used for the scoring and then what looked like a live sequoia for a challenge caber. It was about 17’ long and seriously 250lbs, it just needed more drying time, possibly a year. For fun I picked it and gave it a go but it was ugly. The sheaf has been really messing with my neck this year. Even those 16lb bags are killing me, I took 27’ easily for the win and stopped. I don’t know what it is about that movement that just totally jacks my neck up but I hate doing it now. I really didn’t hold much hope for the 42lb weight for height, I had to sit for a while waiting for everyone else to go and the heat had really zapped me. My hamstrings were really cramping bad at this point too. I was opening up at 15’ and my first warm up throw did not feel good at all. My legs just wouldn’t budge but I loosed up and took my first throw and to my surprise my legs had a lot of snap. I went, 15, 17, 18-1/2 and then 20’ all successful on first attempts. I then raised the bar to 21’ but my body just shut down again due to the fatigue of the eight events and I didn’t make it.
Next up for me will be The Allentown Games in July 26th. It is being held as one of the events at the Lehigh Valley Sports Fest. I haven’t been there in years but it was a pretty nice venue the last time I was there so hopefully nothing has changed.
http://www.sportsfest.org/
I also just found out that on September 6th I’ll be competing at the Ligonier Highland Games as a pro. It’s an awesome festival in a beautiful part of western PA near Latrobe. So if any of my western PA homies are reading this I’ll be there battling it out.
http://www.ligoniergames.org/
Yes bitches it’s going to be a big weekend for me. A weekend without the sound of weights clanking, without the smell of Kirk Nowack’s rancid rehbands, without having to battle the shitter like Captain Ahab battling Moby Dick, without having to clean human filth off of the cardio machines, without having to write these blogs….etc.
I’m going to almost feel like your average American and NOT be in a gym on the weekend. And to really put the icing on the cake…..I’ll be outside doing some stuff, I usually don’t like to do stuff but I’m kind of in one of those moods for some stuff. This was such an uneventful and boring week at the gym due to the holiday and cool people taking exciting and exotic vacations so it will be good to do stuff and break up the monotony. Did I mention that I will be doing “stuff” this weekend?
I’ll be at the prestigious Blue Crest Highland Games in Long Valley NJ all day tomorrow. I will be once again showcasing my remarkable athletic prowess as I make it rain sadness and regret down on my opponents. I attribute my success to a combination of crazy retard strength and old man experience while verbally taunting my competition until I get into their heads, build three houses and then construct a hotel in there. I pity them already.
I am having severe bloggers block today. Not too much really going on to write about. This reminds me of when I was just a little Stevey P in junior High. Every year we would have this english class assignment that would also be a school wide short story contest. And every year, in my mind, I was going to write the greatest story ever told, my teacher would read it, I would win the contest, chicks would dig me and I would then have movie studios fighting each other to buy the rights. What really happened was I would take out a fresh piece of loose leaf, start writing, get all into it, my tongue would be sticking out, I would also be making sound effects while I scribbled onto the paper. But realistically what was really happening was that I would be writing some incoherent piece of crap (much like now). I would then hand it in with a confident smile on my face like the douchy kid from ‘A Christmas Story’. All there was to do after that was sit back and wait for the many awards and accolades to roll in.
After a week or so the class would get our stories back after the teacher was done grading/harshly judging them. Even though every year I thought for sure I was going to win they would throw me a pity grade like a C-. Of course she would also patronize me by writing “Nice story Stevey!” like I was five. Damn, I knew I should have drawn a picture on the bottom! You can never go wrong with some poorly drawn visual aids.
One other thing you would be rewarded with if you were nerdy enough to actually win (I know, I’m still bitter) was they would print your story in the school newspaper for everyone to read. The kids that won every year were like Steven King, Mark Twain and Shakespeare all rolled into one. They were like freaking professional writers! Afterwards I would go back and look at my pathetic attempt at writing a story and be like “what the hell was I thinking?” It would look like a first grade “special kid” wrote it with a dull crayon.
It was right around that point in my life that I started lifting weights. I figured if I couldn’t match wits with these kids at least I could lord my physical superiority over them on a daily basis.
I was on my nightly walk with my dog Buster at the school near my house. As Buster was busy giving free piggy back rides to every tick in a five block radius I was noticing a bunch of kids having soccer practice. There must have been twenty kids just kicking a few balls around. Nothing really too exciting to watch yet there were at least thirty spectators there in lawn chairs watching intently. Since these kids were about seven years old I assumed these people weren’t pro soccer scouts from Europe and they must have been their parents. It just got me thinking about how different things are now from the childhood that I had.
I grew up in suburban Pa just outside of Philly in the 70’s. There were a ton of other kids within just a few blocks from our house and my brother and I had a lot of friends. All we ever did was play sports, the only difference is that when we wanted to play sports we did it on our own. We picked the sport, we picked the field, we picked the teams, if you were a spaz and nobody wanted you then you were shunned by the cool kids and didn’t play. We made up the rules, we enforced the rules, we even made up new games when the field we played on didn’t allow room for a proper game. But the very LAST thing we ever wanted was our freaking parents around watching, helping or god forbid trying to play with us! Who the hell wanted their mom there watching us play hockey in the street? We wanted to yell, scream, fight and curse when we played. I remember one kid whose dad would come out and try to throw the ball around with him. We used to call him “the kid who is going to get beaten up as soon as his dad goes back in the house”. As far as we were concerned this ritual playing is how boys learn the circle of life to hopefully become men. The strong survived and the weak got eaten.
We also didn’t have to constantly stay ‘hydrated’ like kids today, yet no one I know ever got dehydrated. I really don’t know how we all survived without doting parents running around after us with bottled water, juice boxes, SPF 40 sun screen, first aid kits and bug spray…..if we were thirsty we drank out of the nearest dirty rubber hose, if the sun was out our skin turned brown, we bled freely and bugs bit us as well as setting up camp in our hair. Our parents would have never shelled out money for us to join a “league”, sell raffle tickets, or drive two hundred miles to sit in the sun all day watching us play. My old man worked hard all day, I couldn’t imagine him getting all fired up to drive somewhere to watch me and my crummy friends kick a ball. You can just forget about that shit happening.
Times really have changed.
You may know Howard Cox as the guy that opens Iron Sport every morning at 5:00AM and stays until I get here at around 8:00. He is basically my lifeline to a couple more hours of sack time and sanity every weekday. If it wasn’t for him I would have to get up at 4:00AM everyday to open the gym instead of getting up at 6:00 enjoying some home brewed coffee and petting my dog as I relax on my back porch. If it wasn’t for him that would mean that I would somehow have to be in bed BEFORE I actually get home from work at night. If Howie didn’t exist I would literally be at the gym every waking hour plus a few that I should be sleeping thrown in. So anytime of day or night that my cell phone rings and I see the name “Howard Cox” show up on the caller ID the first (and only) thing that comes to mind is “FUCK!” Because he only calls me for one reason, to tell me he isn’t making it in to open the gym. These calls usually come in at 4:45 in the morning so my day starts as a furious, showerless scramble with me cursing, screaming and running around in the dark trying to find clothes to put on. I then have to jump in my Jeep and race my ass to the gym like an idiot because god forbid those doors aren’t open precisely at 5AM and people can’t come in and walk painfully slow on the treadmills, poop and take long hot showers.
Well, our boy Howard now has a dilemma, last Thursday he was involved in a car accident (that was 100% his fault). The end result was that he totaled his only mode of transportation. Of course this all happened the day after he had cancelled his collision insurance on his policy to save money. His timing couldn’t have been more perfect, and he saved a ton of money….for his insurance company. He tried to talk to his insurance agent to see if there was anything they could do and they pretty much laughed at him. I think Willie Wonka put it best when he said:
“You LOSE! You get NOTHING! Good day sir!”
Now every day is touch and go whether he is going to make it in or not. I live in a constant state of fear that my cell phone is going to ring and my head will explode. He has already told me today that he can’t make it in tomorrow so I’m prepared for that little slice of heaven. But this is really what I need, if there is anybody out there reading this that can sell or possibly donate him a cheap vehicle of some sort that would really help a brotha out. Of course when I say "brotha", I’m talking about MEEEEE!
If you see me and I look beat today, it’s because as do many guys that are large (and in charge) I suffer from Sleep Apnea. That means not only do I snore like a bastard but I never really get into a deep REM sleep during the night. I went to Riddle Hospital some years ago and did the sleep study there to determine how bad my sleep was. They made me sleep there for two nights with a hundred wires all over me and determined that I was basically waking up all night long. The cure for that problem is torturing me by making me wear a CPAP machine. CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure and it drives air down into your throat all night keeping it from relaxing and closing. As you can see in the picture below it looks like a jock strap that you wear on your head with a big mask in front and you are tethered to a machine. And let me tell you nothing is sexier than bringing a chick back to your place and her seeing hospital equipment on the night stand. I used to try to play it off like it was some really kinky sexual device but they never really bought it. That machine coupled with my own lackluster sexual prowess it’s a wonder I ever got a girl into my bed more than once.
It is such a major drag wearing the head gear because it’s just so fucking annoying so I usually end up not wearing it most nights and then I feel like crap the next day. Another handy trick I use for my sleeping problems is Lunesta, it is an awesome prescription sleep aid. Lunesta may or may not contain actual crack, but I can’t definately confirm that. Two minutes after I pop one of those suckers and I am floating around like that big moth on the commercial. Which is ALSO not the ideal conditions for a hot, porno quality sex life. The second my head hits my Dan Marino temperpedic pillow and I strap on my medicinal helmet I am in the netherworld. I’m like a hibernating, no sex having Darth Vader once I get to bed. Yep, my wife is a lucky gal.
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