Another sent to me by a BB buddy from his early 1960 fame, Mr. Dave "Blonde Bomber" Draper ...... story pretty much sums up how sad the "sparkley, wanna-be, commercial" gyms are these days........
Gravity Was Different Then
It was yours. You owned it.
I watch the news -- I'm a glutton for punishment -- and am continually
discouraged by the lack of leadership, the absence of honor and the
deficiency of morals among our lawmakers and legislators. Their dismal
display of fairness, understanding and competence is frightening.
I'm reminded of a crowd of immature bodybuilding wannabes strutting
before polished mirrors and fighting over chrome equipment in a
24-hour gym at 5 PM. "I'm using that; he broke the cable; that's my
bench; they dropped the dumbbells."
Their behavior is juvenile, embarrassing and destructive. Let's get
back to the heavy lifting, bombers.
Let's get back to the gym.
I'll never forget those nasty 60s, the ones sitting crooked on the
splintery wooden racks in the dimness of the Dungeon. They were not
alone in uniqueness and construction, but they were the only ones that
fought back when pushed around. They were scrappers.
The dumbbells in the Dungeon went from the clanking 10-pounders to the
rumbling 150s. The 150s, long, thick and formidable, reminded me of
locomotives in a train yard: slow-moving black steel, hellishly noisy,
awesome in structure and built to perform a serious job. Only a few
burly iron-workers were equipped to engineer the monsters, and no one
questioned their authority.
The 150s didn't move far and didn't move often; they mostly sat still
and rumbled.
But Muscle Beach dungeonheads moved the fiendish 60s a lot -- curls,
presses, laterals, pullovers, kickbacks, rows and extensions. And
everybody bore the legendary scars. Raggedy beads of electric weld
circled the skinny one-inch-pipe handles, acting as inside collars for
the appropriate collection of loose-fitting plates piled on the ends.
The ends were fitted with washers, which were raggedly welded by the
same master steelworker, to secure the various 5s and 10s.
The wicked pair rattled like loose wheels on a Wal-Mart shopping cart.
True muscleheads will grab anything. The diligent lifter sneaked up on
the 60s in the dim light of the Dungeon and grasped the skinny-arse
handles with all their might, unconsciously hoping the stealthy
approach would catch the dumbbells off-guard. With bloodshot eyes and
clenched teeth, they wielded the toothy iron intensely, seeking a
burning pump and snarling frenzy sufficient to overcome their
carnivorous bite.
It seems the webbing of the hands found their way far too often
between the encircling weld and the loose, hungry plates, a howling
blood-fest of the lifter's grip.
Did I mention the pronounced burrs and slag on the end-plate welds
left by the Friday the 13th Chainsaw Welder? Brush up against those
little sharpies and you needed a tetanus shot and possibly stitches.
Hey, they beat the chrome-plated humdingers at the His ‘n Her Uptown
Health Spa on Wilshire Boulevard. I'd rather be gouged and pierced
than see my reflection in a pair of dazzling dumbbells.
I adored the lopsided and battered contrivances pieced together by the
Muscle Beach muscleheads. Lifting iron was on their minds, not the
invention and building of gym equipment... and it's not like they were
rolling in dough. But need has a way of backing a man into a corner,
and boards, hammers and nails and odds and ends go a long way in the
resourceful hands of the devoted muscle builder.
Nothing about the Dungeon was pretty -- dank, dark, crummy, eerie --
but everything about it was attractively ugly -- elemental,
prehistoric, bulky, honest.
There was one oversized incline bench-and-rack contraption pressed
against the far wall. Imagine several sheets of heavily weathered
plywood nailed together to form a large ugly box. Now, cut a
two-foot-by-three-foot section from the middle, and wedge in a mondo,
heavily reinforced homemade incline bench and overhead racks. Lookin'
good, streamlined and sleek.
Talk about need, the guys who built this Ark were heavy incliners, and
when 450 pounds came down and resisted going up as planned, they built
a place to put it. Big thud, loaded bar on plywood shelf surrounding
miffed lifter. From the looks of the bench, it worked, and worked
often. The thing was about to burst, a stomped-on shoe box.
I never saw it in use. It just sat there for three years, silent and
still, as far as I could see. Truth is, I didn't go in that general
direction, it being particularly dark, dank and creepy and all.
Clusters of webs had formed amid the beams above the van-sized incline
and an impressive hunk of ceiling plaster hung down one vibration from
plummeting to earth. The slightest movement of hush dungeon air caused
the spooky mess to quiver.
I ventured over once between sets, feeling my way about the shadows,
and dared to sit in the scary, unknown space. Sniff-sniff... something
died! Oddly, I had never seen rats in the subterranean gym and
suddenly entertained the thought that this is where they lurked. My
spine tingled. I looked overhead and imagined spiders with long grey
beards gathering in bunches in the dusty, wooly webs. I felt
paralyzed. Something fluttered. Could it be a bat?
How fast can a milk-fed 250-pound bodybuilder from New Jersey move,
you ask? Before you could say Steve Reeves, I was outta there and
doing adrenalin-induced wide-grip chins under the over-head skylight
near the wide-open rear door... 21, 22, 23, 24. Mercy!
The classic conglomeration was the Muscle Beach Gym's version of the
skate board. A hunk of plywood, probably left over from the Steve
Merjanian safety incline bench and mouse-house project, was fitted
with wheels from roller skates, one in each corner. A one-inch pipe
about three feet in length was attached to the bottom end of the 12" x
36" rectangle and set the assemblage upon a larger plywood rectangle,
3' x 5', that leaned against the wall.
Got it? Good for you! Plates were slid onto the pipe and the
skateboard hack squat was complete. The angle of the action was easily
adjustable and chosen according to risk and comfort and need. 75
degrees worked well.
It was amazing what the old-school musclebuilder endured to build
muscle. By the time I came on the scene, the Muscle Beach equipment
displaced to the 4th and Broadway Dungeon in fabulous Santa Monica was
worse for the wear. The Olympic bars were bent; few had ends that
revolved, and rust, though worn away by handling, had taken its toll.
The wood benches were splitting, braced and re-braced, bent nails
everywhere. They were so worn down the splinters were smooth. Covered
in red oil cloth, several of the benches had the craftsman's well-worn
plaid flannel shirt puffing out of tears along the edges.
Now look at us. Where has all the glory gone, long time passing? You
know where it's gone; where it always is, in the heart.
