Sex, Steroids, and Arnold: The Story of the Gym That Shaped America

This slid off the front page pretty damn quick - the culture so deftly portrayed is probably almost as alien here as anything short of martians ...

This bit in the middle is striking:

Charles Gaines (author of Stay Hungry and co-author of Pumping Iron): Among other things that’s not widely understood about bodybuilders, I think, is how good they feel. Working out they have these endorphins cascading their bodies. They’re eating enough meat for a male lion every day, and lying in the sun and screwing whoever they want to screw. It was a kind of paradise. They’re always tanned and they’re in great shape. That sense of physical well-being and pure physical pleasure was a big part of that scene.

Drasin: We’d go to the Marina on Friday and Saturday nights to pick up women. Donkin’s Inn, Charlie Brown’s, Captain’s Wharf, The Warehouse. They’d go crazy over us. They’d never seen anything like it.

Bill Pettis (bodybuilder): I had like 10 girlfriends. I said, “Jane, you’re Tuesday. Sally, you’re Wednesday.” We were broke, but we lived like kings.

What follows is more sordid, but still recalls gladiators, minus the bleeding ...

A surprisingly large amount of commentary on business and being at the right place at the right time, too:

Joe Weider was an excellent promoter. Hoffman wasn’t. That made the difference. Weider began to create more romance—he had a sharp eye for photography—and he was a better businessman than Hoffman. The one thing I respected about Joe Weider was, he gave everybody an opportunity to do something with themselves. He gave us exposure. It was up to you to take advantage of it and do something with it. Many bodybuilders expected money to fall to them. That ain’t the way it happens. You gotta get out and hustle your ass off. The ones who’ve prospered the most were guys who took advantage of the publicity and let that spill over to other aspects of their life.

I love the fact that these guys were so dedicated to their craft in the face of zero money and all the ridicule. I always enjoy seeing that kind of extreme motivation.

A good read, it gives insight into a specific period of time.

One quote that didn't make it comes from Marlon Darton, another giant of the day. Asked if he took steroids, Darton is said to have replied "Yes, I do. But so does everybody else."

Oh, that place. There was a restaurant across the street, on Speedway, that served ostrich. Bodybuilders were into that.

This was an awesome read. I watched Pumping Iron some years back, but this makes me want to watch it once more!