Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Largely the Truth @ the 2011 Mr. Olympia Competition




You read that right.  Less than three weeks from now, on September 9, I will be firing up Etta, my sleek, silver Corolla S, and driving 2100km down the Veteran's Memorial Highway to Las Vegas for the 2011 Mr. Olympia Bodybuilding Competition.

The culture of bodybuilding has fascinated me since I started lifting weights six years ago.  The behavior I've seen in the gym, from simple preening to grunting that would make a rutting bull in the next room say, "There must be something serious going on over there", is as strange as it is hard to ignore.  Documentaries like Pumping Iron & books like Harrison Pope's The Adonis Complex - presenting as they do a world teeming with insecurity, neurosis and human bodies pushed to extreme - have only cemented that fascination.

Now I've decided to take in that world's biggest event - the Joe Weider Olympia Weekend 2011 at the Orleans Hotel & Las Vegas Convention Center.  My Silver VIP Package (keep your remarks to yourself) secures me access & reserved seating as follows:

  • Early Entry to Meet The Olympians - Thursday, Sept. 15, 7 PM
  • Olympia Weekend Expo - Early Entry - Friday, Sept. 16, 9:30 AM - 5 PM
  • Olympia Weekend Expo - Early Entry - Saturday, Sept. 17, 9:30 AM - 5 PM
  • Fitness / Figure / Bikini/ Ms. Olympia Judging - Friday, Sept. 16, 10:30 AM
  • Fitness Olympia Finals/Ms. Olympia Finals/Mr. Olympia Judging - Friday, Sept. 16, 7 PM
  • Olympia 202 Showdown - Reserved Seating - Saturday, Sept. 17, 10:30 AM
  • 202 Showdown / Figure Olympia Finals / Mr. Olympia Finals - Saturday, Sept. 17, 7 PM
  • Olympia Victory Gala, Saturday, Sept. 17, 11 PM

From my base of operations at the Circus, Circus Hotel & Casino I will be blogging events, uploading photos and generally trying to make sense of it all at largelythetruthmrolympia.wordpress.com.  You can also keep up with events via my twitter account @largelythetruth.

Meet Your Olympians:

Jay Cutler
Kai Greene
Phil Heath

Monday, August 22, 2011

Riptide, Body Condoms & the Jealous Sea - Surfing for Beginners


Come into my web, said the spider to the fly



The oceans are vast, cold, unknowable sirens that have called to men since the day we left the garden and as with all distant maidens we are drawn back each time in the vain hope that they will soften - that they will show us and only us some tiny token of affection.

Instead of affection, however, all the oceans have ever provided are krakens, tidal waves and a place for barrel-chested fishermen to avoid their wives, sometimes permanently.

It wasn't affection that I was after this past weekend as I stepped into the sea at Vancouver Island's Long Beach for my first day of surfing. Instead I was trying to figure out exactly how I had ended up in that spot, with my considerable bulk squeezed into a wetsuit, a rented surfboard under my arm and the vicious expanse of the Pacific Ocean before me.

Though I own a gym membership my day to day fitness regimen consists mostly of walking back and forth between the sofa and the fridge, so when my friends enticed me to join them on a surfing holiday I was apprehensive.

My first concern was the wetsuit - after all, a 260lb man in a neoprene body condom was the sight for which the word "ridiculous" was devised. And I did look ridiculous as I stood there on the beach, the hot Tofino sun beating down on my shiny pate, but then so did almost everyone else. Unless you're built like Armie Hammer the wetsuit will seek out your every imperfection and broadcast it to the 
Don't look directly at it
world whether they want to see it or not - like ugly people making out on a Jumbotron.

My other, more pressing concern was the sea itself.  In addition to being an ardent H.P. Lovecraft devotee I have seen Wolfgang Peterson’s The Perfect Storm several times and reason that if something can be both home to mighty Cthulu and executioner for bands of rugged seamen led by George Clooney then maybe it’s a bit beyond me.  Perhaps, I suggested to my friends, the surfing experience could be approximated by covering me in cling film and having me sit in a tub of cold water. 

The suggestion was pooh-poohed and I was accused of being “dramatic” but my apprehension remained and every time the sea hurled me end over end like a discarded cigarette butt I wanted to scream, “See what you’ve done, you bastards!  It took Swooney and now, for my hubris, it will take me too!”  That I survived is a testament not to the mercy of the sea but to the pleasure it takes in toying with its prey. 

The capriciousness of the ocean was confirmed when, once I’d gotten the hang of walking my board against the current and even managed to catch a wave or two, I noticed that my friends seemed to have swum a great distance away from me, and, strangely, so had the beach.  After a great deal of furious paddling failed to remedy the situation I realized that I had been caught in a riptide, which sounds like a sea-faring G.I. Joe villain but is actually an ocean current that pulls hapless idiots like me away from the beach and into Cthulu’s clutches. 

I don't know how but it looks hungry
I vaguely remembered being told that if you are caught up in a rip tide the worst thing you can do is try to swim directly towards the shore, against the current, and so, clinging to my board I tried to move diagonally towards a patch of ocean not intent on my murder.  My frantic movements brought me no closer to safety and the coldness of the water slowly gave way to icy tendrils of panic that worked their way up my spine. Every mouthful of seawater became harder to expel than the one before it - hoisting myself up on the board was only a temporary solution because the movement of the waves and my total lack of balance meant I could only stay atop for a few moments.  Suddenly I regretted paying in advance for two nights at the hotel.

It was then the sea tired of its sport and I felt a wave pushing me towards shore.  After reaching an area shallow enough for my feet to touch bottom a warm wave of relief washed over me and I heaved a great sigh standing there in the waist high water.  I was still standing there when the sea delivered one bracing final bitch slap and I decided to break for lunch.

Afterward I hesitated to go back into the water but eventually realized I didn’t have much choice; the final wave had knocked out one of my contacts and without it I couldn’t eye up toothsome young bathing beauties without closing one eye and squinting the other so I that I took on the aspect of a lecherous pirate.  Defeated, I pulled out my other lens then hauled my board and bulk back into the waves.

The jealous, frigid sea had made sure she was the only woman for me.


Run the other way, you idiot

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Recession? There's a Wicker Man For That


Alan Greenspan's early policies were his best


An update for those among you who are either wilfully ignorant or living in a system of caves near Peshawar: we are now in the midst of an economic recession. To the uninitiated, me included, this didn't sound so bad at first. After all as children recess was a frolicsome time free of supervision. When you learned whether you were going to spend your life being picked first, second, third for kickball or whether you were going to be more or less permanently pinned under the monkey bars by Booger the school leper. So I confess that when economists started bandying around the "R" word I got a little excited and started looking for my knee shorts and bobby socks. Then I learned that recess is different for adults: the kickball team doesn't take resumes and Booger's too busy repossessing cars to return your calls.

Despite having investments I am trying to pay as little attention as possible to these most recent stock market fluctuations.  If I wanted to tear out what little hair I have left trying to control things that are inherently impossible to control I would have had children.  Also, my understanding of the stock market has always been terrible, so my comprehension of the current situation is that US Debt & the Tea Party have hopped into their Fleetwood Brougham and driven off across the badlands of the NASDAQ taking potshots at lawmen and your 401(k). 

Really, I don’t even know what a 401(k) is other than it seems to serve the same purpose in your life as a dog in a country song: it’s the last thing the world takes from you before you decide to see what 9mm ammunition tastes like at speed.  I would love it if most newsreaders and television pundits currently discussing “the markets” would be as honest. 

Ben in simpler times
From everything I’ve heard, “The Markets” sound like the financial equivalent of a circus bear known for flying into unprovoked rages:  everyone tiptoes around the subject and keeps their voices low so as not to set it off but in the end they have just enough time to tell “Gentle Ben, no!” before another clown is sent to the big top in the sky.  The sole difference is that you can tranquilize the bear if “The Market” gets a wild hair it can easily bring down the whole circus.

The only other comparison I can think of is that of a pagan god – except even they could be sated with sacrifice.  If Poseidon was battering your ship with waves you could toss an ensign or two overboard and soon enough the sea would smooth out.  If your island commune had a string of failed crops you just duped Edward Woodward into a giant wicker man then set the bugger alight.  If the trees still didn’t bloom you called Nicolas Cage and did the whole thing again. 

It seems that there's no calming the market, however; no matter how much you rub its feet or bring it breakfast in bed it still won’t tell you what’s wrong, because “if you have to ask then you’ll never understand.” 

Despite this irrationality, the people in my television talk about the situation, dropping terms like “Chinese bond market” and “fiscal irresponsibility”, as though they have any more idea than I do about what’s going on or how to fix it.  There is a chilling vacancy in the eyes of those spinning bullshit about important things.  The next time you watch a news report about the economy, remember back to when your parents said, “...but mommy & daddy still love each other very much” and try not to spit out your Mr. Pib when you realize they all have the same look on their face – a mixture of fear, regret and the deep hope that we’ll all get out of this intact.

And we will.  But let’s build that Wicker Man just in case.  Does anyone have Nic Cage’s number?

Don't forget the bees.