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We've all seen this kind of über-macho "Alpha Dad" displaying his "Rules for Dating My Daughter" ... whether on facebook, other social media, or in real life. It masquerades as the loving concern of a father, but in actuality it is pathetic and cruel.
Here are a few examples, so that you know just what I'm talking about:
Let me outline for you some of the reasons I find this disturbing:
1. Its opening volley is steeped in hostility and violence. In the first image, the father is pointing a revolver at his daughter's prospective date. In the second, the father states his dislike for the young man, and later promises to repay him for whatever the date does to his daughter. I can imagine all kinds of hilarity stemming from a strict constructionist interpretation of Rule 10: "You shared a soda with her using two straws, so now I'm gonna ... uh oh." But the main point is the hatred. Is this the kind of society we really want to live in? One ruled by fear of being shot?
2. Whenever you, as a father, post something like this, IT IS AN ADMISSION OF THE CRAPPY JOB YOU HAVE DONE RAISING YOUR DAUGHTER! Obviously, you've raised the kind of daughter who is attracted to crackheads and other criminals. All your posturing proves this. I'm sorry you've been an incompetent father. MY daughter can actually be trusted to weed out the losers. That's the way we raised her. I'm sorry you were not able to do that.
3. This method is counterproductive: it only scares the good guys, the ones who respect adult authority. Thugs are thugs. They'd love the excuse to try and lay you out, and there is, of course, some chance that they are more of a badass than you are. Slight, perhaps, but not zero. In any case, the intimidation produced will be the strongest in exactly the type of young man you should be encouraging your daughter to spend time with.
4. Once a few good young men have had a close-up look at your shotgun and the trunk of your car (you moron) the word will get around that your daughter is not worth dating ... because her dad is a psycho. This is not going to help her in the long run.
5. I want to tread lightly here, but there is some sense in many of these cases of the father seeing the boyfriends as rivals. Maybe it doesn't have a sexual overtone, maybe it does, but it is at the very least a sick sort of possessiveness. NEWS FLASH: Your daughter never belonged to you. She is not your property. She is God's, and you have simply been granted the privilege of caring for her and providing for her for a short time.
So, in summary, men: KNOCK IT OFF!
Well, I guess it depends on what you consider a "contest." Nobody else showed up to compete in the Masters (over 40) or Grand Masters (over 50) bodybuilding classes, so I won both of them by default.
Here are some pics of how I looked on stage. My weight that day was 175 pounds. That means that I have put on about 23 pounds of lean muscle mass in just a little over 4 years. I am really happy with that!
I will be competing again this weekend, October 5, and expect a much larger turnout, so I am quite confident I will have several other bodybuilders to compete against.
Fans of the AMC series Breaking Bad have applauded it for its brilliant use of foreshadowing ... and they are correct.
It got me thinking: What events in the show so far may turn out to have been foreshadowing for quirky plot twists in the final episode? Without further delay, here are my Top 6 guesses.
6. Lydia sprains her ankle.
Foreshadowing: Many lengthy scenes of Lydia walking in high heels over questionable surfaces such as dirt and gravel.
5. Huell opens a Fat Camp.
Foreshadowing: Huell has been locked away under police protection for several weeks. If he has good "Before" photos of himself, he has a lucrative new business opportunity on his hands.
4. Jesse Pinkman becomes a Franciscan.
Foreshadowing: Throwing millions of dollars out of his car window for the poor to glean.
3. Marie murders Skyler.
Foreshadowing: Marie can't get to Walt, so she'll take revenge on Skyler. Let's be honest; Marie has been weaving in and out of sanity for the entire series.
2. Saul Goodman forms a psychedelic band.
Foreshadowing: The drive to wear garish clothing is coded deep in Saul's DNA. Identity change program notwithstanding, white shirts are not going to cut it for Saul.
1. Gretchen and Elliott get their comeuppance.
Foreshadowing: Let's face it - We've been carefully groomed to hate this slimy couple from the very beginning. It's time for them to face the music.
Here is a documentary that I will enjoy at least as much as Generation Iron: Oksana Grishina in "Winning Strength."
I don't know when or where this will be released, but I'm excited about it! This video clip has behind-the-scenes footage:
Last night I saw the much awaited pro bodybuilding documentary, Generation Iron.
This is the second "special interest" film I've seen in a theater this year. The first was Snake & Mongoose, and the films shared some interesting similarities. Both were guaranteed from the start to appeal deeply to the fanatics of their respective sports. Both were announced LONG before they actually made it to theaters. It seemed to take forever for the opening days to arrive. And both struggle, I believe, to appeal to a general audience beyond the hardcore drag race fans or bodybuilding afficionados.
Before arriving in the theater to see Generation Iron, I had read several online reviews. The consensus view was that the movie deserved 3 stars out of a possible 4. But after seeing the film, I would have to give it 4 stars out of 4. It surpassed my expectations.
Some complained about the pacing of the film (too slow), but I didn't get that sense. To me, the cycling around from one competitor to the next in semi-random fashion kept things interesting.
I have to say that I have never been a fan of Kai Greene. I think his physique looks blocky. I never have liked how ridiculously low his lats insert (just above the beltline!). And sometimes, in previous interviews, Kai has seemed to lose the thread of what he wanted to say, the original sense of it having vanished in some artistic fog. But in this film, he was coherent, never got lost, and was even eloquent at points. By the time the film ended, I still liked Phil Heath's physique better than Kai's, but I liked Kai much better as a person. The scenes of him painting were not only very dramatic, but beautiful to watch.
Some competitors I knew only from stage photos, and Generation Iron gave me the opportunity to know them as fully-orbed human beings. A case in point was bodybuilder Roelly Winklaar from Curacao. His unique relationship with his trainer, Sibil Peters, who Roelly refers to as "Grandma," was a high point of the film for me. The scene in which she chides him for staying up late at night on the internet and showing up for workouts tired is priceless.
Also priceless is the timing of the scene after which Branch Warren discusses the matter of injuries, and how most of his injuries have happened outside the gym.
One fantastic sub-plot which I truly enjoyed was the subtle Bro Science vs Official Science drama, the latter being embodied in the training of Ben Pakulski. During the film, Official Science Dudes in immaculate white lab coats have Ben hooked up to high-tech computers which show exactly how he should do each repetition to stimulate the scientifically optimized muscle growth. During one interview, Ben opines that only two of his competitors really stand a chance of beating him at the Olympia. But it is a beautiful set-up for the defeat of Science and Technology at the hands of Old Fashioned Blood and Guts (as personified by most of the other Olympia competitors, but perhaps none as much as Branch Warren, who specifically mentions character, brutal hard work, and courage as being more necessary than optimality as defined by official science). When Ben was not announced as one of the Top 10 for the Olympia, it seemed like a crushing defeat of Official Science by Bro Science. Ten bodybuilders who trained without computers hooked to them went back on stage that evening, but not Ben Pakulski, who finished 11th. But even here, the filmmakers are not heavy handed with the message, allowing the viewer to form his or her own conclusions.
I ended up the film really liking Pakulski. His speech on steroids was pithy and epic. "No you couldnt. You couldn't do what I do," it concludes. And he is right.
I liked getting to know Hidetada Yamagishi better. I'd seen him compete before at the Arnold. He seems to embody a kind of humility rarely found in bodybuilding, and I appreciated his struggle for something so difficult, when even his family does not seem to understand the importance of what he has achieved.
I have always liked Victor Martinez, both physique-wise, and as a person, and Generation Iron solidified those opinions in my mind.
I need to say a few words about Phil Heath. Now, I am not unaware that filmmakers manipulate characters (yes, even in documentaries) for their own ends, to make the story "better" than it actually is, and that may have happened here. But Phil's personality left me cold throughout this entire film. Every other competitor seemed to be on the Olympia quest for some sort of higher reason: God, family, vindication, art ... SOMETHING! But Phil Heath seems to have made it all about Phil Heath. The coolest thing, so he says, about a successful defense of his Olympia crown would be ... that it would make him, Phil Heath, feel like a god, like an Adonis. It seems a less than noble goal.
If you are a hardcore bodybuilding fan, you have probably already seen the film or are plotting how to get to a city where it is actually showing. If not, I would still recommend this film to you, as a very fine introduction to the state of professional bodybuilding today, the kinds of people it draws to its ranks, the things they must endure to succeed, and the look, feel, and grit of what it means to be a bodybuilder at the very highest level.
I hear a lot of folks laughing at adults who spend inordinate amounts of time on hobbies or amateur sports "just to win a plastic trophy." I hear it in the old car hobby and in bodybuilding circles, but I'm sure that bowlers, quilters, runners, and others get this critique as well.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I have three bodybuilding contests coming up. I spent a lot of time in the gym preparing for these events, and a lot of time performing necessary ancillary tasks ... all in hopes of winning some plastic trophies.
Or, did I? When I think about it, the greatest rewards from my bodybuilding contest prep periods have been inward and outward changes to my own being. Outwardly, I am starting to look at least a little like the guy on the trophy. Inwardly, I have found new, formerly untapped strength and resolve.
I don't think that bodybuilding is unique in this regard, either. If you have spent long, grueling hours preparing for an event at which you have a chance of winning a cheap, plastic trophy ... remember: the trophy is not the trophy. YOU are the trophy. It is the changes which you have brought about in your own being which are the real and lasting artifacts of your Herculean efforts.
You ARE the trophy.
First of all, and above all else, I have to emphasize that I have always been pitiful at sports. And it wasn't merely my pitiful upper body strength, my miserable power-to-weight ratio as a chubby youngster, my glacial running speed, nor anything else merely physical. It was mental, too.
Beyond all my physical weaknesses and incompetency, there was a mental factor: I never really knew what to do next in a sport. I remember a defining moment in the McKinley YMCA "Gra-Y" (Grade School YMCA) basketball program. A teammate made the dubious decision to attempt to pass me the basketball. Rather than try to receive it, I dodged it, and it bounced out of bounds.
I might well have said (as my wife's great uncle reported my maternal grandfather to have said during their days together at Wheaton College): "Boys, I'll never make an athlete!"
But I didn't have to say it, because others said it for me. Others like Pat Costello. My family had just moved to North Babylon, New York, and I was an eighth grader at the local Jr. High School. After about one semester had gone by, and I had just bungled yet another play on the basketball court, Pat turned to me, a bit angrily, and asked,
"You can't play soccer. You can't play football. You can't play basketball. Is there anything you can do?"
My answer was simple: "No, I guess there isn't."
So, as often as possible, I pursued lone activities in Physical Education class, to avoid disappointing those unfortunate enough to be teammates of mine for a team sport. This led me eventually to spend some amount of time both in the weight room and jogging around the school's quarter-mile track.
During my college days, I didn't really engage in much physical activity at all. But when I began to actively and intentionally exercise, around age 26, I was still very wary of team sports. I ended up taking up the two lone activities from my school days: running and weight lifting.
At some point, after enough training for either running or bodybuilding, there are amateur competitions for you to enter. The 5K and 10K runs I entered (and perhaps especially the Los Angeles Marathon) usually had a "festival" feel to them. There were brightly colored running shorts and singlets and shoes. There was energy in the air. Each runner took energy from the other runners and from the general ambiance of the race in a fashion that seemed to be a de facto breach of the principle of the Conservation of Energy.
Bodybuilding competitions, though I came to them later (at least as a participant), had similar energy in the air. And the scents of spray tanning concoctions and posing oil. Coconut, wintergreen, and several other pleasant but unidentifiable smells swirled about one in succession.
But, for me, the competitor's point-of-view was always much the same: train in solitude, encounter the multitude of your rivals for the first time on the day of the event, compete, and then never see them again. There was not much sense of community, at least not for a shy person such as myself. I did run with a group of people at work in California, and that was very pleasant. If it was competitive at all, it was only so in a playful sort of way, and we all rooted for each other to do well.
But in bodybuilding I had never, until recently, experienced any sense of community. Sure, the other Grand Masters competitors in the NPC contests I entered (starting in 2008) were cordial to me and to each other. But it was very transient, lasting one day, and didn't have the sense of an ongoing community.
But now, I have found a community, and it has happened almost without my taking notice of it. Some of it happened through the agency of facebook. Partially, it happened on the various bodybuilding-related internet "forums". Some of it happened from attending local bodybuilding shows as a spectator. But mostly, it happened at my local gym, in the old fashioned way: face-to-face speech! Someone would notice that I was getting lean, and ask if I had a competition coming up. Or, vice versa. I got to know more and more folks at my gym, both competitors and non-competitors. Sometimes I went to see them compete. We began to feel like a team. A team centered around our local gym. A subtle shift happened in my mind so that it was no longer "me versus all the other bodybuilders", but "us, our team, versus the others". It was as if I had, after all these years, found a happy way to become a participant in a team sport.
Here is one story that is emblematic of the change which has come over me. I have three bodybuilding competitions coming up within the next five weeks. Up until two days ago, I wasn't sure that I would know anyone else competing at any of them. But there has been this fellow in my gym. I don't see him all the time, since he is not there during the same weekday morning hours at which I train. But I saw him almost every Saturday. He was getting leaner. And darker. And he seemed to be, like me, over fifty years of age, so that he would be a Grand Masters competitor. But I had never spoken to him. Like most serious bodybuilders, he gave off a rather definite "don't talk to me; I'm training" vibe. But that changed when a mutual friend, who happens to be a veteran competitor, talked to each of us in quick succession about our upcoming shows. He left us to finish the conversation ourselves, at which time I found out that he would be one of my competitors at the NPC Central States bodybuilding competition on October 19. For about two seconds, I was dismayed, because I am fairly certain that he will finish ahead of me at that contest. But then, suddenly, the team spirit thing overcame this dismay, and I was elated that I would have a "teammate" on stage with me at my final contest of the year. And perhaps someone's hand to shake just before he receives the 1st Place trophy. We shall see.
Here is the bodybuilder in question. I can honestly say that, although we will be competing against each other, I will be just as happy if he wins as if I myself win. And I have to say, this is a pretty nice feeling.
