From the Archives...

June 18, 2014 by Bob Paris

SOUTHERN EXCURSION

August 1995

Seattle

“The depth of my belief in the power of bodybuilding grew out of my desires as an artist. I pretended that I wanted grand success as an athlete in some traditional sport, but only because that was what I believed was the right thing to feel. Great athletes were the good guys and rewarded with adulation and wealth. Artists generally tended to struggle. When I discovered bodybuilding, I knew—with the sort of instinct that reveals itself in rare moments—that I could have both. I could be the artist I’d always dreamed of being and I could be a jock and exert my physical presence in a way that would demonstrate to all the world that I was truly a man. I could have taken no other sport as far as I did this one. It is misunderstood, underappreciated , corrupted by petty greed, and considered to be the realm of freaks, but it is also beautiful and thrilling and lifted high above the dull thud of conformity.”

Excerpted from:

GORILLA SUIT by Bob Paris © (ISBN 0-312-16855-1)

Excerpt: GORILLA SUIT by Bob Paris (c)

March 13, 2014 by Bob Paris

Rediscovering the Accidentally Discovered

Late Spring, 1977 – Southern Indiana

“Cummin’s Book Store was in downtown Columbus. They had the best newsstand in town. I went in one afternoon looking for the latest issue of my favorite backpacking magazine and ran across a copy of ‘Muscle Builder’ on the shelf. On the cover was a picture of some guy named Schwarzenegger, doing an exercise with his gigantic arm up over his head and a straining grimace on his face. His sweaty, dark hair hung down in his face, and he had on a light-colored tank top, and the arm and hand that weren’t over his head was grabbing on to a bench of some kind, the fingers squeezing into the brown leather, fingernails white from the pressure.

I began to pore through the pages, devouring the pictures of these guys training and showing their tremendously muscled bodies, bursting out of T-shirts or without shirts on or flexing on a beach with mountains in the background…According to what I could tell…these men occupied a terrific kingdom all their own, out in California.”

ISBN 0-312-16855-1

EDGE OF A CLIFF

February 20, 2014 by Bob Paris

EDGE OF A CLIFF

Friday Evening, Midsummer, 1994, Seattle

“I once loved the sport of bodybuilding. In a strange way I still did. It frustrated me and at times I hated it, but for sixteen years I tried to balance love, frustration and hatred while watching both the sport and myself change. Convincing myself that I’d outgrown this obsession was impossible. One simple truth held us together: bodybuilding had saved my life. It was a guardian angel who found me at seventeen hazarding seas of inner struggle without a compass. I had the luxury of distance, remembering those struggles that had led me to want to be big and strong, but I couldn’t run from the truth of what had happened along the way. My frustration may have grown into hatred, but the love came first. It began simply. I found authentic purpose the moment my hands wrapped around a cold iron bar. All else fell away and my spirit knew it could do anything. I built my American dream one repetition at a time. That much could never be taken away.”