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Gorilla
Suit: My Adventures in Bodybuilding reviewed by |
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Has any book been this frank about bodybuilding? You might answer with Sam Fussel's Muscle : Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder but who is Sam, anyway? In the iron game he's nobody. He got involved in bodybuilding and his mom's in the publishing business. Bob Paris, on the other hand, is not only somebody in the iron game, he was on top of it.
Gorilla Suit is actually a travelogue of Bob's journey through bodybuilding. What lead him to pick up the iron, what drove him, and what drove him out. Bob Paris had one of the best physiques in the history of bodybuilding and is also a great looking guy, so you would think that he had it all. When I first started getting into the sport of bodybuilding, as opposed to just working out, Bob had just come out of the closet as a gay man (actually, gay bodybuilder since he only hid his homosexuality from the bodybuilding public) in an interview in Ironman magazine back in 1989 so I wasn't all that familiar with his history. I just knew he had this phenomenal physique. There's more to a bodybuilder's story than his or her body, though.
Bob spends quite a bit of time talking about his childhood. Actually, he jumps back and forth in time throughout the book. Going back and forth between his past and the present, where he considers a return to competitive bodybuilding. His childhood was not a happy one, marked by a lot of self-destructive behavior which he feels comes from knowing that he was gay since the age of 11. Imagine growing up in Indiana, "if not the buckle of the Bible Belt, at least an edge of that buckle," in a fairly conservative family, and knowing you were gay (but not acting on it until you're in your twenties). It's bound to mess you up a bit. Bob bounces from one self-destructive behavior to the next (including a sort-of suicide attempt) when he discovers the iron.
It's not that Bob completely cleans up his act once he gets into bodybuilding, but his life starts to have a focus that it didn't before. Maybe bodybuilding is not the best thing to focus on but some focus is better than none at all. Bob soon becomes a prototypical starry-eyed, obsessive teenage bodybuilder. Reading the Weider magazines, buying into the whole California/bodybuilder's paradise dream. The self-destructiveness abates somewhat as he becomes more and more focused on bodybuilding and what he considers to be his destiny: being the best in the world.
Bob moves from one town to the next; from one gym to the next, really. With no skills other than knowing how to get a great workout, he moves from one dead-end job to the next, making just enough to feed himself and usually keep a roof over his head (even if it is just a car roof). Barely getting by but never missing a workout. He talks frankly about the drug use that being a state/national/world champion requires, though he doesn't go into much detail about it (if you're looking for dosages and tips, look elsewhere). We're there as, seemingly overnight, Bob goes from wannabe bodybuilder to part of the in-crowd at World Gym in Venice to Mr. Universe. It's quite a trip.
Bob does spend some time talking about his battles with Joe Weider (though he was a pro, he had practically no contact with Ben Weider, head of the IFBB--go figure). If you're looking for gratuitous Weider-bashing, though, you may be disappointed. Joe doesn't get off easy, by any stretch (Bob calls him a megalomaniac at one point) but it's not really bashing. Bob has had his share of arguments with the man but he, like many in the industry, grudgingly has respect for him. I don't think he has respect for the IFBB but he does for Joe. It would be easy to get into bashing but the book is really about Bob's journey through the bodybuilding world and Joe Weider is just a part of it. Despite what Weider Inc. thinks, Joe is not bodybuilding.
One thing I think Bob misses the mark on is what bodybuilding is. Throughout the book Bob struggles with picking up the iron after a long layoff and getting the urge to return to competition. Bodybuilding is more than just competing, though. It is about building your body. It is about you and the iron. You don't have to enter a competition to be a bodybuilder, you just need to build your body. To sculpt it and work towards that (hopefully realistic) ideal that you want to achieve. Why Bob can't see that, especially given what he knows the physiques look like in today's professional bodybuilding and what he knows those competitors are taking to achieve them, I can't figure out. He wants to return to the early eighties when he was competing and his physique was valued. Today, though, his classic physique doesn't have a chance in the pro ranks and he knows that unless he takes the latest drugs and becomes like one of the freaks he disdains, that won't change. There's more to bodybuilding than competition, Bob.
I highly recommend this book to everyone with even a passing interest in bodybuilding. Old-timers will recognize much of the landscape of Bob's journey and be filled in on a lot of things they may have heard or read about in passing. Younger readers may recognize themselves or friends in young Bob and wonder whether that path is really the one they want to go down. Heck, even homophobes will enjoy the book because, even though Bob is very visible as a homosexual, he doesn't go into that aspect of his life that much until the latter part of the book, since it really changes how he feels towards the sport (and how it feels towards him). The book is about Bob's "adventures in bodybuilding", after all. Very, very good book. I hope that more bodybuilders with something to say (and nothing to lose from Weider) will follow Bob's lead and speak frankly about their competitive years. Perhaps shining a light on the whole sordid mess will send the rats scurrying and save competitive bodybuilding from itself.
Note that I said competitive bodybuilding. Bodybuilding doesn't need to be saved because it's really just about you and the iron. Always has been.
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