During the ’80s, I spent a couple of years working with and hanging out with bodybuilding legend Bill Pearl as we put together his book Getting Stronger: Weight Training for Men and Women (which went on to sell over 500,000 copies). They don’t make ’em like Bill any more; he was maybe the last in a line of old-time strong men, before steroids took over. Look at this photo of him when he was young, with no steroid hyper-inflated weirdness, as with the body builders of today. This pic was in Legends of Bodybuilding, a special issue of Musclemag magazine, a great compilation.
Bill was Mr. California, Mr. America, and a 4-time Mr. Universe and is a very humble and gentle person. He’s a vegetarian. He still has an aura about him. We’d go into a restaurant, he’d compliment the food, and pretty soon the chef would be out at our table. We’d walk down the street and people would come up to him.
After 8 years of work, Bill has just completed a 3-volume series called Legends of the Iron Game, the most complete record of strong men ever, going back to 300 BC when Milo of Croton demonstrated the principle of progressive resistance by carrying a calf every day until it became a full grown bull.
“I work as a film location scout in New York City. My day is spent combing the streets for interesting and unique locations for feature films. In my travels, I often stumble across some pretty incredible sights, most of which go ignored daily by thousands of New Yorkers in too much of a rush to pay attention. As it happens, it’s my job to pay attention, and I’ve started this blog to keep a record of what I see.…
Chances are, you’ve noticed Greenwich Locksmiths in your travels through the West Village. It occupies a small storefront just south of Commerce Street on one of the stranger parcels of land in Manhattan…The new design is made up entirely of keys:”
“‘Snow Day,’ written and performed by 8-year-old Emma at the 2009 Spring Coffee Shop Jam, at The Columbia City Theater in Seattle, WA. Emma announced during a guitar lesson one day that she felt like writing a song. I started playing some chords, and this is what she came up with. Amazing.
The Jam’s a chance for Heartwood Guitar Instruction students to showcase their talents. Enjoy!”
My son Will is a musician living in Santa Cruz, Calif. He’s a member of the Brazilian band SambaDá, billed as an “Afro-Brazilian samba funk dance band.”
Will also is the studio manager and engineer, along with head engineer Rich Williams, at the Paradise Recording studio in Santa Cruz, and they recently posted some samples of their work at https://www.paradiserec.com/clients.htm. Click on the list of songs on the right to hear the eclectic list of songs from different musicians.
I asked Will to describe what they do: “The best thing to me about this place is that we use analog tape to get a sound that feels good. Analog recording is like a hand built home, whereas digital recording is analogous to a prefab house. This way is old fashioned, imperfect, and feels better. But we also have custom gear that is being used all over the world…”
Came upon these little surfers’ shacks (surfers who get this far have to be pretty motivated). Check out the footing here. Sun getting low, so I started heading back. I got so immersed in beachhcombing I seem to have missed the cliffside trail and by the time I realized this I was pretty far south of it. Sun now setting and of course I had no light and there are very few exits from the beach on this stretch of the coast, with its crumbling steep cliffs. Hmmm… I made the decision to head south where I knew there was an arroyo with a (sort of) trail.
As it got darker, I started to run. Not looking forward to spending the night huddled under a cliff until dawn. Oh yeah, I was lightly dressed, had no cel phone, and it was a new moon, so no help in the luminosity dept. Dumb fuck!
Stress level rising, getting darker, shit! Then — is that a human figure up ahead? Yes, it was, I’d made it to the arroyo and Megan and her 2 kids were heading up the trail. You hop around a flowing creek going up and have to pul lyourself up in 2 places with anchored ropes. After walking through a muddy field, Megan kindly gave me a ride to my truck and I was able to come home to a warm fire, (ahem) big shot of cognac, and good meal.
I took off yesterday afternoon around 3 and drove north to a cliffside beach trail. The tide was low, sun shining, and the plan was to see how far north I could get, going around points that would be impassable at lower tides. Since I gave up competitive running, I’ve been exploring my local world way more thoroughly.
They say with age comes wisdom, but this combo seems to have eluded me. I started sliding down the steep trail wearing light Sanuk sandals and ended up on all 4s on parts of the trail. Also, I had a cut on my foot from a barefoot walk on the beach a few nights earlier, and the beach was mostly sloping with rocks that had to be hopped upon or navigated around.
But it was a glorious day, there were clear tide pools brimming with sea life. I started finding bits of polished abalone shells and filling up my backpack with shoreside treasures. In all my 40 years living here I’d never been this far along the beach — going where I’ve never gone before, nothing more exciting. (Same thing driving down a never-before-travelled road — heaven.)
During the ’80s, I spent a couple of years working with and hanging out with bodybuilding legend Bill Pearl as we put together his book Getting Stronger: Weight Training for Men and Women (which went on to sell over 500,000 copies). They don’t make ’em like Bill any more; he was maybe the last in a line of old-time strong men, before steroids took over. Look at this photo of him when he was young, with no steroid hyper-inflated weirdness, as with the body builders of today. This pic was in Legends of Bodybuilding, a special issue of Musclemag magazine, a great compilation.
