Steroids, they’re what’s for dinner ... a couple of weeks ago the carpal tunnel in my left wrist and forearm was acting up. Over the course of a few days, it became more than annoying. Using a very tight wrap-around wrist band to lift (essentially a tourniquet), I felt no pain whatsoever while working out, but within an hour or two after lifting, the pain returned. Because I type for a living (word processing/not writing), there was no way I could let the pain continue. I’ve had this problem in the past and prescribed steroids have always been a quick cure.
Because I’m lifting in a meet the end of the month, taking steroids (for whatever reason) disqualifies me. The fact I lift in the RAW division makes it a double no-no (no benching shirts/no drugs). I’m still going to lift in the meet, but however I perform the results won’t count.
When I wrote my son Charles (not Charlie) to tell him about this stuff (taking prescribed steroids and lifting in a meet), he wrote back a one word email: “Asterisk!”
He’s a funny kid ...
And he’s right. The carpal tunnel pain disappeared within 3 days of taking the steroids (the prescription is a one week supply, decreasing each day). My appetite has become absurd (more absurd than normal and that’s pretty bad) and last night I lifted light but exceeded my program by a full paused repetition (which, using a one rep calculator, puts me a full 20 pounds better than where I should be). The only thing missing was “Roid Rage” but I came close to losing it on the #5 train the other night when some clown blocked the doors as the train pulled into my stop. I did say excuse me before nailing him with a shoulder.
Okay, so I whispered it.
The moral to this story? Anybody who tells you that steroids doesn’t affect them is full of shit.
To include: Mark McGwire, A-Fraud, Any Petite, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and every other baseball player who’s taken them for whatever excuse.
And say what you want about Jose Canseco ... the guy was telling more truths than any of the heroes listed above.
Liebestod ... it is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever and it belongs to one of the greatest operas ever. The “love-death” ending to Richard Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde. In the final scene of the final act, as Isolde stands over the body of her beloved Tristan, she delivers the most beautiful aria ... it begins with “Mild und Leise” (fair and gentle). Isolde is about to join Tristan in death, from where their love may continue unobstructed forever. The final notes to the aria return to the most magnificent of all preludes, comprised of the Tristan Chord; the prelude is arguably the most hauntingly beautiful piece of music ever written.
Liebestod and the opera it comes from have fascinated the ugly one for a dozen years now. I’ve seen Jane Eaglen sing this role half a dozen times (back when I could afford to go to the opera sometimes twice a week ... ah, those fantasy connected days ... sometimes I really do miss them). If this piece of music doesn’t move you, you need to check your pulse.
Check out the beautiful Swedish soprano, Brigit Nilsson, the definitive Isolde ...
An English translation of the lyrics:
How softly and gently
he smiles,
how sweetly
his eyes open -
can you see, my friends,
do you not see it?
How he glows
ever brighter,
raising himself high
amidst the stars?
Do you not see it?
How his heart
swells with courage,
gushing full and majestic
in his breast?
How in tender bliss
sweet breath
gently wafts
from his lips -
Friends! Look!
Do you not feel and see it?
Do I alone hear
this melody
so wondrously
and gently
sounding from within him,
in bliss lamenting,
all-expressing,
gently reconciling,
piercing me,
soaring aloft,
its sweet echoes
resounding about me?
Are they gentle
aerial waves
ringing out clearly,
surging around me?
Are they billows
of blissful fragrance?
As they seethe
and roar about me,
shall I breathe,
shall I give ear?
Shall I drink of them,
plunge beneath them?
Breathe my life away
in sweet scents?
In the heaving swell,
in the resounding echoes,
in the universal stream
of the world-breath -
to drown,
to founder -
unconscious -
utmost rapture!
Johnny Porno teaser ... no, the ugly one hasn’t gone highbrow on yous ... he still drives a ten year old dented and rusted Honda and he remains the slave to fashion he’s always been (6 different Buffalo Bills T-shirts, a Thug Lit T-shirt, a Vickie Hendricks, Queen of Noir shirt (that no longer fits) and 2 year old sneakers ... he still prefaces each lost article/item fit (when the Principessa cleans/hides things from him) with “cocksucker” (his favorite word) ... and he insists that farting remains the funniest thing on the planet ... so, no, he hasn’t gone highbrow ... but, make no mistake, there really are mamalukes out there who enjoy a little of everything (opera, classical, blues and reading included) ... we're half-assed renaissance men, if you will ... or, as the boss likes to say, “passionate fat kids in the candy store that is life.”
So here’s a taste of where one such mind often wanders (when nobody is looking):
From Chapter 1
One of the men who’d paid to see the movie approached them. He was a heavyset bald man with thick black glasses. He looked at George first, then John. “Whatever happened the other guy?” he asked.
“What other guy?” John said.
“Tommy Porno,” the bald man said. “Guy used to bring the films. He was supposed to get me something. I left him a fifty-dollar deposit last month and he never came back.”
“Sorry, pal,” John said. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“And you are?”
John had dropped down to retie his sneaker laces. Annoyed at the question, he gave the bald man a hard stare. “Excuse me?”
“Just asking.”
“Okay,” Berg said. “You asked. Now leave the man alone.”
“The other guy took a fifty,” the bald man said. “He was supposed to get me a copy of the movie.”
John looked to Berg. “He serious?”
“Maybe that’s why he disappeared,” Berg said, “he was robbing people.”
“I gave him a fifty,” the bald man repeated.
“Then I guess you’re taking a powder for that fifty,” Berg said. “Tommy DeLuca hasn’t been around for more than a month now. I’d get over it, I was you.”
The bald man motioned at John. “Why I was asking him,” he said. “Maybe he knows the guy.”
“Got nothing to do with me what you did with Tommy DeLuca,” John said. “Sorry for your loss.”
The bald man frowned.
“Okay?” George said. “Go get yourself a beer you want. Tell them I said it’s on me.”
Still upset, the bald man walked away.
“I hope I don’t have a nickname,” John said.
“You kidding?” Berg said. “That nasty prick from the bar in Brooklyn used to ask ‘is Tommy Porno there yet?’ Now it’s Johnny Porno he asks for.”
John felt his jaw tighten.
“Screw’em,” Berg said. “Fuck’s in a name?”
“I don’t like it, for one thing,” John said.
Berg shrugged. “What’s his problem anyway, that guy the bar? Comes off like a real asshole.”
“Nick Santorra,” John said. “You’re right, he is an asshole.”
“I think Tommy DeLuca liked the name, tell you the truth. Got his rocks off being called that, Tommy Porno. This mope just now, the one DeLuca beat for a fifty? He’s probably not the only one. Maybe DeLuca did disappear for stealing.”
“He really call me that, Johnny Porno, the guy onna phone?”
Berg shrugged.
“I got nothing to do with this crap outside of hauling it back and forth weekends,” John said. “I never even seen the damn movie.”
“You like magic acts you should,” Berg said. “See it, I mean. The star, Linda Lovelace, she has some humble tits and all, a crooked tooth or two, but she can swallow a telephone pole. It’s something everyman should get to see at least once before he dies, know what he’s missed.”
“That the line of shit you hawk this thing with?”
Pre-order Johnny Porno here.
The book trailer:
Have a GREAT Super Weekend, amici!
Go Shockey! Go Aints!
—Knucks
And the DOC says ...
Hey Chaz,
Your first choice pick for the SuperBowl didn't pan out, but you absolutely, freaking nailed it with your alternate pick. Way to go Chaz... you da man!
Yeah, I wouldn't worry about the amicis suddenly thinking you're going "highbrow" on us. However, if you were totally freaking delusional, you might think that we were thinking that. Are the voices telling you this, Chaz?
That Brigit Nilsson looks like she has hit some nasty bumps in the road. I remember when she was married to Stallone. She had those legs that were like nine feet long. I remember her saying, "Sorry Doc, I can't go out with you this weekend. I have to shave my legs." I didn't watch the film clip because I didn't want people to think I was getting highbrow.
That steroid abuse is exactly what I needed for my tell-all book about you. I'd like this to hit the bookstores pretty quickly, so I think I'll need some professional writer input. I think I'm going to go with James Patterson because he can write a book in about a week. I go into some detail of your childhood as the son of poor, black sharecroppers in Alabama. Then, that fateful day at your Senior Prom when you catch your reflection in a mirror while dancing and realize there is no way in the world you could move like that and be anything but white. It's touching, you'll love it. If you have a chance, just jot down some actual facts of your life. I might throw some of them into the book.
Now, for the actual kick off of the biography, is there any way we can get you arrested? If I should anonymously report you to the International Musclehead Commission could we get some "perp walk" shots? The real challenge of this whole tell-all book deal is to get people to actually give a shit about what happens in weight lifting competitions. In reality, I think in the musclehead record books, people who don't use steroids are marked with an asterisk.
Hurry up with whatever you want to add to the story. I've already covered the styrofoam weights and the sweatsocks in the jockstrap. Patterson and his posse are up to Chapter 46 (they started yesterday).
So the Knuckster is juiced up. Next, people will start thinking I'm not a real doctor.
Your pal,
Doc
