Cinemorphosis

Tag: fiction

  • Nicknames Are a Life Sentence

    Nicknames Are a Life Sentence

    You sat in the soaked bleachers of Canyon High on a rainy Friday night, the stadium lights casting a sickly greenish-yellow haze across the field. The Canyon Cougars were facing off against the Hayward Farmers, but all eyes were on their freshman linebacker phenom, Jack Del Rio—part football player, part demigod in cleats.

    Next to you, Liz huddled under a massive umbrella. Between the two of you sat a bag of popcorn that had long since surrendered to the rain, each kernel tasting like soggy regret.

    Off to the side, you noticed the girl they called the Tasmanian Devil. She was marooned on a solitary slab of bleacher, her jacket soaked, mascara melting like the villain in a low-budget horror flick. No umbrella, no allies, just rain and raw adolescence.

    “Tasmanian Devil’s got that look,” you said to Liz, chewing a kernel that crumbled into sadness on your tongue.

    “What look?” she asked.

    “The one that says she knows her life is a steaming pile of crap.”

    Liz nodded slowly. “Poor thing.”

    “Do we even know her real name?” you asked.

    She gave a small shrug.

    “Exactly. She’s been sentenced to that nickname for life. Might as well tattoo it on her forehead.”

    As the game dragged on, the rain lightened into a mist, coating everything in a kind of apocalyptic glow. The crowd buzzed as Del Rio took the field, and a man behind you barked, “That kid’s going pro, you mark my words.”

    You leaned toward Liz. “Jack Del Rio and the Tasmanian Devil—two trains, opposite tracks. One’s off to glory, the other’s derailing into a swamp.”

    “We could invite her over,” Liz offered.

    You waved like a deranged game show host. “Need an umbrella? Want to join us?”

    She shook her head. Her eyes stayed on the ground. Her jacket soaked through like a sponge left in a car wash.

    “At least you tried,” Liz said with a sympathetic smile.

    You shifted the conversation. “You mad at your dad?”

    “No,” you said, surprising even yourself. “If anything, I’m relieved. There’s less tension now. No more walking on eggshells.”

    Liz nodded. “After my dad left, my mom never dated. She’s allergic to men. She’s got this fortress of piano recitals, farmer’s markets, and gin rummy with Grandma. Her friend circle is basically a man-repellent sorority.”

    You sighed. “I’m dreading my mom dating. She’s too nice, too open. Men could run circles around her.”

    “You can’t control everything,” Liz said.

    “There’s this awful book called How to Pick Up Girls! It’s like a predator’s playbook. If some sleazeball uses that on her, I swear I’ll Hulk out.”

    Liz laughed. “You can’t be a bouncer at your own house.”

    You squared your shoulders. “Watch me.”

  • Welcome to the Kids of Divorced Parents Club

    Welcome to the Kids of Divorced Parents Club

    It was a cold November Friday night at Canyon High School, and the Frosch Dance had been in full swing. Freshmen and sophomores had packed the cafeteria, KC & the Sunshine Band’s throbbing disco beats pulsing through the linoleum and cinderblocks. Boys had huddled on one side, girls on the other, like oil and water at a chemically unstable mixer. You’d stood with Hewitt and Kaufmann, scanning the room for Liz Murphy.

    Kaufmann had jabbed his finger across the cafeteria at a girl who looked like she could’ve started for the Raiders. Broad shoulders, neck like a redwood stump, and a forehead that could stop a speeding truck—she’d stood alone, her eyes glowering from opposite ends of her face like rival sentries. The dark pouches beneath them added to the haunted look. Her mouth, locked in a scowl, might as well have been carved in stone.

    “Must suck to look like the lead singer of Meat Loaf,” Kaufmann had snickered.

    “She’s known as the Tasmanian Devil,” Hewitt added. “Flashburger was yelling ‘Hit the deck! Tasmanian Devil on the loose!’ when she came near the quad. She’s got a twin brother. Both in special ed.”

    “That’s gotta be rough,” you said. “Getting ridiculed every minute of your life.”

    “You probably get used to it,” Kaufmann mused. “Grow a thick skin.”

    “Or maybe you don’t,” you said. “It’s like that myth from Mrs. Hanson’s class—the guy chained to the rock getting his liver eaten every day.”

    “Prometheus,” Kaufmann confirmed.

    “What a hellish life. Constant Prometheus treatment.”

    “Do we even know her name?” Kaufmann asked.

    “Nope,” said Hewitt. “Just Tasmanian Devil. That’s it.”

    That’s when Liz Murphy had walked in, burgundy top hugging her in all the right places, jeans so fitted they might’ve been sewn on. Her red hair flowed behind her like a cape made of fire, and her middle finger was braced, injured. She spotted you and made her way over.

    “I almost didn’t come,” she said. “Emergency room after volleyball. Dislocated my finger. It swelled up like a balloon.”

    Kaufmann cleared his throat. “Sorry on behalf of all the guys for being assholes to you in middle school.”

    “We called you names we shouldn’t have,” Hewitt said.

    “Like Giraffe?” Liz raised one eyebrow.

    They nodded, shamefaced.

    “Yeah, it sucked going home crying myself to sleep every night.”

    “But look at you now,” Kaufmann said.

    “Yeah, lucky me. But I wonder—what if I still looked like a giraffe? Would you still be assholes, or am I only off the hook because I changed?”

    “I can’t honestly say,” Kaufmann mumbled.

    “Be easy on us,” Hewitt pleaded. “We were barely thirteen, super immature.”

    “Not like now?” she said, dripping sarcasm. She turned to you. “You never treated me like that.”

    “Jeff was too afraid of girls to talk to them,” Kaufmann cut in.

    “Diana Nesbitt asked Jeff to kiss her in seventh grade and he fainted,” Hewitt laughed.

    “That’s exaggerated,” you protested.

    “We had to revive you with smelling salts,” Hewitt said.

    “I didn’t faint. I walked into a pole and got disoriented.”

    “You fainted,” Kaufmann said. “We have over a dozen witnesses.”

    “Jeff’s come a long way,” Liz said, slipping her arm around your waist.

    “Wow,” Kaufmann said. “You guys going steady, or what?”

    Liz studied your face. “I don’t know. We haven’t had a DTR.”

    “A what?” Kaufmann asked.

    “Determine the Relationship.”

    “Holy crap,” Kaufmann said. “That would scare the shit out of me. Sounds like an FBI interrogation.”

    The lights dimmed, and “I Hope We Get to Love in Time” started playing. Couples moved to the dance floor. Liz took your hand and led you to the center.

    Kaufmann yelled after you, “I hope you’re blushing, McMahon, because if you’re not, I’ll blush for you!”

    Two minutes into the song, a blood-curdling scream erupted: “Who crushed my face?”

    The music stopped. Lights flipped on. Lori Walker was clutching her eye and shouting that someone had slammed into her. All fingers pointed at the Tasmanian Devil. She insisted she’d just been heading for the drinking fountain.

    Mr. Reinhart rushed in, handed Lori an ice pack, and tried to calm things down. Lori jabbed an accusing finger, curses flying. The Tasmanian Devil ducked behind the soda machine and started crying.

    Mr. Reinhart followed. “You can’t stay there all night.”

    “Wanna bet?”

    “I’ll call your father.”

    “You do that.”

    “Wait in front of the cafeteria. It’s not safe back there.”

    “Why not?”

    “All the electrical stuff. You get shocked, that’s a lawsuit. You hear me?”

    She got up and followed him out.

    The DJ apologized and cued up “For the Love of You.” Liz pulled you close again.

    “I did something really stupid last week,” she said.

    “What?”

    “I found my father.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “I hadn’t seen him since I was little. My cousin found him. He’s in a trailer park in Union City. We went there, and I saw him through the screen door, shirtless, eating KFC, drinking beer, watching Kojak. He screamed at the TV, spit flying. I walked back to the car, told Susanne to take me home. I knew I’d never see him again.”

    “Did you tell your mom?”

    “Hell no. She’d kill me. After the divorce, things were never the same.”

    “Speaking of divorce,” you said. “Something’s up with my parents. My dad took this so-called job promotion, but I think he wants out.”

    “What kind of job?”

    “Travel-heavy. Six months a year.”

    “Oh yeah. He’s a goner.”

    “Divorce City. I can smell it.”

    “Stand in line, Jeff. Soon enough, you’ll be in the Kids of Divorced Parents Club.”

  • Canyon High School’s Mythic Bruiser

    Canyon High School’s Mythic Bruiser

    You had just stepped onto the concrete plaza of Canyon High School, a fourteen-year-old bodybuilder armed with a cafeteria tray loaded with a burger, a salad, and a milk carton—your pathetic nod to nutritional balance. You devoured your lunch in monk-like solitude, your pockets clinking with ten Argentine beef liver tablets, swallowed like they were Tic Tacs of the gods. The cafeteria’s noise faded as you retreated to the shade of the overhangs, the lockers looming behind you like post-apocalyptic filing cabinets.

    Then came the charging beast.

    A teenage mass of muscle and menace barreled toward you like a linebacker with a vendetta. His head was absurdly wide, shaped more like a boulder than a skull. His black sweatshirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms that looked like they’d been sculpted out of poultry—two Thanksgiving turkeys in full flex. His hands were sausages wrapped in leather, his calluses more rugged than your self-esteem.

    “Hey, shit sack.”

    You flinched. This was Falco Labroni—the school’s mythic bruiser. You’d heard the tales. Now you were living one.

    You managed a nod.

    He eyed you like you were a science experiment gone wrong. “You look like a sad excuse for a bodybuilder.”

    “Sorry,” you muttered, like a kid caught microwaving a fork.

    “So, you work out, huh?”

    You nodded again, trying not to visibly shrivel.

    Falco snorted. “You look like you should be running track, not pushing iron. You’re doing everything wrong. You need to check into a hospital, get fed through a tube, and save your calories with an electric wheelchair before you can rejoin humanity. You might be the worst thing to happen to bodybuilding since pink dumbbells.”

    You looked down at your frame. Okay, maybe you were a bit slim. But still…

    “I wear extra-large shirts,” you offered.

    “Who cares about your damn shirts? You’re a disgrace to the international bodybuilding community. What’s your diet?”

    You recited your list like a desperate catechism: eggs, steak, chicken, brown rice, bananas, peanut butter, whey, fruits, veggies.

    Falco looked like you’d just admitted to eating cat food. “Forget the steak—eat the fat. Open a can of fruit cocktail, toss the fruit, chug the syrup. That’s the path to greatness.”

    He zeroed in on your neck.

    “Why’s your neck so scrawny?”

    “No clue.”

    “You ever try trap squeezes?”

    “No.”

    Falco then described a sadistic exercise involving sky-staring and daily two-hour neck contractions. You gave a half-hearted nod, already certain you’d never do it.

    “Who’s your favorite bodybuilder?”

    “Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

    “Good. Anyone else?”

    “Frank Zane.”

    Falco recoiled. “Frank Zane? That elegant pencil-neck? He’s not a bodybuilder—he’s a decorative lamp.”

    “But his proportions—”

    “Remarkable proportions? Jesus. Don’t ever say that again.”

    You stood your ground. “He’s in my top three. Serge Nubret, too.”

    Falco leaned in. “You know who I am?”

    “I think so.”

    “Then don’t throw these artsy names at me.”

    “You strike me as more of a Sergio Oliva guy.”

    His eyes lit up. “Now you’re talkin’. But I want to be bigger than Sergio. I want to evolve beyond humanity. Grow gills. Be the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I want people to faint when I take off my shirt.”

    The bell rang.

    You grabbed your books, feeling like Atlas with a paperwork burden.

    Falco looked at you like he was almost amused. “You one of those students?”

    “Trying to keep up a GPA.”

    “So you’re one of those assholes.”

    You nodded. “Apparently.”

    “Cool. Meet you here tomorrow.”

    Thus began your strange friendship with the school’s resident man-beast. Freshman Rick Galia later gave you a full hour-long tutorial on how to survive high school under the gaze of Falco Labroni. You took notes.

  • The Cinnamon Apocalypse

    The Cinnamon Apocalypse

    You shaved with your father’s vintage Gillette Super Speed razor and immediately sliced the tip of your chin. A small crimson droplet formed—a blood-signed pact with manhood. You showered, scrubbed away the dried blood, threw on jeans, and topped it off with your prized Larry Csonka Miami Dolphins jersey.

    When you stepped into the living room, your mother was parked on the couch, Carly Simon lamenting through the speakers as she ate raw hamburger meat with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, her fingers slick and red like she’d just committed a low-grade crime. She stared forward with the calm of someone contemplating Earth’s pending expiration date.

    “Mom, can’t you cook that?” you asked, half-gagging, half-pleading.

    Without looking at you, she speared another bloody hunk and took a bite.

    Then came the honk. You bolted outside to find Gutierrez in his orange Karmann Ghia, a discount rock star with his bushy sideburns. Susan Bowman, the blonde British exchange student, sat next to him. Crammed in the back were Rick Galia, Cheryl Atkins, and Liz Murphy, packed tighter than socks in a suitcase.

    “I can’t fit,” you said.

    “No problem,” Galia said. “Cheryl and I will get in the trunk.”

    “You can’t be serious.”

    “We’re creating a mobile make-out den. McMahon, close the trunk.”

    You did.

    In the back seat with Liz, you caught the scent of strawberries and ginger from her hair and cinnamon gum on her breath. She looked like a holiday ornament come to life in her green sweater. Your hands were sweating like you were mid-squat with a barbell.

    You thought about that puberty film in biology—the one where a guy lifts his arms to reveal industrial-grade sweat stains. Not helpful.

    At the pizza parlor, you all hit the salad bar and settled in. Galia whipped out a wad of cash like a game show host. “Dinner’s on me.”

    Turns out his dad’s shark-bitten surfboard sold for two grand. You doubted the story until you remembered Galia could sell sand at the beach.

    You hated the pizza, said so, and earned your first dose of “Greenridge snob” accusations.

    Afterward, at the theater, Shampoo was sold out. So was The Apple Dumpling Gang. You all opted for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but had 40 minutes to kill.

    Truth or Dare began. Your confession? You had a cousin who dated Ginger from Gilligan’s Island. Weak. Then came the bionic beach vision fantasy. Stronger, but still humiliating.

    Liz, amused, asked if your muscles were bionic too and squeezed your bicep. You were melting inside.

    In the theater, she rubbed her boot against the metal chair in front of her. The sticky sound made you want to crawl into the floorboards. She did it again.

    “Please stop,” you whispered.

    She grinned. “Conditioning.”

    The other couples were busy kissing. You were busy dying inside.

    After the movie, you all piled back into the car. Cheryl sat on Galia’s lap. Gutierrez drove you home.

    Outside your Eichler house, you turned to Liz and mumbled something about a good time. She responded by popping her gum and planting a cinnamon tsunami of a kiss on you.

    And that’s when you snapped.

    With a caveman scream, you launched upward, tearing through the convertible’s soft top like a hormone-fueled jack-in-the-box. You stood half-exposed above the car as the others gawked in stunned silence.

    “What the hell, McMahon?” Gutierrez shouted.

    “I don’t know. I think I’m stuck.”

    Liz was laughing like a lunatic. Neighbors came out filming. A Great Dane named Thor barked in chaos.

    Then your dad appeared with a flashlight and a robe that looked like it had survived Woodstock. “Jeff?”

    “Unfortunately.”

    “I’ve got a hacksaw.”

    He sawed you free. You climbed out, brushed off the canvas bits, and said, “I’ll pay the deductible.”

    Gutierrez waved it off. Galia said the kiss must’ve been nuclear.

    You retreated to your room, tried to decompress with bodybuilding magazines, and realized your mouth still tasted like cinnamon.

  • The Biceps That Gravity Forgot

    The Biceps That Gravity Forgot

    You had been marinating in delusions of Schwarzenegger-level grandeur, dreaming of championship stages and oil-slicked pecs, when the world as you knew it collapsed inside the Canyon High Student Lounge. There you were, slouched on a vinyl couch, flipping through the San Francisco Chronicle, when existential dread blindsided you like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. The culprit? A doomsday op-ed dressed up as science journalism.

    According to futurists and a certain Princeton physics professor named Gerard K. O’Neill, Earth’s days were numbered. The human species, it seemed, was destined to ditch the planet and board lunar shuttles en route to solar-powered orbiting colonies. O’Neill’s vision of humanity’s next chapter was detailed in The High Frontier—a prophetic fever dream of “closed-ecology habitats in free orbit” powered by sun-harvesting mega-panels. To make matters worse, the article was illustrated by some artist named Don Davis, whose watercolor nightmares depicted tranquil cottages, babbling fountains, and crowds of eerily placid, malnourished utopians.

    But what truly made your blood run cold wasn’t the loss of Earth’s ozone layer or the scarcity of clean water—it was the complete and utter absence of gyms in space.

    No dumbbells. No squat racks. No gravity.

    You were staring down the barrel of the greatest crisis to ever confront the adolescent mind: the total obliteration of your bodybuilding future. What good was a solar-powered paradise if it left you looking like a string bean in a Speedo? You’d be condemned to slurp nutrient paste in zero-G while your muscle mass withered into oblivion. You pictured yourself floating aimlessly through space, a tomato with toothpicks for limbs, indistinguishable from the other protein-starved citizens of O’Neill’s nightmare.

    Meanwhile, the rest of the Student Lounge was oblivious. Kids were gossiping like caffeinated squirrels. Others were playing Paper Football with apocalyptic enthusiasm, as if the Earth weren’t on the verge of being abandoned for a weightless dystopia. You wanted to scream, “Shut up! My dreams are dying!”

    That’s when Liz Murphy strolled in, radiant and red-haired, walking straight toward you. She handed you a birthday card that screamed, If It Feels Good, Do It! Her smile was bright enough to reroute satellites. She was clearly flirting—or at least offering a hand in friendship—but you were paralyzed by cosmic dread.

    You glanced at the card, then back at her. “It’s over,” you muttered, face ashen. “No gravity. No bench press. No protein. Space is going to destroy bodybuilding.”

    Liz blinked. “What?”

    You handed her the newspaper like you were delivering the last will and testament of humanity. “They want to launch us into space. Colonies with no iron. No steaks. No deadlifts. My dream physique? Finished.”

    Liz read for a few seconds and then laughed—hard. “Are you serious right now?”

    “Deadly,” you said, your voice trembling with conviction.

    “I came here to give you a birthday card, not an existential crisis,” she said. “I’m not proposing marriage, you melodramatic meathead. Relax.”

    Her laughter was like an emotional defibrillator, jolting you back to reality. You chuckled—barely. Still, the horror lingered. The gym-less future. The protein-free vacuum of outer space. But for now, you allowed yourself to accept the birthday wishes… and the present moment. After all, if the end was coming, you might as well enjoy the applause before gravity lets go for good.

  • How to Visualize Your Higher Self and Be a Fool at the Same Time

    How to Visualize Your Higher Self and Be a Fool at the Same Time

    By late morning at Canyon High, you had taken sanctuary in the Student Lounge—a sacred space masquerading as a study haven but better known for Olympic-level loafing and social maneuvering. Lined with shelves of crusty dictionaries and guarded by Mrs. Stinson at her post like a sloth in bifocals, the real action was found at the cushy couches. That’s where Paper Football reigned supreme: a sport that turned scrap paper into pigskin gold. Flick the triangle across the table. Let it hang off the edge—touchdown. Launch it between your opponent’s outstretched fingers—extra point. You figured ninety percent of student productivity was lost to this noble art.

    You were flopped on an orange couch, thumbing through Nectar in a Sieve, trying to survive its soul-crushing tour of starvation and sorrow, when your survival instincts kicked in. You swapped it out for a bodybuilding magazine. Surely a glimpse of sculpted abs and hypertrophic deltoids could rescue your psyche.

    That’s when Liz Murphy appeared—red hair blazing like a warning flare. Wearing a ketchup-colored tee and jeans, she plopped down beside you with the kind of energy that should be illegal before noon.

    “What are you reading?” she asked, peering at the magazine.

    “Article on Robbie Robinson. Some say his biceps peak is the best in history,” you said, delivering it with the gravitas of a man discussing global diplomacy.

    She raised an eyebrow at the photo. “You want to look like that?”

    “That’s the plan,” you said, puffing your chest with delusional pride.

    She squeezed your bicep. “I think you look perfect just the way you are.”

    “Perfect if you’re into track runners,” you said, trying to hide behind self-deprecating cool.

    Mrs. Stinson glared at the two of you from her help desk, her eyes sharp enough to etch disapproval into stone. You buried your nose in Robbie’s glistening biceps and pretended to read.

    Liz, undeterred, asked, “You seriously want to look like that?”

    “My goal,” you declared, slipping into motivational speaker mode, “is to become Mr. Universe, then open a gym in the Bahamas.”

    As the words exited your mouth, you immediately regretted them. But Liz didn’t blink.

    “That’s so cool. You’re only fourteen and already have goals.”

    “It’s called the Creative Visualization Principle,” you explained, summoning a vaguely authoritative tone. “You visualize your higher self, then manifest.”

    “Where’d you read that?”

    “My mom’s self-help books… or maybe one of these mags. I can’t remember.”

    “You crack me up,” she said, smiling.

    Then came your confession. “Liz, I did something gross. You might hate me.”

    “I doubt it,” she said, intrigued.

    You took a breath. “First day of school, I showed you a picture in that book. Said it was me hanging upside down on a chin-up bar.”

    “Yeah?”

    “It wasn’t me. I made it up. Just flat-out lied.”

    “Why?”

    “I don’t know. I wanted to impress you, I guess. And I’ve felt like a fraud ever since.”

    “I don’t hate you,” she said, calm and kind. “You were nervous. It’s not the end of the world.”

    You didn’t know what to say, so you nodded.

    After a pause, she asked, “There’s a dance Friday night.”

    You nodded again, unsure where this was going.

    “You going?”

    “Didn’t plan on it.”

    “Why not?”

    “I don’t like shaking my butt in public.”

    “If you go, I’ll slow dance with you. First dance—promise?”

    “Yeah,” you said, barely breathing. “Promise.”

    And just like that, your Friday night was rewritten by the girl you once lied to—and who somehow still wanted to be your first dance.

  • Lies, Lats, and Literature Class

    Lies, Lats, and Literature Class

    You had Pumping Iron sprawled on your desk like a sacred text while the Canyon High freshmen trickled into Mrs. Hanson’s English Literature class, each one a fidgeting, hormonal catastrophe. Glossy black-and-white photos of muscle-bound gods glared back at you from the pages, but it was the image of Mr. Universe Franco Columbu, hanging upside down from a chin-up bar like a meaty bat, that you kept flipping to. The photo was blurry and distant—just obscure enough that only a true disciple of the iron church could identify Columbu.

    Next to you sat Liz Murphy. Just last year, she was the gangly volleyball phenom from Earl Warren Junior High—the one the boys nicknamed “Giraffe,” “Horse,” or “Armadillo,” depending on the angle of cruelty. But over the summer, Liz had staged a Cinderella comeback. A Caribbean cruise had transformed her: her freckles softened into a copper glow, her limbs filled out like poetry, and her hair—now longer and looser—carried the faint scent of strawberries and ginger.

    You turned to her and said, “Hey, wanna see a picture of a bodybuilder at the beach?”

    She gave you a skeptical smile and leaned in.

    “See that guy hanging upside down?” you said, pointing at the photograph.

    “Holy smokes, he’s huge,” she said, staring wide-eyed.

    “That’s me,” you replied.

    She squinted, confused. “What?”

    “That’s me. Can’t you tell?”

    Her disbelief cracked just enough for hope to sneak in. “Oh my God… that’s you?”

    You nodded with solemn authority. “Yep.”

    And just like that, you slipped into your own fiction. You told her how you’d been visiting your grandparents in Los Angeles, hanging out with your bodybuilding pals at the beach, when someone snapped the photo. The lie came easy. Too easy. Her awe washed over you like warm sun, and for a few precious seconds, you felt seen. Not as the skinny kid you were—but as the chiseled hero you wanted to be.

    But then came the stomach-drop. The gnawing guilt. What kind of person, even at fourteen, spins a story so absurd just to taste a few seconds of admiration? You didn’t know. But if you had to trace it back—to find the origin of the myth-making—you might start in the treehouse of your childhood, the one where humiliation planted its flag and never truly left.

  • The Unwritten Rules of the Iron Temple (and How You Broke Them All)

    The Unwritten Rules of the Iron Temple (and How You Broke Them All)

    One of the twisted pleasures of training at Walt’s Gym in the mid-70s was sweating it out beside the Big Time Wrestling stars you once watched religiously after school on Channel 44. For two straight years, those hulking, cartoonish men had been etched into your imagination, and suddenly—there they were, no longer trapped in your Zenith TV, but flesh-and-blood titans grunting beside you as you tried to make a name for yourself as a thirteen-year-old Olympic weightlifter.

    You couldn’t believe your luck. Kinji Shibuya, Pedro Morales, Hector Cruz—icons of your adolescent screen time were now regulars at your crusty little training temple. But with awe came idiocy. You were built for your age, sure, but common sense hadn’t caught up to your biceps.

    Take the time you ran cable lat rows next to Hector Cruz. Somewhere between rep six and seven, you decided to open your mouth and muse aloud whether wrestling—dare you say it—might be fake. Cruz turned, his forehead looking like tectonic plates mid-quake, and fixed you with a death glare. “Look at these scars on my face! Do they look fake to you?” he growled. You nodded dumbly, suddenly aware that your joke had been the conversational equivalent of lighting yourself on fire.

    Then came Towelgate. You spotted a sweat towel draped across the calf machine and figured, hey, free towel. You wiped your pubescent brow and basked in your temporary coolness—until a mountain of muscle barreled off the bench press and accused you of theft. With twitching biceps and a voice that rumbled like thunder, he threatened to rearrange your face if you ever touched his towel again. That was the day you learned: gym towels are sacred. More sacred than communion wafers. More sacred than your own dignity.

    But nothing topped the screaming incident. You thought your loud, primal grunts gave your lifts an air of badassery. They didn’t. One day, a competitive bodybuilder who looked like an enraged Renaissance statue cornered you between sets and snarled, “Kid, if you don’t cut the screaming, someone’s going to shut you up permanently. And they’ll get a standing ovation for it.”

    That was your education. Walt’s Gym wasn’t just about the weight on the bar. It was about knowing the tribal codes, reading the room, and shutting the hell up before your next breath became your last. You didn’t just lift—you survived. And sometimes, that was the heavier feat.

  • False Prophets with Great Abs

    False Prophets with Great Abs

    You remembered the first episode of I Dream of Jeannie. Major Tony Nelson—square-jawed astronaut, man of science—crash-landed on a remote island after his space capsule, Stardust One, veered off course. There, buried in the sand like a cursed treasure, he found a mysterious bottle. And then—whoosh—a plume of bluish vapor, and out popped Jeannie: blonde, barefoot, bewitching, and hell-bent on fulfilling his every wish. Tony blinked. Maybe it was a hallucination. Maybe his oxygen-deprived brain was conjuring fantasies. Whatever the case, he wasn’t buying it. He was trained to distrust magical thinking, and Jeannie, glittering and obedient, was the definition of a dangerous shortcut.

    You, on the other hand, were no Tony Nelson. You were a teenage Olympic weightlifter and amateur bodybuilder, sprawled out in your bedroom flipping through a muscle magazine, fully hypnotized by the promise of the next miracle breakthrough. You had just finished an article on “progressive resistance training”—a phrase that gave you a warm little shiver of purpose. You divided the world into two kinds of people: those who were progressing and those who were stagnating in mediocrity. You were dead-set on being in the first camp.

    The article ended, but the real magic was in the ads: potions, powders, pulleys, and contraptions promising titanic biceps, superhuman abs, and the sculpted torso of a Greek statue. One ad hit you right in the hypothalamus—the Bullworker. A three-foot rod of steel and plastic, with green-handled grips and bowstring cables. It looked like a cross between a medieval torture device and a Jedi weapon. A bodybuilder in the ad flexed beside it, veins like roadmaps and pecs like dinner plates. It cost forty-five bucks—a king’s ransom. You had to have it.

    So you marched into the living room where your dad was nursing a beer and watching football. You handed him the ad.

    “What do you think?”

    Your dad—a flinty ex-infantryman with a buzz cut, a jaw like a chisel, and a fading “MICHAEL” tattoo on his biceps—glanced at the page like it was a bar tab he didn’t remember running up. “You want muscles?” he said. “Pull weeds. Mow the lawn. Clean gutters. Chop wood.”

    “Dad, I’m serious. This would supplement my real workouts.”

    He looked again, then sighed. “It’s junk. Slick marketing. But if you want to waste your allowance, it’s your choice.”

    You told him you were short on cash.

    “Then save up. Make sacrifices. And do your research. If you dig a little deeper, I bet you’ll want it less.”

    “Why?”

    “Haven’t you heard of Sturgeon’s Law?”

    “No.”

    “Ninety-nine percent of everything is bullshit. That includes this gadget. Remember that martial arts program you ordered? Twenty bucks for a pamphlet with stick figures doing karate poses. Bullshit. Due diligence, son—that’s your shield.”

    “What’s due diligence?”

    “Thorough investigation. Weighing the pros and cons. Kicking the tires before you buy the clunker. Most things don’t survive scrutiny. Always be quick to save your money and slow to spend it. You got that?”

    “Yes, Dad.”

    Not exactly in the mood for football after that, you trudged back to your room and cracked open another muscle magazine, drinking in the endless parade of promises. “Gain more muscle than you ever dreamed of,” one ad proclaimed.

    And Jeannie was back. Not in her bottle—she was in your brain now. She was the fantasy of every easy answer, every too-good-to-be-true claim. The allure of Jeannie wasn’t just her beauty or her servility—it was her offer of instant gratification, with no price tag except your dignity.

    That was the whole premise of the show: Tony Nelson didn’t trust Jeannie because he was smart enough to know that panaceas always come with fine print. But you weren’t that smart yet. You still believed—just a little—that this or that device, powder, or program might turn you into a demigod.

    You wanted your gains. 

    The Bullworker failed you–but it wasn’t just a piece of overpriced cable-tension nonsense. It was a monument to your teenage fantasy: that somewhere, somehow, a portable contraption could carve you into Hercules without the burden of sweat, setbacks, or iron plates. The device itself was a dud—a clunky plastic rod with big promises and no payoff—but the idea of the Bullworker had teeth. A chiseled physique, ready to go, no gym required? It was the dream distilled. What you got instead was a hard truth: even when an idea crashes and burns in practice, some illusions are simply too seductive to abandon.

  • Charlie the Frog at the Temple of Gains

    Charlie the Frog at the Temple of Gains

    By the time you hit fourteen, your sacred sanctuary wasn’t some air-conditioned suburban rec center with eucalyptus towels and Wi-Fi. No, your Mecca was Walt’s Gym in Hayward, California—a rusting cathedral of iron that began life as a chicken coop in the 1950s and never quite shook the poultry vibe. This was not a gym—it was a festering biome of bacteria and dreams, a living organism teeming with unclassified fungi, incurable athlete’s foot, and possibly several sentient strains of black mold. Members spoke of a frog named Charlie who allegedly roosted in the shower stalls—a fat, warty mascot celebrated by the resident pro wrestlers. You never saw Charlie, but you believed. In a place like this, hallucinations could be considered part of the membership plan.

    The locker room? It doubled as a noir film set. Every day, you’d see some bankrupt divorcé in a velour tracksuit and a ship-anchor gold chain, chained to the payphone like it was his last lifeline, ranting to his lawyer about alimony, DUIs, or some tragic time-share dispute in Reno. You listened in. How could you not?

    Out back was a pool—or what used to be a pool. Now it was a soup of moss, dead rats, and unspeakable broth. Walt himself, the gym’s proprietor and part-time pest undertaker, would emerge every so often with a pool skimmer, fish out some bloated rodent corpse, and hold it aloft like it was Simba on Pride Rock. The regulars would cheer. Walt would bow. Then he’d fling the cadaver into the dumpster like he was doing Shakespeare in the Parking Lot.

    Inside, the circus only expanded. You had Wally—an ancient gym relic who claimed to be the anatomical model for some early caveman medical scroll. He’d been there since Eisenhower, possibly since the Carboniferous Period. Wally was a fixture. He corrected your form whether you asked or not. He’d bench the bar, monologue about arthritis, and tell sweeping tales of deadbeat cousins, glamorous ex-lovers, and Eisenhower’s America. His workouts lasted longer than most wars. And when he was done, he’d vanish into the sauna, then reemerge drenched in talcum powder like a ghost summoned by a seance in a health spa. You often thought a foghorn would erupt every time he crossed your field of vision.

    The soundtrack of this chaos? The gym’s radio had a three-song memory: Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” The Eagles’ “New Kid in Town,” and Norman Connors’ “You Are My Starship.” These songs looped like some cosmic punishment for crimes you hadn’t yet committed. Yet somehow, they became the anthem of your adolescence.

    And you were the perfect age—old enough to build biceps, too young to pay taxes. You didn’t know what a mortgage was, but you knew how to crank out supersets. While grown men wept about tuition and liver spots, you were curling barbells and escaping into bliss. The gym wasn’t just a place—it was your church, your escape hatch, your sweaty Shangri-La.

    As Arnold wrote in The Education of a Bodybuilder, the gym was where it all clicked. You felt it too—that moment of transcendence, when iron became religion and sweat became baptism. For you, that epiphany happened in the rot-ridden, bacteria-flecked walls of Walt’s Gym, 1976 edition. A paradise of tetanus and testosterone. A perfect hellhole. The best place on Earth.