NAked Warrior - ZANDERBILT

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I R O N E S S A Y S senorita. The June breeze whipped through the open doors and windows and would have been perfect—had it not smelled like a dead squirrel left in the sun for three days. He pushed his way through the crowd and beckoned me to follow. We made our way out onto a huge wooden deck overlooking the marina. The sun blazed and the deck was packed. A Caribbean Steel Band mounted an elevated bandstand and started working their way through a hopped-up version of Jimmy Cliff’s “The harder they come.” The crowd whopped and the well-heeled revelers began to shimmy and bop to the infectious calypso beat. The sun was warm and the dancers moved in weird white person syncopation. A patron wearing a red beret began banging on a cow bell with a single drumstick. He appeared to be a member of the audience. Bobby caught my fascination with this strange character: squat and stout, he was a dead ringer for Leon Trotsky. “That’s Rhythm Ray.” Bobby yelled over the cacophony, “He’s an institution. He shows up to every live band performance at the marina and plays along on his cowbell from the audience. The management lets him do it. He used to drum for Three Dog Night or some such shit.” Rhythm Ray was stealing the band’s thunder and the bass player and drummer were scowling. The band morphed into Bob Marley’s, “Lively up your self.” Bobby disappeared and returned with two more fresh drinks. We clicked glasses. He smiled his devil grin and scanned the crowd as he lit up another Marlboro Light. He was a bachelor and a smooth-talking, good looking guy with a warped sense of humor. He jabbed me hard in the ribs and yelled, “Hey! Look at that huge bastard! You must know that guy!” How ridiculous; I thought. Here I am in a new city, first day on the job, half in the bag by noon. I’m somewhere I’ve never been to before in my life and my new boss tells me I must know some guy. Naturally I did. Bobby Bagalino stood 6’2”, weighed 300 and was a powerlifting champion. He was known as Bobby Bag-of-Donuts. Bobby had competed at the APF National Powerlifting Championships in Tampa, Florida the previous spring and one of my athletes had barely edged out Bobby. My guy took second place and Bobby took third. I never saw Bobby Bag-of-Donuts before or since. In Florida, after the competition, we’d struck up an extended conversation at the post-meet beach beer bash. A group of lifters sat outside and drank a lot of beer clustered around a keg until midnight. Now, eight months later and 1,000 miles from the city in Florida where I met some guy for the first and only time, fate had brought us back together. With 300 million people in the United States what were the chances of me running into him at this time and place? Big Bobby Bag-of-Donuts was wearing Ray Bans and holding court: a couple of rich dudes in shorts, expensive silk shirts and penny loafers stood around Bobby Bags. Three extremely For complete information on Marty Gallagher’s The Purposeful Primitive, or to purchase the physical book, visit http://www.dragondoor.com/b37.html now 58
59 T H E P U R P O S E F U L P R I M I T I V E attractive, skimpily clad women, no doubt the rich guys’ dates, appeared completely enthralled by the giant Italian’s speed rap. I made my way over to where Bobby stood. He looked massive and thick. He was a good looking Man with a capital “M.” He oozed power. For a giant he had an amazingly streamlined body. Though he weighed way over 300 pounds he was shapely, proportional and a gawd-awful gargantuan. I later learned that he was heir to a mobbed-up trash collection firm that had offices in the waste treatment sewage plant. He glanced my way as I pushed through the crowd. I saw the look on his face morph from puzzlement to tension to vague recollection to recognition. As I pierced the inner circle he said. “Mar-tee…half-man, half par-tee! What the f#@* are you doing here!” He enveloped me with arms that must have weighed 100 pound apiece. I smiled as the gaggle of sycophants appraised me. I whispered into his ear conspiratorially, “So Bobby—where do the boys train in this neck of the woods?” He got all solemn: we were now talking the secret language of the elite Iron powerlifting brotherhood. “There ain’t but one place…Kenny Fantano’s Muscle Factory in West Haven.” Ken Fantano was a legendary character and for good reason. He had exploits galore and his lifting accomplishments were world class. His bench press methodology, from what I’d heard, was revolutionary. He was Old School with some new twists and I was eager to meet him. From Cassidy to Coan to Furnas, all my mentors stressed a similar message: get as strong as humanly possible in the three powerlifts using as little supportive gear as possible. As it turned out, Ken would affirm and amplify that same message. Elite power men tend to be obsessed. Everything else in life was secondary: wives, families, jobs, responsibilities, only kids trumped powerlifting in the world of the elite brute. Fantano’s Muscle Factory was an oasis for the obsessed. I asked Bag-of-Donuts if he would be so kind as to make a formal introduction on my behalf to Ken. This was power etiquette; the equivalent of Samurai formalism in feudal Japan. He was the local Major Domo and I was a newcomer to his fiefdom. I was requesting an audience. I heard back from Bagof-Donuts later that same week that yes, I would be most welcome and could I be at the Muscle Factory at 4 pm the following Monday. Please come alone. I rolled into The Muscle Factory in West Haven on the appointed day at precisely the appointed time. Ken sat on a sturdy iron stool behind a homemade wooden counter. Kenny was huge and shapely, he weighed 360 pounds and with a goatee, balding head and soft eyes, he looked like a dead ringer for the legendary turn-of-the century Canadian strongman, Louis Cyr. He sat stoically on his stool behind the counter watching the comings and goings outside the gym while keeping an eye on the lone room that comprised the business section of the Muscle Factory. For complete information on Marty Gallagher’s The Purposeful Primitive, or to purchase the physical book, visit http://www.dragondoor.com/b37.html now
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The Purposeful Primitive By Marty G
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3 T H E P U R P O S E F U L P R I M
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5 T H E P U R P O S E F U L P R I M
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Page 47 and 48: 47 T hey say that variety is the sp
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NAked Warrior - ZANDERBILT

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