There is little doubt that bodybuilding enjoyed a wonderful and historic golden age out in Venice California. Back in the day, before exclusive magazine contracts, websites, DVD sales, supplement company endorsements and scandals involving performance enhancing-drugs, there was a little community of us, minding our own business, throwing down hardcore in a little gym down by the beach. We wore "gym shorts" and tank tops and sometimes even trained in flip-flops. Surely such attire would seem comical by today's standards, but style side down, we had it going on. We liked each other. We looked forward to training and looked forward to hanging out with each other after the work was through. Bodybuilding in Venice Beach was about as good as it could get if you had a mind to build your body and bask in the warm sun 365 days a year. Even dead-ass broke there was no better life, and every glance in the mirror proved we were the richest people in the world.
But, as in all chapters of life, they eventually end and lead to another. My only regret about those heady days in Venice is that I didn't pay closer attention to how amazing the whole thing was. Now that it's all gone and Gold's Gym barely even echoes the glory of its past, the only thing any of us, from Arnold right on down, has to hold onto is that we all did the same thing for the same reason. We made the trek to Mecca to train at the best bodybuilding gym in the world and be together as a community. We were inexplicably drawn there to participate in something we never dreamed would be where it is today.
Unfortunately, the Mecca is no longer in that west coast place we used to call home. For more years than I 
care to remember, Venice Beach was the destination of any serious bodybuilder. Bodybuilders who lived in other parts of the world thought those of us who lived in our cars were the lucky ones because we lived in the Mecca. And their lives would never be complete until they too made the same trek we all did and eventually came to call the sunny beaches of Venice and Santa Monica home. Like I said, looking back, I wish I had paid closer attention, because now it's all gone. At least in Venice it is.
The grand paradox of big corporations is that they must destroy in order to create. When you walk into Gold's Gym in Venice today and marvel at the champions plastered up on its walls you get the same crushing barren feeling as you get when you walk up to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC. Those names are nothing but ghosts. They're all gone; spread the world over like castaways in a 50s melodrama. Those pictures on the wall are the only evidence it ever happened.
As bodybuilders began to stray from Mecca and it began to lose its allure, other hardcore establishments began to spring up and draw in the disenfranchised. Today, while the former Mecca of bodybuilding is little more than a barren, corporate controlled, tourist trap suckling off the remnants of what was, other places have offered real bodybuilders refuge. Mecca itself has magically traversed the country and resides today on Long Island. If New York had palm trees it would be 1976 all over again, only better.
Sadly, the golden age of bodybuilding in Venice is gone. We are sad that it's gone, but certainly glad that it happened. Such evolution has ushered in what I call the Platinum Age of bodybuilding and Mecca stands again today, proudly, in a spot carved out by bodybuilding and powerlifting champion Bev Francis and her husband-- hard hitting, pipe swinging-- Steve Weinberger. That hardcore spirit of what drew us all together back in the day is thriving once again on Strong Island thanks to two people who never lost sight of what the real prize was.
"I just wanted a great gym," Steve told me. "We never really cared about the money. As soon as we made some we put it right back into the gym. We added more space, bought more equipment and upgraded what we had. We just kept building and building until we got to where we are today; and we're still at it." As Steve was speaking those words, their testament was evinced by the crew of guys carrying out what looked like perfectly good treadmills and carrying in new state-of-the-art replacements. "We're always upgrading," Steve continued. "I don't think we'll ever be done."
And what does that state of perennial incompleteness offer their members? Perhaps the cleanest, most well-equipped and well-maintained gym in the entire world. I've trained just about everywhere there is to 
train. While some places are clearly in an elite league of their own, there is no place I've ever been to that evokes the feeling of what it was like to walk into Gold's in Venice than Bev and Steve's Powerhouse Gym. On any given day you'll bump into champion bodybuilders such as Frank Sepe, Kevin English, Craig Richardson, Victor Martinez, Collette Nelson, Dave Palumbo, Tracy Greenwood, Branch Warren, Adela Garcia, Trish Warren, Eugene Mishin, Triple H. Jumbo Elliott, Jason Fabini, David Loverne, Kerry Jenkins, Matt O'Dwyer, Victor Hopson, Rob Burnett, Shannon Sharpe, Chris Mullin, Allen Watson, and a slew of other whenever they come to town such as six time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates, and current Mr. Olympia Dexter Jackson, 8 Time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman, 2 Time Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler, Tara Scotti, Kim Klein, Jennifer Searles, as well as, Ms. Fitness Olympia Susan Curry, 3 time kick-world boxing champion Derek Panza, and the list goes on. How it was in Venice back in the day, is how it is at Bev and Steve's today. The Mecca of bodybuilding has not only moved to Long Island, but it has put down roots. Strong roots. This time, Mecca is staying put.
