Hmmm...I'm going to be honest. When I set out to interview Boss 1 and Boss 2, I opened my mouth before I thought it through. I called John and told him I had this great idea: let me interview the interviewers!
I mean, these two guys are always asking the questions, yet they lead some pretty interesting lives themselves. There's so much to these two that you don't actually get to see or hear about that I wanted to get the personal scoop on these two innovators!
John liked the idea. He, immediately, said "...let's do it!" From there, it was just a matter of pinning both of them down long enough to ask a few good questions. On the surface that might seem pretty easy; no big deal, right? Typically, I fly by the seat of my pants and that usually works for me. But the deeper I got into this, the more pressure I created for myself. First of all, pinning either one of them down long enough to get personal is a task in itself. Next, coming up with the questions that people would want to know the answers to, adds another level of anxiety.
I think that John's interview may surprise you.....it certainly impressed me beyond what I thought it would. I knew he was an interesting guy....but I learned things about him that truly captivated me. Let me put it this way; I had to keep reminding myself to write while he was talking. I was so absorbed in our conversation, enjoying every moment, that I kept forgetting to take notes! Enjoy!
Allie: What motivates you to write?
JR: Well, I'm an artist. Writing is an art. Any expression of art that I have, it has to get out! Hypocrisy motivates me to write. Other things that really bug me motivate me. I believe people should be good to each other. I like people to live in peace and harmony. I believe in being human and treating people with kindness. I'm passionate about the truth and getting it out there! You know, people make a name for themselves doing all kinds of things, racing motorcycles, whatever, and we celebrate it and often talk about these achievements but the truth often gets missed or overlooked. To me, the truth is everything so I try to put it out there. I also like to give props to people who deserve it. If I can use my talent, my art, to set things straight or give someone a "lift" then I enjoy doing it. It's just crazy that I can make a living doing it.
Allie: Who inspires you in life?
JR: My Dad. He's lived life perfectly. He's 82. He has 3 successful kids, and he's still in love with his wife after 50 years. You know, he got dealt his hand, born during the Great Depression, life wasn't easy, and he still did everything right. He chose the right path, went to school, became a doctor, spent his life helping people, put his family first, and made a success out of everything he did while never hurting anyone in the process.
Allie: So there's three siblings?
JR: Yeah - 1 brother, 1 sister; both younger.
Allie: And let me guess...a typical Italian family?
JR: Oh yeah.
Allie: What inspires you to body build?
JR: Maintaining the death certificate of a fat kid is what inspires me! That is very important to me. It was a rude awakening for me as a fat kid, to go from the loving, coddling environment of my family who loved me no matter what, to the real world where I was ridiculed and teased. I was tormented for being fat. It made me realize that this was not okay. This kid was not good. I had to get rid of him. I think I was about 12 when I discovered muscles. The 1972 Mr. Olympia was on television and my Dad called me in to the room. He said: "You gotta see this, John. " Sergio Oliva was hitting a crab shot, and I watched his traps appear from nowhere to rise over his ears and his chest just blowing up! It's funny; man had just landed on the moon 2 years before and it did nothing for me. Mr. Olympia inspired me. And you know that little fat shit still pokes his head in the mirror at me occasionally. I work daily to keep him out of my mirror!
Allie: Would you ever consider competing again?
JR: Yes. I have to get through this next phase of my life, first. Once I move, get settled and grow a few roots, I'll consider it again.
Allie: What division?
JR: Over 50
Allie: You've written a book?
JR: Yeah, a cookbook. That thing's still circulating, too. It became a "cult" classic.
Allie: What's it called?
JR: Muscle Meals. I co-wrote a few others on various topics, Law, sex, nutrition, but it's the cook book that everyone remembers.
Allie: I hear about it all the time. Is there another cookbook in the works?
JR: No.
Allie: Why not? There seems to be quite a demand for it!
JR: (laughs) Everyone in this subculture of ours eats the same 5 things. (3 if you're doing Dave's diet!) There are only so many things you can do with the 5 foods we eat. I've already written recipes for them. You can find them on the RX Muscle website... for free..
Allie: In your TwinLab days you did an ad for Supro. Did you really bake a chocolate cake with it?
JR: Yes! Supro was a soy based protein that you could cook with....The cake I made was in the ad I did. It was a Boston cream pie.
Allie: I know you're painfully shy....you've even said so yourself. But most people have no idea. How do you overcome that for events and appearances?
JR: John Romano is largely a character; a persona. To a large degree, I step in to character.
Allie: But I know you put your real life "stuff" out there to be everyone's business. You write about real things ....everything...going on in your life. That doesn't really seem like a "persona" to me. Isn't there a certain amount of vulnerability you subject yourself to by being so open and honest for the whole world?
JR: When I was studying martial arts, I had a major self confidence issue that stemmed from being overweight and dyslexic.
Allie: I didn't know you're dyslexic?!?
JR: Oh terribly. I've got all the attributes that need to be overcome. I'm like the Danny DeVito character in Twins. I viewed my lack of self confidence as a weakness. Martial arts instilled in me the confidence it took to be ok with being myself. Then, body building on top of it gave me that mentality that exudes confidence. You know as well as I do that when someone embodies the attributes of a body builder, people will take notice. So for me, people stand up and pay attention...they listen. That gives me the ability to express myself, particularly with writing. I'm putting the truth out there - as the messenger.
Allie: I guess when I walk through crowds with you and people stop you every two feet to discuss what's going on with your ex-wife or your son or your relocation, it seems so personal. To me it seems like everyone knows your business. Doesn't that ever get to you?
JR: When I was 20 or so, my best friend was a hairdresser. I remember one day we were talking and he said:
"You have to know in your heart, with confidence, that what will be in the end...is good. When I'm cutting someone's hair, what falls on the floor doesn't count. What's left does. You can't worry about what isn't; you have to have confidence in what is.
More than anything, I want people to know that I am just like them: I have ex-wives, I have car problems...
The trade-off is that people trust me and identify with me as a human being. So, yeah, I put myself out there, but I have no fear of vulnerability from it. I think it's a gross hypocrisy to be out there in the public eye and not be tangible. I can't stand to see celebrities who won't sign autographs, shake hands or give interviews. You can't be in the public eye and make yourself unapproachable. People may know all of my personal business, but most are respectful. They just feel like they know me from my writing...I see that as a good thing.
Allie: Does it ever surprise you how many people recognize you?
JR: What surprises me is that it extends past the gym! On any given day several people will come up to me and talk about my latest article or something I've written, or how they saw me in Bigger, Stronger, Faster. It blows my mind every day. I never thought people would know who I am - it catches me off guard.
Allie: What style martial arts did you study? Do you still study it?
JR: Kempo. I no longer study it, but I still practice it. I'd like to study it again. There's a guy in New York named Ray Parker who brought this style to the U.S. I think his son is still teaching and I plan to look him up when I get settled in after my move.
Allie: Are you a black belt?
JR: Brown. I remember for my brown belt testing I was required to break boards. I'll never forget: I was told that the pressure it took to break a single board was equivalent to the pressure it takes to break a person's rib. I broke 3 boards simultaneously and I remember thinking, "Wow!" I never got in to a fight after that. I did not want something like that on my conscience. It seemed way too easy to break those boards!
Allie: You have interviewed just about every top girl in our industry. Do the girls you interview ever make you nervous?
JR: Pretty much all of them! Mainly because I'm hopelessly shy, but also because I never want to be "that" guy. I never want to leave the impression that I'm hitting on them or that I don't respect them.
Allie: How'd you meet Dave?
JR: I can't really pinpoint it. We've tried before and we've been able to trace it back about 15 years. I think, but I'm not sure, that it was at the Arnold Classic Expo. He was at a booth and we just hit it off. We had this automatic chemistry - it's ridiculous. To this day we find that we are doing things at the same time; finishing each others thoughts, starting on the same ideas or working on the same wavelengths. We live this uncanny parallel existence,
Allie: Will you and Dave ever do an Iron Asylum?
JR: Yes.
Allie: When?
JR: Soon.
Allie: What was your first job in the fitness industry?
JR: Sports Rehab trainer. Very gratifying, but not highly paid.
Allie: Did you really live in your car in "the good ol' days?"
JR: A couple of nights I slept in my car when I was about 21, but I never lived in it.
Allie: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
JR: In Mexico - behind a high 3 sided wall with an inside/outside studio doing meaningful projects and speaking the truth.
Allie: You refer to yourself as an artist. Do you have a passion for anything besides writing and body building?
JR: I'm a very good stone mason, so stone and metal sculptures. I am a sculptor.
Allie: You're a sculptor? How do you discover you have a talent for sculpting?
JR: It started with stone work. When I was about, 15 I think, my parents were doing a remodel on their house and re-facing a wall with a stone facade. It was a Saturday and the workers weren't working that day. My Dad left the house early that morning and when I saw where the construction left off I thought to myself, I can do that! So I picked up the tools and finished the wall. I think I did more of the wall in that one day then the hired crew did from the beginning. My Dad came home and couldn't believe it. He could even tell where I started and they stopped, because my work was so much better.
Allie: Have you ever been commissioned to do any work?
JR: I have a couple sculptures in L.A. and one in Guadalajara outside of an office building. I have built about 20 motorcycles which have all been sold.
Allie: Motorcycles?
JR: Yeah. 23 over the years to be exact. Three of them were really cool. They were built with a human motif. I used a female bodybuilder (with a bang'n body) to cast the mold for the bikes. Then I manipulated the positioning of her body in minute ways to fit the functional parts of the motorcycles. I had to design all of the movable, functional pieces to support the operations of a motorcycle. I sold each of those three (each were slightly different) for about $30k a piece to a member of Saudi royalty.
Allie: Who is the one person you'd most like to interview but haven't?
JR: Dead or alive?
Allie: Dead.
JR: Michelangelo or Leonardo DaVinci; or Galileo.
Allie: Tell me why?
JR: First, they were all Italian like me. And all three were geniuses. Galileo contributed so much to the world without even knowing it. He bucked convention. He established the process of scientific monitoring. He made such ground breaking discoveries that the Vatican was up his ass. And in the midst of all of that he'd get a letter from his nutty sister saying she needed to buy melons and he'd stop what he was doing and travel for days to go help her!
Michelangelo and Leonardo were fiercely competitive and driven and both left-handed like me. They had a sense of balance with the world that a lot of people don't have. Michelangelo was an amazing sculptor who used to say that the sculpture is already in the block of marble, he just had to free it. I think that is most evident in Michelangelo's Prisoners - big blocks of marble with just part of the figure revealed. They look unfinished, but they're not. He was just proving a point. Then there's La Pieta where Mary is holding Jesus after he's died and you can just see the weight of his body in her arms, and the draping of the cloth and her grief. It's absolutely amazing how that statue makes you feel by just looking at it.
DaVinci was perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived! Although he is widely known for his painting he is revered for his technological ingenuity. Engineers today have made many of the machines he sketched in his notes and they actually work! I think it is incredible how he could design complicated machines in his mind that actually worked without the benefit of having made them. He's also responsible for advancing our knowledge in anatomy and science.
Allie: What about someone you'd like to interview that is alive?
JR: Arnold (Schwarzenegger), but he won't. He doesn't give interviews. I know what I'd ask him, though. I'd ask him why he's such a fucking hypocrite these days!
Oh, I'd also like to interview Carol Shelby - he invented the Cobra. I met him at a race one time. I was building a replica of the Cobra that I'd taken over from Dan Duchaine and I asked Carol to sign my dashboard. He told me: "sure, where is it?" and I didn't have the car with me. I'm still kicking myself for that one.
Allie: How did you meet Dan Duchaine?
JR: In prison. I knew of him before that. Dan was this flamboyant genius odd ball running around Venice. If you saw him you'd think to yourself: "what the hell is he doing in body building!?!? He was the first guy I met in prison after my 9 months of lockdown at MDC (Metropolitan Detention Center). I went to look for the weights and I saw him and said: "You're Dan Duchaine" and he said: "You're John Romano." He's actually the one who convinced me I could make money writing. I was published while I was in prison. People ask me all the time: What did you miss the most in prison, getting layed? And I have to say, no - it was intellectual stimulation. When I was locked up at MDC it was unbearable; the void of intelligence. Dan and I shared deep, creative interests. I'd say he was the most giving, intelligent, interesting (although twisted) guy I'll ever know.
I'll tell you one of my biggest regrets: I figured out after the fact that Dan knew when he was dying. He had sublet this apartment in New York to get inspired. He always wanted to be a playwright. He called, trying really hard to get me to come stay with him for a while. At the time, I was still in Mexico and the situations in my life, with my son and my ex, just weren't conducive. I left it open ended, telling him that It'd be easier to come see him in LA when he flew back. Well, he wanted to be in the air on an airplane when the Millennium hit. So he made arrangements to fly home during the turn of the new Millennia. When he landed, he had no ride and there were no cabs available, so he decided to start walking. He already was in poor health and it was raining and sloppy outside. His apartment was like 10 miles from the airport! He became deathly ill that night and never recovered. He got sick that night and I should've been there to get him from the airport.
Allie: Why did you go to prison?
JR: Because I wouldn't rat out the group of guys who were ultimately culpable. I was the one exposed.
Allie: What exactly were you doing when you were "exposed"?
JR: Wire fraud. I was a commodities and stock broker. It was a complicated scheme, but suffice it to say there was a lot of money involved.
Allie: And no one else involved was ever caught?
JR: No. I refused to testify against them or implicate them. It was fucked up because after I got out those guys turned their back on me. That's okay, though. I can still look at myself in the mirror and know I'm not a rat. I sleep just fine at night.
Allie: What's the worst thing you ever saw in prison?
JR: A guy getting stabbed to death.
Allie: Were you ever scared?
JR: Yes. In federal prison, you get classified on a scale: 1 being the least risk and 6 being the most hardened criminal you can be. Until your case is adjudicated and you're sentenced, they classify everyone as a 6, putting you in the same room with the worst of the worst. Fortunately, for me, somehow everyone knows your case and because I wasn't a rat, it earned some respect right from the start. Nobody really messed with me. But you're still sleeping with one eye open, ya' know?
Allie: Do you still do contest prep?
JR: Nope. Not anymore since I almost killed Paul Dillett. Bodybuilders would let us do anything to them. One day I was looking at this top pro with 1 IV bag hooked up to each arm and I remember thinking it was like watching a race car being prepped. I said to Dan: "We're gonna kill somebody!" Then Chris Duffy made the statement that if he could earn his pro card and die the next day, he'd do it. It was the combination of these two things that made me decide, if I ever come close...
Then at the 94 Arnold Classic, Charles Glass asked me to come take a look at Paul Dillett. I obliged and I told him I thought he looked like he was slightly holding water. I suggested giving Paul a shot of Lasix. He had already taken 3 other non potassium sparing drugs and I didn't figure them into the equation. He looked crazy! Then he literally froze on stage. Paul was very forgiving, but I decided then; no more.
Allie: John, thank you. I know you had to put your day on hold for me and I appreciate your time. I think I could go on all day asking questions.
