"Don't be sad it is over. Be glad it happened..."
I've been to Gold's Gym in Venice, California (the "Mecca of bodybuilding") twice in the last 14 years. Before that I was there every single day-- sometimes twice in one day-- since 1979. The first revisit was about five years ago. My last visit was this past week. This last one was particularly nostalgic because I was staying at a friend's house who lived five blocks from where I lived in Venice all those years ago. It was hard enough being back there and noticing how the city had grown up without me. Venice was always a magical place to me, and staying in the neighborhood I called home for most of my adult life brought back many memories that touched my heart and made me wish I'd never left. Staying right there in the center of my old stomping grounds I really felt like I had come home. Even with all the new growth and change, Venice still retains its soul and it was comforting to feel it once again connect with mine. If you dropped me out of an airplane, blindfolded, I'd know where I was the second my chute floated me down into the center of Windward Circle. There's simply no place like it on Earth. I wish I could say that about Gold's Gym.
The place is just different now. All places change or "evolve" over time; not Gold's. Gold's morphed. It's like looking at the space shuttle and comparing it to a Saturn rocket that went to the moon. The idea isn't even the same. The best you can say is that they're both space ships. In that sense, I suppose, the Gold's Gym from back in the day and the one today are both gyms. But, that's about as far as the similarities go.
If I moved back to Venice tomorrow, would I go back and train at Gold's Gym? Of course I would. But, as nostalgic as the idea may sound, it sure isn't anything like driving a 69 Z-28 Camaro; even if it was restored. As I've written many times before, Gold's Gym-- the real Gold's Gym is gone. The building still stands in the same spot-- it's pretty damn well equipped and even some of the same people are still milling around-- but its soul has been scooped out. The essence of what made Gold's that irresistible place to be has been replaced by something as alluring as granny panties.
The most glaring example of what made my heart sink the minute I walked in the door had really nothing to do with Gold's, but it did set the tone for the rest of my disdain. On the right hand wall of the front room there's a gallery of Mr. Olympias. A huge picture of every Olympian from Larry Scott to Dexter Jackson adorns the wall in the chronological order that they occupied the office. All of them, except for one-- the most important one; Arnold. Where was Arnold? I know, Sacramento, right? How could Arnold turn his back on his brothers and disassociate himself from the lofty title he held and defended six times? How could Arnold's picture be vacant from the line up of all Mr. Olympias on the wall in the very gym that defined everything that is bodybuilding? The feeling that revelation evoked was sickening. I felt betrayed. I felt like, fuck, how can the roots of Arnold's soul be omitted? This was obviously the work of his handlers. There is no way I'd ever believe that it was Arnold's idea. Whatever the motivation, the historical lineage of the most revered title in bodybuilding was interrupted by its most important constituent in the most important and hallowed ground in bodybuilding-- Mecca. As bad as that was it went downhill from there....
I was drawn to Gold's Gym all the way across the country from NY much the way most bodybuilders of the 60s and 70s were drawn. Heading out to Callie to train at Gold's was truly like the devout making the pilgrimage to Mecca. In any bodybuilder's mind of that era there couldn't possibly be a difference.
I got to Gold's in 1979. Back then it occupied a storefront on 2nd street in Santa Monica. I could hear the music blasting from down the block as I walked up. Then I could hear the clanking of the weights... Then I could see who was clanking them when I peered into the window. To a wide-eyed 18 year-old kid it was like peering into the Parthenon and seeing the Gods train. Every guy in there was wearing a tank top and shorts and muscles were bulging everywhere. It was a site I'd never seen before, and never forgot . And, sadly, it's a site none of us will ever see again.
While some would look at those dank and primitive surroundings and consider the place foreboding, I was drawn in-- practically vacuumed in off the street. I joined up and never looked back. I felt like I had traveled all the way across the country to come home to a city I've never been to before. After the Gym moved to its current location on Hampton Drive in Venice a couple of miles south, I really felt like I belonged. I was an original member of that place and that's the place where the Gold's Gym image exploded.
I suppose, as with all explosions, the energy dissipates over time. Big hardcore gyms are all over the country now and the bodybuilding community has spread. And Gold's summarily thinned out. At its peak in the mid 90s virtually anyone who was someone trained there. Certainly all the bodybuilders did. Among the actors and the sports celebrities nearly every top contender for any contest was training there. Back in 83, when Samir won the Olympia, nearly the entire Olympia line up was training at Gold's! We go nuts today when we see five of them at a guest posing. Imagine tripping over all of them, every day leading up to the show? Imagine Mr. Olympia spotting you on leg extensions? Imagine the feeling of the brotherhood that existed when an entire building was filled with men that thought like you and sought the same physical quest you did.
There was love in that building; among all the new equipment - entire lines of it - brand new stuff companies set up at Gold's so they had a working showroom of sorts - among all that amazing stuff, and the sunny southern California beach air blowing through the big garage door open at the far end, and music blasting, and the grunts and groans of those striving for a goal mere mortals could never understand, there was that feeling that you belonged. Your buddies were in that building. Guys you'd go out and eat with after you trained. Guys you'd go to the beach with to get some sun. Guys you could count on if you needed them. There may be some places like that around the world today, but Gold's was the first.
It's gone now. I saw Charles Glass when I walked in last week. He was the one remnant of the past that I've kept up with all these years. As common a fixture as he always was at Gold's, today he looked like he didn't belong there. He saw me looking all bewildered and got my attention. He said I looked "lost." I did. "It's changed," he said. That was an understatement. We chatted some and I moved on. I ran into a couple of other guys who are still running their personal training business there. They all found me with that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look as I tried to pick my way through my memory and find my way around. They all said the same things to me after they said hello - "it's different now," "it's all corporate," It's not like it used to be," "Arnold's pictures are down." Yeah, Arnold's pictures are down. And it's corporate. And it has changed. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't put that vision back in my head of what used to be contained within those very same walls.
Tim Kimber, Pete Grimkowski and Ed Connors took over more than a gym that they built into the Gold's brand in the early 80s. It was more than a franchise. More than even a dream. They presided over a home for nearly every bodybuilder in the world. If you made that pilgrimage to Mecca, you knew you had come home and you were welcomed with open arms. As much as the rest of the world looked at us as mutants, Gold's Gym was the place you could shed that stigma and do some serious work. Of course you still can. Gold's is still one of the best equipped gyms in the country, and a few top guys still train there. But, if any of you could have been there during the twilight of the golden age of bodybuilding, you would carry in your heart something you would yearn to feel again; even if only for just one day.
Gold's Gym in Venice will always stand as the iconic Mecca of bodybuilding because of what it once was, not because of what it is. Even at 4x its original size, the monstrosity it is today exists in the shadow of yesterday. The shadow of gold. And I am all the richer for having had the good fortune to have stood in it. I wish all of you could feel it too. Your bench would go up 50 pounds.
Subscribe to RxMuscle on Youtube
