Bigger Stronger Faster Page #11

in Poughkeepsie.

And he's been doing income taxes for

the same guys he used to wrestle with.

I keep a couple things

around, not too much.

Big john.

John always keeps it real.

This just says "To Mad

Dog. Thanks for everything. "

CHRIS:
Not exactly how he

thought his life would turn out.

MIKE:
I get up, I go to the office,

you know, I make money for

them, I make money for me.

I got a great wife.

I got a great family.

But I wanted to be

a famous wrestler

and, you know,

I wanted to live the life.

I wanted to be on the road,

travel, meeting people,

Making money,

having fun-

you know,

living the life.

SHELDON:
He'll break

down and he'll be crying

and he'll say, like,

"dad, the biggest fear

I ever had in my life

was being average Joe.

And I'm 36 years old and that's

all I can see for myself. "

CHRIS:
What do you want to do now?

Where do you see

yourself going?

I mean, you know, the immediate

goal was to get out of Poughkeepsie,

move to California,

establish my name

and then start my own

business eventually.

Seemed like he was making

good progress, okay?

But he wasn't making

any progress.

I told him the other night, I said,

"you might be fooling

everybody else,

but you're not

fooling me.

You're full of sh*t.

You're still on stuff. "

Why do you think he

would tell us about it?

He tells me everything else,

you know, that he's doing.

I think he's

partially embarrassed

and I think he's-

that's part of

addictive behavior.

His thing is this- "I'm gonna be

fine as soon as I'm out of here.

I'm gonna go live in California.

My life is gonna be perfect. "

But if he really believes that-

no, he's not gonna be fine at all.

You know who I feel bad

for? I feel bad for Nadine.

'Cause here's a young

girl who's married,

whose hopes and dreams

and life

is in him,

and he's a screw-up.

And if he ends up overdosing

and killing himself

or if he ends up on the rocks,

he's taking her with him.

I'm not moving out there

with the hopes and dreams of-

I'm not gonna wait tables and

hope I'm gonna be an actor.

I already did that-

You think

you'll get noticed?

I'm not moving out

to get noticed,

but you're never gonna get

noticed in Poughkeepsie.

In Hollywood you're walking down

the street, somebody sees you-

"hey, you got a minute?"

you just never know.

You don't think

there's any way

he can get past it?

A miracle.

I'm serious.

I think they're gonna

find him dead someday.

I thought bringing up boys-

this is easy.

At least I don't have

a daughter who's, like,

got her face in the bowl

throwing up.

You know, did I-

did I do something

as a mother

To make you feel,

like, not good enough?

When Mike went off to college

and he calls your father up

and says,

"can I try steroids?"

"No, you're not getting

money to try steroids. "

You know, we both thought

that was a crazy thing, so-

but do you know where he

ended up getting 'em from?

- No, but I wasn't gonna- - He

got 'em from your brother John.

No-

So that's- I mean, it's

something that's like,

you know,

in our family.

I mean, it's something

that, like-

Chris, you're already

killing me with this as it is.

- Well, I'm telling-

- It just gets worse.

I'm just telling you

the truth.

I'm just trying to tell

you how I feel as a mother.

I am broken

to my soul.

My heart is broken.

When you were growing up

Hulk Hogan-

look what he's saying.

"take your vitamins,

say your prayers-"

and what?

- "believe in yourself. "

- Yeah, but it's not true.

- So I started working out.

- "Take your steroids," okay?

I don't know if he

ever prays or not.

Never heard him talk about

god in his whole life, okay?

Now that time

has gone by,

I'm like,

"is this guy a fraud?"

And that's where I think

that everybody needs

to begin to accept-

"I am who I am,"

said Popeye

the sailor man.

He even was a gyp.

- He had to take spinach.

- He had to take spinach.

Everybody needs something.

I mean, what's up with that?

If I just accept who I am right

now, isn't that just giving up?

No, accept who you are

as a person.

Then your body image

is something different.

Do you think a fat person

hasn't tried everything

that's legal? But I'm

not gonna cross the line.

The Bible lays everything out

about how to live your life.

- But the bible can't solve all your problems.

- It can.

I can't pray to look like Arnold

Schwarzenegger. It's not gonna happen.

No, you can't pray to look

like Arnold Schwarzenegger,

but neither can you

take enough steroids

or enough human growth hormone

to look like him either.

- But you can get as close as you can.

- It's not gonna happen.

You're fearfully

and wonderfully made.

Every sinew in your body,

every muscle, every fiber

was made by god.

And you're exactly

who he intended you

to be.

And so what? To somebody

with a six-pack of abs.

Maybe they don't have

what you have.

I mean, you know, why don't

you ever think that way too?

What I don't get is

why did our boys

Not feel that they were

good enough?

My father or my grandfather

never worried about

whether they had a six-pack

of abdominals

or what percentage

of body fat they had.

So why is it now

in the 21st century

that there's this

huge preoccupation

with body image that

just didn't exist before?

CHRIS:
Dr. Harrison

pope is a psychiatrist

who studies why American men are

becoming more obsessed with their bodies.

So here

we have G.I. Joe

from the 1960s.

This is when he first came out

at the time of the Vietnam war.

He's a perfectly

normal-looking dude.

Here is G.I. Joe

from about 10 years later,

- from the mid-1970s.

- He's got abs now.

He's clearly been putting

in some time in the gym.

- And then here is G.I. Joe from the 1990s.

- Oh, jeez.

The bicep is

up to 16" or so,

full six-pack of abs,

even got serratus muscles

visible on the side.

This evolution

in the action figures

is a testimony

to this increased

preoccupation with body image

that we've been seeing

in the United States.

And it's funny

that in our culture

we still tend

to romanticize

steroids

to a certain way-

That you'll see an ad

for an S.U.V. that says,

"this is our sedan

on steroids. "

But you wouldn't see an

ad for an S.U.V. saying,

"this is our sedan

on cocaine. "

REPORTER:
Well, it's sort of

like a golf cart on steroids.

It looked like an

easy-bake oven on steroids.

It's sort of

the economy on steroids.

Think of it as Apollo

on steroids.

This year the jet stream

has really been on steroids.

Kosovo would be

Bosnia on steroids.

MAN:
Adding more U.S.

trainers and advisors,

essentially putting the

current strategy on steroids.

We are besieged

every day

with images of muscular

male bodies on T.V.,

in the movies, in cartoons,

on magazines

at the checkout counter

in the department store,

all of which seem

to give this message

that a real man

is big and muscular.

There you go.

Just like that.

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