Vinnie Tortorich

I was sitting on the patio at King’s Fish House the other day having one of my favorite lunches, salmon and broccoli. I know what you’re thinking, that’s the healthiest damn meal you’ve ever heard of. But you know what, I love fish. I love all fish. I’ve never had one that I didn’t like. And broccoli? My all-time favorite vegetable. There’s only one vegetable I love more, and that’s chocolate. I know what you’re thinking. Cocoa beans are not vegetables. I know. But I love it anyway. As I sat there enjoying my lunch, I was also people watching. If you don’t live in the greater Los Angeles area, it’s a fun thing to do. It’s like watching a freak show. This one woman walked up and she was a crowd stopper. She had so many procedures done to her face, she looked mutilated. You couldn’t see a lot of the handy work because she had those big idiot sunglasses on. You know the kind. The ones that looked like the glasses you got as a joke when you were a kid at the state fair. It didn’t stop there. She also had the biggest boob job I’ve seen in a while. For those of you who are not familiar with the Calabasas area, let me give you a lesson. Calabasas is adjacent to Chatsworth, which is the unofficial porn capital of the world. That’s the end of your geography lesson. Now for a quick lesson in adult entertainment. It’s typically in a porn star’s best interest to have extremely large breasts. If they don’t have them, they buy them. Why did I tell you all of that? Well, I’d say this woman had the largest boobs I’ve ever seen, and trust me, due to where I live, I’ve seen some big ones. She was a literal freak show. But the fun didn’t stop there. She also weighed about two bills. Maybe even 210. This woman was such a freak that all the other plastic surgery victims sitting around me couldn’t believe what they were looking at. I told you that to tell you this. Do I feel bad for this woman or people like her who go out and mutilate their faces and bodies in the interest of looking better? Absolutely not. Each one of us has a certain amount of time on this planet. If something will make you feel better, go for it. But it doesn’t stop me from being perplexed with the situation. Let me explain. I can’t understand for one minute why a woman like the one who walked in that day would spend the money and go through the amount of pain that plastic surgery causes. Yet she doesn’t seem to care one bit about the size of her ass, or the fact that obesity leads to a myriad of problems (heart disease, cancer, you name it). The mere fact that these people will spend the time, effort and money, then go through pain, proves they are narcissistic enough to want to look good. Yet they don’t care enough to spend a little time on something that will not only make them look better but will also improve their health.

I was talking to my nephew today. He works for a large corporation. As we chit chatted, I asked him what he was going to do after work. He said nothing special, just that he had to take a harassment test. In my 30-plus years of being employed, I’ve only worked for myself. I’ve never had an employer. So I asked him what this test was all about. He explained to me that it was a three-hour waste of time that employees in most companies have to endure. It’s basically a test covering anything and everything that could be considered sexual harassment. Jokingly I asked if everyone has to take them or just the perverts like him. He laughed it off then got serious. “You know, it’s kind of like the airport, where every passenger is treated like a criminal.” My fascination continued. I think my nephew was confused by the fact that I had no idea what he was talking about. I have never been part of a workplace environment. I explained to him how I asked a friend if people literally stood around water coolers and had chats. In my life I only heard the term “watercooler chat” in movies and such. People apparently gather around the kitchen while they wait for their pre-fab meal to heat up in a microwave. I told you that to tell you this. I started thinking about what my nephew had to say. I realized that I could never have a regular job. Not because I couldn’t be caged in a cubicle like an animal. Not because I’d have to dress up and wear a tie. I realized I could never have another job because I’ve never learned to play with others in the workforce. As a matter of fact, my life is the antithesis of this. My female clientele loves it when I tell them they have a great ass, or the fact that I notice their legs are getting firm. They literally lift their shirts and have me pinch their stomach when they’re proud of the fact that they have little or no body fat anymore. They say things to me like, “Do you think it’s time for a facelift or do I need to have my tits done?” Why am I telling you all of this? Simple. I’m bragging. But the real truth is, I think we’ve taken it a little too far. Do I think employees should play grab-ass in the office? Absolutely not. But in this day and age when the country is getting fatter than ever, I feel the people who are doing something about it should be recognized as such. In my opinion, that’s not sexual harassment.

NOTE: I generally write my blog several days in advance, so by the time his appears, the day mentioned in this piece will have passed.

In 1984 I was sitting on the toilet in the Tulane University library. It’s where I got most of my work done. As I was exiting the stall, I noticed a joke written on the wall with the acronym AIDS in it. I had been studying with my friend Jayne Friedland at a table. As I walked back, I tried to figure out what the acronym stood for. But I had no clue. So I asked Jayne if she had ever heard of it. Since she was from Great Neck, Long Island, I figured she might have different information than we had down in the swamp of Louisiana. She did have a vague knowledge of it. Although she didn’t know what the letters stood for, she said it was a disease only gay people got and it came from anal sex. It didn’t take long from that point for the whole world to figure out what AIDS was – Acquired immune deficiency syndrome. It also didn’t take us long to figure out that not only gay people got it. This disease did not discriminate. Because of the media, I, like several others, considered AIDS a death sentence. It seemed like everyone who got it early on was dead in six months. Over the years, things have changed. The drugs have gotten better, and so has education. We’ve learned that HIV and AIDS are two different things. The very reason I bring this subject up, is because Dec. 1 is World AIDS Day. I think it’s great that we dedicate days to the awareness of AIDS. It can only help to do these sort of things. I told you that to tell you this. In the fall of 1991, I moved to southern California from New Orleans. A couple of weeks later, I was shocked along with the rest of the world to learn that one of sports’ biggest superstars was HIV positive. NBA great Earvin “Magic” Johnson could have easily stepped out of the public eye that day. But if it was possible that a man considered a superhero of sports to become a larger than life human being, Magic did just that. In a day and age where sports heroes show absolutely no class (think Terrell Owens, Michael Vick, Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson…we don’t have to leave the NFL wide receiver group to fill up this list with assholes). Even Tiger Woods showed his true colors just about a year ago. But not Magic Johnson. Instead of shriveling up and going away, he showed the world that HIV was not a death sentence. He showed the world that it was a license to live. I will just list a few of his accomplishments after his diagnosis. He received an Olympic gold medal with the Dream Team, he made the All Star team and he started a national chain of movie theaters. The gym I go to in L.A. is owned by 24 Hour Fitness, but that particular gym is the Magic Johnson 24 Hour Fitness. He’s now working on bringing an NFL team back to Los Angeles. If that’s not enough, Magic did the most super human feat of all…he put a Starbucks in a black community. Yeah, it’s meant as a joke. But the bottom line is, you try to get a cup of Starbucks in a black community, it’s almost impossible. So on World AIDS Day, I say we salute the man who decided to live.

I usually hate excuses. In my line of work I think I’ve heard them all, thousands of times. They drive me nuts. I have one client who’s actually a pretty big celebrity in her own right. I love how she never uses excuses. She just says, “You know what, I don’t want to work out today.” I love that. There is one time I like excuses. I’m entertained by this excuse. I started hearing it about 28 years ago. It was around when I started cycling. It’s an excuse other cyclists will give. It’s the ones you’re about to ride with for the day, as to why they’re going to be slow. If you’re a cyclist you know what I’m talking about. You’ve either heard it, or done it. In my case, it’s both. Some of the favorites: “I went hard yesterday so I don’t have anything today.” “I went to the gym and did heavy squats last night.” “I had insomnia and went to sleep at 4 a.m.” “I’m just getting over the flu…or a cold.” You name it, I’ve heard them all. As a matter of fact there was a guy from when I lived in Brentwood who had an excuse literally every time. He wasn’t actually a riding buddy of mine. He was of a different ilk. He was the guy you usually run into while riding. Then you spend the rest of the ride trying to figure out his name. I’d always refer to him as Dude or Bro. This particular dude had a laundry list of excuses each time he caught up with me. I’d listen, then ride him right off my wheel. I’ll never forget one time he told me it was the first time he’d been on his bike in two weeks. He said he had a bad flu and ended up in a hospital. I guess he had forgotten that we had ridden together the weekend before. And I had seen him on his bike three times that week as I headed to different clients. I always knew it was him. He rode without a helmet. He was just way too cool. I told you that to tell you this. I met Caroline Lettieri a couple of years ago along with another girl named Karen on a bike ride. We all seemed to get along nicely, so we planned to ride again together. I learned a lot about those two women. I also learned that they were highly competitive. Not just with themselves or with each other, but they wanted to do well every time they went out. They were both marathoners and triathletes. I was in Tempe when Karen did her first long course triathlon. And I remember the determination she had. This year was Caroline’s year to go for it. But early on Caroline developed injuries. And those injuries began to plague her mind as well as her body. She was having issues with her calf muscles. It seems as though she kept pulling them around her Achille’s tendon. I sent her to one of my favorite physical therapists. He was able to help but the injuries kept coming back. I would often see Caroline running in the pre-dawn hours as I headed to my first client. We would often ride on the weekends. She never made excuses for her leg. She wanted to know what to do to stop it. I wanted to help, but didn’t know what to do.

Caroline was always a strong rider but something about her riding style didn’t look right. I kept chalking it up to the fact that triathletes think they have to ride time trial bikes all the time. It just didn’t make sense. Why did such a good athlete look so awkward on a bike? I often told her she looked like a monkey fucking a football as she rode down the rode. Then one day it hit me. It wasn’t Caroline and it wasn’t her bike. It was the crank arms. You may remember when I called her 59 inches of inspiration. If you do the math, that puts her at 4’11”. With all the experts in the world she went to, no one cared to check to see the crank arms on her overpriced bike. The arms were too long. She bought a shorter set and continued to see the physical therapist. Slowly but surely she got stronger. Caroline seemed to be sailing toward the event with ease. That’s when everything went south again. Her father, who she loves dearly, became extremely ill. She had to take off of work and go home to New York to see her father. When she returned to Los Angeles, she told me that leaving his bedside was the toughest thing she ever had to do. She knew she would never see him alive again. She was right. About a week later, she went home again to bury a man she loved dearly. This time when she returned to L.A. she was distraught. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to do the triathlon. With less than a month to go, she got her grieving butt back on the bike and began to swim and run. Grief stricken, she spoke of her father often during the rides. She often said she wasn’t sure why she was continuing. To be honest, I’m not sure I could have. As Caroline and I drove from California to Tempe, Arizona, she told me her father always wanted to see her in a triathlon. But he never had an opportunity. She said Tempe would be the first time her dad would see her. “You know, he’s going to have the best seat in the house,” she said. I’m not a very religious man, but I believed my friend. I believed her dad would be there.

Caroline finished her Ironman event with blood blisters on her toes that were bigger than I had ever seen before. She finished despite the fact that she suffers from lupus. And she finished without any excuses. In my earlier blog about her, I said I would be there when my friend got in the water that morning and I would be there to hug her at the finish line. I watched her cross but I was too far into the crowd to push my way through. But that’s OK. Caroline had someone much better to greet her at the finish line. Only moments before she crossed, the current world champion triathlete, a woman who set a new world record that day, Chrissie Wellington, showed up as if on cue, as Caroline crossed the finish line. She got a big smile and a hug from the champion. Do I think Caroline’s Italian father was watching that day? Absolutely. I also think he pulled some strings with the Big Guy to have that kind of finish for his daughter.

In the first weekend of December 1976 my father pulled up to the Grand Theater on Railroad Avenue in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. I loved the Grand Theater. I loved watching movies. There was only one screen and it was a big one. It was an old theater, and it was later torn down. It’s now a parking lot where a theater once stood. I’ve seen some classics in that theater. I couldn’t have been over 11 or 12 when I saw Patton. I was around the same age when my father took me to see The Godfather. He mumbled something about it being our people. I still don’t understand what he was talking about. I never saw my father shoot Mo Greene or knock off his brother Fredo. But I digress. I saw Blazing Saddles in that theater, another favorite. Most of the movies were rated R. And most I saw before I was 13. You know what? I turned out pretty good, so take that Tipper Gore. While I’m on my rant about Tipper and her type, you can’t even make a drug reference in a song anymore and get it on the radio. Yet the word cocaine is mentioned dozens of times in Eric Clapton‘s Cocaine. Despite this, I’ve never tried the stuff. Getting back to the story at hand. I didn’t have high hopes as I purchased my 75 cent ticket on that first weekend in December. I didn’t even see the movie advertised on television. From the grainy cheap look of the poster, I was almost afraid it would have subtitles. The only hope it had was an actress I recognized from the Godfather, Talia Shire. The movie didn’t even have a good name. It was called Rocky. By the time the credits rolled, I had feeling running through my 14 year old body that I’d never felt before. I wanted to cheer like everyone else in the theater, but I thought I was too cool for that. So I didn’t. I wanted to cry but I was too much of a man. So I didn’t. I sat still in that movie I was still so long that my feet, hands and legs fell asleep. My mind was reeling. I read every piece of what rolled down through the end of the movie. I read that Conti did the music. I literally chanted the name to myself on the way home until I got to a pen and wrote it down. I kept that piece of paper until the next time I went to Baton Rouge. That’s where I bought the LP to the movie Rocky. I played it until the record wore out. That movie inspired a lot of people to be the best they could be in life, including me. I told you that to tell you this. In my life as an athlete I’ve seen a lot of inspiring things. I see challenged athletes all the time. I often wonder if I had that kind of courage if I lost a leg or an arm, or both arms. Sometimes inspiration doesn’t come from someone who’s challenged. There was no shortage of it at this year’s Ford Ironman Triathlon in Tempe, Arizona. The guy I want to mention today was a kid I grew up with, Jon Covington. In true southern Louisiana form, he had a funny nickname. We called him Jon Bubba. The story is too long and convoluted, so I won’t explain what it means. I will tell you this, we called his older brother Bubba Jon. Jon was the same age as my younger brother, so he was about four years younger than me. They hung out a lot and played sports together. Jon was a good athlete. I haven’t seen him much over the years. But I knew he would be in Tempe because we’re both on Facebook. I made it a mission to meet Jon, his lovely wife and his two-year-old son. Jon had called me in the past few months for a few training tips. He also called me a week or two before the race because the tendonitis in his knee was bothering him so much that he had stopped running. He was going to go for it anyway. The thing I noticed about Jon was that he didn’t look like most Ironman triathletes. He had a fair amount of extra weight on his body. I was worried that my friend wouldn’t make the bike cutoff time. If you don’t make it, you get pulled from the event. Jon did tell me he was a strong swimmer. He proved it by swimming the two-plus miles in an hour and 20 minutes. I thought it was an amazing time for a guy his size. I knew the bike wouldn’t be easy because there were tough winds that day. The course has an incline in one direction. Jon would be carrying 260 pounds up the incline and then after the turnaround, would push through a tough wind on the bike. Even the top pros were grimacing in pain. As Jon passed me on the bike I yelled out his name and somehow he managed to smile to let me know this course wouldn’t beat him. Next came the run, a full marathon. I asked myself how much more punishment could he take. Every time he passed me, though he was jogging slowly and sometimes walking, Jon never gave up. I walked along with him a few times for a few seconds. His morale was great.

Jon finished in 15 hours and lots of change. But he finished. We often fill stadiums with hundreds of thousands of people to watch football. We have no trouble turning overpaid athletes into heroes. But I want everyone who reads this blog to know, Jon Bubba Covington is my hero.

I watched a piece of the final Dancing With The Stars episode. It’s not a show I would normally pay attention to, but it was getting an assload of media attention. I’m pretty sure the producers really didn’t care who won, they were loving the attention they were getting. And rightfully so. The whole idea for them is to make money. You can’t begrudge them that. I was eager to watch Bristol Palin dance for several reasons, mainly because her dancing had stirred so much controversy. But also because of her non athletic build. Am I saying fat people can’t dance? Absolutely not. I grew up in southern Louisiana. There are a lot of heavy set people who can move like nobody’s business. But from what I understand, this competition calls for all sorts of different dancing of way more athletic skills. I know very little about dancing. All I know is what I like to look at. I love aesthetics and beauty. Bristol Palin represented neither. She was about as graceful as a bull in a china cabinet. The other thing about Bristol that I really don’t understand, but is really not her fault, is that the show is called Dancing With the Stars. I have trouble understanding why Bristol Palin is considered a star. If it was called Dancing With the High School Sluts, then she could be on the show. By mentioning that title, I may have given NBC a great idea, or at the very least, Fox. I told you that to tell you this. My real interest was in Jennifer Grey.

I was a big fan of the movie that made her a star, Dirty Dancing. Something else I like about Jennifer is that she’s about my age. I think she might be a couple of years older. Nonetheless, she proves what I have proven over and over on this site when I mention the likes of David Holt and Terry Lentz and several others who are on the north side of 50 years old and still kicking ass and taking names. Too often we have excuses for getting out of shape and gaining weight. Most blame it on their age. My sister in law who I love dearly claims she’s still trying to lose her pregnancy weight. I would believe her, but her youngest kid is 25. At 50 years old, Jennifer Grey is still sporting a six pack. Trust me when I tell you, she didn’t get in shape just for this show. She’s a friend of Serena’s. Jennifer always has a six pack. She never lets herself get out of shape. Jennifer should also be given credit for fighting to the end. According to what I saw on the final show, she was plagued throughout the season with a back injury, and wasn’t even sure if she would compete in the finale. But she figured it out and got it done. Congratulations, Jennifer.