Plague of Strength

I realize that everything I say about this weekend will sound like a lie, because frankly I don’t believe half of it myself. Tara will be uploading pics this weekend, and because I flatly refuse to take any pics (I took three pics of people with Big Ramy after the O, for instance, but the man was about to fall down dead and I didn’t want to prolong his misery), we will be bringing some lucky third party to help us take pics and generally keep track of all of the shit there is to keep track of, because I am not an organized man.

Few of you knew this, but I’d considered saying fuck it on this site for about the last six months- Tara and I have been so broke it’s astonishing we are still living in a house. That period of austerity seems to have paid off handsomely, however, as somehow Tara and I managed to charm the fucking pants off of every person we met. I’d like to think we all got along so well because everyone to whom we spoke was chasing their dream, and all of the spectators were off screeching bullshit into their phones and lubing themselves up with hand sanitizer before walking into their local convenience store.

In any event, here are some highlights so I don’t forget shit when I throw myself back into writing tomorrow:

• we were the guest of one of the most well-rounded, best-mustachioed, and coolest motherfuckers on the planet, Fairfax Hackley. Fairfax managed to hang out with us, chill as the other side of the pillow as you goofballs lost your minds and started hoarding food and fucking hand sanitizer like a pack of wild-eyed Bubble Boys. Tara interviewed him for the site, and we will be doing future segments with the man, who is a linchpin in the Arnold and the martial arts-bodybuilding-strength sports community. I thanked him about a hundred times for having us out, and I’ll throw another thank you in here, because this weekend was beyond surreal.
• we ran into Roelly Winklaar and his awesome Wakandan-warrior-princess training partner Rose (I think it was Rose, but I’m terrible with names) about 800 times over the course of the weekend, and Tara will be interviewing her for the site soon. They were both insanely friendly, and as I recall we got some pics with them.
• Tara interviewed Chef Rush and Eddie Hall in addition to Fairfax, and we filmed some of my wildly interesting conversation with Warren Honeycutt, former training partner of Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, competitive bodybuilder, outlaw country singer, and our generation’s Jack LaLanne (though he was dressed more like Johnny Cash than Jack LaLanne at this event). He shot me an email thereafter, so I’ll likely do a written interview with him, providing you people with the first ever Fox News correspondent ever even named on this site.
• I literally ran facefirst into Derek Poundstone wandering around looking for someone or other, then met Jessica Fithen, who took third at the Arnold Classic Strongman and will be doing an interview or two going forward. In addition to being a monster on the stone over bar this weekend, she’s fucking hilarious, and she runs a FB group called Looks Like a Man, in which she just reposts the hilarious shit posers leave in comments on the vids and pics of strongwomen.
• Don “The Dragon” Wilson told me some insane stories about getting into bar fights as bartender while he was a pro fighter, none of which was filmed because Tara was likely off humping Eddie Hall’s leg. Regardless, I can relate he is the wrong person to fuck with even in his 60s, he’s nice as hell, he’s had perhaps a 150 streetfights (the 70s were a better time), and he took the color commentating job with the UFC with the express intent they would let him fight Royce. Tragically, they couldn’t come to terms on the amount of the gate Don would get. I related that story incorrectly to Randy Couture later that night, as when Don said “first” I took it to mean first UFC and thought I misremembered who commentated- it was the seventh UFC and the first Don worked.
• I drank whiskey with Randy and Frank Shamrock at the same time, but failed to get a pic because I’m not a mark running around trying to collect pics with celebs. They were both cool as shit, and Frank still looks like a fucking male model. I did get a pic with Randy the following night, however, while hanging out with Fairfax and the rest of the crew.
• After Arnold took the seat next to me at a fundraiser, I essentially jumped up and started running around like a maniac, because I had no idea what to do and had no intention of bothering him right before he gave a speech. I babbled hellos at Ralf Moeller, who informed me he’s back in film with Arnold in an upcoming flick called Kung Fury 2 (the original was a fucking amazing VHS-throwback flick about a cop who becomes the best martial artist on Earth after being struck by lightning), and then bro hugged Matt Iseman from American Ninja Warrior because for some reason I felt the need to. The dude is taller than a motherfucker and far more stout than he seems on tv, in addition to being the best MC of anything ever, and the nicest human being on Earth not named Chef Rush.
• Tara wanted a picture with the pirate (Gino Biancheri) who MCs the USAPL meets, and he was cool as shit. He insisted on getting a pic with me, claiming my look was as awesome as his, haha. The IPF might do some shady shit, but Gino definitely seemed like a good guy.
• Chef Rush (the combat vet/White House Chef/owner of seriously lean 23″ arms) is the nicest human being on Earth. He signed his entry in 365 and was genuinely flattered I wrote about him, which blew me away. As I mentioned, Tara interviewed him, and we had drinks with him and Randy Saturday night.
• We hung out with all of the Para Strongmen and Strongwomen on Sunday after I missed all three of their events trying to pack drunk as hell from the night before. After getting separated from Tara somehow, I went bar hopping with Arnold Classic winner Chris Cormier and some biohackers until 5 in the morning, and I was in rare form Sunday. Though Chaos and Pain failed to announce it to anyone, there were a lot of people at the show repping Chaos and Pain. Most prominent among those people was John Stitt and his mute handler, who I think was annoyed that I spent half the day hitting on the hot as hell para chicks there (who I didn’t even realize were missing bits until they got onto the podium). In any event, congrats to him and his boy, who’s name I’ve completely forgotten because the dude (like the handler) said about four words in 48 hours.
• Finally, I’ll be competing in strongman as of this summer, as I was convinced by Odd Haugen and Jon Eccles that not doing so would make me a bonafide pussy. Tara and I will be going out to LA at some point to hang out with those guys and train (that’s also where Martins Licis trains) at their badass gym The Training Hall. We’ll be doing the American Muscle Class in June, looks like, alongside our buddy Angela Wilson, who’s a Highland Games athlete and strongwoman.

I am certain I left a bunch of shit out, but we’ll just call this an information dump until I can organize my thoughts. Again, thanks to all of you who have been supporting the site, and we’ll be shipping everything this week. Without you guys, I probably would have deleted the site altogether over the weekend. With this weekend under our belts, however, Plague’s not fucking going anywhere- we’ve got a ton of awesome stuff in the works (including a potential publisher).

Apologies for the choppiness of this writeup- my brain is still fried from the amount of writing I’ve done in the last few weeks. I’ll be back to my pithy and erudite self later this week with something about something- I’m leaning in the direction of Fustigation Fury on the topic of boxing and/or a pre-Monster Mania writup on some rad new horror films I’ve enjoyed. Tara and I will be shooting for interviews with Danny Trejo and Kane Hodder this weekend, because there is a shitload of fun to be had while everyone is hiding in their homes to avoid catchin a fucking 24-hour flu. If you have a preference, say so in the comments.

Pics and the video interviews will be up on the Patreon side first, as a thank you to our Patrons, and then we’ll make them public in a couple of weeks or a month or something. And if you’re on the East Coast and want to hang out this weekend, hit us up and we’ll grab food or something at MM in Cherry Hill, NJ.

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