Iron History

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12/18/2008 Entry: "12/19/2008: A Letter of April 15, 1988 from Charles A. Smith to Joe Roark, Page 1"

Dear Joe,
Got your letter dated April 11th on the 13th and you were too late. I had already sent off my sub for your news sheet. Like ships in the night, our letters and thoughts crossed.

John Bollocks, aka Balik, is on my shit list. I am beginning to think he is of the same flesh as the wanking wunder of the Hills. Weeks ago, at the end of February, he calls me and asks me to do an article of an editorial type on the present state of weight training. As I think I told you in our last phone conversation, I wrote the bloody article, pulling out all stops, letting "IT" all hang out and then some. I wrote of the greed, the loss of idealism and ethics etc etc.

Our arrangement was that I would write the article, he'd read it and if he didn't like it, he'd return it pronto, if not faster. If he did like it he'd send a check forthwith or even fifthwith. I sent the article as noted. Silence. Nothing.

Meanwhile I get the latest issue of IM. I read the bullshit with the various initials after the authors' names. I also see letters praising Bollocks for his stand against steroids. I then see an article in the mag by TONY FITTON a CONVICTED drug smuggler and dealer.

This likely bloke- I am ashamed to tell you he was born in England- was caught some five years ago or so, smuggling a quarter of a million bucks worth of steroids across the US Mexican border. He was with his girl friend, a young power lifter. Indicted, Fitton is placed on fifty thousand bucks bond to await trial. He promptly skips and is free for a year until US Marshals finally run him down somewhere in Colorado or New Mexico. He is sentenced to five years but serves less than 18 months and is out. Why he wasn't deported, or, if a US citizen didn't have his citizenship revoked on grounds of moral turpitude is beyond me. But now, the simon pure, and I assume steroid free, Bollocks had him writing for the IM. In the same issue we have a 'letter' from the honest, Christian upright man from Nebraska and spouse praising Bollocks for the 'good job' he has done on the mag.

I ask you, is there anyone out there with a conscience and does the honest Christian upright etc etc from Nebraska still have his eyesight and his senses? What in the hell has gone wrong with the world and the people who live in it. Are we all going money crazy and losing all our decencies? Not to mention our common sense?

I also don't like his treatment of me. He only pays me 100 an article. I KNOW he is paying others at least 150 to 200. The recent stuff by Vic Boff in the latest issue of IM was...pitiful. The same old hashed over material culled from a thousand and one articles, all repeating the same old stuff, none of which ANYONE has taken the trouble to verify.

I recently tore off an article about Schemansky and sent it off to Herb Glossbrenner and his mag. He should have it by now. Same arrangement I THOUGHT I had with Bollocks. We shall see.
[this letter concludes next week]