Iron History

[Previous entry: "12/26/2008: Part 2 of an April 15, 1988 Letter From Charles A. Smith to Joe"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "1/9/2009: Letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe Roark April 27, 1988, Conclusion."]

01/02/2009 Entry: "January 2, 2009 - A Letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe ated April 27, 1988. Part 1"

Letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe Roark April 27, 1988

[I have edited out some of the very repetitious parts about Bollocks etc etc., but have included news]

Last Friday night, the 22nd, at 7PM, comes a call from Bollocks, all apologetic; butter wouldn't melt in his mouth already yet- tells me how much he liked the article, that it will be published in the August issue, that the check will be on its way TONIGHT. Has the check arrived? In a pigs arse it has. No bloody signs of it. I also hauled him over the coals for that silly article about Sandow and Saxon by Vic Boff and the cap under a shot of Sandow saying how extraordinary his development was for those times. I askedh im if he had ever heard of Fred Rollon. He hasn't. I ask him also about his knowledge of Maxick. He hasn't any. I also ask him about several other blokes who would make Sandow look like the bloke who had sand kicked in his face bu the beach bully. He has heard of a couple of these. I point out the article was the same old hashed over stuff that has been repeated in all the mags ad nauseum. He tells some shit arsed tale to the effect that he 'inherited' it from Honest, Upright, Christian Man from Nebraska.

Might I add that mail takes two days to reach me from L.A. Here it is Wednesdy and still no sign of the check. This is the sort of treatment I got from the Wanking Wunder.

Now to your cudgel taking up on behalf of Ell. You say that while I trained Hepburn I couldn't lift anywhere near what he did. True. But this has been said much better- and centuries ago during the Elizabethan period- the so called virgin Queen that is- by one Sir Thomas Ascham- pronounced ASH-am. He wrote a book called TOXPHILUS or The Archery Lover. This taught the would be archer the tricks of the trade. When someone pointed out that good old Sir Thomas had never, himself strung a bow or shot an arrow, his reply was. 'Well, a whetstone can't carve a joint of beef, but it sure can sharpen a knife so THAT does the job.

My remarks about Ell and my desire to see how big HIS arms were, was born not only out of frustration at all the malarkey going on today, but from past experience. We had a certain gent in the thirties named Irving Clark. I am sure you'll come across him in some of those old H&S mags you are purchasing. Irv wrote many articles on how to build a big this or that, including many articles on how to build giant biceps. His arms measured a FULL ELEVEN (11) INCHES and we all used to kid him about it, suggesting in very broad Anglo Saxon words, that he take his own medicine. Clark was an attorney with a drinking problem, who eventually walked into the woods while stationed in Germany and blew his brains out.

Are there people with morals? I guess a few and I like to kid myself I am one of them. But what I'd be like, or what changes would appear in my if I was making as much money as Weider is, or as Bollocks says he is, I don't know. Perhaps I'd be as cheating as they are, as ready to shaft people as they seem to be. I don't know. As Lord Acton so wisely said. 'Power corrupts and ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY'.