The French Riviera Spa: Part 1

I started working out at The French Riviera Spa in New Orleans, Louisiana at 13 years old as a after school activity. The gym was on the bus route and only a few blocks from my house, so after school each day the driver would drop me off at the gym. I never was one to voluntarily add a new authority figure in my life, so avoiding my house, and the strict babysitter, were definite benefits to becoming a gym rat. The bodybuilding bug bit me fast! The French Riviera Spa had a cast of characters to rival any Hollywood comedy. Needless to say, it was a very interesting place for a teenaged kid to spend his evening.

Monday thru Friday I would spend 2 hours at the gym experimenting with the machines and imitating moves I saw others making. My first real gym friend and mentor was a 40 something bodybuilder named Joey. He was a stereotypical 80s bodybuilding throwback. He wore the whole get-up… The Crazy wear pants, the string tank top, otomix shoes, and even a mullet! He was an imposing guy (at 5’9 235 lbs with abs) with a thick New York accent, and if he hadn’t have come over to me and introduced himself, I’m sure I would never have met him. I was not a shy kid, but approaching random bodybuilders in the gym was not even considered. Joey took it upon himself to show me some of the basics of training and eating like a bodybuilder. Instead of farting around the gym for 2 hours, I started a beginner’s training split and focused on basic free weight movements.

As I said, the gym was full of wacky characters, but none as strange, intimidating, or entertaining as a man I would only know as Gigantor. At the time The French Riviera Spa was home to many competitive bodybuilders and some really large guys. We even had two pro bodybuilders training there (Roddy Goubeaux & Tazzie Colomb) and the great Boyer Coe stopped by from time to time. There was even one guy that could have been top pro material, if he would have just shaved! This guy had body hair coming out of everywhere. To this day, I have never seen anything like it. People called him the Mountain Man, but other than the hair and his size, he really didn’t do anything to call attention to himself.

That brings me back to Gigantor. With a name like Gigantor, he’s got to be big, right? Hell yeah he was big. Looking thru 13 year old eyes, he was 8 feet tall and 500 pounds. In reality he was pushing 300 lbs, standing 6’4 with less than 8% body fat. I wish I could direct you to a picture, but Gigantor never competed. He just danced! That’s right, he was an exotic male dancer, and from what I heard, one of the best! If I remember correctly, I started calling him Gigantor almost immediately, because Joey didn’t know his name, and it was the first thing that popped into my head. Apparently Joey thought the name was appropriate, because within a few days everyone was referring to him as Gigantor.

Gigantor’s size made him stand out, but his behavior made it hard to look away from the guy. First, he always wore those striped purple tights that were so popular back then, and only the truly HUGE could get away with wearing. He also never took off his headphones which wouldn’t have been a big deal if he didn’t sing whatever he was listening to, LOUD. I will always remember his versions of OPP… “OPP, yeah you know me!” and of course “It’s hammer time”. That would be enough to burn Gigantor onto anyone’s permanent memory, right? I haven’t mentioned that every once in a while, he would talk to someone. Actually, it was more like talk AT someone. The only words he ever directed at me were, “Get yo ass outta my face!” He laying in the 45 degree leg press, in between sets, and I was just unloading the leg press next to his. Apparently my rear end got close enough to his face that he became uncomfortable. If I had to guess, I would estimate I had at least 6 feet of clearance, but this was a somewhat typical utterance for Gigantor. He never spoke more than a few words, and they were never nice. Being a young man at the time those few words struck me like a punch. I double timed racking the weights, keeping a close eye on ass-to-face distance. As soon as I had re-racked the weights, I run-walked to the other side of the gym, where I told Joey what had happened.

Let’s just say Joey had heard enough shit out of Gigantor, and how he spoke to me (a 13 year old boy) broke the camel’s back, as they say. I’ll have to save the rest of this story for next time…

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