This is my third post in continuing series about my high school memories leading up to my 30 year reunion.

This whole 30 year reunion re-connecting thing has been an interesting process. I have caught with with more people through the reunion web site and Facebook  than I actually ever spoke to in my four years at Mt. Lebanon Senior High. I am getting to know many 1979 grads for the first time 30 years later. It is a weird time paradox. My only memories of them are yearbook photos frozen in time. It has been a fun experience. I was however lamenting to my girlfriend that I really had not re-connected with anyone that I had a close relationship with in high school. I was therefore thrilled when I received an email the other day from one of the 79 grads who I can look back and say was my closest friend. We hung out regularly. We even devised our own senior trip tour across the United States. I was excited to hear from my friend Phillip Buckovecky. Phil and I had kept up to some degree after graduation but from about 1986 on, we lost contact with each other.

Phil and I were part of a small group of students who took four years of Russian at Mt. Lebanon Senior High. At the time Mt. Lebanon was one the few high schools in the country offering a 4 year Russian study program. We were also in the Russian Club. I suspect most Mt. Lebanon grads will be shocked to learn either of these existed. When we were not studying Russian, we were making trips out to West Virgina to buy alcohol, cutting class to hang out at the mall and planning our senior adventure. We laughed about the fact that neither of us were part of any of the cool groups, went to the prom or had even had a date in high school. He was waiting for the right girl. I was waiting for any girl but was to withdrawn to make any kind of effort in that area. I confessed that my high school teacher crush for four years was on our high school Russian teacher Kathy(Dzik) Haines.

During our senior year Phil and I , not being part of the groups that went skiing or to spring break in Fort Lauderdale decided we would put together our own senior trip. We decided that after we graduated we would take a tour of the United States. This was before the days of American Airlines Air passes and comfy Lexus rides. We purchased 30 days “Go Anywhere” bus passes on Trailways Bus Lines. They cost $150.00 dollars each. Our final destination would be Venice Beach, California. The only other time I had traveled without my parents was when my brother Mark and I drove to Fort Lauderdale for spring break the year before. That is another story in itself. Armed with my fake Pennsylvania diver’s license that said I was 21 and 300 dollars in my pocket, we set off on our adventure.

Along the way to Venice Beach we stopped over in Denver, Las, Vegas and Phoenix Arizona. In Phoenix we put my fake drivers license to use, stocking up on as much alcohol as we could. As we left Phoenix the bus stopped at one of those Department Of Agriculture check points that look for certain types of fruit that can not leave the state due to bug infestations. Do they still do that? Of course Phil and I being suave 18 year olds thought it was a roadblock looking for felony underage alcohol purchasers. We were terrified that we were about to do hard time! In Las Vegas I saw and played my first slot machine in the bus station . I thought I had struck it rich when I won 25 dollars in nickles.

We finally made it to Los Angeles. Neither of us had ever been before. We were literally two Pittsburgh rubes overwhelmed and in awe of the City Of Lights. We knew three things, Disney World, Universal Studios and the beach, That was our agenda. Being big budget kind of guys we chose the ultimate vacations getaway, Sterns No-tell Motel. I recall that the rate was 19.95 a night. We elected to leave the lock on the dial telephone to save money. My memories of Sterns Motel can best be described as the scene from From Dusk Till Dawn where the character played by George Clooney is banging on the motel bell trying to get a room. This 90 year old guy comes out and screams “What The Hell Do You Want!” Clooney replies ” I Want A Room You Mean Old Bastard! What The Fuck Do You Think I want!!” I really think that same old man from the movie owned Sterns Motel.

Phil and I spared no expense in our dining budget. Our lunch and dinner almost every night consisted of food from a hamburger stand sitting in the median of Washington Blvd called “Gooey Louies”. Gooey’s had great burgers. Whenever I see a Quentin Tarantino movie that references the “Big Kahuna Burger” I think Quentin must have eaten at Gooey Louies and used that as the basis for the Big Kahuna. Gooeys in apparently no more. It is now a Pacos Tacos. L.A also marked the first time I never had sushi in my life. While walking down towards the pier one evening, we ran into a couple of hookers who conned us(that took all of two seconds) into buying them dinner at a local Japanese restaurant. They then laid the cost of after dinner desert on us and we realized that we were overwhlemed,overmatched and under-funded amateurs dealing with literal pros. We thanked them for the offer, lamented the major sushi dent to our budget and made our way down to the Santa Monica pier with our illegally bought Mad Dog 20-20 in brown paper bags. My senior trip with Phil can best be summed up as Gooey Hookers, Mickey and Mad Dog. I can not remember what I felt then but looking back 30 years later, I had the best time of my life. Phil and I hit achieved our goals of hitting both Disney World and Universal Studios. Niether of us had ever been to either. I have not been back to either one since.

Phil is happily married with 4 children. He is a chiropracter living in Oregon. I hope to see him soon and take him to a Mavs-Trailblazers game. After talking to Phil, I felt a lot better about my high school years remembering I did have good friends and was not quite the reject I remember. Thanks Phil.

I am being stalked in the social media universe by a Fanboy.  It sounds like something out of Nightmare On Elm Street doesn’t it?  Here is the deal.  Some idiot named Mike Pinto who runs a website called Fanboy has been spending his “valuable” time hunting down my blog content on the Digg social media site leaving arguably defamatory comments. What is a Fanboy?  Here is the term as defined by Wikipedia:

“Fanboy is a term used to describe any individual who is devoted to a single subject in an emotional or fanatical manner, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession.”

That says everything you need to know about Mr. Pinto.  For some unknown reason he has been “social media obsessing” about me for the last few months. His Fanboy site is actually pretty cool focusing on anime, science fiction, science in general among other geek type stuff.  I happen to be a Trekkie and the guy has put some cool Star-Trek content up. I have no problem giving his site some props.

The guy is still an idiot.  It is res ipsa loquitur. Here is why.  An article I wrote about former professional wrestler Jeff Gaylord was posted on Digg.  The Digg comments are all pretty inane in general, none having anything to do with the story.  That is not unusual within the social media universe. The social media community is no different than any other.  There will be those who like you and dislike you based on perceptions formed. The posted comments will to a degree reflect that.  These perceptions are never grounded in reality.  They can not be because 99 percent of the people have never even met or spoken to each other.  We simply know user names and  the type of content submitted by a person.  I am no different. There are people in the social media realm that like me and dislike me for whatever reason they use to legitimize their feelings.  In the Digg realm there are those who do not like me because I wrote an article about getting banned for scripts and admitting that I had gamed the Digg system so some of my content could reach their front page.  Ironically that article was my last  to make the Digg front page. There are also those in social media who do not like me simply because they do not like my brother.   The reasons are limitless bounded only by the limits of what people who have never met either of us can conjure up in their  minds.  The angry people are easy to spot because the comments are always about Mark or me personally and not the content.  I have no issue with it.   If it makes “Diggers”  or other social media users feel better they can rant away and move on to the next thing that angers them that day.

It is the obsessive Pinto Fanboy/ stalker behavior that is creepy. Not as creepy as the fixation SEC attorney Jeffrey Norris had with Mark Cuban but creepy just the same.  It makes you contemplate the things that go through a person’s mind to negatively fixate on someone they have never met in a realm meant to be fun and entertaining.  Here is Fanboy Michael Pinto’s  comment in response to a my Jeff Gaylord article:

“Isn’t Brian Cuban under investigation from SEC for insider trading charges? Before he yammers on about anything relating to the law shouldn’t he wait until he’s in the clear?”

He has left minor variations of the exact same comment on three other posts of mine that showed up on Digg.  Considering not everything I write gets submitted to Digg it is a pretty high fanboy/stalker ratio.   So why is Pinto an idiot?  The answer is in his comments.  Pinto is clearly so wrapped up in his Star Trek fantasy world  so as to be completely unaware of anything going on in the real world around him  To be unaware that it is my brother  Mark who is involved with the SEC.  To have missed the international news coverage. The coverage on CNN, Fox, NBC when it was announced is pretty oblivious to the world around you.

It is possible that I am not giving Pinto enough credit. I admittedly do not know him.  He may be very aware of the facts.  If that is the case he must have missed the part of my blog where it talks about my occupation as an attorney before he began posting arguably defamatory statements about my being investigated by the SEC.  Hopefully he is not under some illusion that because he posed it as a question, it is a defense to a defamation lawsuit.   If he wants to ring me up, I will be happy to  “yammer” on to him about the law of defamation.  My non-legal advice to Pinto is that should I decide to pursue legal action his best bet is to claim what I first said about him. Simply admit he is an idiot and did not know the true facts.

I am being tongue and cheek to an extent.  The people who know me are for the most part educated and intelligent. They actually pay attention to the world around them beyond Star Trek, Star Wars and Anime.  My skin is also thick.  I have no interest in winning a legal judgment against Mr. Pinto and taking Fanboy from him.  If I did, in the nature of a true Cuban family “greed is good” profiteer, I would change the web site name to “Dallas Mavericks Fanboy” and start selling Dallas Mavs merchandise on it. I hear William Shatner is a Mavs fan.  Instead I will be happy to give Mr. Pinto some true facts about myself.  This will give him some much needed social media credibility should he wish to continue “yammering” on about me in the social media universe.  It will also give him protection in a defamation lawsuit since truth is an absolute defense.  Here you go Mike:

Talk about bizarre timing.  In my article Confession Of A Steroid Monster, I wrote that I had been  introduced to steroids by former professional wrestler Jeff Gaylord.  Jeff and I worked out regularly together in 1986-87 at a now defunct Dallas gym known as The Body Forum.  I had never seen steroids before Jeff brought them into the gym one day in his black medicine bag.  I personally witnessed Jeff shoot up on several occasions.  It was the first time I had ever seen anyone stick a needle in his own butt.  I should also note that at the time it was legal to obtain steroids with a prescription.  I do not know how Jeff obtained his steroids.  He did put me on the to the doctor who prescribed mine.

When I met Jeff in 1986 he had just finished a stint in the short lived United States Football League(USFL) with the San Antonio Gun Slingers.  He was trying  to build his career in professional wrestling.  A career that required size and strength.  There were relatively big bucks for the era at stake.  Enough at stake to make it worth the risk to Jeff and a long line of professional wrestlers  who felt that the financial upside outweighed the health, legal and public relations risk should their steroid use be revealed.  They were willing to risk the largely unknown downside(at the time) of high level steroid use. The risk of  mental, depression, steroid rage, suicidal thoughts and other kinds of destructive behavior when the steroid high is no longer there. This is in addition to risks of  cancer, liver disease and other issues that are not fully understood even today.  The risk eventually caught up with the likes of Chris Benoit, “Ravishing” Rick Rude and others.  Jeff Gaylord continues the pattern of destructive behavior.  As of January 21, 2009 Jeff was sitting in federal lockup on bank robbery charges.  A former girlfriend of Jeff Gaylord read my article and alerted me to a recent story out of Colorado:

“Jeff Gaylord, 50, was arrested in connection with the Jan. 14 bank robbery at a US Bank in Monument as well as a robbery and attempted robbery at a branch in Castle Rock…. Gaylord is a retired pro wrestler, also known as “Missouri Tiger,” “The Black Knight,” “The Hood” and “The New Spoiler.”

This was not Jeff’s first failed  bank robbery attempt. In October 2001, Gaylord entered a bank in Aurora, Colorado, approached a teller, and demanded money. Believing that Gaylord had a gun, the teller removed more than five thousand dollars from his drawer and placed it on the counter. Gaylord took the money and fled. Four months later, he entered the same bank and committed an identical robbery. Jeff pled guilty to two counts of committing bank robbery

What went wrong?  Was it the steroids?   What more is there to this story?   The Jeff I knew while cocky and  irresponsible was a fun loving, women loving, friendly guy who was excited about career in pro-wrestling.  I wanted to know more.  Jeff’s former girlfriend who sent me the article agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity.  Here is the interview:

What attracted you to Jeff?  ‘He was very handsome and in incredible shape.  He was also very charming.”

Was Jeff wrestling when you met him?     He was wrestling with World Class Championship Wrestling“( WCCW) at the Sportatorium in Dallas, Tx.  There were bugs, rats and a leaky roof.

When did Jeff first introduce you to steroids?   “He was talking to Vince Apollo about something and he dropped his pants and I think he gave himself a shot , but Vince was in there, Vince could have played darts with his rump.”

Did you use steroids with Jeff?  ” Yes.  They increased my strength and endurance. I remember using  Deca-Durabolin. There were a few more but Deca  seems to come to mind”

Did either of you ever discuss the long term health risk? It never came up

Did Jeff have a dark side?   “Besides ego, He came first always… He could be laughing and kidding and switch and get really serious and mean. I was never hit by  him. but he could destroy self confidence in seconds. I once said something in the car, he pulled across 3 lanes of traffics quickly to scream for 10 minutes”

Could you tell when he was on a steroid cycle? ” You could always tell when he was cycling, there was more time on than off.  He got moody didn’t sleep much, the steroid use was almost as much as the tanning bed. He use to say he was in a tanning bed 360 days a year.  I don’t know how many cycles a year”

When was the last time you saw Jeff Gaylord? ” Sometime in 1992.  We stayed in touch sporadically but never more than a  courteous  “how are you doing” The last conversation was in the fall of 2008.”

What do you think caused Jeff’s life to spiral out of control?  “Steroids,drugs, not making the money he did in early to mid 90s, the lack of attention he got from wrestling… could be a lot of thing, I wasn’t around when he got arrested”

Was it just the steroids?  Only Jeff knows.  Maybe one day he will tell his story.  In the meantime he awaits another trial on federal bank robbery charges. He should have stuck to what he knew.  Even when the fame, friends and women went away, he was a still a better wrestler than bank robber.   That’s the guy I remember.

There are all kinds of addictions.  Drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling shopping, etc.  Being addicted to a shitty self image can be just as destructive.  I have been obsessed with my body appearance since I was 18 years old.   I was a fat kid topping out at 240 lbs at 17 years old.  As I transitioned into college I began to work out and take up running.  I decided that being thin was the road to popularity.  All the kids I saw with all the cool friends and pretty girls were thin.  I  became Forrest Gump.  I began to run.  I ran day and night, twice a day until I was running 15-18  miles a day.  My weight had dropped to 165 lbs by my senior year in college throwing a three year bout with bulimia into the mix.  I ran several marathons.  When I finished law school and moved to Dallas in 1986 I was neither prepared mentally or of a maturity level to deal with the Dallas social scene.   In 1986 Dallas was winding down from its boom days of 1981-1985. The average age was about 28 as compared to almost 32 today.  While not the wild west of the early to mid 80′s it was still a major party town Life revolved around partying, women and dating to a much larger degree than the normal 25 year old would experience today.  Coming from the small town of Pittsburgh, Pa having just completed 7 straight years of  school Dallas was a new ball game with different rules of conduct. I was unprepared. I moved into “The Village“.   At the time it was the largest singles complex in the world.  It was the place for the up an coming professional single to mingle.   In my mind every guy and girl looked like they had come out of GQ or Maxim. The whole city was “in-shape pretty”.  Everyone but me.  I was also brutally shy.  I decided that I had to come up with a new self image to fit in, be accepted, get dates and make the scene in general.

Fat Teenager

In 1986 you could obtain steroids legally with a prescription. I was working out at a now defunct gym called “The Body Forum”.  One of my workout partners was a guy named Jeff Gaylord who was an All-American football player at the University of Missouri at for a long time had the Big 8  bench press record. He went on to become a popular professional wrestler.  Steroid use at the gym was open and rampant.  I inquired.  I was given the name of a doctor  who would prescribe  them as part of a “weight gain” program.  I made the appointment, got my physical and received my prescription for the steroid Anavar.  Anavar is an fairly mild oral(pill) steroid that will not bulk you up but will put on some decent lean muscle mass depending on your genetics.  I was told that this particular steroid had few if any side effects but as with all steroids was warned not drink while I was taking it as it puts stress on the liver.   He gave me a prescription for a ten week supply. I went from 185-200 lbs.  During that time, I became more acclimated to the Dallas social scene. I stared dating someone and was feeling good enough about my appearance and self image that I did not see the need to continue the steroid experiment.  They were also very expensive and I was barely getting by in my first job.

Between 1988 and 1990, Congressional hearings were held to determine the extent of steroid abuse and whether  they should be included in the Controlled Substances Act .  During this time, I had married and was happy in my life.  There was no need for steroids or for working out for that matter.  When the marriage failed in 1990 I decided that the quick way back to the top of hte looks pyramid on the Dallas party scene was another steroid cycle.Unfortunately for me the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 had passed putting all “steroid doctors” out of business.   The act made it illegal to prescribe steroids without a legitimate medical purpose and specifically illegal to prescribe them for  those seeking muscle growth for athletic or cosmetic enhancement.(There are legitimate uses such as for severe burn victims and Aids patients.)   Having no legitimate means to obtain them and not yet being aware of the “black market”  I had to be content to do through hard work in the gym.  When I looked in the mirror however I was never where I needed to be.  Frankly my self image was so bad that I could have been Arnold Schwarzeneger and still would have seen a skinny ugly kid that needed to bulk up.  It was never about how I looked.  It was always about how I felt.

I made my first black market steroids purchase in  1999.  I had joined a new, “yuppie gym”. I had a personal trainer. I  had been more focused on running marathons than getting big.  I had also just come out of a 4 year relationship and once again feeling terrible about myself and ability to date, meet people etc.   I was vulnerable to the “quick fix” to get “buff ” which in my mind meant dates with hot women and popularity.   I entered the steroid “black market“.   Upon recommendation of a person at my gym,  I obtained the steroids, Primobolan(the same one A-Rod tested positive for), Deca-Durabolin and Winstrol.  All of which had to be injected.  The common place to inject was the buttocks.  I had never injected myself with anything in my life and did not really know how.  I was also no big fan of the sight of my own blood.  The thought of putting a one inch needle into my butt twice a week made my stomach turn.  Not much choice though.  Was  I was going to let some gym guy inject my butt?  I DON’T THINK SO!   I learned the hard way, injecting myself in front of a mirror.  After a lot of trial and error and my butt looking like a pin cushion I got it down pretty well.  There were the few times  when I would hit  a vein, and the blood would shoot  5 feet across the room causing me to almost pass out from the sight of it.  This is a common occurrence for steroid monsters but I was a steroid baby and it scared me shitless.  The gains  however were massive. I went from 200-230 in just just over 3 months.  When I complained that my butt felt like pin cushion the person who mentored me told me that I should start injecting into my quadriceps.  I was always scared of this method because it looked like it hurt a lot more than the injecting into the butt.  I  was right. It hurt like hell.  I then made was almost a tragic mistake.  In June of 2000 I  mistakenly injected myself in the left quadricep with the same needle I had used to inject  another part of my body. (I always used a new syringe to maintain a sterile environment.)  I had forgotten to throw one of the needles away and confused  it with the sterile syringe. What this did was transfer the bacteria from on the needle from the first injection to the new puncture in my quad. The new puncture closed on itself creating the perfect environment for  a staph infection.

Steroid Monster-1999

I first noticed the aching in  my left leg around August of that year.   I did not pay much attention to it.  I was working out hard twice a day and thought I had pulled a muscle.  The quadriceps began to  swell  and by September it was getting difficult to even bend it.  I finally went to my physician and he recommended an MRI.  He also prescribed antibiotics.  I waited for the results thinking at worst I had torn a quad muscle.  I was in Pittsburgh visiting my parents when my doctor called me on my cell phone.  He advised me to get to the nearest hospital and check myself in immediately.  The MRI had revealed a massive infection moving rapidly up my leg to towards my pelvis.  He told me that if the infection hit the pelvis the consequences could be grave.  Being a complete idiot I decided to fly back to Dallas instead.  I checked myself into the hospital that next morning.   I was immediately taken into into surgery.  The surgeon told me they were going to, stick  a 12 inch syringe in my leg and see what came out.  They would then decide whether to operate.  The next thing I knew it was 8 hours later. They  had cut my leg open and removed a massive abscess.  I was told that if I had let it go one more week I may have lost my leg.   While I had told the doctor and the hospital what happened I was in no  mood to admit illegal steroid use to the people close to me.   I told my girlfriend and family that I had fallen on a piece of metal that punctured my leg and caused the infection.  While I did finally tell my family, I have pretty much let that story stand until today.

The recovery was brutal.  The infected area was so large that when I was discharged after a week they had inserted a tube in my body entering through my collarbone all the way down to the infected area.  I had these little ball shaped containers of antibiotics that I would attach on the exposed side of the tube.  It would pump strong antibiotics directly to the infected area.  It was gross and painful. I eventually made a full  recovery.  They however cut so much muscles out of my left leg that today I can stick my finger halfway through leg in the scar area. It will still numb up in that area if i exert too much.

Fast forward to 2009.  It has been years since I have used steroids.  I have learned many lessons about myself and the perils of self image addiction.  While I still like to work out and stay in shape I’ve learned that no matter how good I think I look it is just a transperant, mental image that can be manipulated at will and crash on a moment’s notice.  I have learned that worrying about how others view body is  empty, dangerous and addictive in itself.  I have learned that the things that make me feel good in life do not come out of a bottle and syringe.  They come from the people in in my life who see who I am and not what I look like.  Despite all this self-knowledge I know that the “steroid monster”  is deep inside me waiting for the right combination of  events to rear its ugly head.  Hopefully I have learned enough to beat it back if that happens.  Hopefully  I’ve learned to be me.