Title: Getting The Picture
Featuring: Lance Marshall
Date: 3/9/11
Location: Los Angeles (REV 241 vs. Brian Postal)

Photo shoots are a serious pain in the ass.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to try and convince you that I live some sort of tortured existence because people want to take my picture from time to time. I’m aware of how lucky I am to be living the life that I do, of being in the business I’m in without gobbling down painkillers like tic-tacs or being confined to a wheelchair. I have a job that’s taken me around the world, let me do things that other people can only dream of. Granted, it’s gotten me into situations that are a lot closer to nightmares than dreams…but I’m not gonna concern myself with that right now. I’ve made good money (well, most of the time) doing something I enjoyed, something that found me facing each day wanting to go into work and see what happened next. This business has let me provide a good life for my wife and my son, let me ensure that my kid gets a good education. I owe it a lot.

But, like every job, professional wrestling has those little professional evils that you end up having to deal with. You know, those things that you don’t necessarily like dealing with but you do them because they’re part of the job and you have to…well, you have to if you plan on keeping that job. Autograph signings usually just require a smile, a few kind words and the ability to sign the same pictures for hours at a time. Promotional appearances are the same times ten with a little ass kissing thrown in.

But photo shoots…those are a pain in the ass.

---

I guess I should start at the beginning. A few months ago, I got a phone call from the folks over at Musclemag. They were launching a new magazine called Mass (nice and subtle, huh?) and they’d compiled a short list of potential candidates for the cover of the first issue. They couldn’t guarantee me the cover but I’d definitely be in the issue as they’d also have someone sit down with me for an interview. Would I be interested?

Now, I’ve grown up with bodybuilding mags for most of my life. Ever since I stole my first glimpse at one of my brothers’ copies of Muscle and Fitness, I’ve always kept an eye on them. I remember seeing guys like Ferrigno in his prime, Haney and Yates and thinking, wow, these guys were something. Even back then (I was probably around eight), I knew that guys that looked like that carried a certain presence about them, a certain aura. Hell, I’ve seen Arnold in Pumping Iron…nobody fucked with him back in those days. Hell he outright stole an Olympia from Ferrigno by playing mind games with him. I remember thinking, clear as day, that if I could end up looking like that one day then finally my brothers would finally stop fucking calling me “runt”.

Managed to get there in the end. Never stopped them from calling me that fucking nickname, though.

Lately, though, the mags have started getting weird. You don’t tend see actual bodybuilders on the covers anymore. They haven’t disappeared entirely, no…but you see a lot more folks outside the sport making the covers now. MMA fighters. Football players. Dudes like Greg Plitt (who body doubled for Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen). Wrestlers like me. It was almost like the mags were embarrassed to admit they actually courted bodybuilders as part of their audience.

Which, well…admit it. Most of you out there probably think bodybuilders are freaks. Not in the “that’s Impressive” sense, more in the “wow, how disgusting” sense. It used to be that you’d know who the “big guys” were in the sport. Not that bodybuilders have ever actually been small. Hell, Larry Scott would be considered jacked by today’s standards and he looked like that back in the 60’s. But there was typically a baseline that most folks would be at…and then there would be the “big guys”. These days, though, everybody is one of the “big guys” and that tends to turn people off. So, the mags start putting other folks on the cover, to let the folks browsing the stands know that, hey, we also cater to the “normal” folks out there.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand…

---

I tell the folks from Mass that, sure, that sounds cool, send me the details. I don’t think all that much about it until I get a letter from them in the mail a few weeks later. They give me the date. Quick check of the calendar and, yeah, I’m free that day. The location. A branch of Gold’s not too far from my house. I’ve known the manager there, Jerry, for a few years. They do this kind of thing there all the time, it’s business as usual. Standard training shots, yadda yadda yadda. Call time…

…oh, you gotta be shtting me?! Six in the morning? That means I gotta get up at four thirty…

Like I said, pain in the ass. I know why they’re doing it that early, sure. Minimize the impact on business, make sure that Jerry doesn’t take any more of a hit than he has to. Doesn’t mean I have to like getting up at the ass crack of the morning.

That night, I only set the alarm on my phone so as not to wake Lani up too early. Just because I have to shlep my ass to the shoot at five doesn’t mean she has to be put out. So I shut off the alarm as quick as I can and make my way to the bathroom as quickly and as quietly as I can (Lani would describe that as “tiptoeing rhino”). I think I’m being quiet as I speed my way through the shower, running through the mental list of things I have to do as I shave. My clothes are already laid out on the dresser; the rest of my stuff is at the front door. I’ll be out the door before anyone even notices.

It doesn’t work that way, of course. It never does. The minute I open the bathroom door, I can see Lani sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes still half clouded with sleep. I instantly feel the pit of my stomach drop. She’s not out of the woods with her health issues just yet but things are getting better and every bit of sleep she can get does her a world of good. I’m such an asshole for waking her up.

“I’m sorry, babe. Did I wake you?”

She smiles at me and I can feel my heart swell till it feels fit to burst. “Tiptoeing rhino, remember,” she laughs. “Least you try.”

God, she looks gorgeous. Seriously, half asleep, hair ratted out, nothing on but an old concert tee and her underwear…and it’s all I can do to keep my self-control. I swear, if I didn’t have somewhere I had to be…

“Go back to bed, babe. Zack doesn’t have to be at school for another three hours.”

She gets up and walks over to me, giving me a little kiss on the cheek.

“This gonna be a late one?”

“I’ll be home for dinner, for sure. Other than that, I dunno, they weren’t that specific. I’ll have my phone on me and I left the details on the kitchen counter.”

She nods. “Is it okay if we stop by?”

“I hope I’m not still there. But, yeah, you can come on down if you want to. Zach, too.”

Another kiss on the cheek and she walks slowly back to bed. “Bye, babe. Have a good day at work.”

“Thanks, babe,” I whisper back.

---

The drive to the gym was pretty quick; one good thing about the 405 at five thirty in the morning is the lack of traffic. I get there about ten minutes before schedule. This immediately gets me on the good side of the folks from the magazine; they tell me later that they’re used to waiting anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours for folks to show up.

The crew is a lot like other crews I’ve worked with on similar shoots. The writer’s noteworthy if only because, unlike a lot of the folks that tend to write for the bodybuilding mags, he actually looks like he works out on a regular basis. He introduces himself as Frank Gardner. We shake hands and he tells me that one, he’ll be interviewing me as I go through my program and two, they’re looking to see what I do for legs.

I’m surprised by that. Frank explains that the guys at the mag thought I had a good set of wheels and that too much emphasis tends to get put on training upper body these days. I nod, thinking about the gym rats I see on a daily basis. It’s easy to spot a gym rat. They’re the ones who looked like they’ve never worked out anything below their waistline ever. Swole as hell up top, chicken legs below.

It’s about another ninety minutes before they’re ready for me over by the squat rack. I talk with Frank, we get to know each other a little. It’s less of an interview with this guy and more of a friendly chat, really. I mean, I never forget he’s an interviewer but he’s pretty good at putting me at ease.

---

FG: What would people say is the most surprising thing about you?

LM: Take your pick. That I can speak in words of more than one syllable. That I have an IQ above room temperature. That I’ve got a 4.0 from West Point. That I can speak multiple languages. I mean, how much time have you got? It’s the usual thing, people take a look at a big guy and think “he can’t have a single functioning brain cell in there”.

If it’s not the stupid thing, it’s “gee, you’re so nice”. Like I’m supposed to be this grunting, snarling animal twenty-four seven. It used to be exhausting trying to change people’s minds. Then I figured, you know what? Screw it. They’re not going to change their minds and I’m just wasting my energy trying. As long as I’m happy with my life, who cares what anyone else thinks?

---

I’m only about two sets in on the squat rack when the photographer starts complaining. He wants to know why I’m not making “the face”.

Dear God, I hate “the face”.

If you’ve ever seen training photos in a fitness or bodybuilding magazine, you know what I mean. “The face”, that expression where your whole face is locked into this strained, pained grimace. Where you look like you’re straining with every single thing you do so that the people reading the magazine can know that you’re throwing around some serious amounts of weight and are having to work hard to do so.

Lani and I always laugh our asses off at “the face”. We even have a little friendly argument about it. I think it just makes folks look like they have to take a massive shit. Lani’s convinced, especially with the guys, that it’s their O face. It never looks natural and I hate when I get asked to do it. I always argue that it’s a meaningless little piece of theater, that just looking at the size of the weights they guy in the picture was lifting would let you know he was working.

It’s never an argument I’ve won, mind you…

---

FG: Where do you stand on the whole issue of performance enhancers?

LM: Do I think the sport is completely drug free? Hell no, I’m not that naïve. I’m sure there are folks who are performing enhanced. Do I know who they are? Nope and, unless they pose a danger to themselves or others, I’m not particularly interested in finding out. All I can do is speak for myself. And I don’t juice. I have taken supervised piss tests to prove it and have always passed. I am willing to take blood tests, do whatever is necessary. I know some people are still going to think I’m lying but there’s nothing I can do about that.

It’s become such a lazy criticism anyway. Anytime someone shows even the slightest bit of size, the cry goes out that it has to be roids. Christian Bale in the Batman movies? “STEROIDS!” Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter? “STEROIDS!” You know the guy who just got cast as Superman, Henry Cavill. Trust me, he shows even the slightest sign of a build under the Superman suit, people will be screaming that it has to be steroids. Like it’s somehow impossible to gain muscle at all without the use of drugs.

---

It’s another two hours before we move on to the next set of photos. Of all the things about photo shoots that annoy me, this is the worst. I’ve known some folks who do movies who say that all making movies is about is “hurry up and wait”. There are an infinite amount of ridiculous details to go over. Angles, placing the lights, touching up makeup…I’ve done a few small TV guest spots (CSI, the new Hawaii 5-0) and that drove me crazy. I can’t imagine what it must be like if that’s what you do every day of your life.

Oh, and on a side note: in every single shoot like the one I’m doing, the guy being shot is wearing makeup. Without exception. Not much, mind you, but it’s there. First time I got told I’d have to wear makeup, I argued about it. Photographer didn’t bother with an explanation. Instead, he took four shots. Two without, two with. With the makeup I looked, well, normal. Without it, I looked like what one of the fucking Cullens would look like if they’d decided to start lifting weights. I never said shit about it again.

---

FG: What’s next on the horizon for you?

LM: I’ve just signed a contract with PRIME, have my first match scheduled against a guy by the name of Brian Postal in about a week. Kid took on Hessian, the guy at the top of the heap in PRIME, on his first week there. Gotta give him credit for balls, that’s for sure.

After that…well, who knows. Just gonna keep on doing what I’ve been doing, see where it takes me.

---

I’m just finishing out a set on the leg press machine when I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Wow, dad. I knew you were strong but I didn’t know you were that strong.”

“Hey, champ,” I called out, motioning for Zach to join me at my side. He came to my right and I quickly wrapped an arm around him, gave him a quick hug and tousled his hair a little. He squirmed a little with embarrassment and called out “Dad!” but hey, parent’s prerogative, right?

“How was school, champ?”

“It was good.”

“Good looking kid,” said Frank. “What’s his name?”

Zach looked to me.

“You can tell him, champ.”

“Zach. Zach Marshall.”

Frank smiled and offered his hand to Zach who shook it. “Nice to meet ya, Zach. I’m Frank, I’ve been talking to your dad today. How old are ya, Zach?”

“Seven.”

Frank did a double take at that. Everybody always does. “No sh…kidding. I would have guessed ten, at least.”

“Why does everyone always say that, Dad?”

“I’ll explain when you’re older, champ.”

“Hell,” said Frank, “we might even be featuring you on the cover one day, Zach.”

That got Zach’s attention. For the next twenty or thirty minutes while I talked things over with Lani (it’s not like my kid walked there, after all), Frank and Zach talked and cracked jokes. They even snapped a few photos of him while he was showing off a little, doing a few pull-ups. When I got my freebie copy of the mag, I had to laugh. They’d put Zach in their “Ones To Watch” column, talking about how he was already showing “potential” and “signs of following in his father’s footsteps”. Zach glowed when I showed it to him.

---

Few more hours, few more rolls of film and finally we were done. Frank and I said our goodbyes. Me, Lani and Zach piled into the car and made our way home through traffic. Dinner was great, Zach beat my ass at Madden again then we both watched a few episodes of Doctor Who before bedtime…you know, as much as I may bitch about some of the shit I have to deal with in this job, it’s nights like this that remind me why I do it and who I do it for.

Zach finally got to bed around eight thirty, not before telling me at length about how cool it was to have Frank talk to him and the crew take his picture and when can we do it again, Dad? I smiled, told him I’d let him know. I’ve never really given it much thought, you know, what I would think if Zach decided to go into wrestling himself. It’s easy to decide when it’s just you but when it’s your kid…

…forget it. Don’t have to worry about it for a while yet at least.

Hopefully, not ever.
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