Gym-a-nee kicks it

You may need to hug your local gym rat this week, as bodybuilding pioneer Joe Gold has died at 82. Gold founded Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach in 1965, welding much of the equipment himself, then sold it in 1970 and founded one of Gold’s biggest competitors, World Gym, in 1977. A veteran of WWII, he spent 6 months in a VA hospital after he was injured in the Battle of Leyte. After the war, his rehab turned into an obsession that caught the eye of Mae West for her touring male revue, and he later appeared in the films The Ten Commandments and Around the World in 80 Days. The 1977 film Pumping Iron documented Arnold Schwarzenegger’s training regimen at Gold’s, but his lasting legacy will be thousands of muscleheads in Zubazz flexing in front of mirrors and screaming ‘roid-laced obscenities at anyone less committed to their delts.