|
My name is Len Whitney.
When I was a kid, I was that seeming contradiction -- a smart, ambitious
hillbilly farmboy. I was competitive, but determined to make it all
look easy. My two role models in life were Superman and Miss America.
If there had been a Miss America-type contest for budding Supermen, the
direction of my life could have been so easy.
By the time I was six feet five
and 200 strapping pounds, the scales tipped toward the Superman side. As
it was, I wasn't sure what I wanted out of life, but I knew it had to be
in Hollywood. Especially after I read some magazine expose about
the gay side of scandalous Tinseltown.
|
"Fa-CHOOM!", 36" x 36" acrylic and
silkscreen 1999 Len Whitney
|
Once I arrived In LA, I was far
too out-of-it and naive to know how to be a gay man and how to find other
gay men. In the 1970's the closest thing to a gay role model was
Lance Loud, and lurex blouses and platform shoes could only get you so
far. Since I didn’t know any gay boys to emulate, I fashioned my
look after the only homo icons I could find, the stars of those early days
of gay porn.
Armed with the closest approximation
of Peter Berlin's leatherboy / rocker skintight hiphuggers, boots and Teutonic
sexgod attitude, I cut a wide swath through my Jesuit college cronies.
As misguided as I was, I learned an important lesson. Right or wrong,
not looking like everybody else sets you apart. Years later, I found
out that the gay boys at Loyola thought I was some prototype of ANGEL (straight
A student by day, Hollywood hooker by night).
When I moved off campus the last
year of college, I discovered my lifelong love. In a musty, hand-built
gym on Holloway Avenue, owned by 1950's physique model Brad Moore, I discovered
the amalgamation of all my dreams. Working out on that rough-welded
black iron equipment, I could be Superman, Miss America, clean-living farm
boy and alleycat gay porn street urchin all in one. My superhero
was born.
In the
intervening years, moving to New York, my life took many turns. I
was alternately a magazine editor, restaurant manager, bartender, nightclub
doorman and video artist. When I came back home to Hollywood in 1995
I worked in the entertainment industry as a production coordinator, and
began painting huge pop canvases of my comic-book idols in my spare time. But through it all, exercise
and going to the gym proved to be the common thread that held my life together.
Which is what brings me here
today. For years workout partners have told me that I was the best
trainer they ever had (to the point that I used to neglect my own workout
by focusing so strongly on their sets, their form and their progress).
 |
When I had the chance to really ask myself what I wanted most to do with
my life, there was no contest. If I could spend my time at the gym,
working out myself and helping train others, that would be just about perfect.
Though other trainers warned
me how hard the testing and certification process could be, I set my mind
to it. After studying hard and focusing at the job at hand, I attained
the ACE certification (the most rigorous and academically demanding) as
a personal trainer. I take my responsibility to do a good, safe,
and effective job very seriously.
|
Hope you
like the AAARRGH!! internet experience. Email me with any questions
about me or about your workout. I'll be improving and updating this
site every month, so keep coming back. I also plan to add a page
of links to other fun sites, so if you have a site to promote, email me
and we can link to each other. Your
secret identity is always safe with me!
Len
Whitney
|
 |
|
|