2009 – the year in blogs
Now that we’re firmly in 2010, I think a hard look at the year in (*steroid) blogs is warranted. Mine was moved to a totally offshore location because of a blog-related lawsuit (that I did not defend) which ended up costing the company who sued me approximately $7m (yes, $7 Million Dollars). I spent/lost approximately $1600 not defending the case, in court fines and seized property (i.e. my old blog). So that brings us here, to my new blog, located in the lovely Republic of South Africa, far from the prying hands of the United States judicial system, and those who would attempt to silence the truth (or at least silence my version of the truth).
So how did other blogs fare? In no particular order:
Steroid Nation, by Dr. Gary Gaffney, is still a more or less mainstream blog with nothing really underground or dirty. You can get much of what he writes (which is infrequent) almost anywhere. Still, if you’re looking for a really mainstream steroid blog, with commentary from a Doctor, this one is probably the oldest and the best.
Mick Hart’s blog is mostly advice for steroid users, not really news per se – but it’s been plugging along. It’s written by the author of the Laymen’s Guide to Steroids. It’s not too impressive and he comes off like a bit of a windbag, but you can check it out yourself – maybe it’s your cup of tea, or you’ll enjoy the writing style or whatever. It’s not my thing at all, but then again, maybe you think I’m a windbag…
The Mesomorphosis.com blog started the year off with a bang and ended with a whimper. From August until now (January 2010) we’ve only gotten 13 posts from Millard Baker, the owner – far less than one blog post per week. As of this morning (7.05 AM, EST), the Mesomorphosis.com/Blog was offline.
Rumor has it that his absence from the blogosphere is because he’s currently working day and night on a project with MuscleTime.com that will revolutionize the online bodybuilding world. Dozens of people are eagerly awaiting the results.
Strangely, I noticed that Millard edited a post (this one) which contained a scan of a document I sent him, removing my name as the source of said document. Originally it said:
Anthony Roberts, a client of Signature Pharmacy, recently posted a scan of a letter received from the desk of William N. Shepherd, the Statewide Prosecutor for the Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. The text of the undated letter reads as follows…
Which he later edited my name out of, and now reads:
Clients of Signature Pharmacy recently received a letter from the desk of William N. Shepherd, the Statewide Prosecutor for the Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. The text of the undated letter reads as follows:
Very odd indeed, to remove the legitimate source/citation for something that he specifically asked me to provide for him, and which still features the URL stamp of my old blog in the upper right-hand corner.
Millard’s other blog, the Steroid.com blog (which he was paid to write) began the year with a whimper and ended nonexistant. This garbage pile of a blog was never even remotely decent. It was such a huge pile of garbage that it could be seen from space. Prior to Millard taking the job, Bill Roberts and Brian Haycock both refused it – Bill Roberts later went to work writing for Millard on Mespmorphosis.com, in the “Ask the Experts” forum (which has been a smashing failure until now, since William Llewellyn and Dr. Michael Scally both agreed to do the same thing, and almost never replied to any questions).
I don’t agree with a lot of what Millard says publicly, but I hope his blog comes back – it’s a huge platform for the pro-steroid movement.
The Isteroids.com blog has become a non-factor as well. It simply repeats stories from the mainstream media, often unedited and in their original format. There’s no semblance of filtering, as articles on corticosteroids and other non-anabolics are inanely repeated. Looking at the blog currently, the last dozen entries have nothing to do with anabolic steroids, and deal primarily with corticosteroids used to treat asthma. It’s not even a relevant blog in the steroid world at this point.
SteroidsLive.com, written by Dr. S., also started much more strongly than it ended. He’s told me he’ll be getting back into blogging soon, but he’ll really have to commit himself to make it a top-three-or-four blog for the coming year. Writing, writing, writing, and I mean DAILY, will make that blog worlds better than it is right now.
Irv Muchnick, author of “Wrestling Babylon” and “Chris & Nancy” also has a blog that I frequent. Although it isn’t expressly about steroids, it does deal with professional wrestling, and often the drugs involved in that lifestyle…if that’s your bag, his blog is a one-stop-shop (bonus: Since Linda McMahon is running for Senate, he’s really ramped up his reporting).
SteroidTimes.com started out a lot better than it ended up. Many of the articles at this point are ergogenic-related, but not necessarily steroid related. Also, it’s only averaging a post every 4-5 days, which isn’t spectacular. Matt Cahill is the real find on that blog.
The SoreButtCheeks blog is a mixed bag at this point. Looking at it right now, less than 10% of the entries on the front page are original blog posts, and the rest are just copy/pastes of articles that have appeared elsewhere in the mainstream media. For a guy who is fairly well connected in the underground, I expect more from him than just copy/pasting a dozen articles for every original one he writes. Still, when he bothers to write an original entry, I’m all over it – I just wish I could get an RSS feed that doesn’t include all of the stuff I could get anywhere else.
The RBB blog has some great stuff about the current state of the underground market, including fakes, legit products, and high-rez shots of new products. The underground products on that site are mostly semi-underground, meaning they’re from the really large labs, export-only companies, and pseudo-legit places. The flavor of the blog has changed throughout the year, and it appears that this will be the new focus – which is good since nobody else deals with that subject matter exclusively. If this is your bag, you should visit the site to make sure you’re getting the real deal. I check it out pretty regularly, and RBB has gotten consistently high ratings from people I know.
Jerry Brainum, the Iron Man Magazine author of the “Anabolic Pharmacology” column has a blog that I check out pretty frequently. It doesn’t just deal with steroids, but has a decidedly anti-industry flavor, which I appreciate. One thing I find extremely compelling is that he frequently attacks ingredients found in various Iron Man advertisers products…that shows mas cojones in my book. This is one of the few blogs I read frequently, and wouldn’t change anything about…I’m also unopposed to stealing ideas from it, but the ideas I steal are mostly the ones he thinks are bad ones…
Jesse Haggard’s blog, PersonalCatalyst.net, is over and done with, at least for the moment, as he’s been remanded to prison and is awaiting trial. There was some really interesting stuff on there, but you need to weed through a lot of posts.
William Llewellyn says he’ll be coming out with a blog, but it looks to be a loser already. He’s not much of an informal writer (he’s very stiff), and blogging isn’t what he’s suited for. Add on top of that his general laziness, and I doubt we’ll see much from him. If he wanted to start blogging, he could have done it already, instead of talking about it for months.
EliteFitness.com has no blog, and that’s shocking to me, as they could benefit from one. The only person there who could write a compelling blog would be Nelson Montana, and they should hire him to do so.
My wish list for a blog would be for Jon Romano and/or Dave Palumbo to start blogging on their site. I’d like to see what those guys would talk about, industry-wise, if they were producing a couple of pages each day (and if Jon wasn’t writing about how he banged a ton of hot chicks back in the ’50s or whatever).
I also wish Steve Blechman, owner of Muscular Development, would get his own blog. I’d love to see what Ron Harris would write about on a daily basis.
Carl Lanore and Aaron Singerman are also on my blogging wish-list. A page per day from the two of them would be interesting…
Daniel Pierce is another blogger on my wish list…he needs to move his blog off Bodybuilding.com and get his own site, and talk about whatever he wants…even though the Jay-Z “Death of Autotune” selection is a horrible workout song, despite his claims otherwise.
Believe it or not, I’d love it if Patrick Arnold opened up a blog also.
we recommend
