Brentwood, CA. Mike Carp & Mr. P90X. 2003
The guy on the right should be more than familiar to the millions of people who've gotten in shape—or tried to—doing P90X. I ran into Tony a decade ago at the bar on San Vicente where Brian Weeks used to bartend when the place was called Mom's during our UCLA days. Right down the street from Mezzaluna and Nicole Simpson's old place. Tony was buddies with our friends Mike Carp and Jon Congdon. When we got introduced Tony knew who I was, thanks to our mutual benefactor, Beachbody.com. At the time, Tony was the face man for a workout program called "Power 90"—the precursor to P90X. And I was in the middle of my nearly 2-year odyssey around the U.S., some of which was financed by the credit card I was issued by my friends Jon and Carl, who started Beachbody.com and hired Tony to be their on-camera workout guru. All I had to do was record my attempts to complete their 3-month Power 90 program while on the road, writing about my progress and posting photos on my new blog (TheGreatestYearOfMyLife 1.0) that was linked to the Beachbody website. The problem was, I fell off the workout wagon many times. I didn't exercise consistently. I felt guilty for not posting. For months, the "Power 90" link on my site sat in limbo with this photo of me—shirtless and hairy. The post under the photo was a brief mea culpa full of shame and guilt for not sticking with the program. This sorry state of affairs prompted Beachbody's CEO to write an article about me which I don't disagree with whatsoever. However, I won't link to it here. I'll allow you the pleasure of doing a search on the words "Bob Makela" + "failure." It's the 1st entry that pops up. And yet, here I am 10 years later—on a Friday the 13th, no less—ready to start P90X again on Monday. Bring it!