Saturday night is alright for Kung Fu Fighting! You gotta read this review in the Orange County Register. It's the reason we are creative and write books. It's also fantastic because it's my home town paper as well!
But I do have to admit it's been a Herculean task to actually get a review. Because of the cutback at paper and the shrinkage of the book section — they just don't do that many reviews anymore — especially on books with a guy in spandex on the cover.
They think they know the story. I guess the adage is true, don't judge a book by it's cover.
This guy from the paper, Peter Larsen, actually read the book, and buzzed me up and took a moment to look inside. I'm glad he did.
Media has become cheap and sensationalistic today. Not this guy. While everyone else led with Man-Boobs and steroids, he led with man behind the story. That would humbly be me. The article starts…
By PETER LARSEN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Dan Clark stands on the deck of his modern, glass-infused Hollywood Hills home, bruised storm clouds moving fast through the Cahuenga Pass below. His smile is quick and his eyes flash as he tells his story. Yet you sense weariness, too as he describes his life. Or lives.
The story of Dan Clark – you know him as Nitro, one of the ripped bad boy stars of the original "American Gladiators" TV series – is one of many different lives, each a creation of Clark's demons, drive and desire. Clark, it turns out, is the ultimate self-made man, shedding skins like a snake, recreating himself (figuratively and literally) over and over in his 44 years.
He was a preschooler who bawled when his parents split, and then made himself into a boy who would not cry. He was a 10-year-old devastated by guilt and grief after witnessing the accidental electrocution of his older brother, who turned himself into someone who would not – could not – feel.
He was a chubby teen who, in the early 1980s, transformed himself into a football star at Saddleback High School, building his body even bigger after discovering steroids at Santa Ana College.
And, later, he was a washed-up would-be NFL player who created a new persona as Nitro, the bad-ass TV Gladiator who'd gladly knock you on yours, on or off camera.
And now Clark is this: the fading celebrity, who abused himself and everyone around him for years – with drugs and sex and brawls and such – remakes himself once more, writing a memoir to tell (and sell) his story everywhere he can, like a prophet warning others off the self-destructive path he'd followed…
You can read the rest of the OC article here.
Access Hollywood interview was another story. 40 minute interview chopped to 15 seconds and one question about the side effects of steroids. And Billy Bush was to cool fro school. But at least they hooked a brotha up and showed the cover. Off to dinner at the famous Spago in Beverly Hills. Been there a few times. But this is the first time I'm actually going there for dinner!
Please enjoy!
Dan Clark
Btw — if you still haven't gotten a copy of the book I know Amazon has GLADIATOR on sale in the bargain book area for $10 so now is a great time to get it just in time for Xmas! Just click the link above – ignore the $20 price and go down to the box where it has the "bargain" price!
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