Books I’ve Read pt 1
Action Bronson Fuck it, I’ll Start Tomorrow
I've been a big fan of Action for a long time. I love this man. There was something about his music and his personality on screen that makes you feel like you are hanging out with your buddy. Like the neighborhood kid dropped a mixtape and started a food show. It was all just super comfortable, and he has maintained that energy for a long time. This book is the same. He is not the greatest writer, but your buddy never would be. Reading it feels like you are just sitting on the couch and he has gone off on a tangent about his life, then wrote it down word for word, no editing.
I think that's what made me care about what he was even saying. His experience that he is describing is really what he felt and what he learned from it, not just a story that sounds good. There were a lot of opportunities to beef up the story, make it more glamorous, but he just kept it as it was. There's no climax and extreme revelation where his whole life changed; it just is what it is. It kinda makes the book a bit boring because there is nothing that's really drawing you in, but whose life is even that interesting? Idk mine isn't. Yours probably isn't either. Sometimes it's nice to be in the company of a friend who doesn't have some crazy, fast paced life story either.
When I first started reading it, I never would have suggested it for anyone who wasn't already a fan of action. If you don't know him, there wasn't much of a point in reading it. What could you possibly gain from just hearing about someone's life? This book became something to me around the halfway mark, and now I would suggest this book to a lot of people. His perspective on his struggles with his weight is very real, and I think people would really benefit from hearing his perspective.
As a woman it's very common for us to struggle with body image, weight loss, disordered eating, and to normalize talking about it with each other. We know men also struggle with it, but they are not as present in the conversation. And when they are, it's rarely some cool guy who is just a guy y'know? It's either someone who is already pretty raw about their emotions on a regular basis, or a guy who was chubby in high school and became super cut in college and uses his transformation video as a thirst trap. There's a lack of men's stories about weight that don't end in them reaching their goal.
I think it would be beneficial for us to read more stories about men struggling with their weight, and by then end of it accepting who they are instead of becoming these jacked male models. Everyone who tries to lose weight goes through a period of wishing they had a completely different body then what is even possible for them. For Action that was being taller, having a thinner waist, looking more athletic, just being huge. But being on steroids and hating yourself is not sustainable, so you have no choice but to accept what you have and make the best of it.
For anyone that knows him now you know that he is an absolute beast. He lifts heavy, all day long, hundreds of reps at a time. It is something that the normal person cannot achieve, but he can and its fucking impressive. And you can see that he loves it. He loves himself. It's an unflattering story, and you might not like it, but it's a glimpse into a real person.
