I'm Husky

I was reading the Sunday Post online and came across this article on a 625-pound man named John Keitz. I was reading it on G’s computer and at the end of it; I changed clothes and went to the gym. It was sobering. Plus it let me know that I gotta stop playing around and go ahead and drop the lbs…after all, like my man Rev. Willie Efus said, “this is enuferis!” (Classic Whip Whop line, translated: “This is enough of this.”)

I’ve never been as big as Keitz, but my weight did peak at about 310 when I was a 15-year old sophomore in high school.

Me and Pops had just come back from an East Coast basketball trip, where we traveled to different northeastern cities catching college and NBA games, when I stepped on the scale and it said 308 (eating whole pizza hut pizzas on the trip didn’t help). At that moment I said, “This is enuferis.” For the next couple of months, I had mom or dad take me to Delaware park so I could walk and jog (more so waddle) around the 1.8-mile park. That summer we moved to a crib that was in walking distance of Delaware and that helped me even more.

By the end of my senior year, I had lost close to 100-pounds. I was a new dude…I was running 8-minute miles, could even smack the backboards (at least graze them) on a bball hoop. Plus one of my boys, Najeeb, had me in the gym real heavy. But Jeeb left for a while and my habits slacked off. So, over the past 7 years, I’ve gained a lot back. Right now, I’m too big for my liking and it’s gotta stop.

Like I said, after reading the Post story…I was in the gym…although I had to cut my elliptical machine workout short because my ankle was bothering me (I sprained it Friday night after a too good time in Adams Morgan).

But, I was also reading the Keitz story and seeing some similarities and differences between the two of us. I’ve pulled some sections directly from the story, check it out…

“John Keitz weighs 625 pounds. He is so heavy his legs will not support his weight.”

I’m so heavy that my legs rub against each other every time I walk or run. As a matter of fact, I was jogging in Rock Creek Park the other day when my sweatpants burst into flames because of the friction. It caused a forest fire. I immediately fled the scene, only to be stopped by an officer when I ran a red light. He looked in the car and was immediately puzzled. I knew why, so I tried to close my fat legs, but he was already onto me. So he asked, “Sir, why are you wearing sweatpants with a charred crotch?” I furnished no reply.

“He lies on his front, because if he were to lie on his back, rolls of flesh would press on his windpipe and suffocate him. His head never touches sheet or pillow. At night, his left cheek nestles upon a soft white pile of shoulder and breast meat.”

I was so disgusted when I read that. Can you imagine that? Being so fat that flesh rises so high if can form a pillow?

Personally, I tend to sleep on my sides. When I lay on my back, I always have nightmares…I don’t why, but it happens. And it’s usually uncomfortable to sleep on my stomach, especially when I’ve just woofed down a 4-lb Chipolte burrito at 12am and haven’t even given it an hour to digest.


“The spring after he went down, firefighters pried two windows from his second-story apartment in Essex and extracted him with a lift truck. Streets were closed for blocks. Two months ago, firefighters used a whale sling from the National Aquarium in Baltimore to haul him out of his house in nearby Dundalk. They put him on a flatbed truck. A television news chopper monitored from above. His ordeal was rehashed on late-night television and morning radio.”

Who do you think had the best monologue bit about Mr. Keitz being airlifted out of his house? I say it goes in this order: Letterman, Conan, Leno.

Letterman is the dude, especially for his monologue. It was probably smarter and smarmier. Conan’s a clown, but his monologues are never funny, but I do stay up to watch his skits. Leno is long-chinned dweeb.

“But he did have advice for those who might think him a pathetic loser: "Don't underestimate the fat man.”

I’d have to agree with him. Back in my HUGE days, I used to step on bball courts and dudes used to underestimate me. Then I’d hit em with my spin move and kiss it high off the glass. Ask any one of my boys and I guarantee you they’ll say I’m the illest fat dude they’ve ever seen ball…especially when I used to play regularly.

The illest fat dude I’ve ever seen play? Tim Stephens, my boss at the Orlando Sentinel.

“This average head and these average forearms float in the vast rolling sea of the rest of him. It is as though the puckish inner Keitz had gone to a carnival and popped up inside a fat man suit. The upper arms are the size of a man's thigh. His belly spills like a 25-gallon sack of Jell-O toward his right side.”

If you saw the photos of Keitz it was weird. His head was absolutely normal…not Jabba-like at all. He and I are similar in this area. My boy Double always clowns me on this. He says I have a regular person’s head and a fat dude’s body. Usually I laugh when he says this, but then I go home at night and shed earnest tears of anguish.

"You miss the little things," he says. "Like fishing. Church. Being able to walk into a place and play keno. The stupid stuff, like going shopping. . . . I miss walking around a park at night. Just the little stupid [stuff]. Carnivals. . . . But the biggest thing I miss is being able to take care of my own problems. And when I am done, I will take care of problems."

I miss the “little things” too. Like being able to shop at Banana Republic. I mean, is it really necessary to have 38s as your largest Chinos? That’s discriminatory…I’m not asking you to make 54s…gimme a 42 though…and when you make the 42s don’t have the legs pencil thin. I mean, if my waist is a 42, my legs aren’t the size of Chris Rock.

“He was always a big boy: 100 pounds in first grade, 165 in fourth. The kids used to call him Fat Albert. Beluga Whale. Blimp.”

I’ve spent a lifetime getting tortured and ridiculed by everyone from lil kids, to close friends, to family members. A sample of names I’ve been called and what people have said about me…

G: Fat V, Vinny Tits, Vin Breast
Chuck: Fat dude
Cam: Bottom Heavy
Redd: Porky, Tubby, Tubbs, Sir Tubbsalot
Dubb: Portly
Mr. Fran (gym teacher): Vinny Bag-o’-donuts
Nisan: “Dude, you’re so fat and disgusting.”
Mel-Mel (my lil cousin, she said this around 1993 at the height of my obesity.): “uhhhh, Vince you need to lose some weight.” She was maybe 8-years-old at the time...she said this after opening my suit-jacket. I was bulimic for the next month.
P: “I hate the fact that you’re shaped like a woman.”

Now, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina…I will admit that I am probably 10 times more obnoxious and have said worse things to all these people…but I just want to show you that I’m a marked man. I’m consistently berated for my weight and it hurts my feelings.

"Big boys didn't cry, they kicked ass," he says. "If you lined up everybody I hit in a row, you could probably go from Dundalk to New Jersey."

I’ve never gotten into a fight because someone was making fun of me. I just learned to become supremely good at insulting people. As a matter of fact, if I ever get around to it, I still plan on posting a “How To” for insults.

“His stories unfurl one after another, summoning a vivid world to a room with a large bed. The other theme in them is his former physical prowess. Scores he settled, challenges he won. Some are impossible to check because they happened long ago -- breaking a bully's leg at the Police Athletic League, getting fired from McDonald's for punching a manager who insulted him, getting kicked out of ninth grade for throwing a punch at a gym teacher who, he says, attacked him after losing a wrestling match. He never went back to school. He learned martial arts and gave classes. His friend Donna Gause, mother of a former roommate, confirms how, in a Wendy's, Keitz threatened the father of her teenage daughter for hassling the girl. Customers scattered, and the man locked himself in the bathroom. "He sees himself as a bit of a local avenger," says his friend Mike Schilling, 37, an assistant store leader for Royal Farms. "He's what you call righteous. He believes absolutely in what he does, even if not everybody believes it's the right thing to do."

I love delusional fat men -- the ones that resort to tall-tales to impress people. But, I’m even more impressed with Guardian-angel fat men.

Now, although I’m dishonest and love making up stories for entertainment; I’ve never once helped a damsel in distress...so Keitz and I are both similar and different in these respects.

Which reminds me, remember last season’s “Curb” season finale, where his Producer’s co-star gets her purse taken and Larry takes like 30 seconds to decide if he’d chase after the mugger? Well, he does chase the robber...only the mugger turns around and starts chasing Larry and Larry skates off like a coward.

My yellow-ways begin at the onset. I’d have looked at her and said, “You better cancel those credit cards.”

"I've been on grapefruit diets, rice diets, popcorn diets, I took diet pills, liquid diets, Slim-Fast, Weight Watchers," he says. He lost 25 pounds with Weight Watchers, he says, but it didn't stay off.

My boy Tony once said, “Yo V, you’re weight fluctuates like Oprah’s”

You see what I deal with? Is that anyway to encourage a man struggling with obesity?

After Keitz went down, his father died. On the way to the cemetery, the hearse took a detour to pause outside Keitz's second-story apartment. He pulled himself up to the windowsill to look out and say goodbye to his dad.

Isn’t this sad? I mean, at this point you have to start thinking about drastic measures to drop weight. If you can’t bury your father because you’re too obese to leave your home then that’s unacceptable. He must’ve been crushed.

Since Keitz was 18 and 250 pounds, he has gained 375 pounds, or 1,312,500 calories. That's 62,500 calories per year, or 171 per day. Just 171 calories a day? That's roughly equivalent to going to McDonald's and ordering a double cheeseburger (460 calories) instead of a cheeseburger (310). Or a quarter pounder (420) instead of a hamburger (260). Or large fries (520) instead of medium fries (350). Or a large Coke (32 ounces, 310 calories) instead of a small Coke (16 ounces, 150 calories). Before you know it, you are supersized.

When I showed G the pictures of this dude, the first thing he wondered were, “How do you get that fat.” Well, there you have it. Continuous food choices, some that may seem small, can quickly add up. Before you know it, you’re too huge to even exercise and that’s when you’re doomed.

I was telling G how my lil bros (bigger than me) could drop massive pounds if they just cut out the soda. A and Chrish will down a 2-liter of soda a piece, in one day. All that sodium and sugar is killin em.

I gained more pounds than I should have in Orlando. Why? Beer.

As we all know, white people love their beer and I was probably consuming 3,000 oz. of beer each week and not really doing much to sweat it out. Result? My suits fit like a spandex singlet.

Keitz's face lights up when the women arrive for a morning workout. The fear is still with him -- "I may never walk again," the big man frets one day -- but for the first time he imagines he has capable allies. After a week, the goal becomes more ambitious: The therapists want Keitz to sit up. The last time he sat up was nearly three years ago.

To psych himself up, he selects a thumping dance tune, puts on headphones and turns up the volume. He does the old one-two-three! and heaves himself crossways on the bed. This takes several minutes, with long pauses. He is panting, sweating. He tells the women he's dizzy. He is still on his front. One-two-three! and he rolls to his back.

His great belly rises like an angry red mountain. It maintains its flattened face-down shape: Fluid has pooled in the tissue, making it rigid but impressionable to the touch, like wet cement.

Brown props up the belly with both arms so it doesn't topple Keitz over. Lowndes must rotate his left leg so the knee will be turned up, ready for a sitting position. This leg has atrophied because it has been immobile as he's lain for years tilted left to make room for his stomach.

Did you read that paragraph about what his stomach was like? He has pools of fluid in between his fat-rolls. I got queasy when I read that.

He dreams the dream again, the one where he is cooking in the kitchen and refusing anyone's help. He recites the menu in detail. "Let's see, I made a shrimp salad, steamed shrimp, grilled shrimp, shrimp dip, shrimp scampi . . . crab cakes, crab puffs, crab dip, crab soup . . . barbecued chicken, baked chicken, fried chicken, chicken soup . . ." Gina looks at him and says, "It sounds like you made too damn much food." " . . . chicken salad, egg salad, potato salad, macaroni salad . . . roast beef, barbecued beef, beef and gravy . . . pork roast, spare ribs . . . brownies, chocolate cake, spice cake, cupcakes. . . . Plus I had two full kegs of beer."


Aside from handsome, brilliant and a Music Dude, I’m also what’s known as a “foodie” ( a restaurant and food freak. These people aren’t necessarily fat. But I can taste ingredients in food, always wanna know recipes and I go to great lengths to eat at different restaurants. During Restaurant Week, you can probably find me at some of these restaurants eating alone. The food is the experience for me, maybe more so than the company.) So this really sounds like me.

Back when I had my own apartment, I used to entertain a lot, like Keitz, and I’m always coming up with menus in my head. Usually I have some recipe-epiphany and I’ll call P and describe it to her. It's a fat man's trait.

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Now, I know what you're thinking..."If only all fat men where as charming and debonair as Vince." To that I say, "True, true, true. You right."

But although I maintain my sexy and cachet, even while "my weight fluctuates like Oprah", I've committed to doing this diet thing. I don't have new-wardrobe money...and I already need to go kop some sweats to replace the crotch-charred joints I have at the moment.