Eulogy, Times Three
Testosterone bids farewell to Dan Duchaine

My Friend the Guru
Dan Duchaine, 1952-2000
by Rob Schuh

As many of you may have already heard, my good friend Dan Duchaine passed away on January 12, 2000. He was just 48 years old. Most of the people in the bodybuilding community only knew Dan as "The Guru" or "The Steroid Guru." Very few knew him as Dan the human being and the friend.

The Dan Duchaine that I knew was a good and caring man who wanted to find his soul mate and have children. That's probably not the image that you'd get after reading one of his infamous rants, but I'm sure that if Dan had any regrets about his life, not having kids of his own would be at the top of the list. You may only think of Dan as a mad scientist, but behind that public image was a also generous man who helped support his only living relative by paying her bills every month. This was the face of the real Guru.

Before I even met Dan, I had a hunch that he and I would be good friends from reading his articles and hearing his sense of humor. I finally met him at the Women's Nationals in 1990 in Long Beach, California. At the time, I was living in Venice and ran the nutritional analysis program for Gold's Gym. Although I had never met Dan, I recognized him from the photo on the back of the "Underground Steroid Handbook II" cover. We spoke a great deal at the show and planned to get together at his little apartment right around the corner from Venice Gold's.

I soon found out that we had many things in common other than bodybuilding and, sure enough, we became good friends. We went to car shows and visited dozens of junkyards to find a big block Ford engine for the Cobra kit car that he was putting together. We hung out a lot, and Dan also became close friends with my fianc?.

Then, not two months after we met, I became sick with renal failure. That's when I first found out that Dan had a hereditary polycystic kidney disease. It's a progressive illness, which forms large cysts in the kidneys and eventually takes all of the healthy tissue away, leading almost inevitably to kidney failure.

I was in and out of the hospital, at that point, and had to deal not only with dialysis, but with the sudden shock of going from a top-ten placing at the Men's Nationals to a guy who now had to be hooked to a dialysis machine three times a week for over four hours at a time. However, Dan was always there for me, even more faithfully than some of my own family members. If you've ever been in a situation like that, you know that having a friend like Dan is priceless.

At one time, I was stuck in the hospital for over a month. Dan stopped by almost every day without fail. I remember one time specifically. I was put into a room with a guy suffering from anorexia. This nut should have been in the psych ward, but it was apparently full. As if I wasn't miserable enough, this anorexic would sit on his bed and take dumps, whine about the food, and call people up all day begging for candy bars. Dan came in and started telling all sorts of food jokes just to harass this lunatic and amuse me. Did Dan have a twisted sense of humor? You bet, but he kept me laughing and made be feel better in a very difficult time of my life.

I eventually moved to Florida to recuperate from this ordeal. About the same time, our Fascist government decided to toss Dan in prison again. We stayed in contact throughout this period, and I actually looked forward to getting those collect calls from him. Get this — here Dan was calling me up from prison, yet he seemed only to be concerned about my health. That, too, was the real Dan Duchaine.

As some readers may know, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to jail myself! Having Dan as a friend allowed me to approach the situation with much less trepidation. By far, the biggest problem with prison was boredom. Mail call was the most exciting time of the day. Once again, Dan came through for me and, almost weekly, I received a big overstuffed priority mail envelope filled with bodybuilding magazines, bike magazines, car magazines, and — since we are talking about Dan, here — some good skin magazines, too! Just six weeks after getting released from prison, I received the big news that doctors had found a new kidney for me. Guess who the first person was that I called after my family? You guessed it.

Dan and I had an interesting relationship. We didn't need to speak all of the time, and when we talked, we didn't have to for very long. It was like we would just check in and know that each of us was there.

Just four months ago, Dan called and told me that he was having some trouble keeping food down. He eventually went for some tests and later read me the results. After eight years of dialysis and a new transplant, I know blood tests when it comes to kidneys. I was shocked at how bad his blood values were. He tried to convince me that the doctors told him that they were unnaturally elevated because he was dehydrated, but he couldn't bullshit me.

Whether Dan was just trying to make his friends feel better or he was in denial himself, we'll never know. Perhaps he knew that it was coming but was trying to keep the Demon at a distance by not thinking of it. Sadly, the Demon was creeping up on my friend Dan, and it was winning the race.

Since Dan had stuck by me through my medical problems, I wanted to help him, in turn. I had been through the whole kidney ordeal and could maybe keep him from making the same mistakes that I had. Using my experience, we could keep him ahead of the game, so to speak. I told him to get an access placed in his arm now so that it would be healed by the time he needed dialysis. We also spoke about getting him on the transplant list as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Dan didn't go back to the doctors.

One thing that I'll never know is how my experience affected his decisions regarding health issues. Was he able to see what I had been through, how I had fought, and how I came out ahead in the end? Or did he only see the hell of the ordeal and not want to deal with it himself? We'll never know. I'll probably kick myself for not busting his chops more, but Dan was Dan, after all, and he would have probably ignored me even if I held him at gunpoint! Being pigheaded was also part of Dan's personality.

Two months ago, Dan moved to New York City. While he was there, he took in all of the sights and went to tons of musicals, something that he had wanted to do for a long time. In hindsight, perhaps this was sign that he had accepted his fate and had made peace with the Demon.

I must admit, however, that at this point I'm damned mad at him. If he did decide not to get treatment and let nature take its course, I will have to respect his decision, but it still doesn't lessen my anger. As his friend, I'm upset that he chose not to fight like I did. I realize that it was Dan's decision to make, but it still hurts. Consequently, the last time I spoke to Dan, which was just before Christmas, he seemed very happy and content.

Neither Dan nor myself were religious people, but I certainly hope that there's some type of release or resting place waiting for us after we leave these vessels of skin and bones where Dan can finally be at peace. One thing's for certain, the bodybuilding community will be a much more boring place without him. I can only hope that everyone will remember Dan as not just "The Guru," but also as a good person. So long, my friend. You'll be missed.

Get Me a Horny Angel With Big Titties
My personal tribute to Dan Duchaine
by Bruce W. Kneller

January 14, 2000 — I just came home from the gym, took a shower, and settled into the high-backed leather chair by my desk to log on, read the new issue of Testosterone, and scan my email. Fridays are usually a happy time in my house, but this particular Friday is profoundly unhappy, for there are close to a dozen email messages waiting for me, all that basically read "Dan Duchaine has passed away" in the subject header.

My first thought is that this is an elaborate hoax. But upon further investigation, I found that, indeed, my mentor had passed on. Consequently, I'm going to have a drink, a snifter full of Remy Martin, and a Hemingway Short Story cigar as I settle back into my chair and pen a short tribute to "The Guru." Some may say that I've no business doing this as Dan and I didn't really get along all that well in the last few years. However, all of this seems so very trivial now.

I shared a lot with Dan, and he shared a lot with me. In fact, at one point in my life, I considered Dan to be one of my best friends, and certainly my closest confidante. There was far more to Dan Duchaine than just steroids, training, and bodybuilding. You wouldn't expect a man as brilliant and clever as Dan to be one-dimensional.

In November of 1996, Dan Duchaine, recently out of prison and certainly not yet wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, lent me $5,000. Just like that. I needed money to buy a diamond for my then girlfriend so I could ask her to marry me over Christmas of that year. Nobody else wanted to lend me the money — not my parents nor any other friends. I asked Dan only once, and he FedExed me a check the next day. He never asked me what it was for, when I would repay him, or even if I would repay him (I knew that he had gotten burned before when he made similar loans, but I paid him back every penny, although it took me over a year to do so).

It was the type of guy that Duchaine was in real life, behind the scenes, outside of bodybuilding. He was a whole lot softer and "mushier" than 99% of the world would think. And he loved it when people thought that his "non-caring," aloof persona was really what he was about. Truth is, Dan cared very much about many, many different things.

He was a man who had deep passions about strange-looking bicycles and high-priced audio equipment. Dan Duchaine built his own stereo speakers, because the ones that he could get commercially weren't good enough for him. Dan was also an Epicurean, of sorts. He was persnickety as all hell about his coffee and, when he stayed at my house, he bitched every morning because he hated canned coffee. He even made me drive to Dunkin' Donuts at 6am to get him a cup of "real" Java. I sent him an espresso maker and four pounds of coffee beans one Christmas, and he returned half of the beans to me because they were "only mediocre" (he kept the espresso machine, though).

At the height of our friendship, I spoke with Dan at least three times a week by phone (I lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and he was living in Carlsbad, California) as well as daily by email. We would talk about high-performance automobiles for hours on end. I once hung up on him because he pissed me off so much with his ranting of how the Lotus Super Seven is, by far, the best sports car ever made (all of us "smart" people know that the best sports car ever made is the Porsche 356B). He constantly poked fun at the 1988 Pontiac Grand Trans Am that I had at the time, always calling it an "unrefined American shitbox."

We discussed motorcycles, too. Always a little bit different, Dan liked high-performance Italian bikes such as Ducati, Cagiva, and Moto Guzzi. I was just the exact opposite, as I've always loved the big, slow, loud Harley Davidsons. We agreed to disagree as to what bikes were the best, but we both liked the old Triumph Bonnevilles a whole lot because they had the coolest exhaust tones (bratta, bratta, bratta, bratta). We also agreed that Italian and American motorcycles were a pain in the balls because they leaked a lot of oil.

I owe a lot of my expensive tastes to Duchaine. Dan liked expensive watches, and he introduced me to the wonderful world of automatic watches (pre-Duchaine, I was a battery-operated, digital Timex man). I bought my first Omega SeaMaster — the "James Bond" watch — on the advice of Dan. Then came the Rolex Submariner, the Cartier Pasha...

I remember when he asked me to write a piece about the "ten most obnoxious watches that bodybuilders wear" for a magazine that he had planned to launch called Muscle Smut. What was funny, aside from the name of the magazine (only Duchaine would dare name a magazine Muscle Smut), was that he and I both agreed that the most obnoxious watch we had ever seen a bodybuilder wear was one of those giant-faced Breitlings. We chuckled over this for about half an hour one night. Who needs a giant, neon yellow-faced, $2,000 watch that can give you the time in Singapore, Athens, New York, and Moscow simultaneously?

Although he didn't drink a lot of alcohol, Dan was partial to Zima malt beverage (it's a little different, like Dan) and he enjoyed good white wines. I went from good white wine to good cognacs with age (mine, not the grapes), but I never would have discovered any of this without Duchaine teaching me about the fruit of the vine.

At one point, Duchaine was an avid collector of stuffed animals (I'm totally serious), especially groups of stuffed animals called Baby Dinosaurs. He once attempted to have a mutual friend of ours purchase a giant Baby Dinosaur stuffie for $2,000 at the Mall of America in Minnesota and have it shipped out to California.

Duchaine also had an insatiable appetite for redheaded Amazons. He loved redheads with pale, milky skin and freckles. Actually, Duchaine loved all women, every shape, size and color — it's just that when I knew him well, he was really digging redheads. When I got engaged, he confided in me that he was somewhat jealous. Although he married thrice, Dan was despondent that he never fathered any children, and it was his biggest dream to be a dad.

During his final stint in federal prison, I sent Dan anywhere from 30 to 200 pages of photocopied journal articles every week. I was his link to outside science while he was incarcerated and writing for Muscle Media 2000. I did this for him perhaps 40 or 50 times. And to repay me for helping him stay current with the literature, Duchaine made me his "right-hand man" when he got out of prison. He helped me get my first break in writing, convincing some "TC Luoma" guy, then editor-in-chief of Muscle Media 2000, to give me a chance at a column. Voil?! "Chemical Corner" with Bruce Kneller was born.

I was also lucky enough to be on the editorial team of what has to be considered Duchaine's masterpiece, the diet book "BodyOpus." I remember wanting to slap him senseless because he sent me this huge manuscript and told me that I had to pare it down and find the medical faux pas in exactly two days. I spent an entire Saturday and Sunday (close to 30 hours of time) putting over 400 of those little yellow sticky notes all over the manuscript before sending it back to him. My very first comment to Duchaine on the phone about his tome was:

"Quite obviously, Dan, English is not your strong point."

Little did I know that he would use this quote in the front of the book in the acknowledgment section.

One of my fondest memories of Dan was when he, Will Brink, and myself drove up to Maine to spend the day hanging out at Chris Aceto's condominium. I taped a conversation that erupted there, and it became — at the time — one of the defining articles about steroids. Published in Muscle Media 2000, the two articles titled "The Anabolic Round Table, Parts I and II" are still talked about today, some four years later!

One of my funniest memories of Dan happened a day before we all went to visit Chris Aceto. Dan, Will, and I were sitting in a booth having lunch in Applebee's in Newton Corner, Massachusetts. The three of us spent two hours eating nachos, mozzarella sticks, and drinking beer while we loudly and passionately discussed how to "properly use" anabolic steroids, much to the utter horror of the dink patrons who sat at the tables surrounding us. I remember Dan asking, as loud and as deliberately as Dan could, if my erections seemed "stiffer" when I used Depo-Testosterone or Winstrol-V. I think that he relished the thought of making other patrons in the place feel uncomfortable.

As much as I've chastised Dan in recent times for being reckless, I have to admit that at least he usually practiced what he preached, often experimenting and working through his theories on himself. One time, in the pre-Viagra days, Dan asked me if I could get him a Caverject, a prostaglandin drug that you inject at the base of your penis in order to get an erection. I started to laugh my ass off until he figured out why and said:

"Bruce, I'm not impotent — I just want to see how long one of those Caverjects works!!!"

And I believe him to this day. I'm sure that he just wanted to see if using a Caverject would allow him to keep a woody for six hours or so. This type of behavior, more than anything else, defined Dan Duchaine as I knew him. Anyone who's willing to stick a dart into the base of his schlong "in the name of science" has my sincerest respect. It may not be the smartest thing to do, but damn! You'd need to have a set of brass ones to do it.

And yet another huge argument that I had with Duchaine was over women who had breast implants. Duchaine loved big titties, all big titties. I, on the other hand, like breasts of any size, as long as they're real and, of course, on a woman. Dan argued that, regardless of whether they were bags of silicone or saline, they were still "real." I argued that if Mother Nature didn't put the breasts there, they were bogus, and I wanted no part of them. I think that fake yabos feel funny, totally weird and, in short, creep me out. I could never have sex with a chick who had a boob job. It's just my personal preference.

Dan flat out told me that I was bonkers and that those perfectly round, fake knockers made by DuPont were exceptional, especially when you greased them up with Crisco and ran your cock through them in order to give some lucky woman a "pearl necklace." But I wouldn't budge on the "they're fake titties" issue, and he was so incensed and offended that I wouldn't fuck a woman who had breast implants that he told me I was a complete asshole and hung up on me. He refused to talk to me for almost a week over the "breast implant" issue.

Another fierce battle that Dan and I waged against each other had to do with which female bodybuilder/fitness contestant would be the best to have anal sex with — I'm serious, this got to be a heated debate, as I picked Monica Brandt and Dan picked Vickie Pratt. I think we debated this point (as moot as it was, the chance of one of us bedding either of those women was "slim and none") for 90 minutes when we finally decided that Denise Rutkowski, before she "found salvation," probably would have been "the best chick to take it in the third input."

Dan was a sexual deviant, a true pervert. I'm proud to say that I am, too, and I bet that most Testosterone readers are just as "off-based." Call it a hunch...

Over the years, I've had what has to be close to a thousand people inquire what really went down between me and Dan, why we both walked away from our close friendship. I've remained fairly silent on this issue, and I know that Dan did, too. It was an unspoken understanding between us that this topic was off-limits to outsiders. If you were close to Dan and you think that you know what happened, you're probably wrong.

I'm going to clear the air right here and now and let all of you know what caused us to take different paths. It's time to put the rumors to rest. Dan Duchaine and I went our separate ways because of "creatine."

When EAS first came out with Phosphagen, you may remember that virtually nobody else sold creatine and that Phosphagen had a huge price tag. Because it worked better than anything else before it had, everyone wanted creatine. Will Brink approached me with an idea that soon became a reality for hundreds of other people...but not for us. Will Brink had the ingenious notion that we could buy creatine by the 55-kg drum and, instead of small bottles, we could sell it by the kilogram for less than EAS sold Phosphagen.

At the time, this was a brilliant idea that would have made Will and me very wealthy. Because Dan was my friend, I asked him if he wanted in on our pending business deal. We even had a name picked out. We were going call this business Creatine Kings, and a crown would have been the logo. I thought that this was "my ticket." I wanted to bring Dan in on this because he was my friend. But when I presented the idea to Dan, he was mortified. Not only did he not want any part of it, but he wouldn't even let me use him as an endorsement. And he never offered me so much as an explanation for all of this, other than telling me that "you will fail."

Remember, we were the best of friends at the time. Him telling me that we would fail and that he would never endorse our products came as a huge slap in the face to me. We argued on the phone about this for hours on end. I think that we both lost track of what had originally caused us to get so upset. Finally, Dan asked me not to call him ever again.

Initially, I was crushed and totally devastated. It's hard to lose a good friend — especially over something as stupid as selling creatine. My stubbornness and his stubbornness effectively ended our relationship and all contact for 14 months. I decided that I couldn't write for Muscle Media 2000 anymore and jumped ship to MuscleMag International for a few years.

After the introduction of androstenedione, Dan contacted me out of the blue to ask me a question about this whole prohormone thing. We started to converse again, here and there — maybe once or twice per month, at most. But it was clear that both of us still had too much pride to let the old demons go. Some people who never knew Dan or me like to regurgitate rumors they hear in chat rooms that I hate Dan. After all, I "trash" Dan in a lot of my articles, right? However, Dan never seemed to mind, and one of his fundamental tenets of marketing was "there's no such thing as bad publicity." He never once said a bad thing to me about any article I'd penned that was critical of him.

Unfortunately, I find that I have a lot of regrets. I regret that I couldn't put aside my pride and just call him on the phone and tell him, "Dan, let's just forget this whole creatine thing, and what do you think of Natalie Merchant's new haircut?" (Dan had a "thing" for the former 10,000 Maniacs crooner.) I regret that he never called me to say, "Bruce, Bruce, forget about this stupid creatine thing, have you seen the new BMW 1200C cruiser? The BMW is going to make your Harley Davidson Fat Boy obsolete!!!"

Unlike others who knew him well at the end of his life, I don't long for the opportunity to say "Goodbye, dear friend." Instead, I long for the lost opportunity to say "Hello, my old friend, how've you been?" It's a tragedy and an injustice that neither of us will have such a chance.

Before I started to write this, my wife asked me if I felt that Dan was now in heaven or in hell. That's a tough question, and it's not quite all that simple to answer. My smart-alecky, quick-tongued answer was:

"Dan's in limbo, because heaven doesn't want him, and hell is petrified that he'll take over."

Now that I've had a few minutes to think on it, I'd have to say that Duchaine must be in heaven. And I'm willing to bet that he's already redesigned all of the archangel's dieting programs and workout schemes. When Armageddon finally arrives, I'm sure that we'll see a legion of buff angels kicking the shit out of hell's minions, thanks in part to one Daniel Duchaine.

Dan, if somehow you're reading this over an "ethernet" of divine design, know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we let so much time pass and our friendship wither. I don't regret criticizing you when I felt that you were wrong about something, and I'm not sorry if the public at large thought that I was too harsh on you. But I do miss our passionate debates, not only about bodybuilding, but also about cars, motorcycles, watches, coffee, women...and the myriad of other cool subjects that we would talk about for hours on end. I knew you like the public never did.

I've met so many interesting, eccentric, and unique personalities in this business since I started writing six years ago. But of all of these people, not one of them was as interesting, eccentric, or as unique as Dan. The supplement industry will miss Dan Duchaine, and our world seems a little smaller and blander today, now that you're gone, Dan.

We owe a lot to Duchaine's pioneering spirit. He was the first to make ephedrine "mainstream" with his Ultimate Orange drink. He also brought us whey protein with his Designer Protein. For every theoretical contribution that he made, there were at least two or three that were "real."

I'm sure that I'll see you again one day, Dan. And when I do, just make sure that you have a cute and horny angel with big titties waiting for me (none of them silicone titties, either). Rest well, my friend.

Dan Duchaine
A Final Farewell
by Nelson Montana

This is difficult. As I write these words, I'm deeply saddened. I feel more than the loss of a colleague. I say this because Dan was more than that to me. He was an inspiration. He represented everything that I considered admirable. He was brilliant. He lived his life on his own terms. He was a rebel and an innovator. But most of all, he was a man who was willing to take a stand.

At a time when people are so afraid to go out on a limb in fear of being contradicted, Dan Duchaine, like all great leaders, assessed the situation, made a conclusion, and followed through. Sure, he made some mistakes and, at times, was reckless. But I can respect a man more in error, who fights for what he believes, than a man who waits for validation via popular consensus. Dan was a "doer."

I saw these qualities in Dan long before he knew that I was alive. I'd read and reread most of his work. Through his writings, I got a sense of who I thought that this man was. Somehow, I related. We're both self-taught. We had similar interests, similar perspectives. But I don't dare put myself in the same league when it comes to scientific knowledge. In that regard, Dan stood alone. I'd sooner trust Dan's "gut instinct" than a slew of clinical studies. Chances are that, in the long run, Dan would be proven right.

Although we'd spoken several times, it was just last month that I finally had the honor and pleasure to meet with him. He was in New York for the holidays and suggested that we get together for lunch at the very exclusive Russian Tea Room. The experience was almost surreal. Here I was, breaking bread with the man whose work I'd studied and revered, and he treated me as a peer. To call that moment a "high point" would be an understatement.

There was no way that I could ever understand Dan's reality. He'd been through things that I could never imagine. When we spoke, I found myself holding on for dear life to make sure that I would comprehend his thoughts! Yet, on that December night, we didn't talk much "shop" at all. Instead, we discussed music, art, film, cars, and comic books.

It turns out that we were both big Batman fans! That made sense. Batman was the ultimate male role model for a lot of kids who grew up in the '60s. Batman made himself stronger and smarter than anyone else, and the closest thing that both Dan and I could find to that ideal was bodybuilding. At one point, Dan dropped his enigmatic persona and confided in me that, as a college freshman, he wouldn't drink or smoke pot — yet he was embarrassed to tell anyone why. When I asked him his reasoning, he looked at me contritely, and with the eyes of a young boy, he said:

"Because Batman wouldn't do it."

I smiled. And I understood.

As we were about to leave the restaurant, Dan graciously insisted on paying the check. "I invited you," he said, "allow me to pay." I replied, "Only if you let me get it next time." He agreed.

They say that you shouldn't meet your heroes — you're sure to be disappointed. In this case, I couldn't have been more delighted. Dan and I really hit if off, and I felt as if I'd made a friend at a time when friends were few and far between.

Now he's gone. But his innovation, his impact and, yes, his genius will continue to enlighten, educate, and influence generations of those who call themselves bodybuilders, whether they know it or not.

Goodbye, Dan. You'll be missed. And remember, the next time we meet up, lunch is on me.

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