Working at Von's, I see a lot of magazine covers, week after week of magazine covers. As if to single-handedly contradict the endless, dull parade of airbrushed super models and tabloid cover vulgarity, I stumbled across a truly fascinating looking individual. Strolling down the magazine section, the figure on the cover of a MMA magazine caught my eye, and my attention has yet to leave his mighty grip.
It should come as no surprise that they chose a muscle-bound tough guy for the cover of a magazine about the MMA, but this was no ordinary combatant. Calling this man burly would have been a pitiful understatement. The man was an ogre.
The sheer musculature of the creature is overwhelming. His taut arms, bursting with muscles, have to rest at his sides at an angle against his girth; he's obese with muscles. Even his face is lumpy--of course, he's sports a shelf brow--like he ran out of room on his body, so he resorted to packing muscles around his head, like a boxing helmet. I must say though, he's not grossly over-muscled; I've seen plenty those grotesque parodies of peak musculature, male and female, plague the covers of body builder magazines. No, our fellow on the MMA magazine forged a body like a stout pit bull, not some grotesque steroid mutation like a child's rendition of a strong man. The only alteration to his Caucasian complexion is the flushed hue coloring his exposed skin. Is he overheated from his workout (bench pressing automobiles), or was his whole body stricken by a sunburn? Atop his head is a spiky hedge of blonde hair, cropped and uniform as a patch of yellow grass. Yet, as fascinating as his physique and overall appearance was, those remained the most mundane features when levied against his most distinguishing feature.
His face, that man's identity is defined by his face. All the elements of his brutish physique could have made him out to be anyone. An arrogant or angry expression would have him marked a thug, or a bully a commonplace and mundane character. A serious, responsible look might have suggested a dedicated pugilist, someone genuinely concerned with martial ethics and the righteous pursuit of the sport of mixed martial arts. Fortunately, this man's face bore hallmarks of neither.
He looked vaguely befuddled, like some primitive creature staring at the camera, unable to figure out what it’s for. Don’t mistake me, he didn’t look like some lack wit buffoon with a gaping jaw and a vacant gaze drifting out into the distance. Rather…he seemed the proper intelligence for whatever his species is. When I say primitive, I’m not merely tossing out some aggravatingly haughty insult. By his appearance and sheer—for lack of a better word—aura, he seemed unfazed by the time period he’s occupying or the modern t-shirt and shorts he was wearing. I couldn’t help but remember certain illustrations I’d seen in anthropology books; they demonstration that a Neanderthal could pass as a human, by merely cleaning him up and shoving him in a suit, he could blend into human society without standing out too much. After all, humans vary widely in appearance, from person to person. But this man challenged the conventional limits of that concept by pushing it to its extreme.
The man is an exaggeration. The brute’s occupation as a professional fighter and macho man isn’t exactly a persecuted role to occupy for a man in today’s society, but the extent to which he fulfills the role makes him an anomaly. Looking at that creature, I see a tool with one function, a function it fulfills perfectly; the heavy cast iron key to a specific padlock. I can’t see him performing comfortable in any other role other than participating in unarmed bouts exchanging brick shattering haymakers while his furious foe’s own desperate pummeling thumps harmlessly off his cobblestone muscles. Doubtless, after his opponent has been knocked insensate—sprawled on the floor of the arena—our brute is still breathing heavily ready to resume the melee as soon his foe rises to his feet again. He would be ignorant to the roaring cheers washing over him, not noticing the plucky referee trying to inform him of his victory, until it dawns on him that the fight is over as he tries to recognize his victory and react like they expect him to, like a student having to wake up from a pleasant daydream and instead waking up and feigning alertness and interest in the seemingly endless lesson. A world of propaganda has been convincing us that everything conforms to a single homogenized archetype of “normal” and that anything straying from that does on a short tether and only while under the strict paradigms of what we expect from certain types of people. Under such circumstances, this brute is an endangered species, hunted nearly to extinction that we must preserve.
This is what I imagined when I saw that man’s image on the cover of that magazine. For the love of god, please don’t explain to me who this man really is; I have strictly avoided learning these facts. It is for this reason that I have opted not to retrieve and post that man’s name and photo onto this post. I don’t want an explanation that I am almost certain will not properly conform to the image I have created for him. Not to diminish the worth of a fellow human being, but his I've found greater meaning and value in characters more often than I have in people.
