It’s worse than it looks.
Oh yes, I know you’re thinking that it can’t be that bad. That I couldn’t possibly be that stupid, that naïve or that desperate. But it is true, my disgusted visitor. That is me in the picture and although you’re not having some horrible nightmare now, after seeing this picture you may never sleep again.
The GeekMan was once a wannabe model.
Sure, it started innocently enough. A few friends, some new clothes and a runway made of discarded cardboard from the breakdancers down the street. But soon my little hobby escalated into a full fledged obsession and I felt a burning desire to strut my stuff in front of the paparazzi in France and not my friends and their cheap Polaroid cameras in the living room. It was at this point that I crossed the line from ‘pathetic loser’ to ‘walking bully target’.
Can you believe I actually begged to take modeling classes?
My mother, after legally disowning me, brought me to the one place that she thought could possibly frighten me out of my insanity. The one place that has never had any credibility in the legitimate modeling world. The one modeling school that is responsible for more deaths and/or mutilations of young models hopes and dreams than all the Star Search and Pop Idol judges ever born put together.
Yes, dear reader. I was a Barbizon model.
My short tenure at Barbizon taught me many things. Things like, “Always let your face air dry because towels carry germs and germs cause blemishes and blemishes kill careers.” Just looking at my picture you can see all the little tidbits of wisdom that I gleaned from my instructors working together to help me become the biggest, best and most perfect stupid, Geeky loser I could be.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the highlights, shall we?
The Hair
After months of my instructors’ help and guidance, I had finally decided on what I must have thought was the perfect hairstyle for me to begin my modeling career. Doesn’t it look like I’m wearing a giant, hairy scrotum on my head like a hat? I can only imagine that as I put my brush to my head I said the magic phrase, “Wonderbrush powers, activate! Form of Testicles! Shape of Flaccid Penis!”
The Smile
Braces. Puberty. Need I say more?
The Shirt
You can’t read it in the picture, but the tag on the pocket reads, “News Staff.” Hey, GeekBoy! News flash! Wearing a striped, button-down shirt open to the third button when you have no hair on your chest, or even any chest to speak of, is a Very Bad Thing. Men laugh, women giggle and small children cry. Bad GeekBoy, no Dungeons and Dragons for you!
The Pants
Bright, bright, BRIGHT neon blue Dockers. Just answer one question for me, how the hell was I allowed to live after being seen in public wearing those horrid things? What’s the problem, were the fashion police all home sick that day? Were my instructors struck so dumb by my amazing lack of fashion sense that they became frozen on the spot and thus unable to club me to death like a baby seal? Neon blue pants, people! Come on!
The Footwear
White socks and black leather Reeboks. I want to say something here, but the amount of disgust I feel towards myself is causing my anus to clench so tightly that I think it’s formed its own gravitational pull not unlike a collapsed neutron star.
The Pose
Total JC Penny Summer Catalogue. If I could do it, I’d go back in time and kick my own ass and save the schoolyard bullies the time and effort. I believe the photographer said something like, “Show me your fun side, GeekBoy. Let me see the real you. The whole package.” And if you look close, you can almost see my ‘whole package’. Oh, ha freaking ha, wise guy. I said, ‘almost’, so you can put down the damn magnifying glass cause I don’t think you’re funny.
For those of you who might still be reading this and not vomiting all over the keyboard you’ll be happy to know that I quit Barbizon as soon as I realized that I was far too ugly to ever model anything other than paper bags.
And even then the bags might need to be on fire.
I have no witty comment now. I’m totally freaking out. I’ll have to delete this bookmark, now!
..every girl crazy ’bout a sharped-dressed man.
I haven’t even read what you wrote. Did you have leg-warmers on prior to the shoot? Did you go home and put on your sweat shirt with the collar ripped out? Footloose, footloose – put on those dancing shoes! He’s a maniac! How long did you work on that little lock of hair, dangling down and tickling your forehead? Okay – I’ll go read your post now…
Having now read it, I wanted you to know I was Casablancas. Well, I wanted to be – even bought and memorized GQ, wore nothing but Lacoste (even know the there was an crocodile – not an alligator – on the shirt), Gucci, YSL, etc. I would get $100 to buy t-shirts and jeans, etc and would come home with one shirt.
i’m lost for words. absolutely lost. for. words.
oh. mercy. that outfit and that hair — wrong on so many levels, and yet, somehow, you made it all work.
oh. my. god. that is so…kids incorporated. it’s so star search. it’s so… oh my god!
If you think this is bad, you should have seen GMs’ brother..
Suddenly I feel like perming my hair and cranking up “Ah-Ha” Taaaaake on meeeeee… take me on. Wait, I know I have some huge dangling earrings around here somewhere along with some ripped tights and… aaaah… yes… the Madonna skirt. Oh. Yeah. The 80’s… now THAT was a COOL decade. Way to bring back memories, GeekMan.
Does anyone remember Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter?
Oh my, Barbizon. Be a model or just look like one!
The closest I ever came to the modeling gig was a volunteer hair model for a Clairol hair model at a local salon convention. Thankfully there are no pictures to commemorate that occasion.
Now, let’s see your “Blue Steel” look…
When I was eleven I would have thought you were a babe.
It’s not nice to tease me like that, JadedJu. Not nice at all. No one, and I mean no one, has ever thought I was a ‘babe’. Calling me one now is just cruel and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going listen to my Tiffany album while watching The Breakfast Club and cry.
Vogue. (reverb … vogue, vogue, vogue)
Its not THAT bad GeekMan.. no.. wait.. it is.. Yes it IS that bad. Im scarred for life = P
I feel your pain because you see, I too was a Barbizon reject. I also had dreams of stardom with big hair. It all seemed as close as responding to the ad in the local newspaper. Then crushed permanently by the woman who didn’t think I was anorexic-looking enough to be a professional model.
I have recovered for the most part. All that are left for scars are those that my mother reopens every time she announces to the world that she can’t imagine why I don’t like to have my picture taken, because I went to modeling school!
HAAAAAAAAAR!!!
It’s a rare man can laugh at himself… oh, thank you for this… I’m crying…
lol.
i’m laughing too hard to think of any funny comments.
happy new year to YOU, too! what a great way to start it: by remembering the 80’s!
(take *on* meeeeeee….)
I too went to Barbizon! I learned to curl my hair and put on makeup – always use foundation. I stopped growing at 13, ending up ALMOST 5 ft tall. It put an early end to a career that never started!
But I think you look cute in the picture. A Travolta wannabe!
your wierd, clairehatesconnor
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