SPBURKE

You ever see something so ridiculous it becomes precious to you?

Let me set the scene: I’ve just started my shift at work and even though Christmas is long over, I’m still carrying around a lot of that holiday tension.  The craziness of the season made my OCD flare up something wicked, and I’ve been walking around in a permanent state of “Did I leave the gas on?” style panic ever since.  So I was tired and in a grumpy mood…until this guy walked in.

This guy…he’s what Patton Oswalt would describe as “a Dan Clowes drawing come to life”.  He had his hair cut and styled into a full-on mohawk, which in itself wouldn’t be that weird except the guy was easily forty.  He also had on a black T-shirt with a white T-shirt with no sleeves pulled over on top of the black T-shirt.  I kinda wanted to say “dude, you can only do one or the other, not both”.  He also had on a belt with a gaudy silver belt buckle off to one side (I couldn’t confirm, but let’s assume it said “Bubba” or something like that on it) and suede motorcycle boots on.

He was drinking from a Coke can that one can only hope had actual Coke in it (from what I’m about to describe it could’ve been bourbon or some other inebriating fluid), and when he finished it he just set it on our of shelves and walked away cool as you please, as if to say: “I’m too cool to throw away my Coke can when I’m finished with it.”  For a millisecond I wanted to adopt the paternal stance of “What do we do with our trash, young man?!”

…That instantly went away when I saw this odd example of humanity do this next thing.  Over our PA system the song “Man On The Silver Mountain” by Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow came on, with Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals.  If you’ve never heard it before, listen to the sample below to get an idea of the song, because it’s going to be important.

Okay, that song?  Mohawk Man started to sing it to himself under his breath and doing a slight pimp strut around the area where he was standing.  He even started doing the deep exaggerated rock n’ roll “yeeeeea” to himself at the end of every lyric, but not the cool, natural kind of “yeeeeea” you’d hear from say, the late Layne Staley of Alice in Chains.  No, it was the awkward preening kind of “yeeeeea” you’d hear from a rock n’ roll poseur like say, Scott Stapp of Creed.  But in this guy’s head he’s like “Yea!  I AM the Man on the Silver Mountain!  Mmhmm!”

So already we’re on ridiculousness overload, but the cherry on top of this sumptuous sundae of silliness?…He was there with his mother.

Yes, his seventy something mother was up at the counter trying to return something and Mohawk Man is prancing around behind her doing all of this.  More than that, when she was done with her transaction she hung around for a little bit, Mohawk Man started passive-aggressively exiting and re-entering the store, as if to say “Ma, I want to go.”  So now Mohawk Man has turned into an impatient grade school kid who’s been dragged along on his parents’ errands during Winter Break because they can’t afford a babysitter.  You can almost imagine him whining in his head “Maaaaa!  You said we’d go to Burger King after this!”

This was all too much for me, so I immediately ran into the back room of our store and burst out laughing to the confusion of my supervisor, who was sitting there going over papers.  I laughed not just because the whole thing was a hilarious image, but because of how much better it instantly made me feel about myself.  The last few months I’ve felt kind of down because I’ve been running out of money, my comics career isn’t where I’d like it to be yet, and despite my best efforts I’m still forced to live at home with my parents.

But this guy?  I will NEVER be as bad as this guy.  It’s so rare I see a full and true alpha male in my day-to-day life, never mind wandering into my work, that every instance becomes precious to me.  This guy was easily the King of Trying Too Hard.  If you’re going to have a wild haircut or tattoos or some other kind of body modification, do it for yourself, not because you think it’ll make you cool.  Because, news flash, IT WON’T.  I’ve never been cool a day in my life, and I know I’m not going to start now.  But I got my first tattoo because I wanted to, and I intend to get more for the same reason once I can afford it.  As abstract a concept as it is, true coolness comes incidentally.  You try to enable it and hold onto it way past your “coolness threshold” like this guy clearly was, you become a caricature.

So, with that in mind, here’s a caricature commemorating what I saw!  Thank you Mohawk Man!  In the future, when I’m in my darkest hour, I shall think of you and how my ridiculousness shall NEVER match yours!  You’re making everyone’s day brighter, good sir!