Charles Apple

Julio Lara of the San Mateo (Calif.) Daily Journal writes today:

Not sure why I thought of you, but when I was going to pick up my lunch I stopped to look at the news racks as I always do and the cover for the SF Weekly caught my eye. I’m sure you’ll see why.

This guy, the Epic Beard Man, was huge here in the Bay Area not too long ago for a YouTube video. The cover image is simple but it’s an eye catcher alright.

Here’s the cover:

The Epic Beard Man is actually Thomas Bruso, a sixty-something resident of a senior home in Oakland, Calif.

Here’s what happened: Bruso got into a loud, racially-tinged (actually, racially-saturated) argument with Michael Lovette – who happens to be a younger black man — on a city bus. Insults were traded. And then fists flew. Bruso was kicked off the bus. Lovette was left with a bloody nose.

Someone apparently captured the whole thing on a cellphone camera. The SF Weekly’s Lauren Smiley reports:

The next day, Washington uploaded “AC Transit Bus Fight I Am a Motherfucker” to YouTube. The 3 minutes and 21 seconds of explosive footage got more than a million views in 24 hours.

Yeah, it’s up to nearly 4.4 million now. Against my better judgment, here’s the video. If you’re in an office setting, turn down the volume now:

Smiley continues:

Web junkies dubbed Bruso “Epic Beard Man,” and posted fan art re-creating him as a muscular cartoon character, a pimp in a Stacy Adams ad, or getting his shoes shined by Lovette. Others created videos of the fight as Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter parodies; another composed and uploaded an “I Am a Motherfucker” tribute song. Hundreds of people posted response videos breaking down the fight. Comedians used it as skit material, while high schoolers cracked up at the senior citizen’s unlikely fighting prowess.

Epic Beard Man was a phenomenon. Of course, his new “fans” knew little about the man himself. Instead, viewers saw what they wanted to see. Some saw an elderly hero. Some saw a racist. And others — well, they saw dollar signs.

Bruso spends much of the story making a case that he’s not the racist he appears to be in the video. Find the story here.

I must admit: It’s an interestingly polarizing cover for an interestingly polarizing story, though.

Thanks for the tip, Julio.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Amusing stuff, Free publications, Illustration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.