Muscles and Manners
Ruggedly handsome. Witty, yet sensitive. Lean and athletic. Intelligent.
But enough about me. The job Monday was to find the ideal male for the new millennium. And there I was--lounging next to a Beverly Hills pool, waiting to talk with guys about real issues: How John Elway scored. Whether Bill Clinton did.
However, the 16 finalists in a national contest to find the man who best symbolizes “the male of the next millennium” were hardly chatting about the stuff I expected to hear from a group of buffed and burnished guys wearing swimming trunks and perfect smiles.
Mitchell Bourg of Atlanta, a former landscape architect turned writer, was explaining how he helped pressure the CIA and the National Security Agency to reveal how his father was shot down by a Soviet MIG 38 years ago.
Thomas Burger, 41, of Newport Beach was telling how he takes time from designing new homes to coach and exercise with an obese friend trying to lose weight.
Jason Whittington, a 20-year-old West Virginia insurance company worker, was analyzing the current presidential crisis in terms of its institutional, rather than individual, impact.
Mark Pustaver, a 37-year-old North Carolina physician and inventor, explained to me the psychological impact of leaving one’s comfort zone to try new things.
These were the guys who were in town to compete for a magazine’s $50,000 modeling contract?
The acceptance speech at this pageant, to be held Thursday night during a Miss America-style contest at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, could put to rest the popular notion that models have nothing but air inside their perfectly coiffed heads.
That’s the idea, said a spokeswoman for one of the contest’s sponsors, Men’s Health magazine. The man symbolizing the new millennium needs to epitomize “not only physical attributes, but also inner values.”
Which probably explains why the conversation I heard around the Beverly Prescott Hotel’s pool leaned toward issues such as the benefits of proper parenting and good nutrition, rather than results of the NBA all-star vote or actress Pamela Anderson’s latest tape.
Elliott Spratt, a 26-year-old Greensboro, N.C., supply clerk who is studying nights to become an avionics technician, told me he would invest part of the prize “and use the rest to look after my mother” if he wins.
Nelson Pena, a 21-year-old finance major from New York’s Fordham University who is looking at a career as an investment banker, predicted his own strong family values will keep him in line during the year’s modeling contract if he is named the winner.
Tim Soergel, a 21-year-old business student at Angelo State University in Texas, was certain he could bridge the centuries. “Gen X-ers are coming up, but people who have been around awhile have the knowledge--people in their 40s,” he said, looking at me. “And 50s.”
Brad Nguyen, a 29-year-old civil engineer from Chula Vista, talked of the importance of proper nutrition to good health and shared his idea of a good lunch: grilled fish, salad and fruit.
The poolside muscle-flexing attracted plenty of attention from the lunch crowd in the hotel dining room, including Bryan Catello and Matt Singley. The cigar salesmen from Portland are in town as winners of a beer company contest that gave away tickets to Monday night’s American Music Awards show.
“We’re finalists in the beer-drinking contest,” said Catello, 25, who was munching a cheeseburger.
Singley, 26, was polishing off a Bloody Mary. But he was true to his contest, too.
“I’m Mr. September in the Beer Gut Division,” Singley told me with a laugh.
