ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9603290107
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
What makes a man model?
What makes a guy obsess over his abdomen, lie out in the sun, shave his chest and wear a linen suit with no shirt?
What motivates a guy like Fabio, the meaty Italian "I Can't Believe It's Not Buttah!" guy, to pose with an armful of swooning women for romance novel covers?
Other than his pulsing pecs, rippling stomach, flowing hair and ridiculous wealth, just what the heck does Fabio have that I ain't got?
Could there be model material beneath my baggy - one editor here calls it "roomy" - attire? A washboard stomach waiting to burst from the cocoon of my thickening midriff?
No serious modeling agency - or for that matter, not even some guy with a Polaroid and a day off - would be likely to try turning a doughy-looking guy like me into a model.
So to find out if I had the goods to pose my way to fame, I hit the only place in town that would have me, no questions asked. The place where anybody can be a model for a few minutes: Glamour Shots at Valley View Mall.
True, you have to pay them to take the pictures, but they throw in the makeup and - this is important for a guy with my physique - they only shoot you from the chest up.
"Most men don't understand makeup," observed Stephanie Powers, the licensed cosmetologist who made up my face. "I guess they're not used to it." Stephanie figures she makes up about one or two guys a week at Glamour Shots. Manager Donna Young figures men make up about 10 percent of her business.
Stephanie started out trying to sneak some stuff called "concealer" by me.
"What's that do?" I asked.
"Oh, it just, you know, covers stuff up."
Like the bags under my eyes.
After that she explained everything before she did it in a real painless-sounding way, the way a dentist does just before he uses some steely implement to pull out your nerves one at a time.
"This is base," she said, swirling it up on a plastic palette. It looked a little like epoxy, and she managed to trowel on enough of it to hide a day's worth of beard.
Next came the color, from rows of bottles that looked like an apothecary's wares. Only they had names like "salmon," "mocha," "eggnog" and "snowflake."
I got powdered down with some stuff called "biscuit." It almost made me sneeze, but the name was sort of appealing to a tough, gravy-sopping hunk of man like me.
Stephanie even managed to get mascara on me without putting an eye out.
I progressed from looking like regular ol' me to a second-rate street mime and finally the heroic Canadian Mountie in a bad silent film.
After they put me in a tuxedo shirt two sizes too big and a jacket two sizes too small, though, I was actually feeling pretty dapper.
"You look gorgeous," I could have sworn I heard photographer John Bolt say as he led me into the studio.
Turns out he said, "You didn't hit your head on the door did you?"
Not my head, just my expanding ego.
Then came the posing, which was nothing like that whirl-freeze-flash-whirl-freeze-flash routine you see on those dandruff shampoo commercials. With me it was more like getting an X-ray.
"Lean back. Farther ... Chin down ... Tilt your head to the right ... Straighten that wrist."
I tried everything. Smiling, pouting, staring off into the distance, glasses on, glasses off.
My wife, Ellen, showed up in time for the pictures. She loves to see me humbled. She sat in the corner and rolled her eyes every time John put me in serious pose.
I moved from the tux to the "West Point Cadet" look - a double-breasted jacket and white gloves. They were actually women's evening gloves that had biscuit fingertips when I was done because I kept scratching my face.
Then the "grunge-look" - the T-shirt I wore and a ratty denim jacket, collar up, of course - and finally, the leather look.
John asked me if I wanted to take my shirt off for the leather jacket bit.
I looked over his shoulder at Ellen, who mouthed back an exaggerated "No." Merciful woman. My pecs are more pendulous than pulsing.
The 16 shots that came out didn't quite put me in a league with Fabio. But if he has to put up with concealer and mascara every day, he can have it.
Me, I headed down to the Gap and found some boxer shorts with pictures of station wagons on them.
They were just my speed. On sale and extra large.
Matt Chittum manages to cover Botetourt County for this paper without the aid of concealer or "biscuit" makeup.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. Matt shows off hisby CNB``roomy'' look. 2.-5. headshots. color.