The public transportation system isn't a great place to meet people. Indelibly etched in my olfactory receptor neuron is the smell of urine from the tunnel linking the outbound and inbound tracks of the Green Line at Boston's Park Street Station. But worse than the sights and smells of public transportation is when the sense of touch is engaged. This could involve a pervert brushing against you, with a crowded train providing the plausible deniability that it was an accident. Or it could involve a violent encounter with Epic Beard Man, aka Vietnam Tom, aka Touchdown Tommy, aka Tom Slick.
Six months after getting tazed by Oakland cops for mistaking Oakland-Almeda County Stadium for a BYOB facility, Epic Beard Man is back on YouTube for an epic battle with a fellow passenger on an Almeda County Transit bus line. The 67-year-old pugilist's performance against a younger man is impressive. If you haven't watched the profanity-laced busride beatdown, then join the ranks of the aware by watching it here.
More people have watched Epic Beard Man v. Mr. Amber Lance than watched Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto. Like a sci-fi geek repeatedly screening Star Wars in its opening weekend, I have watched the Epic Beard Man fight more than a dozen times. At first viewing, AC Transit Bus Fight is a 3:21 brawl. But careful viewers will recognize that there's more to this internet sensation than meets the eye. It's not just a fistfight. It's art.
There's foreshadowing in the obscene truth-in-advertising message emblazoned across Epic Beard Man's back. You can't say he didn't warn you. There's the irony in the younger, aggressor getting his comeuppance. There is conflict, which devolves into a classic race dispute as a result of a taunt. There are the unheralded side characters, who goad Amber Lance into taking on the older, but bigger, Epic Beard Man. After their hero has fallen, a rapacious spectator--spotting the bloodied man's bag (or was it EBM's bag?)--encourages a friend to "go through that s---!" There's the brilliant cell-phone-camera direction, which concludes the internet film by juxtaposing a dirty Oakland bus dripping with blood and the city sign upon the bench that announces that Oakland is "clean and safe." The director is certainly the Martin Scorsese of camera-phone films. And finally, there's the promise of a sequel, as Amber Lance repeatedly states: "I'm gonna kill that n----."
This movie is a western. It's Oakland setting gives that away. Like all good westerns, there's more going on than just the gun fight. The black and white protagonists are more nuanced shades of gray than traditional cowboy imagery of black and white hats. Epic Beard Man, though fending off a physical attack, instigated it by making a racially-charged inquiry regarding a spit shine. And though Amber Lance is a big mouth, one can't help but feel that forces external--the peer pressure of the mob hoping to witness a gun fight--compel him to act. His bravado stems from a fear of getting shown up. The irony is that his fear of getting shown up is what leads to his ultimate humiliation.
The bus-riding mob wears the black hat in this tale for taking pleasure from violence. Does not the other mob, then, the more than million watching but, unlike the passengers, not visible, wear the black hat as well? That's the final twist of AC Transit Bus Fight: we're watching ourselves. The web gawkers condemning the passengers for their vicarious thrill are themselves YouTubing the clip for kicks. Everyone likes a good scrap, even if they don't care to admit it.
Another Epic example of the de-evolution of our society in particular.
What's next? A television show about Guidos who hang around the Jersey Shore?
You know, as I perused the cable channel box this weekend, it dawned on me when observing some of the crap that passes as 'programming' that we are not that far away from what life resembled in the movie 'Idiocracy'.
And it's probably a good tip of things to come to see the telegenic morons who are attempting and failing to run our country that we are heading there sooner than later.
A few thoughts:
I was glad to find this here, this incident is very flynn-files worthy, but I thought your ana|ysis was off.
First off, I think the racial question is a bit different than you portrayed. What's much more likely is that the black guy used race as a way to intimidate whitey, and this whitey wasn't taking it sitting down. How often have whites dealt with the overreaction and faux hypersensitivity of blacks to the issue of race. EBM says in a later interview that he was just talking about getting his shoes shined when this guy approached him.
The black guy picked a fight, and he knew he could get away with it because of the impotence to most people, the inability for them to stand up for themselves.
Let's also not forget how the black racial consciousness immediately coalesced and none of the whites helped EBM or defended him. Whites have become the social situation traitors to their own kind and absolutely afraid and impotent even for their own defense.
more info.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/epic-beard-man
And no mention of hipster Amber, the cult of Amber Lamps?
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/amber-lamps
This was the right FF topic, but the wrong ana|ysis.
-Ben
