Unbest

Austin L. Ray on Action Bronson’s Dr. Lecter (2011)
(iTunes, ActionBronson.com)

“Hop in the whip and call for breakfast
Fried eggs and prime steak that’s straight from out of Texas
Damn, I’m living reckless
Smoking all day just like the brisket
My beard is golden brown just like a biscuit
Every day I’m thinking, ‘Should I risk it?’
Add another number to statistics
Or use the breast milk to eat my Crispix.”
—“The Madness”

Standing behind more sixth graders than I would’ve preferred, the gray, plastic and metal box struck me like some unreachable finish line. Even though that most necessary water fountain was nearly as tall as I was at the time, it felt smaller-than-usual in the way that mountains are diminished when they’re off in the distance, seeming like they’ll never finally be right here, where you need them to be. Sweaty. I was always sweaty. Still am, oftentimes, or at least much more often than seems normal. But it was in this moment of impatience and heat and fatigue and otherwise not-ideal capital-f Feelings that Cindy, a cute, popular girl that normally didn’t give me the time of day, approached with another cute, popular girl whose name has been erased by time. This couldn’t be good. At least I was already sweating.

Cindy and Anonymous Other Cute Girl put my face in front of my face. The one I was looking at was from a few years back. Trading photos was a big deal at my school; getting a cool dude and/or pretty gal’s picture was a show of status, a point of pride. At least, that’s how I remember it. In this case, though, someone possessing my tiny, tradable, two-inch-by-three-inch portrait was not positively affecting my grade-school social life. “You look so different,” Cindy announced, which, frankly, seemed obvious and true to me, but the shit-eating grin spread between her rosy cheeks signaled she was referencing how I’d become, in the ensuing years, what my grandmother and her friends at the retirement community called “a husky boy.” I fucking hated the word “husky,” and I fucking hated Cindy, in all her cute popularity, telling me I looked so different.

Unlike my brother, who excels at first impressions and easily charms perfect strangers, I don’t have a smile-inducing, capsule summary of the moment I started struggling with my weight. (He half-jokes that his was when he discovered computers and Ramen instant noodles.) But I do remember that day, in agonizing detail, 18 years later, so I guess that’s the moment. Kids can be assholes and it shouldn’t be a big deal, but since then, I’ve never been truly happy with my physical appearance, particularly my weight. I’ll be the first to admit that this is a total first-world problem, that in most ways I’m extremely lucky just to wake up in the morning and be me, but there is a special kind of—sometimes very literal—discomfort to obesity, and it manifests itself in all sorts of ways: clothing that never fits quite right, not wanting to go out in public because of this or other reasons, generalized anxiety in conversation, and many other, sometimes-tiny-sometimes-not every day situations I imagine most skinny people take for granted.

“That smoke linger, son, it shine through the curtain
Cracked pepper, motherfucker, I’m a grinder for certain.”
—“Buddy Guy”

I was a huge baseball fan growing up. From the team I rooted for (St. Louis Cardinals for life), to the glove I paid for with winnings from an 8-bit NES tournament (it had one of those fake autographs in the pocket—Jose Canseco), to the baseball cards I collected and obsessively organized in cheap plastic binders my dad bought me at Walmart (there are still 16,000-17,000 cards [I kept a regular count] in my parents’ house in rural Illinois), to the videogames I played (you will not speak ill of the original R.B.I. Baseball in my presence), America’s Pastime was what consumed Grade School Austin’s being (he had yet to truly discover future obsessions like house plants, music or girls).

So perhaps it’s no surprise that Cecil Fielder was the first Big Guy Idol to enter my life. Call it escapism or justification or some kind of weird, one-sided commiseration, but BGIs have peppered my pop-culture consumption ever since that watershed water-fountain moment. At the risk of over-analyzing and self-diagnosing, I think I used these successful overweight dudes as a way of legitimizing my own lifestyle. Sure, it was embarrassing watching Fielder attempt to steal a base—he only stole two in his 13 years/1,400+ games in the MLB—only to get easily gunned down by any catcher that possessed both an arm and a baseball, but it also gave me hope. “This guy weighs a lot [230-250 pounds is the generous weight he gets on baseball cards and stat sites], but he’s hit more than 30 home runs in each of that last consecutive four years!” my dorky, chubby self thought in 1992. I’d be fine eating whatever I want and not exercising.

As the years went by, I continued to struggle with my weight, but I had plenty of BGIs to keep me company. Rappers like Heavy D, Fat Joe and Big Punisher proved that you could be overweight and still shine. Even the descriptor words in their rap names shouted it out like a badge of honor. But even if they hadn’t said it up front, who’s going to doubt that you’ve made it when you have all that money, all those cars, all that whatever you want. Hilarious BGIs like John Belushi, Patton Oswalt, Chris Farley and Zach Galifianakis showed me that you could own your weight further, use it to propel your success, beat people to the joke you’re secretly paralyzed they’re telling in their heads, or worse, might say out loud. Of course, I’ve never had the self-confidence required to crack wise about my fluctuating exterior, and in the case of Belushi and Farley, their overindulgence would lead to their respective demises. But man did those guys live, right? Or so I reasoned. Perhaps the most stunning display of BGI bravado came in the form of the 2003 Roger Ebert/Vincent Gallo feud. After hyperbolically telling a camera crew he thought Gallo’s The Brown Bunny was the worst movie in the history of Cannes, the director retorted by calling Ebert a “fat pig” along with some other choice words. Ebert’s response borrowed and reconstructed a famous Winston Churchill zinger as follows: “Although I am fat, one day I will be thin, but Mr. Gallo will still have been the director of The Brown Bunny.” Sick burn, Roger. Score one for the Big Guys.

“If I had a little motivation, money, and a hot body
I see it now, Bronson the heart-throbby
No more pigging out, binging on the late night
No more sneaking juice in the syringe to get the game tight
No more packing hot dogs on my neck right by the fade right
40 pounds to go and then you hookers getting laid right.”
—“Ronnie Coleman”

Action Bronson, whose stage name was inspired by Chicago gangster William “Action Jackson” (who, weighing in at more than 300 pounds, could qualify as a BGI, depending on your how you feel about loan sharks) and the actor Charles Bronson, and whose real name the internet does not appear to know, is a white, Albanian, Jewish rapper born and raised in the ancient north-central Queens neighborhood, Flushing. He raps in a breathless, projected flow that fans of Ghostface Killah—who gets shown up something fierce on the pair’s lone collaboration so far—will recognize and relate to instantly. But much like a lot of substantive artistic things that appear rip-offish upon first encounter, it’s a rewarding, exhilarating thing with repeated listens. Weighing in at just north of 300 pounds with a copious ginger beard, BamBam Bronson—like many a great rapper, he’s got a stable of nicknames—looks kind of like Yukon Cornelius, the peppermint-craving, “Silver and Gold”-inspiring, pickaxe-tossing prospector from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer stop-motion animation television special. Perhaps that’s why blogger Dallas Penn paired Bronson’s “Beautiful Music” with footage of Cornelius doing his prospect-y thing to rather amusing results.

By his own admission, Bronson is a chef first, rapper second. The son of a baker and restaurant owner, he attended—and dropped out of—the New York City Art Institute’s culinary program, and currently spends his days working as the chef of a Pakistani restaurant in Astoria. He’s a ferocious Twitter user, tweeting food references both random and humorous, and pictures of edibles both delicious-looking and ridiculously delicious-looking. This Fader video where he turns his Thanksgiving leftovers into “total fuckery on a plate” is an absolute must-watch for anyone who eats, laughs or listens to rap music. The man likes food, is what I’m saying.

I started listening to his debut full-length, Dr. Lecter, last summer. Initially attracted to his music by the words of a trusted writer, and then further pulled in by his fantastic beats and the abovementioned Ghostface similarity, the motivational stuff didn’t get me until late in the year. The food references did, though. Song titles like “Brunch,” “Shiraz” and “Jerk Chicken” struck me as funny and kind of unique, and lyrics about heirloom tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil led me down the rabbithole into his intriguing, food-obsessed backstory.

But as I dug in, I started to hear a side of him I related to even more. Turns out, he’s looking to shed the first letter of his BGI status. On “Ronnie Coleman,” he laments his inability to resist food and get motivated to exercise. He even plays both parts of runner and trainer in the song’s goofy interlude which involves Action Bronson demanding marshmallows from Action Bronson while Action Bronson demands jumping jacks and push-ups from Action Bronson in return. He really does tweet a lot, going into unstoppable rants that I imagine would be really annoying to people who don’t like him. During a recent tirade, he resolved to post photos of healthier food and revealed his weight-loss goal. Unlike other BGIs of my past, I felt like Action and I were going through this together. We can lose weight. We can do better. We are motivated.

Something clicked, and I decided to take charge. Initially running a couple times a week here and there, I eventually queued up Dr. Lecter, and the change was laughable in some kind of cheesy, movie-montage way. Hearing him yell at himself to work out harder makes me second guess myself when I’m considering walking instead of running. The beats give me energy. His words push my feet. I’m well on my way now, working out like I never have in my 28 years. I’m exercising six times a week, without fail, trying to eating better and usually succeeding. I haven’t had fast food in a month and a half. I’m eating salad, but I’m leaving off the croutons, as Bronson spits in “Ronnie Coleman.” It’s a slow grind, and patience with an incremental process isn’t easy, but it also feels phenomenal and triumphant, and I’m only getting started. Who knows? Maybe in six months, I’ll run into an old acquaintance who will remark that I look so different.

Austin L. Ray lives and writes in Atlanta. He loves Twitter.