Seoulscapade

Look at his man. Would you say he is your average kind of middle-aged married man, perhaps with an equally average wife and a kid or two? If you think he looks mild-mannered, respectable, like a man who works hard day in day out to support a family, you’d have an impression that most people get. He is just Mr. Average.

In fact, this guy is so average looking that he’s made a career out of it. That’s how he appears in soap operas here, not as a big star or some villain in the piece, but as Mr. Average—a normal, average family guy going about his business in the background. That’s his specialty. But make no mistake, remember that this man is a professional. If he appears to be an average man with nothing remarkable about him, it’s because that’s the image he works hard to project.

And if you think that’s all he can do as a professional, you’d be wrong because this guy is just exploding with talent. He is much more than your average guy. For there’s a side to him that refuses to settle for the background—and rightly so. He’s got something others don’t have, and besides, that other side to him simply won’t let him rest. He’s got to let it out.

It’s the side of himself that he reveals for his second job. It’s the side that has been recognized by the advertising industry for its genius. Here I present its many facets all based around a single theme, and yet, a theme whose every colour and shade is explored.

Here you see him warming up. This is prior to what I call “full throttle.” Here, he still resembles an average guy, in the pub after a hard day’s work. But he’s toying with us, it’s nothing compared to what is to come.

In this performance, he has obviously based his work on sports cheering. But while this represents the point of maximum expansion for the average person, it is only half measures for him. In fact, we are witnessing a point of transition here, the point at which this man shakes the vestments of an average sensibility and cuts his other side loose.

I refer to that other side of him that is a rampant, raving, screaming lunatic.

Here is Mr. Average going absolutely nuts. Will you look at the size of that gob! He’s not simply a solo performer either, as the next shot shows.

Intelligently, he’s chosen a woman to run around with while going berserk. Such performances give an idea of the wide range of his acting talent, stretched to the limit. Legend has it, that when plied with enough rice wine—as I suspect he has been for the following photo shoot—he is able to swallow an entire football, provided it’s exterior is lubricated with fish oil.

He has his critics, of course, the most outspoken being Julia Roberts, whose snide remarks classifying him as a mere amateur are clearly driven by jealousy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a matter of who was first to have a mouth the width of a football, it’s what you do with it for the public good that counts. Look at the following, we can even see tears from the sheer effort he is putting into it.

I’ve become a great admirer of his work, not the work in soaps because I’ve never seen them, but the work you see represented in these images. Take this typical scene of a typical Korean couple after a hard day’s work. Cutting edge, with it’s retro-60s look. And that’s a nice sweater, too. Even here, some wide mouth work is incorporated seamlessly. Well done!

It’s more than the fact he is clearly multi-talented, or that his talents are so rare and uncommon—no, it’s that he’s an inspiration to all average guys out there. His very image is an icon of encouragement, saying to us that if we have become too average, there is a solution, and that solution is to become a raving, screaming lunatic.

Whaaaa, indeed, Mr. Average—allow me to salute you publicly. You’re a legend and an inspiration.