The Underwear Modeling Story Part 2

This is the second installment in the saga of my dream to become an underwear model. It should be posted up on Patagonia's blog sometime in the near future, but here's a sneak peak. 

word. 

When a dream is achieved a new level of consciousness can be entered. During a recent recent road trip, full of California dreaming, I achieved two personal dreams: climbing El Capitan in Yosemite, and becoming an underwear model for Patagonia.

            Both dreams were mere sparks at first. Any climber that sees El Capitan considers climbing it, if they could, and if they ever would. The first time I saw El Cap I wanted to go home and forget about climbing, the mere sight of it revealed my most inner doubts and fears; at the same time it was an object of beautiful desire, engaging and impossible to forget. Over the last decade plus Yosemite’s walls have allured me back time and time again, and after ten trips and two previous failures on El Cap, last September I finally climbed the Salathe Wall, with my dear friend Dave Ahrens.

El Capitan

            It was the best of times kind of climb, with the perceived fear worse than the actual fear, and off-widths so humbling even the grade of 5.7 was intimidating. At one point I found myself hanging on a #6 Camalot in a 5.7 pitch known as The Ear. I would nominate this pitch for consideration of ‘Hardest 5.7 on The Planet.’

            After succeeding on our lifetime goal Dave and I had a couple of days in Yosemite to loiter and be thankful for the fruits of the horizontal. We participated in the Yosemite Facelift cleanup with our local homies Mark Grundon and Scott Borden, and both agreed that picking up trash was probably the only thing we were capable of after the physical, emotional and mental intensity of El Cap.

            I may not be much of a climber, but I love it, and to have achieved that dream to climb El Cap left me in a state of contentment, almost. There was still one dream I wanted to realize in Yosemite, my dream to become an underwear model for Patagonia.

             This dream, first suggested to me by my friend Amber Jeck, originally seemed just as improbable as climbing El Capitan. (For the full backstory read The Underwear Story here http://www.thecleanestline.com/2012/01/the-underwear-story.html.) I mean an underwear model is the king of all male models right?

            My dream seemed like a joke for years, a conversation piece at parties, something I thought I’d talk about forever, but never get to actually do. That all changed last year when Patagonia published the story about my underwear dream on The Cleanest Line, which is an excerpt from my book, Climbing Out of Bed. Shortly after this my buddy Shaun Matusewicz started an online petition for me to fulfill my dream, which motivated me to write a formal request to Patagonia. To my delight, they thought I had what it takes to be an underwear model, and agreed that I could indeed model their undies!

            The only catch was that I needed to visit the Patagonia headquarters in Ventura, California to do the shoot. I live in Durango, Colorado, a days drive away from Ventura, so the dream was still somewhat improbable. Dreams are always improbable, impossible, or difficult though, improvisation would be necessary. Then it hit me, we could do the shoot during my upcoming trip to Yosemite, in the most iconic of all places for a photo shoot, the El Cap Meadow. I contacted my liaison at Patagonia, Kasey Kersnowski to see what he thought of the idea. Always one to go out of his way to help me out, Kasey realized that some Patagonia employees would be in Yosemite at the same time for the Facelift.

            It happened our last morning before leaving Yosemite. Dave and I met up with Jenning Steger, a photo editor for Patagonia. I explained to her my dream, and she was more than happy to take some time before climbing to do the shoot. We talked climbing for a bit, and then I stripped down to a new pair of Patagonia underwear. I was jacked on coffee and the air had a brisk autumn coolness to it, but I managed to keep my swagger. I couldn’t help but think about that Seinfeld episode where Kramer takes pictures of George in his underwear: (with Kramer’s voice in my head: “Give it to me, work it, you’re a man, you’re a loverboy,”)

photo by Jenning Steger

Then, lying down in the cool grass of the meadow, I did the pose I imagined underwear models do, with one hand on my hip, and the other on my head, elbow stretched to the sky. I felt so at home in front of the camera, in the El Cap Meadow, that I realized, maybe I really do have a future in modeling. We talked climbing and photography some more with Jenning, and then we were on our way back to Colorado.  

My dream was finally achieved, I did a real underwear modeling shoot with Patagonia! The whole drive home we laughed about it. Then the cosmic coincidences continued.

            My first day back at my day job, working at a Mexican restaurant, a customer grabbed my attention. I thought I’d done something wrong, after all I knew my mind was still in Yosemite. She started off, “Now, I’m not trying to be weird or anything, but I used to work in the fashion industry… have you ever considered doing any modeling?”

            Too surprised to really answer the question I just stood there, jaw on the floor, wondering what else might be in store for me in my underwear.    

The Underwear Story and Patagonia

Well today has def. been the biggest game changing day in my writing career. Late yesterday afternoon, Patagonia published a story about my dream to become an underwear model on their blog, The Cleanest Line. It's a trip because I wrote the first draft of the 561 word story over four years ago, and submitted it to Patagonia to use. They liked it, but couldn't find a place for it. Late last year I revised and resubmitted the story to them. In 2012 there is a place for a funky, strange tale about underwear, hot springs, the ladies and some strangeness in Salt Lake City, Utah. The place is blogs! So word up to that.

The Cleanest Line is a dope blog, and I'm psyched they published the story. It's crazy to think my writing reaching the audience that Patagonia reaches. It's actually blowing my mind at the moment.

Just as I was about to hit click on this piece, a stranger taps me on my shoulder, I thought I was about to get kicked out of the library, but instead she says, "hey look at the sunset, sometimes i get too involved in my work to look up and I thought you might miss it." I was missing it. Wise words from that lady.

To read The Underwear Story, visit The Cleanest Line.

word and peace,
Luke Mehall

A Blast from the Past, Underwear Model Story

This is a piece I found while cleaning out an old thumb drive. I totally forgot about my dream to become an underwear model until I stumbled over it. Anyways, I submitted it to Patagonia, but they didn't ever publish it. Maybe I'll resubmit. Hope you like it, it's quite different than anything I've ever wrote.

The Underwear Story (You can rename the story)
By Luke Mehall
March, 2008

My dream job would be being an underwear model. A friend helped me figure this out one day after I’d just purchased some new undies, and we were looking at the models on the packaging.

“What a job that would be, wearing underwear for a living.”

“You could do it,” she answered. “And since you’re a climber you could model for Patagonia.”

A quick check of the Patagonia catalog showed that they didn’t use the same advertising technique that we imagined, (my visual image was Victoria Secret style for the female models).

Winter. Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m on a date. Her house: throwback, psychedelic, complete with record player, Polaroid camera, and a little fireplace we sat next to and talked. She’s the intuitive type, the kind of girl who references her dreams often, and talks of love and living in harmony with the planet.

In her room later she’s showing me energy stones, and waxing poetic. For some reason I mention that I’m going to the Patagonia outlet store in the morning for a sale.

Then she begins to tell me about a dream she had. The focus of the dream: me just wearing a fire red pair of underwear.

The next morning my friend Sara and I are up at the crack of dawn, waiting in line behind a hundred or so shoppers as the line pours out winding around the store.

Later, waiting in line to check out, we’re behind a hundred and fifty or so people, and there’s a box of underwear. I tell Sara about the dream. She looks in and sees a fire red pair, tosses it into my bag, and says, “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

The following night, I’m taking off my clothes. Clear sky, the stars above and mountains blanketed in snow. Sara and I are at the Midway hot springs. The scene is strange; Lynyrd Skynyrd blasts out of a trailer-truck. A fellow, who appears to be on some sort of crack, is doing flips in the 110 degree water. A fog emits from the springs and I can’t identify my surroundings other than the Skynyrd and the people in the springs. It feels like the beginning of a horror movie.

The idea of kicking back in the hot springs doesn’t seem relaxing anymore. Still there is hot springs to be soaked in. I strip down, almost all the way down to what else, my new red underwear. Was this the scene that my ladyfriend imagined? In my new underwear I then slipped into the heat and the weirdness of the hot springs.

I never got to hang out with the young psycadelic woman again, but I think of her every time I wear my red undies. I feel like I would feel comfortable in them in many different situations, and after the odd hot springs experience being in front of a camera would be pretty chill. So Patagonia if you have an opening for some underwear models, give me a call.