On the rise and fall of "epic beard man"
A long read for y'all today.
I am pretty firmly in the "he's a racist thug" camp. He seems crazy and violent and like he likes to start fights with people.
The rise and fall of an Internet sensation - Page 1 - News - San Francisco - SF Weekly
That day, Bruso pulled on his custom-made "I am a motherfucker" T-shirt, snapped on his fanny pack, and met the pot-smoking buddy he calls Ugly Bob at the bus stop at Fruitvale and MacArthur in Oakland. They boarded a San Francisco–bound AC Transit bus, planning to buy some weed in the city.
The two sixtysomethings sat near the front of the bus, where Bruso announced his plans to get his Stacy Adams shoes shined by a "brother" for his mom's funeral in Michigan. The driver would later tell police that Bruso had said that black people are good at shoe shining, but whatever the wording, it surely came out in Bruso's loud and gruff Chicago tones, and got people to pay attention. As Ugly Bob recalls it (though he says he wasn't wearing his hearing aid that day), an intoxicated black passenger named Michael Lovette said, "Why don't you get your own 'brother' to shine your shoes?"
Bruso is not one to walk away from a challenge — just ask the North Beach cops who drove up to where he was yelling obscenities at cars on Columbus Avenue one day, and billy-clubbed and pepper-sprayed the 6-foot-1, 225-pound hulk until he cracked up and cried. Or check out the video on YouTube, Bruso's first taste of Internet infamy, of the police Tasing him after he thumbed his nose at them at an Oakland A's game last August.
Lovette couldn't have known all that as Bruso walked to the back of the bus and sat opposite him. The tension was enough for a young black woman named Iyanna Washington sitting beside Bruso to start recording the exchange.
"Let's get back to business. How much you charge me for a spit-shine?" Bruso asked. Lovette, who is 50 but looks 20 years younger, with braids and wraparound sunglasses, replied in a low voice, "Why a brother gotta spit-shine your shoes?"
