On Violence and Beauty

Venezuela is known for several things worldwide: its president and its abundance of oil, certainly. The fact that it is home to the world’s highest waterfall (Angel Falls) or that is it the birthplace of Simon Bolívar, maybe. But probably if you polled a global audience on the subject, the most common response you would get would be its remarkable success in producing beautiful women and international beauty pageant competitors. Venezuela has won six Miss Universe titles all-time, trailing only the United States’ seven, which is skewed from several wins early on in the competition (1950’s and 60’s) before it really started to catch on elsewhere. They also boast six first-runners up and five second-runners up. I promise I just looked up that trivia on Wikipedia and did not know if before.

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I do not consider myself to be an especially lucky or unlucky person. By that I do not mean that I have not had great fortune to be born into the time, setting, and circumstances that I have or that I have not had opportunities that most of the world would do anything for. I mean only that when it comes to winning a raffle, finding a quarter on the street, or avoiding those summer afternoon thunderstorms, I’d say my success rate is fairly standard. Of course gambling on sports is a matter of skill.

I would say that my luck has not changed dramatically for better or for worse while I have been in Venezuela. For every disastrous shopping trip I have gone on I have had the good fortune of sitting next to a family at a baseball game who have become great friends. However, in one aspect of my trip I have had incredible luck: at each baseball game I have attended, the result I wanted has come to pass, at least until tonight. The Aragua Tigers won the first two games I saw, the La Guaira Sharks the next two when they weren’t facing off against my Tigers. This week the championship series began with a split of two games in Maracay. Upon its return to Caracas last night, the Tigers won once again with me in attendance, before finally ending my streak and losing badly tonight, in the last game for which I will be in the crowd.

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Wednesday evening as I was walking home I noticed a giant stage set up in the middle of one of the main pedestrian thoroughfares in downtown Caracas. Curious, I walked over and discovered that a boxing ring had been set up. Now I am not the biggest fan of the sweet science. By which I mean I actively dislike the sport. But a fairly big crowd had gathered, there was nothing else to do at the time, and I decided to see what it was like to attend a bout or two.

It turned out that they held a series of three-round matches between junior fighters, who must have been between 15 and 18 years old. Each competitor wore headgear like they do in the Olympics and nobody even approached middleweight size so the boxing was less brutal than the kind of fights that can bother me. I even started to get into the action.

You may by now be wondering what the link is between beauty pageants, my luck, and this display of boxing.

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Between each round of the boxing matches a ring girl would prance around and hold up a card with the number of the next round on it, as is standard. The crowd watching the match had to be 80% male. There were no fights between females that took place, at least while I watched. After the second fight had ended, the master of ceremonies asked everyone present to please welcome the 2011 winner of the Venezuelan National Beauty Pageant to the stage.

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I often find that my luck strikes a certain balance within the universe. For example, one Abbott to my Costello happens to be my friend Andre. When things go well for him they tend to do the opposite for me. When I’m having a good week I can pretty much expect an angry phone call from him (Andre, watch out this weekend). Other times this balance is achieved all on my own. If something good happens to me financially, then probably the next break with my bank account will be a bad one.

Well my luck with Venezuelan sports had undoubtedly been riding high.

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As the crowd rose to greet the next local beauty destined for international superstardom, heads turned from all sides of the street. Cameras were raised to capture the moment. I wondered how a winner would look in person without the benefit of professional makeup.

And out stepped this guy (scroll down).

Meet Jeefry Rojas. Mister Venezuela 2011. The Derek Zoolander of Caracas.

At least he could turn left.