Losing Face : He was armed with a hot portfolio and that Fred Flintstone Look. So why did his cover-boy dream turn to rubble?

Get ready, L.A. There’s a new face ready to burst upon the West Coast modeling scene.

Mine.

From what I hear, killer good-looks are out these days.

The latest rage for male models, friends tell me, is more serial killer. The Deranged Drifter Look. Mr. Body Bag.

That being the case, I figured I had as much to offer as any of these tony-skinned jackals whose pouty countenances leer out from magazine ads and billboards along Sunset.

I’d terrorize this pretty-boy world like a red-headed storm cloud.

Forget that I’m a little bit on the pudgy side, that my wife says my oblong head looks like a football, that my forehead is the best real estate investment in Southern California. I have something to contribute.

I could advertise the latest in deep-sea diving outerwear, or model Kmart’s newest line of Big Boy clothing. I could plug those gimmicky, eye-popping sunglasses for demented adults or maybe star in those seedy hair transplant ads.

See, mine is what I call the Fred Flintstone Look. And Freddy’s got what it takes to be a 1990s poster-boy.

In one of my favorite Flintstones episodes, Fred tells Barney that he’s out of the quarry forever, that he’s got a line on a modeling assignment that will change his life. Well, Fred got the job--as the before picture for a gym commercial--the fat slob whose picture suggested a desperate need to lose weight.

If Fred and Michael Jordan--the only bald guy to model cool-looking evening wear--can get modeling work, why can’t I?

Probably three-quarters of American men have my potato-sack body. Dammit, we demand representation on the covers of these high-profile magazines such as GQ!

First, though, I needed a series of “test-shots” for my “book”--the model’s ticket to paradise. To display my dizzying range of looks and attitudes, a newspaper photographer came to my Sherman Oaks house one sweltering day to capture the modeling me.

Cameras flashed. He posed me this way and that. I ad-libbed. I sweated through six shirts. My signature look was the shifty-eyed leer a mugger gives his victim before uttering, “Give me the money.”

But no matter how I tried, I didn’t feel comfortable. Rarely concerned by looks, I suddenly worried, “Does my big nose cast a shadow?”

Finally, we settled on four shots. There’s my war-victim look. A shot with my thinning shoulder-length hair flying in the breeze. A flasher shot. And the hands-on-my-hips look.

I was ready to knock ‘em dead. I even dreamed up a flashy, model-like stage name: Travis. No last name, just Travis. “Madonna ain’t got no last name,” I’d explain to anyone who needed to know. “Cher ain’t got no last name.”

*

I tested the modeling market by telephone.

At Wilhelmina of Beverly Hills, a woman named Ingrid in the new faces department listened quietly to my polished rap about being Michael Jordan with a gut. Then she told me to try L.A. Models.

“You mean you’re not looking for any new faces?”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Like I said, call L.A. Models.”

“Is there a better age to be?”

“Yeah, like 15. Good luck.” Click.

I drove over to L.A. Models on Sunset in Hollywood. Weekdays between 10:30 and 11:30, they stage a casting call. I’d call it more a cattle call.

I signed in and took a seat in the lobby--dressed in a vest, pants and a wicker cap my friends call the tortilla chip. On the walls were pictures of models from magazines such as Elle and Vogue. Sassy, well-dressed workers sashayed past. Everyone looked like models-in-waiting.

Then a blond, underfed, leggy package breezed in, announcing herself as Sydney. Someone rushed out to greet her.

I just sat there, feeling like a troll. Ten minutes, then 15. A half hour. An hour.

I was getting the message. Several other new faces cruised in and were ushered into a back office. Not me.

Finally, a guy came in who was uglier than me. A trucker’s hat, wispy beard, biker-type denims. I gloated. Until I figured out that he was a delivery man.

Sydney walked by several more times, catching her image on the mirrored walls. They had her walk down an aisle, runway style. They commented on her haircut. Still, not even a glance in my direction.

Trying to save face, I finally asked the receptionist about the longest time anyone had ever waited to be seen.

“They sit until they get seen,” she snapped. “It doesn’t matter.”

*

Finally, a woman named Diana Sikes came by, looked past me for the 10th time and addressed the receptionist: “Why is he still sitting there? Are we doing something with him ?”

She took my portfolio into the back office and returned a minute later: “Sorry, you’re not what we’re looking for.”

I asked her what they were looking for. “Editorial,” she replied. What does that mean? I asked.

“This,” she growled. “Come here. Get off the couch and come over here and look at these pictures!”

Gawking at the high-cheekboned lineup, I asked her to articulate the look that was in demand. She fumed: “Look, we want gorgeous 25-year-old men with bodies to kill for, who look great in their clothes, who can model five-page spreads in major fashion magazines.

“Not you. I haven’t got time for this. I’m trying to be kind to you.”

Killing me, it seems, with kindness.

Later, I dropped by Omars for Men, another Hollywood agency, where Maria Minelli gently told me I just didn’t have the look for fashion photography.

She pointed to a wall of macho mug-shots, guys with names like Ufo and Maximo. “There’s all different looks,” she said. “But the common denominator is that they all have something special.”

The Fred Flintstone Look, she said, was still considered prehistoric. “All these guys aren’t good-looking. Look at the schnozzola on that one. And look at this guy. I wouldn’t let him in the door. Scary. He’s like the Terminator. But he’s one of our most successful clients. The eyes say sex.”

She suggested I talk to the folks downstairs who seek talent for television commercials and the like. I built up my bravado for one last try.

At that desk, I told Dina Ziegler I was about to become the male face of her dreams. She laughed, took my name and portfolio, and joked that she’d call me if she ever had a part for a torture victim. Or a man you wouldn’t let into your home.

I’m still waiting for that casting call. Meanwhile, it’s back to the quarry.

Yabba-dabba-do .