The Scary Guy

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It's a face only a high school principal could love. Wreathed in a scowl and inked with tattoos, The Scary Guy, at first glance, does indeed live up to his name.

Yikes, he scares me — and I interviewed him from more than 1,000 miles away.

"Fear is a learned behavior," he growls into the phone.

But so, as it turns out, is acceptance. Which is how it came to be that a guy who looks like your mother's worst nightmare is now crisscrossing the globe with one message in mind: how to overcome hate, violence and prejudice with acceptance and love.

It's a message he hammers home to everyone from preschoolers to corporate honchos.

"I just signed a three-year contract with all the schools in Scarborough, England," says The Scary Guy, who's also been booked in Belfast.

He's worked in Scotland, Germany and the Netherlands as well, and has deals in the works to appear in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

A book about him should be out later this year, and he's negotiating a television series to be shot on the road.

Six managers, agents and public relations types, including his wife, harpist Julie Kaufmann, keep him on track.

Naturally he's got a Web site (www.scaryguy.com) which links to "the official store of The Scary Guy," offering everything from T-shirts to bobblehead dolls.

And to think he got his start right here in Tucson.

Once a mild-mannered computer salesman from Minnesota, Earl Kaufmann, as he was then known, chucked the ol' grind, moved to Tucson in late 1993 and bought three tattoo shops.

Might as well, what with most of his body already covered with dragons and tigers and such. Soon after, he began submitting his face to the needle.

For some reason, a few unenlightened souls found that to be scary, which hurt his feelings.

So he turned the slur into a slogan in 1998 when he officially changed his name to The Scary Guy right here in Pima County Superior Court.

Short of dying young in a plane crash, it was about the best career move he could have made.

Within months, he was featured in The New York Times, interviewed by at least a dozen radio shows, even showed up in a Paris magazine shoot.

About a year after the name change, he had it trademarked. The world's one and only official The Scary Guy™. Imagine.

At the invitation of a teacher, he gave a presentation to a couple of hundred kids at Rincon High School the same year he changed his name.

He's been on a roll ever since. Close to five years ago, he did a phone interview with a popular radio host in London. "He called a week later and we did another 40 minutes," says The Scary Guy™, who was invited to England to tour.

"Since then, I've probably done 24 tours in four years," he says. In November 2003, he and Julie moved to Kansas City, which is more centrally located for all that traveling.

Besides schools, he also works with military and law enforcement. "I try to give them an additional tool to tack on their belts."

Fees range from $1,000 a day for a school appearance to $6,000 for a corporate booking.

His nonprofit program, KidsVisionHeart, funnels donations into offsetting the cost of his school appearances.

He's the first to admit he'd never get these gigs without the tattoos.

Maybe that's why they're still popping up. "I've had more work on the back and top of my head and around my neck," says The Scary Guy™, who just turned 52.

So, um, can he still keep doing this as The Scary Middle-aged Guy?

"I tell the kids I'll do this until I die. It's not a job, it's more my life. I get up every day, strap on the boots and the attitude."

The tattoos — they're already on.