Shopping with Levi Johnston

Like the time Levi appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, with his mother and sister, and had to get his hair and makeup done, Tank had to remind Levi to relax.

“That was the worst,” Levi tells me. “I had some dude singing to me, the whole time. He was real happy. Calling me ‘baby’ and all that. I kept my mouth shut.”

“I told him, you’re going to meet all different types of people,” interjects Tank. “Don’t overreact. Nobody’s going to hurt you. You gotta be accepting of all different types of people. You’re talking about dealing with Hollywood? You’re going to really meet some strange people.”

Yet, the concept of Levi and Tank working together is just as odd for Hollywood.

“Like we went to Extra today, and [to Levi] they were like, ‘Where did you find him? Where do you live?’ and I was like, ‘I live in Alaska,’” says Tank. “You know, they don’t believe I live in Alaska. And we told Mario Lopez, ‘Hey, look, we have a Latino community up there!’ And he’s like, ‘What? Get out!’ I said, ‘We have a salsa club up there! This is a very diverse community here!” Plus, Tank revealed, Levi’s father is Mexican. (His mother is Canadian).

Tell that to Diddy. Last August, in reference to Sen. John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Sean “Diddy” Combs videoblogged, “What is the reality in Alaska? There aren’t even any crackheads in Alaska. There aren’t no black people in Alaska.”

“Diddy don’t have a clue!” Tank says with exasperation. He was born in St. Louis, but has lived in Alaska for 29 years, and now has family in both places. “He’s talking about my town, and he has no idea about it. Most of the people that he knows in the music business have been there, and I’m quite sure they could tell him. But you hear stuff like that, you pretty much ignore it.”

For instance, due to his large size, people often mistake Tank for a bouncer. “I’ve been called ‘security’ for years,” he says. “It don’t bother me. So I just ask people, ‘Why would you assume that I’m security? Because I’m big?’ So I can’t be your manager, or I can’t be your publicist?”

“So I should tell everyone you’re my manager?” asks Levi.

“Yes, of course! But I don’t care what people think about me. I really don’t.”

One of Tank’s style tenets is that everything should match. “When I see somebody who doesn’t match, that irks me,” he says. “When I go to court, you might see a guy with a gray coat on and some brown pants. That doesn’t match! I’m like, ‘Why? Why do you think that goes together?’”

Tank’s huge array of wardrobe options—his suits are custom-made for him by a tailor in Hong Kong and he estimates that he owns around 100 pairs of shoes—baffles Levi, who says he has 10 pairs of shoes and wears “like, two of them.”

“I have different watches and rings that go with the outfits, too,” says Tank. “Like when I have a blue suit on, I have a blue ring and a blue watch.”