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McFrankestein update June 8

Roughly six weeks after ordering McDonalds Chicken McNuggets and the subsequent discovery of a lost one behind the tele, I’d like to report on its status in its little zip lock bag.

The McNugget is now in a rigor mortis state. The flesh is stiff and hard to the touch yet oils seem to still seep out if its golden skin. The inside of the bag seems slightly oily.

When I open the ziplock, I smell McDonalds goodness.

Mc-odd, no?

Swimming Cowboy

On Memorial Day at Ala Moana Beach Park, a Buddhist festival takes place at sunset where people gather in the evening and set floating candles adrift in the calm waters of the park. The lanterns are sent off as a memorial for loved ones lost and well, remembered.

Its sort of cult-like as Shinnyo-en, the religious group that puts it, on isn’t exactly mainstream but they do touch lots of people who participate in the ceremony. I find the Asian aspect sort of beautiful but oddly wonder why the white folks (haoles, gringos, gaijin) get so bent on a ceremony which is not part of their western vocabulary. Some white folks got really upset that the media was taking pictures and putting them on tv, etc…I heard grumblings of it being a private solemn thing. How can you be solemn when you “grief” with 80,000 others on a public beach park with a massive ceremony on a rock and roll stage taking place all around?

Maybe our western religions are not good enough for some…I don’t know. As far as the event goes, its very pretty if you forget that every candle and float represents a dead person. The Hawaii tourism board seems to tout this event as I saw photographs advertising the event all over Waikiki the week before. Tourist are bused in and beach goers, who many are already at the beach as it is Memorial Day, celebrate the festival as if its some grand show with lights, big screens, music, and whatnot.

As the event went on, I swam upon this guy slinking among the hundreds of lanterns in the water. I couldn’t get cowboy’s name but he and many others started to swim around the beach as the lanterns were released into the ocean. So many take the event as a load of unique fun, which it is but I think the meaning of the memorial is lost on so many.

June 4, 1989

I sometimes can never get over the fact that I will go off to shoot an event for AP and be mano a mano with Jeff Widener.

Jeff works for the Honolulu Advertiser and I see him regularly around town and its almost amazing to me this man created one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. People will study this image and him for years to come. He in many ways is a legend from the work he did in Tiananmen Square in 1989. His picture(s) go way back as I was a kid in high school when the Chinese military killed thousands of students protesters 20 years ago today.

He was in a interview on the BBC the other day and I found it on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXE-RP5KiZs

……………….

I remember so clearly Dan Rather’s voice announcing the military crackdown. I remember that photo as it said everything. As I said, I was just in high school and could relate to those kids protesting for democracy. I was roughly their age. Would I have done the same? Its hard to say as we have everything…we are spoiled. Sure we complain about so much but we have it all. So with that, I might not protest as most Americans don’t. We don’t care as we get lost in sports celebrity gossip. We’d rather watch American Idol than CNN and CNN knows this and that’s why someone like Nancy Grace is allowed to spew her filth on the airwaves. Newspapers know this and this is why they are falling apart.

Might any of us be so brave and put down People Magazine or turn off the Real Housewives of New Jersey?

That man in the photograph holding up the tanks surely knew he wasn’t going to make it. Widener said in his interview that man is like the unknown soldier. And surely when the military took that man off the street, he became unknown.

20 years later and we are now buddy buddy with China. We import their dirty food and products and make trade concessions with them as they continue to fill our shelves with cheap goods made by what many would say slave labor. I have a friend who works in the retail industry and they deal with the factories in China regularly. I recall their slight shame when they kinda know whats going on but can’t really do anything about it. The Gap knows, Walmart knows, and we know yet no one is really willing to stop…let alone pay extra for Western made goods made with standards.

NAFTA didn’t work. Goods made abroad are not cheaper and are not made better. People have done experiments trying to live a life without items stamped “made in China” and its impossible. Our economic lives are intertwined for the worse and there isn’t much we can or will do as the public will continue to soak up this stuff.

What I am reminded of as I write this blog is myself 20 years ago today when I saw those images flashing across the screen. I was naive and I recall crying when I realized what the Chinese military had done. It was a powerful moment.

The next year, I was co editor of our yearbook and we decided to put Widener’s image into a historical section in our yearbook so we could look back years later and see what happened when we were young. I got a copy of “Tank Man” and that was the marquee picture of the section. Little did I know I would be a friend of the man who made a lasting image that impressed a 17 year old kid in Texas.

as for Jeff–I don’t have the right to publish his image on this blog. I will just have to buy him a beer for fair usage rights.


Summer 1997, Tiananmen Square

Years later, I traveled to China in 1997. I finished grad school and drank myself around Asia for a time. I was solemn when I went to the Square yet my photo didn’t reveal it. I did spend hours wondering how it all went down. I walked around and really got bent on the fact that I was standing where people stood no more. I was very irritated with China and I left soon afterwards for the comforts of Japan. Yet those days of being in Beiijng affected me greatly. I was sick of traveling at the time and I remember seeing the golden arches of McDonalds on the third ring near the hotel i stayed at. I pushed people out of the way to get my hands on a Big Mac. I was so sick of pickled veggies, chicken feet, and odd tasting grub. That was the best meal I had in all of Asia.

In a way, I remember thinking as I ate my fries about those student protesters. I smirked that the Communist party leaders probably had takeout from here at some point. I wonder if Mao would have done the same.

second thoughts…

I’ve thought a bit more about my McPhantom…

We’ve all found that lost french fry underneath the front seat of our car or a Cheerio under the fridge, or a grape that slipped under the couch found weeks later only to be a metamorphosed raisin. Not everything decays like expired milk or raw meat that’s gone rancid in the fridge. I shouldn’t be so tough on that McNugget found on the carpet. Its just odd not to see any major change, no fungus, rot, or anything.

My father once told me of jungle lore that dead Vietnamese soldiers would rot quickly in the heat of the jungle while American dead would last a significantly longer time, almost as if the preservatives in our diets kept our bodies in tact longer. He also said the Viet Cong (VC) could smell the Americans approaching in the jungle.


Photo of Dad in Korea.

Back in those days, corporate food didn’t run rampant in the world as it does today.

The McNugget isn’t I guess its fair to say, real food. Its processed…not that processed food isn’t real, it just has enough chemicals and additives to keep it alive lots longer than say a banana, a bagel, or a raw piece of uncooked chicken. Spam keeps in cans for years as does Campbell’s soup and Heinz mayo.

I just wonder if our bodies can digest this stuff. Nature couldn’t take care of the McNugget on the carpet so I can’t help not to be concerned that our stomachs are up for the tasks.

I think I might go out and buy a McDouble with cheese and see how long it will keep.

Ideas, ideas….