The River

Friday, October 21, 2005

Cheeseburgers, rock-n-roll, jarheads and journalism

I found a collage I did in high school, possibly college, at my folks’ house the other day. It was all stuff out of magazines. There was a giant bottle of Michelob, a glass of champagne and a bottle of Seagrams, (hmmm…must have been college), people "alive with pleasure" from ads and a shirtless Mick Jagger in the throes of rock-n-roll ecstasy. A red sports car did a wheelie, ready to launch over the beer bottle. A large arm with a rolex ran along the bottom, somewhat covered by the consumerist din. Santa's reindeer sailed off into a starry-sky interior, upper center. A hamburger, four times the size of a quarter-pounder, sat in the middle of it all, buddha-like. Bruce Springsteen, young, tan and scruffy, was the smallest image, lost in the flood. Don't ask me about the large duck on the left, although he was, obviously, my idea.

Which is to say that it ain't easy to create art,


Art

but if you can write an article about fast food and reference the Anthony Swofford Gulf War memoir Jarhead, Reefer Madness, and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, well, you're well on your way.


The challenge? Confronting the madness without losing your head; photo courtesy of journeywithjesus.net

By the way, you can amuse yourself to death by simply putting Postman's title in Google.

But this is about the well-done burger article.


Can there be anything more American?