mother tucker dot com

This weblog is on pause (of course, it has been for awhile).

But mostly because of my new endeavor!

www.amovieamonth.com

VISIT IT! This site will automatically forward to it pretty soon.

-Tucker

Make sure you vote November 4.

As for me? I’m pulling for this guy…

Peace out.

-Tucker

Something set me off on a wild train of thought today. Would you believe it was an Egg McMuffin?

Scandal.

In question was a McDonald’s billboard that I witnessed on my way to work this morning. I don’t have a picture of the advertisement, so I’ll illustrate.

BILLBOARD: A lonely, non-scrambled egg sits silently bemoaning it’s existence. A glorious Egg McMuffin, encased inside a cloudy thought balloon, rests overhead.

CAPTION: “What every egg dreams of becoming.”

Modern marketing has always been one of those things that stops me from ever watching television. As a secular person and devout agnostic, I usually refrain from engaging in any form of what I would consider product or hero worship, with the exception of a young senator from Illinois. Having watched a good amount of television in the past, and being a living, breathing human being with eyes and ears, my exposure rate to advertisements probably ranks higher than any person born before the 1970s, and it is a daily-affirmed goal to try and avoid any typical noise about discount sales or the world’s number one golf ball provider.

But try as I might, this one slipped in there, and it’s been rattling around my brain all day long.

Not the mechanics of said advertisement, mind you. I certainly remember that fifth grade instructional video, shown to us in warning before lunch hour. I’m aware of the horse-shoe glue used to give the bacon that extra gooey glisten, and the mounds of hidden push pins that keep each layer of foodstuff in place for the two hour photo shoot.

What kept me thinking was the egg. It’s life and it’s aspirations.

“What every egg dreams of becoming.”

First I put myself in the mindset of the egg. Out of the many roads I might take in egg-life, what was so special about becoming an Egg McMuffin? Would I understand that I would not physically BE an Egg McMuffin, but would merely be the egg IN the Egg McMuffin? My egg matter would not be enough to account for that slab of ham or those flaky buns. Sort of how Blue Beetle is a pretty capable character, but he’s only really kicking ass when he’s joined up with the Justice League. And when he’s not dreaming about Herb Peterson.

Blue Beetle is the Egg to Justice League’s McMuffin. Did that register? Okay.

Second question is why does an egg aspire at all? The pathways in life for an egg are few. A: it becomes a chicken. B: it is processed, scrambled, boiled or battered as foodstuff for humans or small reptiles. C: young kids hurl it at peoples houses during Halloween.

But if choice B is preferable, if all an egg really wants to do is satiate other creatures, is this an egg that is aware of the consequences of that process? What are the range of emotions experienced by the egg inside an Egg McMuffin, as it is torn into and digested by morning commuters? Does it acquire sensory perception during this act ?

Is it pleasurable?

And how long is the egg aware of it’s own consuming? If the center of the egg’s self lies merely within a single consciousness, void of pain receptors and physical stimulation, then how long does that consciousness stay in a static location? Does it only exist in the part uneaten, or before it goes through the modes of preparation? Are sections that have been chewed off and swallowed now new material, something non-egg? Does this egg die?

So far I’ve fought an urge to call McDonald’s advertising division to ask some of these pressing questions, as I feel there may be an untapped narrative here.

Imagine a graphic designer, fully educated with a masters degree, given the menial task by some ad executive to create billboards for a breakfast sandwich that probably comes in a can and is heated up in the microwave. Hunched over a portfolio brimming with beautiful illustrations, this man or woman gnashes their teeth and beats their chest, aspirations fading of designing for some upstanding publication, like Kerrang! Magazine.

But they’ll show them, those corporate pigs who wouldn’t know a Buscema from a Davis. This ad will be different. This ad will be humanizing! This will be a story, a philosophical concept, plastered within fourteen by eighteen feet of unadulterated, American advertising.

Man, I’m hungry for some McDonalds.

-Tucker

Tucker Lucas feels that if Blue Beetle is the egg, then Booster Gold is the bun and Martian Manhunter is the bacon.

Currently listening to the sounds of Amiina, music not made for mortal ears.

Their album Kurr has been what I’ve played each night before going to sleep the past few days. They round out a long list of “lullaby” albums I’ve used in the past, the best of which would probably be the Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis. I like the way sounds play tricks on my dreams when I’m sleeping, and these four ladies usually keep me on track riding a mechanical greyhound in a race against Ahab and his white whale.

This is the first time I’ve heard something beautiful come out of a saw.

Those who know me know that I’ve been a fan of Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise series for a long time.

I picked up the first pocketbook edition a few summers ago while I was doing summer Shakespeare, and was hooked ever since. What particularly drew me was Moore’s illustrations of women, and how strong the female characters were. It was around this time that I began scripting Mercedes Ray.

Usually in comic books, female characters have the proportions of a Barbie doll. But with SiP, the women were real, and really beautiful! Over the story’s progression, you see characters fluctuate in weight, hair style, complexion, all sorts of things that just made the world become so much more alive. Besides, how could you go wrong with a kick-ass, bisexual, female, blonde artist named Katchoo who has more moves than Batman on a good day?

SiP ended last year, but luckily Moore is already churning out a new series, this time a superheroesque title called Echo.

Echo follows an amateur photographer named Julie Martin (if it had been Stan Lee writing this I’d imagine her name would be Julie Julianna or something), who is wandering around the desert taking pictures when an experimental battle suit explodes overhead. Pieces of the suit fall onto her and her truck, beginning to form what looks like will become some sort of exoskeleton battle suit.

A first as far as I’ve read in comicdom is Julie’s struggle with divorce. She refuses to sign the papers while her husband Rick wants nothing to do with her. She also has an older sister stuck in a mental hospital, and a dog who she can’t afford to feed.

Not so sure about this one yet. Luckily the same real world detail is present, and Moore’s ability to write strong leading women still rival’s Joss Whedon.