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 Honolulu Lite. Extra.  Charles Memminger |
Massive motorized
luncheon meat icon
finds its niche
Editor's note: With today's column, Charles Memminger brings "Great Feeling, Less Taste" to the News section with the first of his "Charley! Honolulu Lite. Extra." offerings -- occasional expanded versions of his award-winning humor column.It should have been a typical Sunday evening in Waikiki, but there was something not quite right about it.
The sun was particularly orange as it touched the horizon, but that wasn't what was wrong.
A throng gathered -- as throngs are required to do -- for the weekly "Sunset on the Beach." But that wasn't it.
A disgruntled orangutan sat in his Honolulu Zoo pen probably wondering how a large, tree-dwelling ape who should be in Sumatra came to be incarcerated in Hawaii and, by the way, what the hell are those big pink birds that are standing over there on one leg? But that wasn't it.
A blue can of Spam the size of a city bus was parked along Kalakaua Avenue fronting the Natatorium.
That was it.
Had an alien space craft landed in Kapiolani Park, it would not have attracted more attention than the enormous can of Spam and certainly not as much enthusiasm. UFOs -- according to the more reputable tabloids -- are all over the place, but a mammoth can of Spam on wheels? Well, in Hawaii, where Spam is considered the official state meat, it was just a little too much for adherents of the divine pupu.
RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Brian Callerame and Paula Hoeffliger posed yesterday with their SPAMmobile, which is on its first promotional trip in Hawaii.
Nobody dropped to their knees and gasped "Hail! Spam!" but it was close.
Brian Callerame and his wife, Paula Hoeffliger, watched with awe as people were drawn to the SPAMmobile. They hugged Paula, shook Brian's hand and posed for pictures in front of a photo of a "Spam Burger" the size of a Volkswagen emblazoned on the side of the can/vehicle.
Brian and Paula have been driving the SPAMmobile around the country for three years and never expected the reaction they've gotten in Hawaii when they roll up in the SPAMmobile.
Gazing over "his people," Brian, driver and team leader of the three SPAMmobiles that roam the United States, pronounced, "This truly is, for all intents and purposes, the Spam capital of the world."
It is the first time a SPAMmobile has come to the islands, and Brian knew he had brought the mountain to Mohammed, so to speak, when he drove the SPAMmobile off the Matson ship at Honolulu Harbor and longshoremen -- Brian swears on Spam musubi -- lined up and clapped.
I was driving toward Kaneohe when I just happened to see the SPAMmobile at an intersection. I turned to my daughter and said, "I've got to ride in that thing."
A day later, I met Brian and Paula outside the Blaisdell Center, where the BIA home-industry trade show was under way. I don't know what was happening inside the Blaisdell, but outside was a long line of people waiting to get little Spam sandwiches served from a window in the side of the SPAMmobile.
BRIAN, A FORMER Las Vegas magician, and his wife became product promoters after graduating from UNLV with degrees almost completely unrelated to driving a Spam truck cross-country.
After promoting everything from Coca-Cola to chili, they were hired to captain the first SPAMmobile around the United States. The fleet has grown to three trucks, and Brian says, with perhaps a tad too much enthusiasm, "Hopefully, one day there'll be 50 trucks! I live Spam. It's our life."
What can you say? The man loves his job, even though a few of the Rolling Spam Tours have been a little rough. There was the time at the famous Audubon Zoo in New Orleans where he was told that if he gave a Spam T-shirt to one of the orangutans, he'd wear it. Unlike Honolulu's orangutan, Rusti, the New Orleans primate was pretty happy where he was. At least everyone thought he was. When no one was looking, the Mardi Gras monkey tore up the Spam shirt, used the pieces to cover an electric barrier wire and escaped. It was the first Spam-related zoo escape in history.
Inside the SPAMmobile is a small kitchen where Spam, right out of regular old Spam cans, is cut up and grilled on a George Foreman-like affair and served on cut-up hot-dog buns. There are also photos of Spam tour highlights, including one of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Brian posing outside the SPAMmobile in Washington, D.C., and from the New York State Fair, where Spam addicts consumed a record 43 cases of Spam in eight hours. Let's see, at 12 cans a case and 12 ounces a can, that adds up to ... a lot of Spam.
Brian expects to go through more than that during the next several weeks the SPAMmobile is in Hawaii (go to www. spam.com for the schedule). He had heard Hawaii residents were into Spam; he just didn't know they worshipped it.
RIDING SHOTGUN in the SPAMmobile through Waikiki and Ala Moana Park, I wasn't surprised by the reaction people had to the SPAMmobile. They waved, they threw shaka signs and they hollered. Mostly they hollered for free Spam, which we weren't giving out.
Driving While Spamming (DWS) is outlawed in most states or at least should be. Japanese tourists whipped out cameras and shot rapid fire as we drove past. Cars, buses and taxis went out of their way to let the blue metal whale we were driving change lanes. There's just something about a 40-foot-long can of Spam cruising down the road that causes people to smile.
At Ala Moana Park we parked. And Spam-ophiles were sucked toward us seemingly by the SPAMmobile's gravity.
"WE LOVE SPAM! WE LOVE SPAM! WE LOVE SPAM," one group began to sing in a kind of scary way. I mentally mapped our escape route.
"It's like God has landed on the earth," a local man said, shaking my hand, taking in the glory of the SPAMmobile. "I promised myself I wouldn't cry."
He was with a group of people from a hospital psychiatric services department. I'm pretty sure he said they provided the services, not received them.
The entire trip was like that. A real, well, trip. After the sun set, Brian and Paula dropped me off at my car. I drove home thinking that I had experienced something ... important. For a few hours, we had taken people's minds off war and terrorism and taxes and disgruntled orangutans. Seeing a large, motorized representation of a small can of luncheon meat had made people happy. I don't want to overstate anything, but I came away thinking, maybe Spam can save the world.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com
