5
Justin Lee Arn -
6 years ago
I'm not going to lie or mince words out of some manufactured sense of patriotism on this one. I am an American. Sometimes I'm happy about that, sometimes I'm not. We do things big in America. We take our National Heroes and make giants of them. Sitting cross-legged giants. Staring at the Lincoln Memorial you get a sense of smallness. It's easy to feel insignificant next to the massive stone-man who was once president.
But standing in the middle of downtown Tijuana is another version of that man. A version that doesn't make you feel small, oh no. The Abraham Lincoln on Paseo de Los Heroes, literally the 'Way of the Heros,' that Lincoln makes you feel like... a wuss.
Look up at the gaunt and blackened figure of Honest Abe gripping chains in his now metal fist... This isn't the Masonic D.C. Lincoln; this Lincoln is a badass! This Lincoln won the Civil War. This Lincoln is all about kicking ass and scratching out names. This Lincoln has a a message in his benighted eyes, staring north, ironically toward the very country he helped keep intact. And that message is 'watch out!'
Because this Abraham Lincoln is bringing the pain...
It is thus by comparison with a hulking and furious advocate for human freedom, that the poor stone-man sitting in Washington D.C. seems all the poorer. No one follows a sitting stone-man. They follow the chain-ripping President whose eyes stay fixed north on the target. The bad mofo- who would just as soon break your arms as veto a bill. A freedom-fighter.
I prefer the Lincoln on Paseo de Los Heroes. You will too.
-justin.
