dumpster story, Summer of 2020 / By Lew
Dumpster Archeology presents a Short tale…..
“Marcus the elder is a Marine, bodybuilder, rock climber, stripper and truck driver. A dirt bag renaissance man” Marcus Jr in an interview
Me and the film crew rounded the alleyway looking for dumpster gold. We were in an old alley, brick lined with historical houses facing outward and all we saw was garages and places to put trash. At the end of the block we examined an old vintage couch likely older than all of us combined and I saw the large blue walk-in dumpster in the parking lot.
A simple bound of leg muscles and I was in ….hunting through the boxes for treasure. Black plastic bags contained roof shingles, old children toys lay around but it was the trophies that caught my eye. Body building statues atop a name plate…
Marcus Coleman: Middle weight champion ….July 15th, 2000. written on the trophy
……….What you are about to Read is the Story within the story……..
Marcus Coleman Jr has a joke about his Dad and uses the joke a lot, sometimes as an opener to his stand-up comedy act. “My Dad used to kiss me on the lips until I was 5”.. that’s the joke.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5sdzA_dTe6A%3Ffeature%3Doembed
Marcus Jr is a comic in Portland and got famous for his Police/Ferguson jokes. He is cutting edge in his city, those weekly shows at the Mississippi (bar in Portland) which are over now because of Covid-19. The young Comic is from St Louis, grew up in the heart of it until high school when his Dad took the family to Oregon to find new opportunity (for Marcus Jr, a 6 foot tall football scholarship).
In his humor, he talks about being witness to inner city shootings, being harassed by cops in St Louis despite being a nerd who loved Fall out Boy/comedy. Marcus Jr is now considered one of the geniuses of the new young comedy scene. He’s still in his twenties.
Yet this story is about his father…and those body Building Trophies
Marcus Sr is a bodybuilder, truck driver, “A dirt-bag renaissance man,” according to Junior in a 2017 article. This weird Truck Driver, wanders America taking selfies for social media, following his son’s comic leap in popularity and talking about Black Lives Matter. It’s no wonder his son is talented and slightly “punk” in humor.
As a father myself, I see the signs Marcus Sr was one hell of a influence…and that warms my heart.
I found the still Living and Loving Marcus and Marcus are not in St Louis or even close…
Marcus Sr took his kids and gave them a better life in Oregon, as he wanders America and he thanks his kids for saving him.
A role model of being a father, but leaves us with a question, how did Marcus Sr’s Body Building trophies from 2000…
…end up in a Dumpster just off Lafayette Square?
A Dumpster Archeology mystery….
….Now solved: It turns out the reason was his mother had just passed on. She was the one who kept the trophies as Marcus Sr wandered the country and it was the Medical facility that threw them out. After reaching out to both Marcus-es, neither were interested in trophies or the story but they became a story none the less.
Bonus information from Documentary. A small sticker was on the bottom of the “viking” that said Romans 1:25, A Bible verse about Idol worship. “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
*All the social media photos are Marcus Senior’s…and I stole them with screen shots.