Taco Bell Funeral: To Be Remembered Is To Be Loved
Photos by Alex Bunting, Marcellus Bonow-Manier, Mack Greene, and Ryder Collins
To be remembered is to be loved.
As I scanned the crowd of mourners gathered at the historical Taco Bell site, I felt the love. In my best–and possibly skewed–estimate, there were 150 people gathered on that sunny Saturday afternoon. I will be a lucky woman if even half that number of folks attend my funeral.
But how many out of the crowd remembered, let alone visited, said Taco Bell? The currently unused building was a Taco Bell from roughly 1970 to 1991. I certainly wasn’t alive to visit it before it closed, and since that time it’s been several Thai restaurants. But here I was, on my one day off for the foreseeable future, paying my respects.
And I’ll be honest; I felt emotional. What had I missed? Were the crunchwraps extra tasty? Was the fire sauce 10% spicier? I hadn’t felt FOMO like this in a good long while.
Even if people hadn’t visited this specific location, the mourning was real. And so was the commitment. A man who Alex quickly dubbed “Baja Ben” showed up at 10am for the funeral beginning at 1:00pm. Holding a sign stating “Alive No Más,” stood atop a platform of Baja Blast cans, this man stood in the heat–sans any hydration, may I add–for 3 hours prior to the event. A very recent transplant, Baja Ben certainly hadn’t been to this Taco Bell location, let alone any in Seattle. But he was here, to connect and mourn with his community, and to support the Seattle-based artist Sunday Nobody.
When I saw Sunday Nobody post about a Taco Bell funeral a month in advance, I knew I needed to attend. I took off work, contacted the fine folks at Emerald City Dispatch, and made a plan to attend. The event required “funeral attire” and Taco Bell related offerings were highly encouraged. I attended in all black, with a flask of Baja Blast in tow. The funeral was multi-facitated, beginning with pall bearers carrying a 500 lb tombstone inscribed with “Herein lies the Taco Bell of 5258 California Ave SW, Seattle, WA.” I was lucky enough to share the burden of this tombstone with other mournful volunteers.
As we walked the tombstone to its resting place, the soothing sounds of “Amazing Grace” played via bagpipes. A 21 bell salute followed the somber placement of the tombstone. Our grief was then commemorated by the release of a live dove. Many people left offerings at the tombstone, ranging from hand crafted momentos to 50 crunchy tacos, which were quickly depleted by the crowd.
A candlelight vigil and crying contest followed. The candlelight vigil turned out to be a raffle; winners of this, the offering, and crying contest all won commemorative bronze sculptures of a bag of Taco Bell and a Baja Blast.
I’m not a religious woman, but this event provided some proof that my Catholic upbringing may not have been so off-kilter. Baja Ben, arguably the most deserving recipient of any prize, won a set of the bronze sculptures through the raffle portion–if this was pure luck or via the hand of a higher being is up to interpretation. Unrelated to God, Chrissy Teigen was also there.
As the crowd thinned, I felt full. Community, art, and mourning, all rolled into one beautifully wrapped burrito. Even though I never visited this Taco Bell location, being able to express my sorrow amongst likeminded individuals certainly helped expedite my grieving process (and my FOMO).
