I stumbled across this gem while converting videos from VHS to DVD for a friend. This the last part of a 1994 church mission trip to Russia. Seems those returning from Russia to the USA stopped off in Paris. They made it a point to make a pilgrimage to a salute to excess. This is apparently what was stylish at the times. Now it looks incredibly dated and as tired and worn out as the older lady narrator. You can feel bad nostalgia creep up in this tape when the narrator says “So you think we should buy a blue jean shirt?” Or when the visitors gleefully hold up their menu in a salute to commercialism.
Here are a group of Christians who just returned from a mission trip to Russia ministering to people who have nothing. Then just a few days later they’re contemplating which Hard Rock Cafe jacket or polo shirt they should buy. So ironic.
Those who owned the Hard Rock Cafe had us all fooled. We were fooled into thinking that we must have a Hard Rock shirt to be cool. All the while these shirts ended up at garage sales or Goodwill’s during the 2000’s. I was fooled. I remember paying money to a older church friend who was going to NYC to purchase a Hard Rock Cafe shirt. I ate at a Hard Rock in Shanghai. By all accounts was the best and most expensive burger in China. I last ate at a Hard Rock Cafe in Washington, D.C., not because it was a destination stop, but because it was convenient to where we were at the time (Ford’s Theater). Video below.