Failed Pilot

There’s an eatery opening in downtown Memphis, in the place of a failed Indian restaurant. It’s called “The Bigfoot Lodge” - the logo/mascot is a cartoon Bigfoot with a bib, utensils, and big smile. Is this a chain? Wouldn’t this work better in Portland, rural Ohio and Oklahoma, or The Everglades? Will the servings be huge and gluttonous? It would be great if, after placing your order, the waiter/ress/tron returned and said, “There’s a rumor that we have that dish, but no hard evidence, care for anything else?”

Edited from the most recent “Where’s The Street Team” (Magnet Magazine) column (cuz it’s not funny):

(the theme was band reunions)

THE WONDER STUFF
So vexing that it transcends mediocrity. The “stuffies” return, and not in a line-up that remotely resembles the original, but not that you care, or not that you care like some of those original members, who are protesting the formation of this crime against logic. We must give America credit for never buying into this nonsense, despite the Wonderstuff¹s arena popularity in the U.K. Had the new album been released by another band in 1990 (the year that this calls up), it would have seen the ass end of Miles Hunt’s on-stage ridicule. Seeing as how that last Radio 4 album sounds identical to Jesus Jones, maybe this is an unnatural but impending order of things. Nightmare scenario: Miles Hunt picks you out of crowd to poke fun at, and actually delivers a good jab.

Last night, after deciding to shuck any and all responsibilities, give a big T.G.I.Fuck Off to productivity, and come to grips with the fact that I was going to check out around 11 or 12 (I’ve been tired), Stepfather II: Make Room For Daddy showed up in the crosshairs (on Turner South). For future references, I am going to conveniently compact this movie title into “SF2MRFD.” This time-saving technique also works for Nutty Professor II: The Clumps (“NP2TC”) and National Lampoon’s European Vacation (“EUROVAC”). Like the prequel, SF2MRFD stars Terry O’ Quinn, also known as the poor-man’s Ed Lauter, and the poverty-stricken, tree-bark eater’s Craig T. Nelson. Meg Foster’s over-acting in SF2MRFD is a real slice; she seems to take a full breath for every word delivered. The Stepfather franchise is a reliably bloody one with the occasional overbearing or ridiculous kill scene. ‘87’s The Stepfather (not a half-bad, half-bad horror movie) has a man meeting his end by way of a two by four, and bludgeoning scenes have always caused a minor squeamishness (ex: the climax of Heavenly Creatures). In Stepfather III: Father’s Day (1992), the movie concludes with our man (1) getting pulled (slowly) into a meat grinder. I only watched ten minutes of SF2MRFD – this also happened to be a ten minute murder build-up with several fortified tricks. Here’s one: Jumpy woman hears something in kitchen which turns out to be a cat in the trash can, let’s cat out (and it was a Persian, or rather, not a believable stray), smiles, backs up, and uses her free coupon for a strangling (with a rolled-up towel). If I remember correctly, the ending takes place at a wedding, and many utensils are used.

1. Terry O’Quinn does not return for this sequel, and in explanation, we get the “drastic plastic surgery” excuse. Why wasn’t this used for Smokey and the Bandit III?