October 5, 2006

Skunk Ape Confidential

PopMatters, a pop culture website, published a fictional interview with Bigfoot on Thursday. Here is some of their "wit."

He is truly a lost icon of the ‘70s, a celebrated figure who, along with his sea serpent buddy Nessie and that everpresent pack of ancient astronauts, helped define the era’s obsession with monsters, myths and legends. For over a decade, he provided a kind of escapist excuse to focus on the environment while giving low budget filmmakers fodder for dozens of minor motion picture excursions. Today, he is viewed in the same slightly camp light as Earth shoes, space food sticks, and Avocado colored kitchen appliances. But in his day, nothing could compete with his humongous hair covered frame, elephantine shoe size, and infamous decaying cabbage stench.

Call him a figment of some mountain man’s imagination or a Halloween costume gone horribly wrong, but this month, The Outré Oeuvre got a chance to sit down with Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, aka The Fouke Monster, aka Funk-Master B-Footy, to get some insights into his career, his sudden rise to stardom, and his equally rapid decline into cultural obscurity. Seated comfortably in his home somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, our host was candid about his inadvertent celebrity, interspecies excesses and the legitimate professional missteps he made along the way.

OO (interviewer): Tell us a little about how you got started in show biz?

BF: Well, I was always around, you know? Hanging in the forests, minding my own prehistoric bee’s wax? Sure, the Native Americans had been singing my spiritual existence for eons, and I was frequently glimpsed by the surrounding indigenous population. But it was those biological buttinskis, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimiln. It’s all their fault. They’re the ones who permanently took my privacy and flushed it down the proverbial composting toilet.

OO: How so?

BF: The film, man! The film. You know, that clip of me from 1967? You see, I was just wondering around my favorite patch of forest, looking for some unexplored terrain to ‘mark’, when these two thrill seekers – Patterson and Gimlin – come barreling in, Bolex in hand, and start shooting. The paparazzi of today have nothing on these two. It was like they were stalking me, waiting for the right moment to capture my quintessence in its natural element. Next thing I know – there I am. Lumbering around like some opportunist in a fake animal fur. After that, the woods became crowded with such pathetic publicity hounds.

When the "interview" was initially published, it wasn’t the Fouke Monster, it was the Faulk Monster referenced in the article. That is, until Andrew Griffin let them know of their foible in their comments section. Andrew is an old friend of the Texas Bigfoot Research Center back from his days of covering the Bigfoot news for the Alexandria (LA) Town Talk.

And what is PopMatters you ask? Here is what they have to say about themselves:

PopMatters is an international magazine of cultural criticism. Our scope is broadly cast on all things pop culture, and our content is updated daily, Monday through Friday. We provide intelligent reviews, engaging interviews, and in-depth essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet.

PopMatters cultivates smart writers from the world-at-large. Our staff ranges from the multiple-degreed and/or well traveled, to young writers of high caliber, to ‘seasoned’ folks who punch the 9-5 clock, regardless of what type of degree, if any, they may hold. PopMatters recognizes that creative, compassionate intellectuals reside in all levels of society, in all types of societies, and we value their ability to provide intelligent, entertaining cultural criticism in the form of thoughtful, magazine-style essays. Many of our writers are called upon for their opinion by notable members of the media such as the BBC, NPR, MSNBC, Radio Australia, and VH1. Publications such as USA Today.com, Alternet.org, and Movies.com regularly pick up links to PopMatters articles and post quotes from PopMatters writers.

I guess that this was one of their engaging interviews? I don’t know about engaging, but I certainly found it to be a knee-slapper…not! 

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoology, Pop Culture, Sasquatch, Skunk Apes