The Associated Press
Friday, March 4, 2011; 10:06 AM
PHOENIX -- Blair River, the 575-pound spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill, an Arizona restaurant that serves shamelessly high-calorie burgers and fries, died Tuesday at the age of 29, following a bout of the flu.
Restaurant founder Jon Basso tells The Arizona Republic that River was more than the larger-than-life caricature he portrayed in promoting the restaurant in Chandler, which includes huge hamburgers, milkshakes and fries cooked in lard on its menu.
Basso says River was a creative genius who had been planning to take part in the shooting of a promotional spot called, "Heart Attack Grill: The Musical."
The 6-foot-8 River was an Arizona [high school] state heavyweight wrestling champion in 1999. River garnered celebrity as the grill's "Gentle Giant" when he became the face and advertising star of the medically themed restaurant -- famous for its triple-bypass burgers, flatliner lard fries and server "nurses" donning uniforms fit for adult films.
[Owner Jon] Basso is very open about the controversial position he puts himself in by marketing unhealthy food "worth dying for," as the restaurant slogan goes.
"I hired him to promote my food. We are absolutely guilty of glorifying obesity. That's what I do for a living: I make a mockery of heart-related issues in order to sell hamburgers," says Basso.
But nothing will change in the Heart Attack Grill's approach now that River has died, Basso says.
Before owning the grill, Basso owned a Jenny Craig franchise and a fitness center, and says that despite pouring "his heart and soul into the diet and exercise industry," he didn't feel like he was reaching anyone. "I'm making more inroads now into people's consciousness by working the other side," he says.
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I doubt Mr Basso has a heart or soul. Yeah, this story is funny in a black humored way. Yeah, it deals with what statisticians describe as outliers; a 600 pound pitchman, toxic "all American" food-porn, an event that will be lucky to last one news cycle...but consider this before you ignore this story and ignore my rant: this is a reductio-ad-absurbdum of everything expressed in contemporary American economic and popular culture, basically "eating" all you can or want, as opposed to need.
To celebrate (is there a Russian or Yiddish expression for "celebrate with contempt"?), this event and all its participants, from Mr River to the Associated Press, and sadly, myself, I am going to post what is generally considered the most offensive underground comix panel ever published; a "Captain Pissgums" episode by S. Clay Wilson. You are what you eat.
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