Burger King Reunion

Heard from my Burger King family back in Detroit a few days ago. To be honest, I really hadn’t thought about my Burger King days for ages, and had almost forgotten that I’d actually worked there in the 60s, but was touched all the same to hear that they’d invited me to the reunion. Flew out with Chatto early yesterday morning.

Cleetus (see above) hasn’t aged a day, and he’s still on shakes. Was also happy to hear he’d beaten that 7-11 rap. (They’d busted him for grinning at his reflection and held him on suspicion of spilling a box of eggs). I guess mostly I was just happy to be around folks who don’t judge you for what you’ve achieved in life. Had a hard time explaining to the gang why I couldn’t eat my usual though (ask anyone in Detroit who can eat 4 Double Whoppers while spinning on his head and they’ll still tell you Seagal) and left a little disappointed.

Apropos of long-lost achievements, I was requested by the IMDB people to renew my mini-bio since (so they say) no one can accurately identify me with the information currently listed. Worked with Eric Roberts for most of the night yesterday and we came up with this:

Date of Birth

10 April 1951, Lansing, Michigan, USA

Birth Name

Moses F. Pinschel

Nickname

The Great One

Lord Steven

Tubby

Height

6' 4" (1.93 m)

Weight

476 lbs

Mini Biography

Steven Seagal is a striking and somewhat boyishly handsome (often with clip-on ponytail) and impeccably dressed former action star who burst onto the martial arts film scene in 1988 in the fast-paced Warner Bros. musical, Shiver Me Timbers (1988). The enigmatic, boyishly portly Seagal commenced his martial arts training at the age of two under the tutelage of well known karate instructor Hal Otis, and in the 1960s commenced his aikido training in Orange County, California, under the instruction of Peter Fonda. Seagal moved to Japan to further his martial arts training in 1974. After spending many years there honing his knowledge of Japanese cuisine, he achieved the rank of 7th dan and became a celebrity masseur in Los Angeles where he came to the attention of Tito Jackson.

Seagal's debut movie, Shiver Me Timbers (1988), was wildly received by most of his family. He followed up with Lawful Imposure (1988) and another slam-bang thriller, Hard to Watch (1990), as a gunned-down cop who revives from a coma with a fear of salami. The movie also starred Seagal's wife at the time, puff-lipped Kelly LeBrock, who was married to him from 1987 to 1987 and is the mother of three of his children, Foxtrot, Santos and Tito (named after his former benefactor). A string of not so critically acclaimed movies followed, by which time Seagal was on his way to his current enormous yet dexterous shape, and his next movie, the big-budgeted Under Siege (1992) starring best man Tommy Lee Jones and best friend, Gary Busey, impressed audiences in Colombo, Sri Lanka, so much that a statue of Seagal in his chef’s hat was put up next to the downtown YMCA.

Seagal's fighting style was rather different from that of other on-screen martial arts dynamos, notably Chuck Norris. Seagal carried himself differently too, due to the progressively debilitating stress imposed on his lower leg muscles by his defining bulk, and often appears these days in an eight-door motorized cart courtesy of Dr. Siegal, the cookie maven. Generally, Seagal prefers loose fitting robes.

As his box office drawing power failed, Seagal began to influence his film projects to reflect his personal and spiritual beliefs, especially concerning the abuse of the environment. He appeared as a Native American shaman who turns against the corrupt CEO (played by Michael Caine) in On My Back (1994); in Fire Down Fire Up (1997) he plays an ox, and in the slow-moving Flugelmeyer’s Dilemma (1998) a talking garbage dump posing ethical questions to illegal dumpers.

Action fans struggled to come to terms with Seagal’s dramatic weight gain in the 1990s; however, Seagal's box office clout remained fairly strong, and more traditional chop-suey projects followed with the "big cop small cop" film The Glimmer Man (1996), then almost a cameo role as a talking seal alongside CIA analyst Kurt Russell, before Seagal got stuck in a jet at 35,000 feet in The Executive Lunch (1996).

Unbeknownst to many, in 1997 Seagal publicly announced that one of his Buddhist teachers, His Holiness H.H. Penor Rinpoche, had accorded him the status of a tulku, the reincarnation of Buddhist Lama, Chundrag Dorje, another heavy eater. Deceitfully, this status was revoked last week for reasons no Buddhist would condone.

While his box-office appeal has somewhat declined from his halcyon blockbusters of the mid-'90s, Seagal still has a very loyal fan base in most of the ex-Soviet Republics where video cassettes are still available and is currently looking for someone to back his latest film ideas: Multiple Exit Wounds, The Hustler and I Am Genghis Khan.

Spouse

Several

Trade Marks

Pony Tail

High-octane fat

Jowls

Piggy eyes

Trivia

Is the first foreigner ever to own and operate a Popeye’s restaurant in Japan. Known as “Take Shigemichi”, or “He Ate That?”, he was also the first known human to eat an entire raw tuna.

Is a big fan of lox.

Owns a Fischer & Paykel 7160.

His Current Weight: 480 lbs