Lunch in the Gump has gone to the dogs!

"Psst. They have seafood in a gas station. Pass it on"

To: Current Lunch in the Gump Facebook Administrators:

We, and we know who we are, formed our snarky little Lunch in the Gump blog with a loose recipe of a cup of promotion of local restaurants, a half-cup of commentary on current events, a tablespoon of actual food reviews and a pinch of satire.  The goal was to entertain but not lower the IQ of our readers…measurably… while writing the social history of Montgomery, Alabama from 2009 to 2013. 

Unfortunately we could not leave well enough alone. One of us, and I cannot remember which one (but I am sure Obama or Bush or Karl Rove had some hand in it), thought it might be good to start a companion Facebook page because at the time Facebook was a hot poop IPO that claimed billions of users.  The fact we figured out a way we could maintain our anonymity and use our blogspot nom de plume’s to create fictitious characters like Shadow Pup on Facebook, was also a plus.  It was also FREE.  Well, sure enough, we rocked along for a few years with our usual 20 or so hits on the blog every day unless we had a new post and once or twice a week someone would ask to join the Facebook page where all we did was promote the blog.  We even got some thoughtful comments from our readers, like George.  Our primary reward was to be in crowds where someone would occasionally ask if we had read a “Lunch in the Gump” post on their favorite restaurant.  At such times we could smugly smile and feign ignorance while we listened to someone try to explain what we were trying to do to us, the chefs of irony.  

Our initial recipe was to us like a warm chocolate cookie right out of the oven.  Then something happened. It wasn’t sudden like Alien popping out of that English actor’s stomach or Jason popping up behind you with a hockey mask on.  It was insidiously gradual like global warming and, like everyone else, we blame it on you…and global warming…and Obama or Bush.  You could say we have our own laziness to blame but that would be insensitive.  The fact is that once we hit about 2000 members we both got tired of having to cull “Join Requests” from people from Italy who then tried to sell us ugly shoes.  So, foolishly, we turned it into a “closed” group and shared administration rights  with you two yahoos.  We did not understand that “closed” meant more people could join.  Our mistake.  Now our warm little tart of a Facebook page has gone viral and the recipe has morphed into something else altogether.

We blame you. You let in everybody with a pulse and a Facebook account.  Now it appears the “membership” is approaching 4,000, there are a hundred posts a day asking: “I’m hungry. What should I eat?” It has turned into a lunch crisis helpline: "Help me, I have to eat something and I have forgotten how to chew."  Reading these cries for help has not only cost me by gag reflex but I have experienced the temporarily loss of my ability to read while reading some of these inane posts on the Facebook page. What's next: Reviews of water fountains and public restrooms?  Really?

Yes, there is occasionally very good information about new restaurants that most would have missed. There is some intelligent banter.  But the Facebook page is a now a rogue recipe with a mind of its own spoken in one liners.  We are afraid that our warm fried pork chop has turned into Frankenstein and beans. There is even talk of making money from LITG and shows on local TV about the “founders” but we—the founders—are not on the screen. The Facebook page is lowering our IQs and contributing to global warming.  Why shouldn’t we put it in the compactor before we contract Facebook poisoning? I ask you, what is the socially redeeming purpose of Lunch in the Gump now that it has become as vapid as Entertainment Tonight?

Sincerely,

Darla Jean Pupanovich

a/k/a and a/k/c registered as Shadow Pup

Bidgood Bob - Back from the Joint and Hungrier Than Hell (sort of a Corsino's review)

Bama Bing right after the "Incident"

Forgive me Gumpers, for I have sinned. It has been about three years since my last post. You may recall back in the summer of 2010 when I nailed my ex-pal Bama Bing between the eyes with a stray golf ball and put him into a three-month coma. While poor Bing was out, Auburn's football team went undefeated on its way to a national championship. Also during this period the vapid, narcissistic laptop thief Cam Newton won the Heisman trophy, the Republicans pulled off a relatively bloodless coup and overthrew the State of Alabama and I... well, I had this sort of a thing with Bing's wife.

Apparently the risen Bing took offense at me, his best friend, looking after Ramona while he was out cold for a whole football season. Who knew Bing would pull through? Well anyway, once Bing started getting up and around he started raising hell about marital fidelity, betrayal and lawyers, and the next thing you know he's talking about getting a divorce from Ramona. Ordinarily this would have worked out fine and dandy for me, but it turns out that Bing still had a big pile of dough left over from all the no-bid contracts he racked up during the Siegelman administration, and Ramona (who has many fine qualities but marital fidelity ain't one of them) had signed a pre-nup that was going to leave her with nothing but a dented Lexus and twenty bucks if Bing could prove adultery.

Since Ramona didn't have the good sense to take down all the Facebook pictures of our trips to Vegas and the Pine Lake Motel out on 231, Bing had us dead to rights. We were left with no other choice but to kill him.

How to go about it, though? Old pal Tojo Yamamoto offered to take Bing out with the Stomach Claw (Tojo's signature move). Since I merely wanted Bing out of the picture before he got a chance to re-write his will, and had no desire for him to die a slow, agonizing Stomach Claw death, I held my giant Japanese rassler friend at bay.

Getting to Bama Bing was going to be difficult. He had his guard up and was surrounded by goons at all times. My trusted consigliere Chase N. Allpots, a harmless foppish dandy at first appearance but blessed with a cunning mind, approached Bing's people with the offer of a meeting to "iron out our differences." Allpots set the meeting on Bing's turf, at an old-school family-owned Italian place called Corsino's on the north side of No-Clo. Prior to the meeting, fellow Gumper Fat Clemenza snuck into Corsino's and stashed a .38 snub behind one of the old-fashioned toilets (you know, the kind with the pull-down chain) in the Corsino's men's room.

I was picked up by one of Bing's cronies, a corrupt Irish precinct captain from the MPD. Capt. O'Herlihy, or whatever his name was, patted me down before we entered Corsino's. There sat Bama Bing in the back of the joint, a steaming veal parm before him on the red-checkered tablecloth. Bing turned to O'Whatshisname and told him we'd be speaking Italian for the remainder of the sit-down. I excused myself to hit the bathroom, prompting a worried look from Bing. "He's clean," said O'Shaughnessy, or whatever his name was, already into his second whisky.

The pistol was right where Clemenza said it would be. I took a few deep breaths and splashed some water on my face. Emerging from the men's room I walked right up to Bing and unloaded three rounds, then turned to the drunken overgrown corrupt Irish police captain and gave him the last three.

Well, I missed all six shots, then ran outside where Shadow Pup was supposed to be waiting in the getaway car, but he was across Court Street sniffing some stray french poodle's butt. So the plan to get out of town and hop a freighter to Sicily with the lovely and talented Ramona was shot, so to speak. Thanks to the shitty .38 Clemenza hid for me I got 15 years for attempted murder (and got fined 25 bucks for discharging a firearm in the city limits of the Gump). Thanks to Alabama's absurdly overcrowded prisons, I got out today.

Where did I go? Corsino's of course, for a Combo Sandwich and a Dago Salad. They can get away with calling it a "Dago Salad," I guess, because one of the owners might be Italian. Why is it OK for the folks at Corsino's to call it a Dago Salad, but if I yelled out, "Yo! Hey Dagos! You Dagos make a damn fine salad," that would be insensitive. But I digress, as usual. This is a food blog, so remember, the Combo Sandwich and a Dago Salad at Corsino's is one of the best lunches in this here Gump.

Oh, almost forgot. Bama Bing and Ramona patched things up and have lived happily ever after.

I am glad to be back, although I have another one of those ankle bracelets and can't go outside the bypass without the blessing of my PO. Again.