In 2004, director Ken Axmaker, Jr. enraged and excited the local independent film scene with A Waste of O2, a short film that explored racial stereotypes and recreational violence among young adults with innocent faces. The director introduced his vision at Indie Memphis in October 2004, and he has since been featured on Pickle TV and at independent showings in the Midtown area. It’s 2005, and Axmaker is back with his first independent feature, Service With a Smile. This gritty, dark-comedy quest combines the adventurous spirit of the Odyssey with the bizarre and twisted reality in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Axmaker focuses on Memphis venues and unique characters living in the Mississippi Delta to create an original movie that traces the downward spiral of Bill, a struggling baby boomer. Bill needs AA, the Betty Ford Clinic, and a visit with Sigmund Freud, as evidenced by his tour of taverns in downtown Memphis. His escapades are interrupted after he injures his back when trying to carrying his favorite hooker upstairs after a night out on the town, and his inability to functionally patronize bars leads him to seek out another means of entertainment. As Bill medicates himself using pain killers with vodka chasers, he enters into a chemical paranoia that encourages him to start a war with Midtown locals. Bill begins to plot revenge against all of those who are obviously inferior to his chemically enhanced brain. He sees every civilian as an enemy, but he ignores the obvious dangers and perils that lie on his course. Service With a Smile explores the sexually stereotypical roles played out by those in society, and we see the ripples of each person’s influence as Bill journeys through the movie. Bill, the modern macho-man, must outwit the cop, pay the pimp, bargain with the hooker, ignore the voices in his head, and punish the tofu eating curs who clog up the nation’s roadways with bicycles. He drinks his way through several confrontations until he meets Helga, a Gothic telemarketer who uses her sadistic talents to torture male clients into submission and commission. Helga always meets her quota. Service With a Smile gives in to the urge for retaliation against extremists in society, and demonstrates the checks and balances of life that prevent us all from becoming unbalanced: Bill solicits the hooker, but he cannot complete his task because of erectile dysfunction. He tries to harass a telemarketer, but he chooses to mess with a psycho who sobers him up with pure fear. After trying to reap the benefits of Farm Aid, he destroys the tools of his trade. Fortunately for us, Bill has enough chemical persuasion to act out our fantasies and suffer the dire consequences as we sit back comfortably (and safely) from afar, watching the chaos unfold.