Fish Tickle

O, triumphant euphemism!

We would have assumed this kind of doublethink could be found only in Orwell's Oceania. You see it, yes? The spit-in-your-eye up-is-downism? To wit:

We don't hook and asphyxiate the fish; we tickle the fish.

We don't cook and consume the fish; the fish is the consumer.

In the business—please don't ask which business—this would be referred to as a masterstroke of crypto-deception.

Fish Tickle, though the cheery graphic masks this fact, is not a fish-feeding system (red and white checkered napkin notwithstanding). No, it is a fish-luring system. (Pardon us: a "fish attractant scent system.") It involves a plastic gizmo and smelly scent tablets and people patting themselves on the back for outsmarting a bunch of fish. The Fish Tickle people (the fish ticklers!) are more than happy to discuss the "science behind the fun" of their patent-pending whatsis, something something, research, something something, efficient.

But just so we all remember and celebrate this for its suicidefoodist impulses, here's how the fish ticklers put it:

"So alluring to fish, it makes getting caught seem worth it."

(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for the referral.)

Arapahoe Pig Roasters

Let's hear it for Arapahoe Pig Roasters. This is some bare bones, back-to-basics suicidefoodist stuff right here.

Forget the theory, the grad-level coursework, the close readings of arcane texts. Arapahoe Pig Roasters is having none of it! Their talent is a force of nature. It just flows out from them like light from a candle, like music from a nightingale. It's a beautiful thing, that four-word formula for the suicidefood equivalent of joy:

"Happy pig in fire."

Pleased at his imminent death by fire, the pig wears an expression of astonished delight, as though he never dreamed his fondest wish would ever—could ever—come true!

The pig wasn't pushed. He didn't slip. He leapt. Joyously! Imagine children jumping into piles of autumn leaves. That's how our pig jumps into the fire: belly-first, and with childlike abandon!

Only a petty person—a (gasp!) vegetarian or (swoon!) vegan perhaps—would object. This is a pig at play, experiencing his true nature, reveling in all the happiness offered by the world. (Specifically, large fires and/or barbecue grills. This one's like a Trampoline of Fire!) Who are we to interfere? Hey, to each his own. It's all about personal freedom and self-expression. Self-immolation is his art.

Finally, to strike the proper note of casual contempt, Arapahoe Pig Roasters gives us this image. "See?" the picture says. "Even dead and crisp, piggy's having a blast! Har har! We even threw fruit on him!"

Texas Pork Puffs

Texas Pork Puffs.

Texas Pork Puffs?

Texas Pork Puffs!

Before we can speak intelligently about this product, we must exorcise the name from our minds.

Be gone, Texas Pork Puffs!

Just as a remedy for an annoying song stuck in the brain can be the substitution of a different song, perhaps—please!—we can force Texas Pork Puffs out by inserting an equally offensive name.

At this point—after being awake for 34 straight hours—we'll try anything!

Here goes nothing:

Toxic Lamb Squirts™
Steaming Offal-o's™
Chocolate-Covered Piglet Parts™
I Can't Believe It's Not Tripe!™
Mucus in a Tube™
Hag-flavored Haggis™
Pillowcase Full of Hair and Band-Aids™
Beaktastic!™
Snoutumms™
Honey Bunches of Gristle™
Instant Slaughter™
Vealettes™

Damn! Texas Pork Puffs won't. Go. Away.

We continue this write-up under extreme duress.

First, it must be said that "cowboy" is the third-most flaccid rebel in the suicidefood canon, behind "rocker" and "biker." The prairie's rugged individualist, cowpoke, cowpuncher, the cowboy is always envisioned as a lone wolf, a man's man. Along with his prototypically rebellious companions, the cowboy is the perfect vehicle for suicidefoodism's putrid dominance. If the priests of suicidefoodism can tame these unbreakable stallions, who will dare defy them?

But look at this pig, with his little boots and his precious red vest! He's a company pig, bought and paid for. Chaps-wearing rebel? Bah! He prances around, eagerly shilling for the abominably named Cinnamunch cinnamon-flavored pork rinds. If any real cowboy faced an opponent who wanted to "puff" his and his people's skin and dust it with cinnamon sugar, the cowboy would plug that four-flusher fulla holes courtesy of his faithful shootin' iron.

But not the Cinnamunch Kid. No sir! This tinhorn just smiles and does pretty lasso tricks.






Addendum: Please, dear readers, suggest more loathsome product names, so we can get T.P.P.'s out.

Ezell's Famous Chicken

Ezell’s chicken is more than famous. It is, in the chicken’s own words, “fresh, good, and fast!” (Only in Suicidefoodistan would an animal tout those particular attributes. What normal, life-loving animal prides itself on the speed which with it can deliver itself into your stomach? Or the degree to which it is edible? Who but suicidal food would carry that perverse pride even unto death and beyond?)

The chicken is too modest. Its virtues are numerous indeed, but its most miraculous quality goes unmentioned: it speaks to us from the grave, reminding us of its selling points even as it floats in the time-and-placelessness of the afterlife.

The halo signifies the chicken’s membership in the sacred fraternity of gratefully dead animals, benighted souls whose deaths are their crowning achievements. Ezell’s famous chicken is deceased and therefore liberated. Death was, and remains, his peak experience. Truly, he was born to die. Though dead, he still scampers—he might be a “late” chicken, but he’ll never be late for your dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving

In lieu of our typically trenchant commentary, we leave you today with an assortment of turkeys delighted to take their turn in the spotlight. Thanksgiving, of course, is the holiday most inextricably linked with food, and turkeys—those once-proud birds—are eager to get into the spirit.

Back to regular posting after the holiday.

















































(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for her kind assistance.)

Meatmac

Imagine a young actor or model (or, if your imagination permits it, actor-model) trying to get a toe-hold in a demanding, maddening profession. This hypothetical actor and/or model—let's call him Meatmac—wants only to get noticed. He just needs some credits under his belt. He's no hothouse flower. He knows he's got to pay his dues. That's how the business works.

Meatmac and the rest of the First Rung Club are starting at the bottom. They're hungry. They tiptoe a tightrope, balanced above the failure of anonymity. The best of them will use their inner strength, a moral compass, to navigate a treacherous terrain fraught with temptation. How to negotiate these warring impulses: Do Whatever It Takes vs. Stay True To Yourself.

Accept a bit part requiring nudity, or hold out for a role that doesn't involve that sort of compromise?

Shill for a product or company that causes misery, or wait for less lucrative, but more ethical work?

Sign on to model at the car show, or demand more meaningful assignments?

These are the quandaries faced every day by Meatmac and his cohort.

And on every standard, Meatmac has made rotten choices.

How's that? For whom does Meatmac prance and pose? Why, for Meatmac, "your specialist for used food processing equipment." Naked, the pig bounds on stage, forced smile and all, to lend his support, such as it is, to the Meatmac product line. This is bottom-of-the-barrel work, the animal mascot equivalent of pointing lovingly at the goods on offer at a snowmobile show. Snowmobiles that don't run. And blow up in front of orphanages. This won't get him noticed. It won't help him sleep at night. He's working for the wrong people, people who make it easier to eat pigs. He's not cut out for this.

And he does it all for $4.50 an hour, a five-minute bathroom break, and a free slop sandwich.

Good Octopus

Here is a "good" octopus, courtesy of the Jeonghwa company. He is not solely good, though. He is also, as his sign proclaims, "new." Moreover, judging by his impish wink, he is a real character.

But it is his goodness that is salient. It's part of his very identity, his very name:

(The Korean hangul writing "k-u-s" in the name of the product stands for good. In this context, "k-u-s" is pronounced koot, no doubt a Koreanized approximation of good.)

The octopus does not object to any of this. In fact, he is cutely agreeable to this whole situation. Which renders the product all the more objectionable.

We can hear your rational objection: Perhaps Korean food companies, like so many Japanese enterprises, rely on the Cult of Cute as a routine ploy. Perhaps, then, this image is nothing more than reflexive business-as-usual, no more revealing than any generic logo.

Well spoken, rational objector. Well spoken, but wrong.

Here is packaging from another Jeonghwa product, Soft Smoked Squid Leg:

The first thing to consider is that this is not an entire animal. These are the "legs" of numerous squids. As such, this product is resistant to the forces of Cute.












A close-up of the package will show definitively what Jeonghwa thinks of these squid:

Hatred might be too strong a word. But there is no love here. The squid is merely a victim, a dead thing dredged from the sea. Its x-eyes mark its affiliation in the brotherhood of inert objects, whose former status as living being may now be disregarded.

And now, at last, we understand the subtext of Good Octopus. Good does not refer to his palatability. It is not synonymous with tasty. It means "obedient."

The Good Octopus does not resist his commodification, as the recalcitrant squid must have. The octopus is compliant. He is safe—for the status quo, for the system. He is good suicidal food, ready for his turn in the bag, even going so far as to trumpet the novelty of his unique packaging and ingredients.

Shootem in the Lips

Are you like us? Do you find the culture of hunting's power to fascinate equaled only by its power to frighten? This fascinating, frightening image comes to us from the Shootem in the Lips decoy, duck blind, and bird-shooting company. They specialize in items designed to help you (well, no, perhaps not you) blast ducks and geese into the Great Beyond before they know what hit 'em.

Note that SITL dispenses with hunting's tiresome litany: stewardship of nature, blah blah blah, keeping balance in the environment, blah blah blah, deep and abiding respect for the animals on which we depend...

No, they replace all that hogwash with a boldly stated desire to trick ducks into coming close and then shooting them in the face.

But wait! Before we malign the unsportsmanlike sportsmen of Shootem in the Lips, we should remember that the duck in their logo is in on the fun. He (yes, he—this is a red-blooded mallard) has done himself up in candy-apple red lipstick, to provide a can't-miss target for even the poorest marksman.

He thereby enters the annals of suicidefoodism as our first example of the Complicit Animal, Hunting Division. We've seen self-grinding and self-saucing pigs before, but this is the first "game" animal to make it easy on his killers. Nice job, Shootem in the Lips duck!

The Drinking Pig Company Ltd

Skewered Pig in the Barbecue? We need to talk. We don't mean to judge. We care about you, and it's been clear to us for a while now that you have a problem. Yes, it's your drinking.

Your drinking has become a social crutch.

Just look at yourself. The life of the party, that's you. But don't you see how everyone is backing away from you? They're frightened. Of you, Skewered Pig in the Barbecue. Of what you've become. Of what you're capable of.

Your drinking leads to inappropriate behavior.

You are in a barbecue. With a spit running through the length of your body, for crying out loud! You have allowed the Drinking Pig Company Ltd to pierce you—anus to (we suppose) back?—with a metal rod! You're right, you're right. We shouldn't get angry. But we are angry. Not at you, Skewered Pig in the Barbecue, but at this situation.

You are unable to curtail your drinking.

Even while you fry in the flames, your skin crisping and your organs bursting, you hold your drink high, away from the heat. Alcohol has become more important to you than your health!

You use alcohol to self-medicate.

We can see it. You are in pain. (No, Skewered Pig in the Barbecue, we're not referring to the pain of your third-degree burns. Come on. This is serious.) We understand. We really do. Your depression is like a blanket smothering you. Some days, it's hard to get out of bed, isn't it? But this isn't the way. You have too much to live for. Between the barbecue, the spit, and the suicidal ideation, we're afraid you're in real trouble.

Please, Skewered Pig in the Barbecue, get help. Before it's too late. That is, in the next 30 seconds or so.

National Hamburger Festival

We are torn: Can a developmentally challenged Hamburger-American form the intent to commit suicide? Or is he merely an exploited minority excited by every crumb of attention he receives from the ruling class?

Is he acting out his own, authentic intentions, however tragic they may be—a death with a caricature of dignity—or is he acting out someone else's script?

But then—the power of clear thinking!—we take note of that face, those oversized clown shoes, the splayed, dystonic fingers, and we know. We know the hamburger is, well… Some have used the term "special." And whatever his functional age, he is demonstrating a genuine interest in being destroyed, wherever that interest first arose.

"You already killed the cow I once was," the hamburger might say (if he could speak in complete sentences). "So why not finish the job and eat me? Eat all burgerkind!"

This is a lovely example of Undead Food: already dead, it lingers. Lingering, it wishes for passage through your alimentary canal. Passing through, it thinks only of its eventual entry to the Other Side. Where it can, at last, rest. Typically, we focus here on depictions of actual, living animals, and not on these poor souls in animals-once-removed form. This overeager zombie was too striking to pass up.

A nonsuicidefood-related trouble spot: What is going on with that flag? We cannot find anything in the scene that starts with C, so why is Hamburgero waving a patriotic, C-shaped banner? C for "carnivory"? For "cancer"? For "clogged colons"? For "culinary"? (The absurdest suggestion of the bunch!)

And finally today, we have these images of the 2007 festival's "bobbing for burgers" event:













The site never clarifies what that red substance is. Sure, it could be ketchup. Tell yourself that's all it is.