Papaya Pete's Chicken Hut

Nice to see you! Come on in!

Stuck in the depressingest of milieux—the mid-Atlantic theme park concession stand—Papaya Pete gallantly makes the best of a bad situation.

Cock-a-doodle-dooing from the fake façade, surrounded by an unlikely floral border, he beckons the hungry, the thirsty, the rollercoastered-out. He'll feed them all.

He is a crowing beacon to themeparkers everywhere.

Delight in every manner of chicken product. (We assume.) The strip, the finger, the nugget! All await you inside!


And he's not above coming down onto the shop floor, mixing with the appallingly unwashed masses, touting the questionable benefits of the establishment's various menu items.

He never stops selling. In fact, he'll keep selling right up to the blessed moment when he turns himself into product, the importantest stuff on Earth.














Addendum: What gives with all these poultry mascots with the initials P.P.? Pete marks the third one we've seen! (Remember El Pollo Pepe?)

Wondercow: a dairy digression

For years, we have avoided breaching the dairy dam. Cows willingly in service to the dairy "farmers" aren't exactly suicidal. Well, not directly. More like severely masochistic. But this image has compelled us to wade into the milky mire.

We've seen ratfink farm employees before. And we've seen superhero-style Submissive Dominants before. But never have we seen a single figure who captured both of those nauseating archetypes so well. (This one took a valiant stab at it.)

And think about it: how does this make the least bit of sense? A cow championing the system, the entire worldview, that categorizes her as property—chattel! (Cattle, of course, being related to this legal term denoting tangible personal property.)

Here she is, "trapped by dairy price web." Does she enjoy her life of servitude? Is she fond of the machines that take the place of her nursing young, long gone to their own dark fates? Can you even begin to imagine how, as powerful as Wondercow is, she would fret and fight on the dairy industry's behalf?

In this, she's no different from any other submissive dominant we've seen, those craven colossuses who could easily put an end to their victimhood, but who won't. No! Like Wondercow, they take a perverse pride in their self-imposed impotence!

And we hate to be indelicate, but where are Wondercow's udders? We don't ask idly. She has a skirt and earrings, so we know she's female. She's a cow, after all. But why then does she have the physique—the abs and pecs—of a human male? Canadian dairy farmers rely on the secretions of her mammary glands and the mammary glands of her innumerable sisters. It's almost as if the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, the creators of Wondercow, are uneasy about the whole matter. Strange time to get bashful. They've built an entire industry on those secretions, and now they're playing dumb?

(Thanks to Dr. procrastiknitter for the referral.)

Pig Tails Barbeque

What you're seeing is the barbekook equivalent of the girl who pops out of a cake at an old-time stag party.

Only, instead of a cake, it's a fiery log. And instead of a young woman, it's a pig in the process of burning to death.

Sure, she's into it, but how can you not feel tainted just by witnessing this? It was obviously her choice to hop on the burning log. But maybe—just maybe—she was in no position to be making any big, life decisions at the moment? We don't know what she's going through, but whatever it is, it has rendered her unfit to take care of herself.

Pig Tails Barbeque says, "The party doesn't start until the pig gets there!" (No, really. That's their tagline.)

We say, "As soon as the pig gets there, it's time to start the intervention."

Happy Harvest Farm

Harvesting. Apparently, that's what they're calling it now.

Not only that, but at Happy Harvest the goats are "nurtured in love." What else would you expect from a member of the Tennessee Goat Producers Association? We assume they were meant to be the TGNA—the Goat Nurturers instead of Producers—but by the time they noticed the typo, the shirts and bumper stickers had already been printed.

Just take a look at those goats. Those are some pampered animals. They smile sweetly, knowing that their slaughter harvest will be a happy one. Their transformation into chevon (your word of the day) is no less glorious than the caterpillar's into a butterfly.

Joe Tess Place

One of our "favorite" paradoxes: How can something dead be fresh? By fresh fish, what they actually mean, of course, is freshly dead. It's just another of those charming idioms that festoon the halls of suicidefoodism.

And this "fresh" fish drums up business wherever he goes, urging one and all to follow him to the home of the famous fish sandwich.

He's like a newsie calling out the headlines of the morning paper—and they're all about him! "Extry extry! Read all about the famous fish sandwich!"

Such eagerness! Such enthusiasm! He knows the power of a positive attitude. A fish like that could really go places. (Well, one place.)

But Joe Tess has more to offer the world than fish seeking fame as a sandwich filling.








There are also the catfish who leapt directly from the pages of a Tennessee Williams play, dignified, yet conflicted. Catfish, renown as bottom feeders, the marine world's lowly opportunists, are here represented by a tuxedoed gentleman of impeccable breeding. He's as high-toned as they come.

All fish can be eaten here, the low-born and the noble, the working stiff and the idle rich. There's room in the skillet, and the bun, for all!

Wilberforce Agricultural Society

Prance proudly, young one!

Your growth profile is admirable! Your adherence to breed standards would make a show poodle hang her head!

When the Wilberforce (Ontario) Agricultural Society convenes, and the hopefuls take their places, it is you who emerges on top. The blue ribbon hangs around your neck. Or is pinned into your flesh. Or is stuck on with a wad of gum. (Who can say?)

But whatever. You are a winner!

And though you are butchered, no one can take that away from you.

Jack's Bar-B-Que

Having died once, which allowed them to be consumed, the Jack's Bar-B-Que pigs ascended to heaven. And now! Now, they return, wingéd spirits, to assume form that they may be killed and eaten anew.

Sliding from the heights of heaven, they ski-jump into the mortal plane!

Not only a solution to the world's food shortages—imagine the self-administered food drops!—but also the secret to a pig's eternal happiness!

Understand: it's not that they wish to live again. No, they want to die again. And again. And again. It is the suicidefoodist version of the Circle of Life. Only, in their kinked conception, it is the Circle of Death. The pigs die, pass through life, only to die once more.

Again: they live only because living is the necessary precondition for dying.

American Beef Papercraft

Could there be a more effective ambassador for American beef than this cut-and-fold cow?

Who better to persuade the people of Japan to put their money in American cattle than someone with an insider's experience and insight?

Like the nation she represents, American Beef is expansive and cheerful, full of the optimism and pluck native to her people.



















Happy to be assembled. Equally happy to be disassembled.

She's here to serve, proud to be exploited in any way her customers see fit!


















Addendum (9/05/10): At last! We have unearthed another example of suicidefoodist papercraft. Here is the Niku-Mansei cow, proud representative of a chain of beef restaurants. It took more than a year, but it was worth it! (?)

Partners BBQ Porkateria

On first glance, you might be thinking, "With partners like this, who needs enemies?"

But look closer. Two good ol' boys pigs are roasting their pal. Sure, sure. Happens all the time. It's a routine part of life as potential premium pork. (Surely the world's most dangerous profession.)

The partners, with their lacrosse stick and oversized novelty spatula, are all smiles. Not only have they helped a friend leap over life's last great hurdle, but they have ensured that they still have something to look forward to, as well.

In the porkateria, an outdoor facility, it would seem, things are decidedly informal. The cooks are in casual dress and give as much attention to the props of their fun-loving lifestyle as they do to the main course. Yes, they jammed an apple in his mouth, but they would rather be posing or practicing that bobbling-the-ball-in-the-lacross-stick and moving-it-around-as-you-twist-it thing.

So it's (green) hats off to you, partner pigs! May you get to savor the Apple of Death yourselves one day.

Great Arkansas Pig Out

It's the whole panorama of depraved pig/human interaction, laid before us like a tapestry memorializing the deeds of some petty tyrant.

First, in their infancy, the pigs subject themselves to the cruel whims of our sport. They submit to our harassment. We pursue them across the fields, deafening (and delighting) them with our delicious taunts. They scamper, squealing, and we laugh and laugh!

Then, in their boisterous adolescence, we engage in good-natured ribbing. (No pun intended.) And let's face it, those teenaged pigs sure know how to push our buttons! So we put on the ol' pig nose. It's our way of saying, "Let's not take ourselves too seriously, shall we?"

(And speaking of taking ourselves way too seriously, perhaps we should mention IAS. Because this is a classic case of it right here—the woman in the pig get-up, reveling in her barely disguised disdain. "Look at me! Ha ha! I'm stupid food!")

And then, in the autumn of their lives, having known nothing else but the joy of the dominated, they serve us by donning the bandanna of the damned and consenting to be killed.

All in all, a full life, one fit for any demented livestock with low expectations.

Legal Sea Foods

The fish's freshness, its suitability for consumption, provides it with its greatest pleasure. Why, just imagine a world in which the fish were not fresh, and were therefore… illegal!

In such a world, the fish would remain uneaten. The laughably tiny plate would not be its grave, just as cutlery would not stand sentinel as its tombstones. Shockingly, it might still languish in the free seas, there to suffer the joys that only the living must endure.

But, oh! What happy circumstance! What relief we feel as we wake from our dark reverie and realize that—yes!—the fish is dead. And fresh. (The finest trick of "food" animals.)

The overall effect is a tribute to the wonders of obedience. When one follows the rules, when one is a true citizen, only then can one be properly killed and eaten. Take heed, children!

Addicted to Rub

The year was 1986. Robert Palmer's Riptide LP spawned a #1 hit titled Addicted to Love. The video for the song featured the singer, cool in a dress shirt and tie, backed by a "band" of leggy, lipsticked Stepford Wives.

Flash forward to the present. It's like we're watching the video remade with an all-bovine cast.

Robert Bullmer croons as his accompanyists pretend to play instruments fashioned from the apparatus of their eventual cooking.

Enough with the scene-setting. Let's get to the guts of the matter: The whole pun rests on the substitution of love (as a euphemism for sex) with rub (as a symbol for barbecue and, therefore, animal destruction). When seen in that light, as intended, the image becomes merely the latest in a worryingly long line of sex-obsessed barbecue logos that represent an unwholesome flirtation with veiled violence.

Hobo BBQ Grill Rental & Catering

Tough economic times have reached Main Street, Suicidefood City. A desperate "food" animal faces a sobering choice: stay put, hoping to find (very) temporary employment with a large outfit, or hit the road, making do with whatever odd jobs come along. Of course, for a suicidal animal, the odd jobs can be very odd indeed.

Just ask our hobo pig here. Things are so lean, he's taken his bindlestiff all the way to Hobo BBQ Grill Rental & Catering and his first shot at a payday in months.

If all goes well, he'll be roasting on a spit later in the week. Hey, it beats sitting around watching the paint peel while your savings drip away one dime at a time.









Addendum: More indigent animals on the way to be exploited.














Addendum 2 (11/21/09): And another vagabond hog, this one walking beneath the bleached symbol of his imminent death.