We'll Smoke U BBQ

Hi, fellas! How's life in the land of denial?

While they might not be offering themselves up for your consumption, they are nevertheless participating in the nitty-gritty of meat-based cuisine.

That is to say, while they amuse themselves choking chickens, crushing beer cans, and brandishing barbecue forks, these bullyboys have to know what they've gotten themselves into. The barbecue machine is insatiable. How long will it allow these two meaty beings to walk around unscathed?

Sure, they're on top now—all their sneering attitude and torn shirtsleeves and rippling muscles—but give it another month, two tops, and they'll be steaming on a plate somewhere.







Addendum: How about these guys? Think they're still walking around topside?

Finger-Lickin' Chicken & Mighty Fine Wine Supper

We couldn't help noticing your date for the evening. The high heels, the wig. The, um, "fancy" make-up. She is lounging inside a wine glass and, surely, has a heart of gold.

Please, we beg you. Please, do not be offended by what we're about to say. We're only looking out for you. Your date is… Well, she's…

Boy, this is awkward.

Well, she's a chicken, sure. But you knew that part.

It's just that…

Your date is a pro. She's a, um, professional, um, dater?

Look, the bird's an escort.

She's a whore, okay? Fantastic, you made us say it. Happy now?

Face it. She got herself done up, soaked in a giant glass of wine, and prepared to tolerate your imminent "special" time.

And why? What, you think she's into you? Grow up! We don't want to embarrass you, but she's only in it for the death! She knows you'll shell out for a big evening. She'll get some booze, see the sights, and then in the end? She gets to die. That's all any of them care about.

And what about you?

Yeah, what about you?

Exactly.

(Thanks to Dr. Sibyl for the referral.)







Addendum: Somehow, we are reminded of this sad, neglected chicken.

Get Your Rub On BBQ

Life in Fort Getyourrubonbbq (named for an Apache word meaning "animals crazy want to die") is tough. Plopped down in the middle of the baking land, the little town is inhospitable and dangerous. The swinging doors of the one establishment open onto sky-blue emptiness. With nothing but the barest of scenery (the lone cactus is a dreary sentinel), the townsfolk feel their life force ebbing.

Which might explain the town's two insane cooks. As a tumbleweed marks the moment, the cow and pig—driven mad by the torpor and the angry stare of the white sun—face each other in the dusty street.

Is it for vengeance that they get ready to draw? Or are they goaded by a more morbid desire, the need to die?

In other words, will the winner of the duel rub the rub on the loser? Or will he get the rub rubbed on himself?

Chicken Galore

If there's a better piece of chicken, the rooster got it.

If there's a better piece of chicken, the rooster got it.

If there's a better piece of chicken, the rooster got it.

Do you need to read that again? Is three times enough? Has it already made you despair for humanity? Right there, amid those eleven little words, lies an encyclopedia of mind-rotting garbage. The chicken—a female and, therefore, worthless as an agent of her own life—is owned by the rooster and by you. The rooster takes her for sexual pleasure, and you… Well, that's between you and the breast-enhanced, winking, flirtatious, bikini-clad bird.

That the sexual and the violent are, once again, conflated by the flesh-pushers is sad and sorry enough. (See the hearts in the logo? Love and death locked in intimate embrace!) That this depraved drama should be carried out in the realm of animals at our mercy is even worse. That Chicken Galore also offers up pigs, fish, and shrimp makes us shudder at the advertising images that might have been.

(Thanks to Dr. aubade for the referral.)






Addendum: On a less vomit-inducing note, we'd like to comment on the text in the upper right of the image. "The Place For Ribs & Chicken ... The Way You Want It!" We are accustomed to the habits of avoidance that propagate terms like beef, as opposed to "cow meat," and pork, as opposed to "pig meat." (Yes, we are aware that the food terms are all of French origin and made their way into English when the French enjoyed power in England.) And we understand that ambiguous terms like chicken must cause some psychological discomfort. As in "Is this a chicken I'm eating, or some of a substance known as chicken?" But here, even "ribs" is reinterpreted as the name of a certain kind of stuff. (You're not encouraged to eat ribs the way you want them, but instead the way you want it, even though the word transparently names particular parts of an animal's body.) Again, we wonder whether our fellow man is already too far gone.

Maine Luau Seafood & Bar-B-Q

Based on sketchy intelligence reports, we believe we are dealing with the following subjects:

• A lobster sitting on a trap, firing an arrow at an apple and a cow.

• A drunk chicken in a grass skirt.

• Three clams, possibly with knives embedded in their heads.

• A belligerent pig perching in fire.

So far, sure, this is all just another day at the office. (And the scene is remarkably similar to this vision of cheerful bedlam.)

Where things get a little strange is that this surveillance photo is from a U.S. government archive!

Are we witnessing "enhanced interrogation tactics"? Are these crazed "food" animals ours or Charlie's? (Or whatever we call the collective enemy these days.)

What was the image doing in the files of the (not actually) nefarious National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration? (Which it was.) Could it have something to do with top-secret global warming research? A military-agrindustrial plot to destroy foreign nations from within, by infecting animals with suicidal impulses?

Well, no, it couldn't be that. American animals have been obsessed with death for decades and we're still going strong. Unless you consider our devastated econom—

Oh my god!

Smokey & The One Arm Bandit BBQ Team

Do you need to give it a minute? Do you get what's going on?

This is the latest thing in dysfunctional suicidefoodist circles. They call it daisychaining: the reciprocal consumption of body parts. (Which also neatly skirts any lingering misgivings the animals might have about autophagy.)

In this case, the chicken's leg is fed to the pig, the pig's butt (that is, shoulder) is fed to the cow, and the cow's brisket (or whatever) goes to the chicken. Of course, in successive stages of the game, things get a little more dicey. You really separate the hard-core players from the lightweights when you reach the heart/tripe/wing round.

But these guys, they really want to be eaten. It's their sport. Or hell, maybe it's their religion.










Disheartening addendum: As horrifying as this will be for some of you, we have already featured two other amputee chickens! (Here and here.) All of your nightmares have already been rendered, somewhere, by someone, in loving detail.

Disheartening addendum 2: Is this peg-legged pig, living it up in Paris's Bistro Gourmand, a fellow daisychainer? Or just another lost soul? (Thanks to Dr. Ted for the referral and photo.)














Addendum 3 (10/08/09): Another amputee pig? Once you start looking for horrors…













Addendum 4 (11/01/09): A beautiful, destined-to-be-classic example of daisychaining clip-art.

Bloomin' Barbeque & Bluegrass

This is Bloomie.

Bloomie has, shall we say, bought into the system.

Actually, that's not nearly strong enough. Bloomie has swallowed the system whole, gone back for seconds, and leased her own seat at the table.

Honored to head up Severe-ville Sevierville, Tennessee's Bloomin' Barbeque & Bluegrass festival, Bloomie capers and flings flowers to the fates who have installed her in so high a position.

Know that Bloomie is no mere figurehead. She is a tireless promoter. She wants everyone to have a chance to eat her and her extended family.




















She schmoozes with Santa, serves up pig meat in a local eatery, and boosts Sevierville the best she can.

That she does it with such panache should not distract us from our inescapable conclusion: Bloomie needs our help, not our appetites.

Torchbearer Sauces

What strikes us is the pig's attitude. This isn't a realistic depiction of any animal about to be cooked and covered in sauce, to be sure. But neither is it the sort of portrayal we have seen here hundreds of times.

As the evil, mustachioed master of ceremony leers, anticipating the death he is about to deliver, the pig doesn't flinch. Nor does he smile around his apple beatifically, as so many suicidal "food" animals do.

No. He's peeved. He's skeptical. Impatient. The guy in the top hat is holding up the proceedings with his patter and his "Ladies and Gentlemen" this and his "Without further ado" that.

A (slightly) closer look:









Seeing as there are no new ideas under the sun broiler, we aren't surprised that this isn't the first Impatient Sacrifice we've encountered. Surely you remember this adorable grump.

4 Little Pigs BBQ

We can't tell whether all four of these delightful sacrifices are the children—they are called the four little pigs—or whether #2 and #4 are the parents (the apron is more than a little maternal, for one thing). Either way. It's a family affair. Or maybe "family death cult-type thing" is more apt.

Like so many families before them, they pose and mug, lighthearted, in a favorite spot. For sane people, it might be the beach or the towering canyons of a large city or a sunlit glade amid a pristine wood.

But not for the pig family.

There they are, arrayed in front of the instrument of their destruction, like proud homeowners might stand in front of the porch or mailbox of their first house.

When the pigs look back on this moment—from the afterlife—they'll see themselves grinning and waving before the fires that were soon to consume them. And, maybe, just maybe, if Eternity provides wisdom as well as peace, they'll wonder what in hell they were thinking.

Moy Park Chicken

For the last time, people.

Chickens like dying.

Yes, chickens like dying. All chickens like dying.

Newly hatched chickens. Child chickens. Tween chickens. Adolescent chickens. Young adult chickens. College graduate chickens. Chickens with respectable careers. Senior citizen chickens.

All chickens. The entire panorama of chicken life, chickens representing every stage of chicken development. They all want to die. For you. For your neighbor. For whoever.

Okay, let's be honest. They don't care who's going to eat them. They'd probably be fine with getting run over by garbage trucks and left to rot in the sun.

Dying reaffirms their faith in an unjust universe, which, being living things, chickens are heavily invested in. No, no, it doesn't make sense. Of course it doesn't make sense.

But understanding this basic—and thoroughly unintelligible—point is key to grasping the idea of Moy P, a blinged-out, Irish faux-gangsta chicken who raps about wishing to die.

(Thanks to Dr. Stephanie for the referral.)






Addendum: Here's an old Moy Park chicken ad, from his innocent banjo-picking days. Less "street," sure, but every bit as insane.

Sweetwater's

They come from every corner of the aquapolis. From every walk of life and caste they come. Everyone, the nurse, the manual laborer, the outdoorsman, the grandmother, and the ingenue, they all come for the same reason. Equipped as they are with their various temperaments and outlooks upon life—a complete society in all its abundance and variety—they come to Sweetwater's for the opportunity it affords them to die.

This unites every strand of the piscine world. No matter their nature, no matter their occupation, no matter the niggling details that create their very individuality, they all seek to join that vast congregation of indistinct sameness, that seamless hive occupied by the dead.

And so, they swarm the sunken wreck known as Sweetwater's, their promised land, gateway to their blessed afterlife, where they can finally discard their burdensome identities—those absurd trappings of the living—and die. Where they can shed their status as separate beings and enter that great horde of sacred matter.