Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Parks Companies

The Parks Companies are dedicated to "innovative and forward thinking solutions for today's swine industry."

To innovative and forward-thinking we would like to add adorable.

Just look at the line of piglets kicking up their heels as they trail mama toward the processing plant!

We're seeing a new standard of maternal devotion and family togetherness, a new vision of peace and respite. It's as though Norman Rockwell relocated to Hog Finishing Town, USA! Banished to sour memory are the scenes of adoring mothers and fascinated babes, the shared language of care and regard. And good riddance! In Suicidefoodland, such ideas are manacles shackling us to a world we can never again know.

We are—once more—reminded of those regimes that bepimple human history, the regimes that seek to erase the past and sever every last connection to it. This is the new Year 0.

With the past a political prisoner relegated to a lightless cell, and the future a savior who will never be born, all that remains is a present with no power to elevate us. A Now that sees us drawn ever closer to the grave.

Or, you know, a present wherein the piglets scamper ever closer to their sweet fate.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Pigs for Jesus Foundation

Flanked by stained glass windows, our pig rests comfortably, humbled and gladdened to have been sacrificed for something larger than himself. While not fully angelic—actual, winged pig-angels flutter around the steeple and its pealing bell—he is nevertheless more important than the standard barbecue victim, his death adding up to so much more.

His mortal flesh went toward a holy cause: the raising and slaughter of pigs in the name of Christian charity. Which makes this guy better than your garden-variety dead pig. And which explains the twinkle in the pig's eye and the expectant look on his face, as though he just can't wait to share his good news with you.

Would it be gauche to point out here that Jesus would have declined any pigs butchered in his behalf? Keeping kosher means never having to say you're sorry. To the pigs. For eating them.

(Thanks to Dr. Charlotte for the referral.)







Addendum (5/08/10): And here's the same pig in service of a secular, though still pig-eating, concern.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Fightin' Cock Roaster

It's been more than two years since we first got to know prizefighting "food" animals. It's nice to see that their delusional compulsions burn as brightly as ever. They still pump iron and primp in front of full-length mirrors so they can face death like the warriors of old.

Of course, this one smiles a little more than the Spartans probably did. Then again, he's got more to be thankful for. Remember, the only way he loses is if he avoids ending up roasting in some oven somewhere. So the pressure's really off.

Which is how he can afford to step lightly down his lightning bolt staircase (?) right into the ring, where he'll take a dive midway through the first round.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Browns the Butchers

A proud tradition of sheep stomach stuffing and boiling, haggis represents all that is Scottish.

However, this disembodied sheep's stomach is English, the tam o'shanter notwithstanding.

He wants you to eat him and his fellow, um, muscular digestive organs in a weird and punishing tribute to the heritage of the people who killed the sheep who previously housed him.

Funny isn't it—and we don't mean funny ha ha, we mean funny completely screwed up—that the stomach, good old Gastro, is depicted as an animal-like quadruped. He even has a tail! (Unless that's just his darling little pyloric canal.) It's as though the sheep's absence means the haggis ordeal is simply too far removed from anything resembling a cute little animal. This is unacceptable! Thus, the personified stomach, an entity we can hardly believe we haven't invoked before.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Blues & BBQ Gymnastics Invitational

If there are three things that go together better than blues, barbecue, and gymnastics, we can't imagine what they are.

Archery, waffles, and ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arrangement)? Demolition derby, aspic, and dance marathons? Corn mush, ping pong, and The Marriage of Figaro?

Try as we might, we can conceive of nothing that makes quite as much nonsense as the BBBQGI. For you see, in the warped world of Suicidefoodistan, nothing is coherent. Baffling is the new reasonable. Hence, a pig done up like the Blues Brothers sticks the landing on the sagging balance beam before tumbling onto the butcher's knife.

In the hushed auditorium, no one snickers when they see him. No one clears his throat nervously. No one shifts in her seat. Because this is run-of-the-mill insanity. While the portly pig takes his bows and blows kisses to the judges' table, the people applaud and lick their lips.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Yocco's

We have too long neglected this living relic, but now he gets his due.

For 88 years, our inscrutable despot has ruled over a strange and sickly kingdom. Yocco glares at lesser men and meals, beaming out his hatred in waves as emphatic as exclamation points.

He cares not for your society. He cares not for your laws. Nor your morals. Nor the way things are meant to be. To him, all of these are contemptible and small.

On his splintered throne, he tells the tale of his murderous kingdom to a rapt and bunned audience. His frankfurter people know well the king's obsessions. With boots stolen off the feet of some elfin corpse, and a forklike scepter bearing a baby wiener claimed by divine right, Yocco spins a web of self-aggrandizement. Yocco is powerful. Yocco will see them all burn. Yocco is strengthened by their deaths.

One day, Yocco will be eaten by God!

(Thanks to Drs. Sam, Patti, and Ian for their long-ago referrals.)

Monday, February 15, 2010

Certus

Belgium has arrived!

France, the United Kingdom, the Spanish-speaking world, North America, and Asia have already made a splash in the suicidefood pool.

In the Belgian commercial from which this is a still, two porcine lovers are swept across a canal by a porcine gondolier. The narration, translated: "Certus pigs are treated with extra care. That's why Certus pork is of the highest quality. And you can taste it." (Cue the exuberant kissing, as though his kissing her is analogous to our tasting her meat.) "Guaranteed."


In this spot, a pig has his cares massaged away. The translation: "Certus pigs are treated royally. That way they suffer less from stress. That's why Certus pork is guaranteed to be tender and delicious." At this last declaration—the attestation of the pig's deliciousness—he sighs, as though imagining the luxurious satisfaction his consumer will experience upon eating him.

This represents a classic misdirection so familiar to us all. The pork purveyors equate whatever "processing" the pigs undergo with massages and gondola trips through Venice. Certus pigs are, we are told, less stressed, much like a harried commuter undergoing a soothing massage. They are treated with "extra care," much like a young woman delighting in the romance of the famed Ponte dei Sospiri.

You needn't concern yourself with the pigs! They are lavished with loving attention. Whisked to the world's most serene locales, made the clients of talented masseuses, they are living the high life. Until they… aren't.

(Thanks to Dr. Lethe for the referral and the translations.)

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day: a digression

Is there any better way to tell your special someone "I love you" than a slab of beef shaped like a Valentine's Day heart?

While we're on the subject, is there any better way to tell the cow in your life "I hate you" than a slab of beef shaped like a Valentine's Day heart?

Either way, this is the finest example of suicidefoodism's fabled inability to keep love and death separate. The movement's pathology forever confuses one for the other, creating in the process a gory mess of turbulent emotions.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Turkey Speaks

Would that we could all be as selfless, as honorable as our patrioturkey here. Of course, the animals do come pre-programmed with a desire to sacrifice themselves, as our thousands of examples have amply and disgustingly demonstrated.

That they are familiar with Nathan Hale does come as a surprise. (We knew the animals were keen on the whole dying-for-any-old-cause concept, but we didn't know they were history buffs, as well.) Although, now that we think about it, we're kind of wondering whether Nathan Hale didn't steal his famous line from a turkey.

Who better epitomizes the hunger for death's noble feast than a bird? Billions of them line up to die every year in the U.S., their necks craned helpfully toward the blades.

What better myth for the suicidefoodist canon than the proud, death-wishing old bird, Benjamin Franklin's choice for our nation's dearest symbol? The turkey has been with us from the beginning, ever seeking his own end.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Hungarian Pigs' Feet

Yoo hoo! Hello, dahlink!

Zis vay! Over here, behind zis fence!

Vould big handsome man like to eat my feet?

I place them for you in zis plasztikai bag and you… You buy?

Oh, dahlink, you don't vant to leave me here vis my feet still attach, do you?

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Our Fragile Mental State: a digression

You see it too, don't you? Don't you?

It's not just us, right?

You see it there, in the art on the P.O.'s Burger and Root Beer sign. Just tell us you see it!

We were right about all those pigs, weren't we? All those pigs showing up again and again? A parade of duplicates, a nightmare of conformity.

We didn't make them up, did we?

And, sure, we see them when we shut our eyes. Sometimes they're hiding around corners, or under the tables in the cafeteria.

Or in the fogged-up mirror after we step out of the shower.

We've been doing this a long time.

We've seen a lot. We've seen too much. Every form of debasement. Ridicule. Contempt. The naked desire to find a helpless victim to kick. The whispered words that manage to make the kick feel like a kiss. We've seen it.

The point is, we know we're a little shaky lately. A little unreliable. We start at loud noises. A slammed door. A car horn. We're on edge.

But we're not crazy. Okay? You know? We still have a grasp on reality.

Just…

Just tell us you see it, too.

The smiling pig? In the hamburger patty and the tomatoes and the cheese and the lettuce?

Waiting. Lurking. Laughing.

That's a pig, right? He's in there, right?

Friday, February 5, 2010

Rapping McNuggets

No sooner do we finish discussing one rancid musical number than another one oozes into our awareness.

Heaven help us, but combing through the back-catalog of McDonald's atrocities could be a whole career for some poor loser. We have featured only a few (this one, this one, and this one), but there is a stinking cesspool of it creeping through popular culture like an oxygen-depleted dead zone spreading across the ocean.

Take this toxic morsel. It's the perfect blend of cultural appropriation and suicidefoodist madness. In the early 1980s, the mainstream was beginning to take notice of "rap" music, finding in it another opportunity for economic ransacking. Thus, the chicken chunk trio and their peculiar orthography ("Chik N"), their bling, their flashy style.

And, because no animal-based product is truly palatable unless it's on board with its own consumption, Chik N raps, dances, and clowns around in a self-congratulatory sham.

"We like this rap. It really rocks! But we'd rather jump in the barbecue sauce! 'Cause we're Chik N!"

Break it down. (As the saying went.) They have their preferences, their tastes, their habits. They enjoy a love of lyrical expression. But it's all in the service of being eaten. At the end of the day, they would simply rather jump in the barbecue sauce. Why? Because they are made of chicken, and that is their real purpose.

(Thanks to Dr. Isa Chandra for the referral.)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Kids Fishing Derby

Oh, but fish do enjoy a good play on words! Or, a play on words, at any rate.

And this particular play on words is just about irresistible to fish! (We've seen it before here and here.)

They're all about the hook, those fish. And why shouldn't they be? The hook represents their highest aspiration: to be jerked from the nurturing waters and dragged into the deathly air, where they may succumb in paroxysms of pain.

Do you see? While the fish in the foreground is cracking wise (or, you know, "wise"), the fella in back has a notion to bite down on that hook. He knows it's a trap—the Head Fish's line is hardly subtle—but he wants it all the same. Fish get a bad rap. We're told that they have the feeblest memories (not true). That they are impelled by nothing more than overpowering instinct. Now we plainly see that fish aren't stupid. It is just their all-encompassing wish to die that makes them seem that way to us.

And however you interpret the fish's exhortation to "get hooked"—is he encouraging other fish to join his cult or more fishermen to start killing fish?—it's a warped worldview only a twisted fish could espouse.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Martini Bitter

They're doing it again. The suicidefoodists—who, in this case, appear to be accidental (or maybe meta-) suicidefoodists, their primary aim being the advertising of booze—are tarting up the she-animals. It's a sobering reminder that slutty livestock can be pressed into service to sell anything.

These ads' legend, there in the lower-left: "Makes food that easy." Superficially, this is, we suppose, a message about the ease of pairing this particular alcohol with food.

But take note of the literal meaning they bank on: this stuff makes animals easy. Plied with liquor—the right liquor, our liquor—the animals are rendered willing. Wink, wink.















The secretary pig, coquettish atop your desk, no longer has shorthand on her mind. The streetwalker cow, leaning in your car window, considers throwing you a freebie. The barfly sheep, garish in her desperate makeup, plans on taking you into the back room.

(Secretary, whore, drunken bar habitué. Yep, that about covers the complete range of womanhood.)

As food, the animals are without the capacity to act as agents in their own behalf. They are props, there to be exploited by the careful application of the right product. Happily exploited, they exist for everyone's benefit but their own.