Mainely Grillin' & Chillin'

Lobster: Say, when you think about the Raitt Homestead Farm's Mainely Grillin' & Chillin' Country BBQ State Championship, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Pig: Hard to say, Lob. I guess the grilling? Or maybe the chilling?

Lobster: They're both important aspects of the G&C festivities, that's for sure. But aren't you forgetting something?

Pig: No, I don't think...

Lobster: Come on, Pig. What's the best part? The Reason for the Season?

Pig: Um...

Lobster: There's the grilling. The chilling. And the...?

Pig: The killing!

Lobster: Now you got it!

Pig: If it weren't for us getting killed, none of the rest of it would be worth a darn.

Lobster: Too true.

Pig: And the spilling. Spilling our blood?

Lobster: Sure, I guess.

Pig: And the willing? Like, making out your will?

Lobster: Yeah, but it's not like we own anything to give away. It's borrowed time all the way! We can't even claim ownership of our bodies.

Pig: There's the Adirondack chairs, too. Can't forget them.

Lobster: They make the chilling so much easier.

Pig: To us!

Lobster: To us!

*clink!*

Queer Eye for the BBQ Guy

This thing is less sociopolitcal touchstone—some statement or other about "Our Changing Times"—as it is testament to suicidefoodism's power to adapt.

The Movement can take any form, clothe itself in the mores and ways of any subculture, any cultural moment.

The Movement is opportunistic, crawling and seeping into any available niche.

Virginia Pork Festival

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This pig of uncertain psychological, emotional, and physical make-up is a study in contrasts. Or, well, the same darn contrast we've seen so many, many times before.

Namely, the piquant contrast between living and dying.

On the one hand, he or she grabs life by the scruff of the neck and yanks. The hoisting of beers! The wearing of sunglasses! The carrying of sandwiches! The striking of awkward, unnameable poses! She or he is a one-pig celebration of life's undeniable charms, of the overflowing bounty of life's promise to us all. Live, pig, live! Drink every drop! Bask in every second! Wallow in every moment life offers you!

And yet.

And yet he or she indulges in a too-familiar search for death. For while dancing on the (invisible) table, the pig prepares to die. The pig seduces oblivion. Can you make out the tattoo on her or his arm? MOM inked above a ham?

Ponder that one some night when you can't stop thinking about the poor decisions you've made in your life.

Suicide Snacks: quickies 9

When the lengthy sermons are too much, we turn to our by-now-classic series of rapid-fire diatribules for relief. (Revisit the most recent installment, won't you?)

You tell 'em, duck! What, do those tofu-munching hippies think they're too good for your repulsive liver or something?




The swiggin' pig of Nashville, Tennessee doesn't do anything halfway. He lives life at full throttle, sometimes spending seven, eight hours a day down at the local tavern. And he dies full tilt, too.








A shrimp crossed with a Segway? It's the cuddliest version yet of half-animal/half-machine monstrosity.










Yes, yes, it's not about meat. It's a rare example of dairy-related business. Still, it's remarkable because it's like the cow's innermost thoughts and feelings will not be repressed. The cow's undeniable gratitude at being used shines out, through bone, muscle, and hide.

PBC Fried Chicken Run

No head? No problem!

It'll take a lot more than headlessness to keep the chickens from participating in this thing, whatever it is. Hey, as long as the event is dedicated to the proposition that chickens are nothing but objects, they'll be there, dead, headless, and fried.

These are hardy birds and they're used to putting up with the worst the animal-eating industry can dish out.

So step out of their way and see how a real athlete gets the job done!

(Thanks to Dr. Robert for the referral.)

The Great American BBQ & Brew House

What finer symbol for this day, when a nation celebrates and honors the qualities it holds most dear? The Fourth is a day for celebrating independence! Courage! Freedom! Justice! Who better than a pig—a benighted creature permitted the enjoyment of none of those things—to dress in the garb of those who guard the rights of Man!

He waves his little flag and welcomes them all. Like Lady Liberty standing in her harbor and lighting the way for the poor and hopeless, throwing open the gates and saying, "Here! Here! Here is the respite you seek and the honest work you crave and a peace born of equality!" the pig asks them all in.

And so they come. They come to eat dead pigs, to remind them, in between mouthfuls, of the greatness and goodness of this land.

(Enjoy last year's Fabulous Fourth.)

Bacon Bash

This pig looks like a helluva pig. Decent, hard-working, friendly. Great fella to hoist a couple with.

Which makes him a good candidate for someone to see a ball game with, but not—we suggest—to take sober advice from.

He's gearing up for a bacon bash, after all, an event devoted to eating him.

Maybe he's already had a few too many? Or maybe he just can't turn down a friend in a tight spot. If you need a late-night ride to the airport, or help moving to a new apartment, or, say, a bunch of bacon, he's your pig.

Wings Etc.

This one scores high marks for its insistence on underscoring our basic thesis:

These animals want to be here. They want to participate in institutions working hard to destroy them and all their kind. In the world they inhabit, struggling is unthinkable. It's not that resistance is merely useless. It's that resisting is—literally—unthinkable. It never crosses their minds. No matter what horrors await them, no matter how grisly their daily lives, they show up and punch in early. They are dedicated to this.

This mascot can fly a plane, for Christ's sake. If he wanted to make a run for it, he'd have no trouble getting away. Even on his own, he could probably flap his way over a fence or two. Well, he does have his way, and that's not what he wants.

Nope, he would rather they hack off his wings and fry 'em up.




In the restaurant's placating commercial spots, two chickens sit around shooting the breeze. They talk about their personal lives. They talk about menu changes. They talk about everything except the one thing you might expect: getting out of that deathtrap alive.

Doesn't even cross their minds.

(Thanks to Dr. Alan for the referral.)

Fat Albert's

Not only is Fat Albert a late inductee into the ranks of the copycat pigs (he's a member in good standing of the Overalls bunch and, down in the lower-left, a dead-ringer for this fellow), but he's also the barbecue equivalent of a talent agency!

The extravaganza he's put together is quite the spectacle! Albert is all about one-stop shopping!

From the, let's say, arresting wordsmithing ("Put the BOLD TASTE of the WEST in your CHEST") to the use of striking imagery, he's hitting the audience right where they live. We especially enjoy the porcine member of the Canadian Army. We're not sure how Albert was able to persuade him to serve as a (literal) poster boy pig—surely most soldiers need a villain to fight—but there he is, rifle at the ready. Do you think Albert let him know the gun's loaded with blanks?

Fat Albert provides a little something for everyone. Especially for pigs who have grown weary of living.

Festival of Cruelty 15: Forcible Testicle Removal

For those of you unfamiliar with our cringe-inducing Festival of Cruelty series (the last official entry was three and a half months ago, but there was also a Festival of Cruelty special report recently), here's the gist:

Suicide food is all about deception. But some meat-promoting imagery is so nakedly honest in its depiction of pure contempt, its expression of such hatred for animals, that we find it almost refreshing. (Almost.) This is stuff that could stand a little camouflage, a little lipstick, a little stagecraft. At least a few bandages to hide the wounds. This isn't suicide food. It's murder food. And it's instructive to dive into the cesspool now and then. What it teaches us, exactly, we have long since forgotten.

So! Hold your nose and jump in and try not to drown in our newest, themed Festival of Cruelty.

Huntley (Illinois) Turkey Testicle Festival: As it turns out, some turkeys object to castration. This one clutches his savaged loins. He gapes in wordless horror, as though petitioning Heaven's vacant throne. But most of all, he advertises an event whose foundation is the consumption of turkeys' private parts. Do you see what we mean about cruelty? They don't even bother dressing this up in the same old clichés of subservience, compliance, and victims identifying with their predators. It's just shock, pain, and anguish.




Olean (Missouri) Jaycees Testicle Festival: We "love" the disdain implicit in this one. "Our volunteers make the difference," they say as they show us this maimed cow wearing a button that identifies him as one of those volunteers! "No, no," they proclaim, "that one's a volunteer. He signed up to have his stuff hacked off! You saw the button, didn't you?" It's the most half-hearted disavowal in the history of people caught in the act, the equivalent of "Honest, officer! The dead guy was on the floor when I got there."



Minnesota Testicle Festival: They call it the home of the Minnesota Tendergroin, because if there's one thing people like more than eating an animal's testicles while it watches, it's making puns while they do it. (You should know that testicle festivals are hotbeds of suspect humor as well as viciousness.) Featured here is a former bull—he's a steer now—who can only snort in impotent agony.

While people laugh at him.




Thirteenth Annual "Calf Fry" Testicle Festival: The newly castrated can also take the stoic cowboy route, hoping to numb the pain with nothing stronger than beer and nicotine. But it won't soothe the searing sting of degradation.

Notice the barren landscape, the single tumbleweed an errant mark on a blank sheet of paper. It all serves to emphasize the castrato's loneliness. He went from vigorous to victimized just like that, with no one to witness his turmoil but the uncaring sky.



Rock Creek Lodge: More craven snorting. This steer's got a haunted, hunted look in his eyes. Which is only fitting, seeing as he's been hunted down, and the aftermath of what they've done to him will haunt him the rest of his days. Which—let's look on the bright side—won't number too many.







Outdoorama Turkey Testicle Festival: Is this turkey warding off the knives? Are his hands thrown up before him in an "Out of my way!" gesture? Either way, there's no stopping them. There's no getting between the hungry hordes and the poultry testicles they crave.




Addendum: We have, of course, seen castrated animals before. There was a steer, a turkey, and a different steer from way back. Improbably, it's a motif that's been with us through the ages.

Brew-B-Q

One last party, a final celebration before leaving the cloister of college and entering the real world.

And what a change it will be! No more Friday night keggers. No more close-knit community of like-minded buddies. No more easy life of responsibilities so small they can be discharged even through the miasma of a hangover.

The journey they embark on is a solemn one. And while they're proud to have come so far and eager to set out and prove their worth as edible objects, they need one last bash to mark the milestone. Which is why the one pig is tending the barbecue (his own, if you get our drift), the cow's wielding the fork, and the chicken—the perennial short straw drawer—has died of zealous beer-bonging.

(Thanks to Dr. Pat for the referral.)

Festival of Cruelty 14

The time has come again, regrettably, to leave behind the disingenuous sham that is suicide food, and stumble into a land of foulest honesty. We come here every 50 posts, for reasons we have long since forgotten, and stare goggle-eyed at the worst of the worst. For here we see beyond and beneath suicidefoodism's Big Lie. No one in this quarter bothers trying to make you believe the animals are complicit. Here they are not actors, but only objects.

(Visit our most recent foray when you're done.)

Chain Gang BBQ: For those of you already squeamish about the thought of exploiting prison labor, comes this piece of bad business. The pigs (surely sentenced to life) are herded into a work detail under the blistering sun. Behind them, they drag a new ball and chain: a hot, heavy, smelly barbecue.

No, we're not sure why the grinning warden is eating a bird's leg and not a rack of ribs.



Bringin' The Heat BBQ Team: After painting it with the blood of its offspring (we're assuming), an imp made of fire threatens to burn a pig alive. He's getting ready to touch the flame to the pig's tail, like setting a lit match to tinder, but the pig can hardly muster the will to care.





Miller's Bar-B-Que: Out there in southeastern Pennsylvania, they do things a little differently. When the nights lengthen and the stars dazzle, Manheimers like to plug in the ol' electric gun and chase themselves a chicken or two. It's a simple pastime that harkens back to a simple time. A time when a businessman could terrorize a bird without drawing dirty looks and jeers.



Angry Tom's BBQ: So is this what it looks like when Tom isn't angry? (When he follows his own advice, about forgoing wrath for barbecue.) Because—and we're not professionals—he looks a teensy bit furious. Maybe it's the way he's straddling his homing airplane, fork all agleam with malice, putting his foes to flight. We admit not following the scenario very well. Is the plane on the ground? (Was Tom grounded for rage-related reasons?) Are the cow, pig, and chicken running in the clouds?

See this post for a similar treatment of the theme—the fork-brandishing wolf chasing down his prey aboard a mechanical mount. Awfully specific, that theme.



Peg Leg Porkers: Getting drunk and risking your life for a good cause (?) by trying to stay one step ahead of rampaging bulls gets old. To inject a much-needed thrill into the spectacle, we recommend forcing a terrified pig—one with an inexplicable wooden leg—to take your place.

(Keeping score? This is the fifth instance of peg-legged pigs we've featured.)

Special Report: Pig Logo Exposé 9

Oh, why not? What's one more go-round on the carousel of barbecue-related tedium? Here it is: Pig Logo Exposé 9. Of course, after the last installment—the blockbuster that was exposé number eight—we don't know how much enthusiasm we can muster.






















































(From left to right, by row: Whale Belly BBQ, Red Red Swine BBQ Sauce, generic barbecue neon sign; "Bar-B-Q" Country, Cookin' With a Little Spit Q Crew, St. Catherines Rotary Rib Fest; J. B. Hog Roast, Adams Rib, Junior's Chicken & Ribs; unknown, Butt Whoop, generic "Hot Fresh BBQ" metal sign, Buck's BBQ.)

Whether bareheaded or in a chef's pristine toque, ball cap, or Country Gentleman-style straw hat, we know him. With or without the wheatstraw in his mouth, we know him. Guzzling beer or sipping wine, we know him.

We know him by his hooded eyes, his pride, his girth. But mostly by his overalls. And so shall he be called… Overalls. The latest stem cell from which a brood of barbecue mascots are cloned.







Addendum (7/03/10): The fourteenth appearance of Overalls.















Addendum 2 (1/10/11): And the fifteenth!














Addendum 3 (12/16/11): Here are the 16th (referred to us a while ago by Dr. Jen) and the 17th Overalls.