Ethical Nutrients Fish Oil

Do you know what makes fish happy?

Swimming, maybe? Spawning? Satisfying other crude biological imperatives?

Maybe it's the simple act of being, of possessing a functioning body, of existing as an example of life, colorful, beautiful, graceful, a scintilla amid creation's great dazzle.

Or maybe you don't believe fish are the sorts of things that can experience happiness?

Well, both views are wrong. What makes fish happy—very happy—is peddling fish oil for people to take by the spoonful. It makes them (the fish, not the people) dress up in Carmen Miranda drag and give in to life's clarion call: Dance! Make merry! Shake your fins and die!

(Thanks to Dr. Mel for the referral.)

The Local Grill & Scoop

Animals and the desire to leave it all behind go together like fish and ice cream!

This fish hugging his ice cream dish (if that is, in fact, what it's doing) is a perfect example. Instead of clinging to life, the fish clings to its favorite dessert... receptacle. Is that even what's going on?

All we really know is that the fish has something else on its mind besides a quick flop back into the water and the possibility of resuming a normal life.

(Thanks to Dr. Joanna for the referral and photo.)

Olathe's Annual Kids Fishing Derby

You know what's awesome? Fish! Fish are awesome. This one in particular.

Just look at him, leaping out of the water, the very thing that sustains him! And why? For the kids! It's all for the kids.

The fish knows kids love killing things, and he loves kids, so he's only too happy to oblige them. The beauty part? He loves dying just as much as the kids love the idea of dragging him into the reeking air where he will suffocate, slowly and awesomely. It's like symbiosis, a partnership so perfect and, well, awesome, it almost gives you the shivers.

(Sad note: Participation is limited to the first 600 kids.)

Pies 'n Thighs

Sure, it's no Packard's (or even a Thee Pitt's), but there's a certain depraved charm on offer in this Pies 'n Thighs menu. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

You've got your tough-guy chicken endorsing the fried chicken box. You've got your fishy skipper pleased about the catfish box. You've got your lazy, degenerate pig nonchalant about the pulled pork box. So even with the conspicuous absence of a cow to point out the brisket box, this is still an impressive range of fauna and temperament.

Animals of the sea, land, and sky (kind of) have gathered to heave a single, unified, unenthusiastic sigh. Together they shrug. Just because the menu features their kinds (and maybe even their own flesh) is no reason to get bent out of shape. Or express much in the way of emotion. Just show up, pose, get eaten. That's all this bunch can handle.

Pappy's Choice Seasoning

The animals are happy, for Pappy has a plan for them.

He will sprinkle his choice seasonings upon them. Upon them all will he sprinkle the seasonings of his choosing. Yea, upon the chicken, the cow, the pig, and upon the fish that dwelleth in the sea will he cast his choicest seasoning.

The Father will transform them from dumb brutes into true Beings. Like the seasonings that adorn their flesh, they too will be marked as Chosen.

Thus are they gladdened, and their smiles they wear like wreaths of glory. Look at the cow's eyes. Hers is a gaze of pure peace. If she could, she would have Pappy choose you as well, so that you might know the joy of being truly well seasoned.

Franks & Toppings

Salmon: We're on, guys! We're on!

Cow: Hello!

Chicken: Welcome! We're the Franks & Toppings Boys, and we're happy you could come!

Salmon: And we're happy to bring you the Franks & Toppings message! Isn't that right, Chicken?

Chicken: You know it, Salmon! Franks & Toppings provides such a wonderful service to the folks in southeast Texas. It's a privilege to die, knowing we're so delicious—

Cow: Privilege to what?

Chicken: —and organic!

Cow: It's a privilege to what?

Salmon: You're stepping on his line again.

Cow: I know, I know, but did he say it's a privilege to die?!

Salmon: It is a privilege to die! That's why I hired someone to help me into this tux.

Chicken: Look, can I keep going?

Salmon: Keep going.

Cow: What's happening?

Chicken: That's right, Cow. We are lucky to die for such fine fare!

Cow: I didn't say that!

Chicken: Frankfurters, burgers, grilled salmon sandwiches, and more!

Cow: I never said that!

Salmon: And because it's organic, you can feel good about eating us.

Cow: You're sick.

Chicken: Good question, Cow. Yes, the talented cooks at Franks & Toppings will make your flesh even tastier with a wholesome selection of fresh toppings!

Cow: (sobbing)

Salmon: Get hold of yourself! Say the thing about grass-fed beef.

Cow: About…?

Salmon: Grass-fed beef! Like the picture!

Cow: Where the hell did you get that? I didn't pose for that! What the hell's going on?

Chicken: Ha ha! Good one, Cow. They should listen to our jingle!

Salmon: That'll get your toe tapping!

Cow: (teeth chatter)

Chicken: And your mouth watering!

Cow: Oh god oh god oh god.

Landry's Seafood Restaurants, Inc.

And then there's this guy.

He has certainly settled into his role as seafood with panache. A tawdry, leering panache, to be sure, but have you ever seen a crawfish with more self-confidence?

Feet dangling in the ol' briny, teeth clamped on a cigarette holder worthy of Thurston Howell, suspect mustache winking in the sun, he's the very model of looking-out-for-number-one-ism. That he expresses his exceptionality by playing the part of foodstuff will discomfit no one familiar with our work.

He will be boiled and cracked apart, his pale flesh dug from his blood-red carapace, and he accepts it all—the attention, the adulation, the respect—as nothing less than his due.







Addendum: Or maybe he's a lobster?

Addendum 2: An earlier Landry's crustacean, this one exhibiting none of the moneyed importance of the current crawfish. Or lobster or whatever.

Fishy Farm

Our favorite thing about this, apart from the appearance of overalls tailored to a fish's physique, is the way the fish happily takes to his role as crop.

The Fishy Farm, according to the official site, can be used to produce "herbs, vegetables, fish and crustaceans for dinner."

Vegetables, fish. Six of one, half dozen of the other. The fish isn't splitting hairs and neither should you.

And so the fish loads up his basket—he's been out harvesting, you see—and he takes his fellow produce and they all plunk themselves down on your doorstep. And then he waits, blushing a bit around the gills, for you to sample the herbs, taste the tomatoes, nibble the carrots. And, his gaze becoming insistent, he fidgets and seems to ask, "See anything else you like?"

(Thanks to Dr. Idji for the referral.)

Icelandic Seafood Fest 8K Run

What they won't do for us, those life-averse citizens of Suicidefoodland!

They will pledge their miserable lives to us.

They will sign up to die.

They will—even without the ability to extract oxygen from the atmosphere—pant and sweat for nearly five miles of punishing masochism!

Defying the limitations of their anatomy, the fish strap on shoes—to what we are not sure—slip on the runner's vest, register for their race number, and take off running. If it kills them (which it surely will), they will finish this thing. They will cross the finish line and then they will cross, you know, the Finish Line. The big one. And there, from the winner's circle that is your plate, they will experience at last what all their training has led them to: the thrill of victory.

Alaska Symphony of Seafood

Is that enough? We could go on, all the way back to 1998. But surely this majestic sweep, this nine-year span of our tuxedoed fish impresario, provides a suitable account of the institution known as the Alaska Symphony of Seafood.

What more could you need to know? Year after year, a sophishticate climbs onto the stage and leads the band—out of necessity a different band each time—in a stirring rendition of their own funeral march.

It might feature crooning fish, crustaceans playing chamber music, or be-bopping puffers, but no matter the configuration or style, this is music with heart. With soul! With tender, flaky flesh! It's the perfect accompaniment to imminent destruction and it will reverberate during their elevator ride to heaven.

Caporal Fried

One of the satisfying dismaying things about administering this archive is that so many of the bizarre things we see are old hat. A chicken playing at cowboy? Seen it. (Here and here.)

Still, what this sample lacks in innovation it makes up for in sheer, sixgun-firing pep.

This little feller is just so dad-blamed happy to be here, showing off his skills with a shootin' iron while he shows off his palatability when fried to a golden, saddle-leather brown. This is how the West was won, with exactly this kind of vigorous gumption.

Or, not won, maybe. Face it, if the Caporal Kid had been in charge, the West would have been consumed right down to the tumbleweeds—chicken, shrimp, fish, and all.

Herring in Cream sauce

A chilling peek into the crumbling minds of deranged fish. Oh, what they will get up to!

One climbs in the ol' barrel while the other splashes the cream in, and they both have the time of their lives!

So great, so irresistibly delicious is their drive to die and be eaten, to become objects in someone else's life—exalted ingredients—that there is no limit to the degradation they will endure.

While we won't dispute the claim that this travesty might, in fact, be a "Good Source of Omega 3," we are dubious about the notion that this is "All Natural." Look in their eyes: what do you see in the scene they have created?

They are around the bend, and whether their illness is chemical or emotional in origin, we find nothing natural about their behavior. It subverts every instinct, every drive and desire, of naturally occurring life.