Christmas City Competition BBQ team

It's a Christmas tradition in these parts: Santa hitches the flying pigs to his magic barbecue and takes to the skies.

At every house they pass, Santa frees one of his wonderful pigs, who tumbles down the chimney, incinerating himself in the fireplace. Oh, don't worry! These are miracle pigs; they regenerate endlessly, until every home on Earth has a dead pig of its own!

Which is why the pigs are every bit as jolly as Saint Nick. On this night, they get to die eternally (well, a billion or so times each), again and again, reconstituted above the rooftops and readied once more for death.

Ho ho ho!

Take a moment to visit the ghosts of suicidefood Christmases past—2010, 2009, and 2007.

Festival of Cruelty 18

It's time once more to enter the shadow world of suicidefoodism, the world where no one's constrained by decency. They don't have to pretend that animals are complicit in their own deaths. It's a world we visit every few months, though we've long forgotten why. (Read up on the custom by checking out Festival of Cruelty #17.)

Rural Route BBQ: As every crazed hillbilly with a knife to brandish and a chicken to choke knows, terror is the finest seasoning.

Pig Chaser BBQ Sauce: Continuing the theme, the Pigchaser menaces pigs throughout Illinois. He's just so villainous, the way he pursues his panic-stricken quarry, sandaled and full of wicked glee. The entrailpreneurs of the various Festivals of Cruelty are no shrinking violets, meekly coaxing the "food" animals onto the coals. No, they tend to drift more into bloodthirsty Harold territory. They are hunters (of penned livestock), and they ask no one for permission!

Virginia Smokis Porkis: It looks like an innocent depiction of Man's brutal dominance over gentle Nature, but you couldn't be more wrong.

See, in the official state seal (no, this isn't the official one), Virtus, the Roman goddess of virtue, is shown triumphant over Tyranny. The legend beneath the vanquished despot reads Sic Semper Tyrannis or "Thus always to tyrants." In the Smokis Porkis (or "Doesn't actually mean anything") version, the role of the tyrant is played by a dead pig. So, like, take that, pig? You, um, tyrant?

Smokin' Up a Storm: It's no longer enough, apparently, to kill and butcher them the old-fashioned way. To satisfy a jaded public, ever more diabolical means of dispatching the animals must be dreamt up. In this case, it's some kind of weather-controlling contraption that has sucked up the cow, pig, and chicken. Within its artificial funnel cloud, it subjects them to punishing speeds and stunning jolts of lightning.

WTF? Smoke -n- BBQ: It would hardly be a Festival of Cruelty without some dog or wolf making life miserable for a pig or two. It's practically a tradition! No, seriously. Take a look at recent Festivals and see what we mean.

Les Pigs Extraordinaire

The thing about these black-tie images is that they are doubly deceptive. They intend to deceive the pigs twice over.

(We are reminded of many royal pigs we've seen over the years (for instance, this one and this one), pigs who were sold a bill of goods. See more examples here.)

They've given him not the crown and throne of Old World royalty, but the top hat and tuffet of the New World overclass. Do you suppose they really see him as their social better? Do you imagine it possible they are not laughing at him behind their hands?

They've set him up high, on the pedestal of the elite, but they consider him low-born. The lowest. Theirs to do with as they see fit. Deserving nothing. They hurry to wait on him, smirking.

Smoke Wagon BBQ

We know we're looking at an allusion to the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We don't know why, and we're too weary to puzzle out whether these three represent the Law (Wyatt and Billy Earp and whoever) or the Outlaws (the Clanton Boys and them).

What difference could it possibly make?

They're standing up for the interests of Smoke Wagon BBQ, which means they're standing up to be knocked down, whichever side they're on.

They stride through the dusty street, menace hooding their eyes. They tote their guns. By God, they will be put down.

New England Brisketeers

All for one and one for all! The timeless creed of the musketeer!

Never has an oath of friendship, loyalty, and duty meant so little.

For these brisketeers, the slogan can be translated thus: "Death for each of us! Death for all of us!"

It really gets you right here.







Addendum: How can this be only the second example of Three Musketeer-related suicide food we've found? If ever there were a trope pleading to be established and nurtured, it's the band of rollicksome swordsmen dedicated above all to their own destruction.

Festival of Cruelty 16

It's time. Every 50 posts, we leave the childlike world of illusion and visit the land of brutal truth. We turn our backs on the calming lie of complicit animals who are accessories to their own murders and face squarely an unending anti-animal sentiment. (Our most most recent visit was, as always, sobering.)

Whiskered Dog BBQ: For the crime of being born animals, the chicken and pig have been imprisoned, saddled with balls-and-chains, and then allowed to escape. And all of this, the whole sordid circus—the corrupt courts, the vicious penal system—exists only so that they can be chased down by a dog police officer on a motorcycle and a cleaver-happy little girl. Are we alone in wondering (again, again, and again!) why the animals have to be brutalized, tormented, and ridiculed prior to being slaughtered and butchered? Justice deferred is justice denied! Or, you know, injustice deferred is still injustice.

(Would you believe that two previous festivals of cruelty—this one and this one—also feature images of canine predators on motorized vehicles hunting down pigs and chickens? They might, in fact, have been created by the same artist.)


Jake Culpeeper's Cattle Company: Is Jake Culpeeper hiding his eyes, unable to confront his own cruelty?

No, we believe he is merely wiping away a single tear of mirth.

"Jump, cow! Lookit 'er go!"





Piping Hot: She must not only die. She must die a lingering death. She must die from a broken spirit, as much as from the severe burns, asphyxiation, or whatever trauma actually kills her in their enormous death chamber. The fans they have supplied are clearly intended as mocking imitations of mercy. Dying of thirst? Take this thimble topped to the brim with warm seawater. Dying of exposure to the freezing elements? Have a watchband. Starving to death? Here's a photo of a single kernel of corn. Likewise, the cow slowly dying within a makeshift torture apparatus.



Louie's Chicken Shack: Down at Louie's, they got a lumberjack/Quebecois fur trader who delights in hacking off the chickens' heads out back. They don't even have to pay him. He just shows up, sharpens the axe, and gets to it. When he's ankle-deep in heads, he wipes down the blade and goes home. It's a sweet deal for everyone.







Freestate Smokers: Free state, huh? They sure do have a sense of humor out in Maryland. It's not so free for the "food" animals. Sure, they're free to burst out of the smokers. They're free to be wracked with fear and anxiety. But mostly they're free to shut up and die.

Dinner Fabulous

We have no idea what's going on.

We've got the vestige of a pig, done up like a delicious slice of cowboy, in a mustache and hat, with coiled lariat dangling from his… hand… area.

We've got the whole thing labeled fabulous, an adjective not traditionally associated with rugged outdoorsy types.

We haven't been this confused since the strange case of Mort the He-Cow.

Or is that the whole point? As in this sign, ripe with similarly conflicting stereotypes of traditional sexuality, the pork's sheer, stubborn absurdity is an attempt to overwhelm our sense of reason and order.

Pork? Equally at home singing along to a Broadway show and roaming the rolling prairie? Wearing a campy mustache? Brandishing a lasso? Enjoying the masculine solitude of life on the ranch? Proclaiming his fitness for your consumption?

Must… resist.

Must… retain… sanity.

Woody's Bodacious Barbecue

The most bodacious thing about this scene is how family is front and center. The cow, the pig, and the chicken—it's the whole family of "food" animals, the Brotherhood of the Edible!

And here, the whole gang has assembled for their own last supper. The spot they've chosen is right off a postcard, with the palm tree, the old prop plane pulling the banner encouraging passerby (passersunder?) to eat dead animals, and the mustachioed chef (Woody?) serving them all.

The cow offers a toast ("To death!), they all eat well, and then they're all well eaten. Good food, good friends, good-bye.

The perfect end to a perfect day life.

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.

The Art of Ribs

The pig has agreed to pose for the impassioned artist because he is eager to see his true, inner self brought forth and captured for eternity. Like all sensitive souls, the pig is moved by the drive to experience the wonder, the sheer generative power of art.

So when the accomplished artist—you can gauge his skill by his beret, effete mustache, sandals, and the patch on his trousers—asked the pig to pose for him? Well, who could refuse?

And the result is everything the pig imagined! Just seeing his truest essence revealed is a natural poet's dream. And get a load of that truest essence! When the artist looks deep within the pig's trusting eyes, he sees… a big slab of bones and flesh cooking on the grill.

No subtle dance of emotion and thought. No questions gathered and scattered to the stars. No search for meaning. Just… a big thing of meat. Which, after all, is everything the pig hoped to see.








Addendum (1/02/11): More art-loving pigs.

I'm a Hog for Que, Baby!

This ponytailed freak of nature represents the first sincere, full-blown hippie animal we've profiled! Bring on the marching bands, for we are making history!

(We've seen animal hippies before, sure, but none this genuine. This one, for instance, was the suicidefoodist equivalent of an undercover narc at a peace rally.)

This fellow is a (temporarily) living and breathing mass of discontinuities. Now, on top of the standard well-adjusted animals happy about the prospect of their imminent destruction, we can add the discrepancy of an ostensibly vegetarian creature (hippies are "all" vegetarians, right?) eagerly cooking—and hogging—meat. And just look at him! He's grinning and peace-signing like there's no tomorrow. (Which for him there might not be.)

It's true, though: The Grateful Dead's "Steal Your Face" symbol has never made more sense!

Hi-i-Que

Albert Einstein, the world's favorite astrophysicist-cum-pitchman, is now called upon to sell pork.

This is only the latest example of the meat-movers' Pretense of Professionalism. To wit, human Albert Einstein plumbed the mysteries of the cosmos, seeing within them a mathematical elegance. If he had something to tell, it would have behooved us to listen. When his pig doppelgänger gets up there in front of the blackboard, hadn't we ought to listen as well?

Of course we should! The aura of the merely human Einstein reflects upon Pig Albert Einstein, conferring upon him authority and integrity. Which is, naturally, expressed by that arcane equation P=BB^Q, which we assume—with lunch starting to rise on us—can only mean Pig (or Pork) = Barbecue. And if we are startled to find a pig in a sweater vest equating himself with a foodstuff, we must remember: this is no ordinary pig. This pig is the preeminent physics theoretician of his generation. (May we please ignore the fact that Pig Albert Einstein is working in a hackneyed bit of sexual double entendre? It's out of character, and we're already having trouble with lunch.) If he says it, it is true. Q.E.D.







Addendum: Another example of the Pretense of Professionalism can be found here.

Addendum 2: Pig Albert Einstein is depicted as a left-hander, and Human Albert Einstein does in fact appear on many lists of famous left-handed people. But when then of this picture?! We ask you!

Festival of Cruelty 12

We apologize, but it's time once again. Time to hold our noses and plunge into suicidefoodism's more honest sister city. (Do you remember the last time we visited?) It's not pretty. There are no convenient, comforting lies to hide behind. No illusions of consent. No coy, winking livestock. Here, all is coercion and force. Before we're done, you might remember suicidefoodism's deceptions with fondness.

Denny's Chicken Warning: Superbowl XLIV. The violence. The aggression. The intimidation. And that's just the commercials! (Thank you.) In this high-spirited Denny's spot, a burly, egg-loving chicken hater puts the birds on notice. He's coming for their eggs, and he hopes to terrorize them with the news. The rest is unrestrained hilarity as the chickens panic, the tears of mirth roll on, and a "good" time is had by "all."

(Thanks to Dr. KCinDC for the referral.)



Au Pied de Cochon: From Paris, City of Lights, land of sophistication and good taste, comes this ode to brutality. Three red-nosed fiends in chef's hats and aprons terrorize a pig, preparing to hack off his foot, riding him, staring at his mouth while, um, fingering a mysterious object of uncertain culinary importance. While all roads lead to this elegant establishment, bringing the hordes of refined diners, the pig and others like him are wrestled to the ground and slaughtered, on and on, jour et nuit.

(Thanks to Dr. Dan for the improved picture of this one.)


Meat Monster: The act of butchery has become so difficult, so gosh-darned tedious, that the barbekooks have devised an automatic, self-guiding killing mechanism. Just program your coordinates, and this thing will rush a panicked animal to your doorstep, ready to be hacked in half by steel jaws. Our machines are truly extensions of our will! The future is now!




The Taylor Corn & Que: The pig roasts alive while the bully steer lords it over him, a casual god of war, one blood-red tomato held aloft.





El Puerco Lloron: The weeping pig weeps for his life, for the lives of his family and friends, all the pigs who lived before him—briefly—only to be killed, cooked, and eaten. No weeping can undo his fate. His tears are only a seasoning for his carcass.

(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for the referral.)








Duck in a Can: More gracious cuisine, this time in the form of a duck, body still stuck inside a tin can, fleeing his good-natured, amateur butcher. We know the man is a hobbyist, rather than a professional duck-killer, by his clothing. No white coat to denote his objective distance. The man is possessed by a demon of bloodshed. His tongue flaps from his mouth as he tears after the duck. He might even eat that thing raw.