Speedy's Barbecue Inc.

A lot has changed since we served in the military.* We didn't have GIs out of uniform, rollerskating through the mess, delivering their buddies (and sweet tea) on a tray. It's a whole different ball game now.

We don't know whether the pig waiter skated in from the National Guard armory a scant 2.5 miles from Speedy's, but we cannot discount the possibility that, in addition to being out of uniform, he is AWOL.

But never mind that. What's got us so concerned isn't the flouting of rules and regs. It's the upending of the military's code of honor. Where's the esprit de corps that forms the backbone of any fighting unit? This dogface has turned his back on his fellows, serving them up like so much cannon fodder.

But maybe there's more going on under that garrison cap—a plan to incur his own punishment, perhaps? Is that why he works against morale so diligently?

*This statement is a rhetorical flourish only.

Chicken Noodle Café

The hot broth treatment appears to be getting to this poor chicken.

He is sitting in a bowl of self soup, the culinary equivalent of strangling yourself with your own intestines.

And look at his posture. Clearly, he's in the throes of the later stages of avian dementia. One wing propping up his head. Feet languidly drooping over the "tub." He's having the time of his "life," as his organs congeal and he simmers to perfection.

Then there's his "Eat my noodles" demand. Although we hate to point it out, that's not a noodle he's eating. (Does the chicken believe he comes equipped with noodles?) No, he's temptingly dangling some errant scrap of flesh. His gizzard, maybe. We understand chickens consider them quite the delicacy.

(Thanks to Dr. Jones for the referral.)

The Redneck PitKrew

The latest in industrious pigs.

We're familiar with the pigs who grind themselves, the pigs who debone themselves, and the pigs who bring the barbecue to your door.

But this crew krew! They'll repair your rig when it breaks down or runs out of fuel. It's like a comdemned man cheerfully restringing the gallows!

These fellers take pride in their work, that's for sure. Hurry, boys. Time's a-wastin'!

If the old girl isn't up and cooking in the next 30 seconds, she'll never take the cup. And if she doesn't, the pigs don't get their reward: death, dismemberment, and their moment in the Winner's Circle. Also known as the stomachs of the nearest racing fans.

Agricon 2009

The right jolly driver is surrounded by his right jolly mates. (That's mates in the British sense.) And they have every reason to be jolly.

Why, they have a road, a means of hauling and being hauled, and they have Agricon, "the only conference dedicated to those working within the Agricultural, Foods, Tipping, Milk and Livestock sectors of today’s road transport industry."

Naturally, the ebullient sow has pride of place (she gets the passenger seat instead of steerage), but all of the animals are, you know, haulage. Cargo. Goods. Stuff. Just this side of inanimate. Don't let the smiles fool you—these things are barely alive.

And that's what they're smiling about!

You see, in a strict, class-based society like England's, there's a certain comfort in knowing one's place. It offers some a security denied them by too much potential. The Road Haulage Association provides the livestock all the lack-of-potential they could ever wish for.

Kid Stew

Children rely on us for so much. Perhaps the most important thing we can give them is an example. A model of how to go through life with a healthy sense of themselves. With this foundation, they can fend off those who would harm their minds, their hearts, their bodies.

It innoculates them from so many of life's pernicious dangers.

This goat child—appearing on a website of Baytril, the pharmaceutical world's foremost animal-carers-about—seems not to have had a suitable model. Consequently, his view of himself and his worth is warped beyond all sense.

That's why he is looking to you for approval. He will do whatever it takes to get it.

He will bring you wine. He will offer up one perfect rose. He will serenade you. He will get the mortar and pestle and pound the oregano and garlic. He will assemble all the other ingredients. He will die.

(Yes, we've featured animals from the Baytril website before.)

Habeas Porkus

And thus the appetite for pork products is elevated to a Constitutional right.

The judge, though he be a pig, is happy to propound a novel legal concept. Happy, did we say? He is filled with more than the pleasure of playing his role in the law's grand drama.

(He's small up there, but can you make out the details? The black robe, the gavel, the white wig long emblematic of jurisprudence in the Commonwealth?)

His Honor is practically giggling as he hands down his ruling, a ruling that amounts to a death sentence for the pigs. Why isn't he troubled at the blatant miscarriage of justice? The pigs who are sentenced are not even party to the proceedings. And yet they bear the sorest burden.

Our principal objection: the judge should have recused himself. His overweening drive to die has rendered him unfit to hear the case impartially.

It is here that we wonder why they didn't go with the name Habeas Corpse. Wouldn't that pun have been more to the point?

My Side of the Mountain Barbeque

We've seen what happens when "food" animals are forced to fight for the privilege of dying.

Thrilling, yes, but demoralizing. Don't they know they'll all have a chance to go under the knives?

That's why it's so heartening to see a couple of scrappy pigs put aside their differences and focus on what brings them together: their desire to be killed and grilled!

Whole chickens, ribs, all manner of pork products: who cares! By declaring a truce, they remind us all of what we can accomplish when we unite under a single flag! On behalf of the children, we thank you.

The Barbecue Battle Belt, slightly adjusted to account for the Louisa, Virginia, My Side of the Mountain Barbeque.

Slovacek's Sausage

This is up there with the most blatant misdirection in the annals of suicidefoodism. Sausages-to-be (known by decent folk as pigs) are driven to acts of affectionate nuzzling over the prospect of being transformed into food. It is as though the central fact of pig life—supplanting family bonds and even the satisfaction of the simplest desires—is their incipient sausageness.

We are also treated to one of this sick philosophy's basest axioms: animals are indistinguishable from the food products exuberant processors will turn them into. Who but the dedicated suicidefoodist would illustrate the concept of sausage with illustrations of living, loving pigs?

Finally, do you have the feeling that you have seen these affectionate pigs somewhere else? You're not imagining things. Slovacek's pigsausages are based on an almost iconic image.

The last time we encountered it was on the cover of Jonathan Balcombe's Pleasurable Kingdom—a book examining the inner lives of animals. (Yes, the image was flipped horizontally somewhere along the line.)

If this coincidence doesn't leave you stupefied, you're not paying attention.

Rubbed Smoked & Sauced

Rubbed, Smoked, and Sauced control the entire barbecue trade in The City. (And notice how they employ convenient props to supply us with memory aids: Rubbed has a tommy gun for rubbing out rival gangs, Smoked is puffing away on a stogie, and Sauced is drunk again.) Nothing moves without their say-so. They've got the whole place locked up tight. And so, with the market for fresh victims cornered, they make sure only their people get a chance to sizzle.

That's right: Like any Submissive Dominants worth their salt, these wise guys use their power and connections not to ensure their own safety, but to ensure their deaths at the hands of the competitive barbecuers.

This makes sense, of course, only in Suicidefood City, a crumbling and corrupt burg where status derives from victimhood. It's not what you know, or even who you know. It's all about how you die. Old age? That's for chumps. Any sap can graze his way into the afterlife. For the connected "food" animal—the made entrée—the only noble way to go is covered in sauce, with a spit rammed up your keister.

Suicide Trapping: a digression

We apologize for the size of this image.

Can you make out the words? "HELPING LITTLE TRAPPERS BECOME A BIG SUCCESS." And T4K? That stands for "traps 4 kids." Traps. For kids. To trap animals. Dead. Their goal: "To preserve the trapping heritage and help our youngsters and yours to get off on the right start and out into the great outdoors."

Now do you understand why the raccoon is smiling and waving?

Not only does he get to succumb to the trap and part with his bothersome pelt, but he gets to do it all for the children. What an example the animals set for us!

Though he be dead and skinless, his passage from the conflicted world of the living is greased by a good deed. For does he not contribute his one small, murdered portion toward the great enterprise of heritage preservation? What is preserving his own life compared to that? Don't we all long to contribute to something greater than ourselves?

It brings peace to a humble raccoon. After it brings him death, of course.

Ranger Chicken

Our chicken cowboy has everything he needs to play the part.

Chaps? Check.

Hat? Check.

Boots? Check.

Flannel? Check.

Jeans? Check.

Bowlegged stance? Check.

Vest? Check.

Big belt buckle? Check.

Lasso skills? And how!

An upright spirit of rugged virtue? Well… That's where the whole thing sort of falls apart.

Far from an independent icon of the West, Ranger Chicken is bought and paid for, every bit as owned as any branded Aberdeen Angus. We're not sure what it is he does to earn a living—a chicken herding cattle?—but we do know where his story winds up: the frying pan.

Squeal Bar-B-Q

"Squeal"? Who's squealing? "Snooze," maybe. "Grunt contentedly," sure. "Squeal" implies fright, but this pig is the very picture of relaxation.

You're familiar with the Happy Food phenomenon? That is the doozy where people believe a bunch of public relations nonsense about free-ranging, no-cage livestock. People feel better about selling and buying meat. Everyone wins. Well, all the two-legged, opposably thumbed animals win, at least.

Anyway, back to Snoozy. He is the ultimate Happy Food. Napping the day away in his deluxe Hammock Master 9000, he is happily dreaming even as the flames lick his sensitive skin. Ah, but that's all a part of it. The fires are stoked. The customers are lining up. All is right with the world. Snoozy will be dead inside five minutes, and he knows it.

He'll go up in smoke, a pioneer of a brand-new, hammock-centric barbecue technique. It's a revolution in pig-cooking, and he's in the center of the action! Is it any wonder he's so happy?

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

Kids Catch a Smile Day

This fish is on a mission:

To give all children, even the physically challenged, the opportunity to snag his face with a hook and drag him from the waters that have nurtured him his whole life, into the stifling air, twitching and writhing, his gills unable to breathe the mocking oxygen that surrounds him.

And sure, when put that way, his mission seems almost… odd.

But look at him! When these kids catch a smile, they're really catching a smile! That hook is piercing the fish's actual smile!

He loves this stuff. It's his chance—finally!—to give back. People have been so good to him all these years. Leaving him in peace. Not, you know, killing him. He owes them.

And so he's only too happy to clamp down on the hook and give the kids the thrill of a lifetime!

Pull hard, kids. He'll be thrashing around a bit.