Tops BBQ

This pig's not fooling anybody.

With his ill-fitting top hat and too-casual demeanor, clearly he is not to the manner born. If he were wearing actual clothes, we can only assume they would hang off him. He's like a piglet pretending at a boar's business.

But he's doing his best to lend an air of authority to his benefactors. Or, you know, malefactors, as we really should refer to his employers.

Which all just leads us to wonder what's going through the pig's head. Dressing as a gentleman in an effort to drum up business for the people who have pledged themselves to your grisly undoing—that's a poor decision. And why should this even work? We would hate to indulge in any stereotyping, but are opera lovers likely to be drawn in by the rustic barbecuery on which the pig is so cheerfully leaning?









Addendum: This high-toned fellow, though every bit as suicidal, does a better job of conveying prestige.














Addendum 2 (6/21/09): Another blue-blooded pig.















Addendum 3 (10/7/09): The Spicewine Ironworks BBQ Smokers gentlepig enjoys a glass of pink wine before the main event.












Addendum 4 (5/09/10): Another fine top-hatted hog showing off his breeding. In deference to his grisly destination, he is not white or black tie, but bloodred tie. He's also sporting a monocle, universal indication of high social standing. But where are the spats?!

Buttman & Rubbin' BBQ Team

In the dark heart of Suicidefoodopolis, anti-animal crime is rampant. Cowpunch is the kingpin of the Bowery, The Chicken Kicker rules the Strip, and the Pig Sticker Gang menaces most of downtown. The City needs a hero. Maybe more than one.

No such luck.

All they get are these two superzeroes, bent on elbowing their way to the front of the killing line.

They're only the latest submissive dominants we've profiled. (You remember that concept, surely. Powerful figures who render themselves impotent?) This so-called dynamic duo doesn't lift a finger to protect the citizenry they swore to champion. Instead, they merely watch the skies for the signal that tells them the grills are ready.

Hava NaGrilla Kosher Barbecue Contest

Here we see the mechanism that allows faith to flourish. Through their belief, the faithful trust in their place in the universe's unfolding.

This leads inevitably to peace. Or, no, not peace. Wait.

Insanity. It leads to insanity.

Because, while this looks like a Jewish wedding—with the chairs hoisted high, and the chickens dancing the hora, and everything—it's not. No, far from the joyous commemoration of a sacred rite, this is the celebration of a barbecue. One in which the celebrants will be destroyed and eaten. Like we said: insanity. (How else to explain those smiles?)

But, oh, those poor, absent pigs. We can only imagine their despondency as they contemplate meaningless existence. Shunned and reviled, forced to face an unfeeling cosmos that cares not one whit about their flavor, they lead barren lives that revolve around not their confinement and unnecessary death, but instead their freedom and tranquility. Buck up, pigs. You've still got life's minor indignities and inconveniences to look forward to.

But for the cows and chickens whose flesh we are here to exalt, mazel tov!

And, please, may we take a moment? In our years of doing this, we have seen many, many terrible puns. Not just artless, overreaching puns, but puns that threatened to suck our humanity away. And now—Hava NaGrilla?—we have seen one more.







Addendum: This is only our second instance of suicidefoodist Judaica. Here is the first.

White Castle's Flashdance

Once again, America's meat-merchants dredge the swamp of humanity's darkest desires and create something unforgettable.

Believe us: we tried to unsee this. But it will not go away.













To sell pork sandwiches, the freethinkers at White Castle have turned to that oldest of ideas: Man's sexual hunger for pigs. And that led them, in turn, to that not-quite-oldest of quasi-striptease movies, 1983's Flashdance.














Misogyny, animal-hatred, and mental illness combine to glorious libido-killing, appetite-deadening effect.

Whereas Jennifer Beals pulled the chain and sexy water drenched her sexily, the pig pulls the chain and sticky barbecue sauce spatters all over the place awfully. In what any rational person would regard as thoroughly, practically mathematically, medically unsexy, the pig is trying to appeal to our passions by strutting into the flames. It's suicide as flirtation.

(Thanks to Dr. Amber for the referral.)

Best Buckin BBQ Cook-Off

The pig's wish has finally come true.

Clothed in the garb of the humans he has so long admired, he feels whole at last. Like the humans with their boots, jeans, giant belt buckles, Western-style shirts, and bandannas, he can whoop it up, waving his hat rodeo-style. Like the humans, he can subjugate another animal. (Let's see a regular old pig do that!) Like a human, he can exult while his inferiors grimace. Like a human, he can do whatever the hell he pleases.

Like Faust, however, the pig must pay a price.

In exchange for his freedom from having to treat other animals with respect, he must offer up something. You've already guessed what it is, yes?

It can be found down there at the bottom: BBQ Cook-Off.

The pig knows his time as a human will end shortly before the cook-off begins. He will be neither preparing nor sampling the food. No, he will be the food.

Improbably, the pig has concluded that the trade-off is worth it.








Addendum: In a similar vein, do you remember this pig-related fantasy camp?

Fröhliches Neujahr

Now this is how you ring in the new year! You load up one of the Campbell's Soup kids with a tray of champagne, jam a knife and fork in the pig's back, and start celebrating!

We won't begrudge anyone their New Year's bubbly, but we do question the propriety of the stuck pig. Stabbed, he trots gaily from the kitchen, his wounds nothing more than handy slots for the silverware.

The celebrants would, in spite of their inebriation, be horrified if not for the pig's sunny disposition. Seeing that terrible grin, they clink glasses and wait for the big moment.

The ball drops—5! 4! 3! 2! 1!—and, right on cue, the pig drops dead, a smile on his face. (Did you see him? He was the star of the show!) Out with the old, in with the new, and all that. Plenty more demented pigs where he came from.

Zagreb Butcher

It’s touching, really, the way the Croatian swine has put on his best outfit for his appearance at this Zagreb butcher shop.

In his smart, red bow-tie, he’s like the maître d’ welcoming you to your table on the killing floor.

And his eyes! Oh, his blue, beseeching eyes! How eager to please, his eyes, how eager to serve and be served!

Even suspended above the cremains of his fellows—his cured fellows shaped into multifariously knobbly tubes—he doesn’t lose his eagerness. His eyes plead with us for the opportunity to undergo the same transformation. From living thing to unrecognizable, insides-colored substance.

(Thanks to Dr. BJ for the referral and photos.)













Addendum: One detail that might have escaped your notice is the motif used for the tiny signs advertising specials and other delicious what-nots.

Now do you see them, circled to the left?

But of course! They too are pigs! So many opportunities to serve!

Festival of Cruelty 9

Unfortunately, the time has come, again, to visit the hated realm, the land not of suicide food, with all its mythologies and lore of misdirection, but murder food. We travel there periodically to toughen up for our usual slog. (Please have a look at the previous installment of this recurrent feature.)


Jerry's Food Emporium (Saskatoon): We've seen this theme before, the metaphorical made literal. It used to be one of our favorites because it's a source of such withering humor. The last time we saw "pulled pork" expressed literally, as a living pig yanked apart, the presentation was a good bit lighter. It lacked the magisterial viciousness present in Jerry's chalkboard rendering. Stretched taut, belly positioned in the flames, the pig screams, the pain welling from a place beyond tears. Agony, as we know, is the finest tenderizer. (Thanks to Dr. Meagan for the photo and referral.)





The Crazy Rednecks' BBQ: Now these are rednecks. Or, you know, crazed butchers. It's easy to deduce their plan: they will catch up with the pig, hack him apart with eatin' irons (silverware), douse him in barbecue sauce, and dig in. No time for cooking!

Note: Crude though they be, they have nevertheless mastered the very un-redneck use of the apostrophe and the plural possessive! Of course, capitalization still gives them fits.









Warning: This exists.













Road Kill BBQ Sauce: It's funny because the raccoon got hit and run over by a car! And someone's going to eat it! And it's either still alive, face contorted in anguish, or it's dead and the look on its face is its deathmask. Either way, good times.

Reflect for a moment on the mind that finds in animals squashed flat by cars a source of hilarity. Or better yet, don't.







Who Are Those Guys? Competition Cooking Team: From the looks of this image, answering the question is a snap. Who are those guys? A bunch of creeps trying to scare a pig and a chicken to death.

Prominavite

He's full of pep!

He is livid with robust good health!

His demonic eyes burn with the passion of the condemned!

He bursts into your crippled reality, a burnished idol, luminous nose ring chiming like a bell!

His muscles ripple, heralding the arrival of a spirit of terrible vengeance!

His fists are as the sacred mountains that guard the portal to the afterlife!

His horns hector the infidel!

Except… no. He's actually just some steer hoping to stay healthy enough to make a good showing at the stun gun station. Come on, man—your gung-ho attitude for this stuff is like a lifer thanking the warden for a color TV. Sure, it's better than black-and-white, but you're still locked up.






Addendum (10/14/09): He's still pro-death (here, he represents a meat product auction) and he's still… bursting through things, but he seems calmer. More subdued. The green works for him.

Lewisburg Rotary Club Goat Barbecue

We confess. We are perplexed. We are dealing with either 1) a brilliant piece of suicidefoodist propaganda, or 2) the stupidest goat ever.

In other words, either

1) The Lewisburg Rotary Club Goat Barbecue is a traditional event, wherein pigs in great profusion will be spitted and roasted. The goat, fearing that he will be excluded, arrays himself in pig drag. (Much like these chumps.) Do you see the lengths the animals—even goats!—will go to in order to sacrifice themselves to us? We are practically providing a service to them, granting the opportunity, as we do, to die.

Or,

2) The Lewisburg Rotary Club Goat Barbecue is indeed a goats-only affair and this one here thinks that by disguising himself as a pig, he'll escape the Agony of the Coals. If this is the case, the goat could stand to learn a thing or two about pigs. Any fool knows that pigs are just crazy about dying! They'll stop at nothing in their quest to be killed and grilled. Seriously, have you ever seen a pig making for a barbecue? They're like running backs tearing toward the end zone. And all that's without the barbecuers eagerly greasing the skids. No, if the goat wanted to escape attention from this crowd, he should have dressed up as a salad.






Addendum (9/12/10): This lobster is another pig masquerader. Is this a whole thing now?

(Thanks to Dr. David for the image and the referral.)