Suicidal Eggs: a digression

Eggs, like dairy, are on the periphery of our mandate. Not animals, they are nevertheless linked to animals (obviously) and created by the same agrindustrial complex as meat. So while we haven't spent a lot of time on eggs (or dairy products, for that matter), they are ever on the edges of our awareness.

While chicken eggs aren't alive, nor are the supermarket versions the preliving form of some autonomous individual, still, this is troubling. For eggs—no matter their provenance—represent life. Beginnings. Possibility. The finite, precious, and potent force within us all.

But here, they're just props for an advertisement for cooking spray. And what little regard they have for themselves! They exist solely to be consumed. Or destroyed. Either way, they don't care. Life is cheap for eggs. They'll kill themselves out of spite if you refuse to eat them the right way.

Can you make out what the ringleader is saying? Her words pack the sting, the gleeful hostility, of a ransom note:

Cook me in PAM® or my friends will throw themselves at your house!

Don't you see? Everything craves death. Actual animals do. Their trimmed flesh and extracted organs do. And now we learn that eggs do as well. Everything, including eggs, longs for the sweet oblivion of eternity.

It even fills their dreams.








(Thanks to Dr. Natassja for the PAM referral and photo, and to Dr. Zena for the "dreaming billboard" referral.)

Demon Pig BBQ Team

A shot across the bow from the forces of suicidefoodism. The message couldn't be simpler. Or more chilling.

We are on notice. The Movement's reach has extended across the natural world and has entered, by means we do not care to know, the realm of the supernatural.

This is a warning. We are on the verge of a New Age. An era when all animals—the actual and the figmentary, those made from flesh and those brought into being through the blending of elemental forces—will demand their turn on the spit.

Even demons, in whom greed and violence well up like magma, even demons want to die for us. The door has been opened. What had been held at bay, what had been relegated to nightmare and dark imagining, is now in our very midst. And do not forget! Do not forget what power broke the seal, what power can control the beasts of Hell. It is the power of suicidefoodism.

Still we battle.

Suicide Snacks: quickies 5

When the ranting and sermonizing start weighing us down, we turn to these bite-sized morsels of bemusement.

Enjoy. (And do visit our previous installment of Suicide Snacks.)

This party is strictly BYOA. (Bring Your Own Apple of Death.)






Octopus ice cream is merely the latest mystifying emission from Planet Suicidefood. We would have assumed any self-respecting octopus would be affronted at the very existence of such a product. Oh, now we see. Self-respecting.












Smoker's or Stinker's BBQ Pit? We can't help but see the wavering stink lines, and the (approximate) nose-holding "P-U" gesture.










The steer is dead. The elements have stripped away every scrap of flesh. The sun has bleached the skull clean. And still! Still the poor creature wants to participate in the institution dedicated to its destruction. See the steer snort! Death is not powerful enough—not hardly—to quell an animal's desire to be destroyed.

Porky's Last Stand

Boy, they don't make last stands they way they used to. Time was, a last stand meant an all-out sort of affair involving firearms, hunkering down behind battlements, and the grim calculus of death. Well, those days are long gone.

Nowadays a last stand is a cheery event for the whole family. You get dolled up, bake a pie, and pose for the picture-taking man.

What are they last-standing about, anyway? Are they afraid they'll be left out? That they'll never fulfill their dream of being ground up into "specialty" sausages?

That would certainly explain their enthusiasm. They might not be the soldiers you want with you when the enemy's infantry is closing in, but if you're fixing to get sausaged, you know who to call.

And who can blame them, really? It's like there's an entire neighborhood of pigs in every bite of this stuff! Truly a cause worth fighting for.

Saucy Butts BBQ

It has been a while—more than two years, in fact—since we last saw a pig exhibit such a florid case of psychiatric illness.

That his haunches be saucy is apparently of the gravest import to this pig. We detect the hallmarks of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the enthusiastic drenching. Do you get the feeling that this is not the first time he has gone through this ritual? Perhaps… not even the first time today?

We wonder: in the pig's mental ledger, does he come out ahead? Is it all worth it? Is there anything rational left inside his overthrown mind that can weigh the outcomes and arrive at a conclusion?

And may we observe how sad it is that the pig's knowledge of his own body is so poor. Yes, he is saucing his "butt," but pork butt refers not to the meat of a pig's rump, but of his shoulder. How strange, how wrong, that we—of all people!—should know this, while the pig does not.

What We've Been Missing 2: a digression

Do you remember our first "What We've Been Missing" digression? We do. In fact, we haven't been able to get the rancid taste out of our mouth. We are referring, of course, to the flavor of regret.

Oh! Had we but made other choices! Had we taken a different path through life's mysterious terrain, our palates would have been richly rewarded! Looking at culinary creations like these, we begin to understand the instructive "Yum, meat!" comments we receive so often here.

Please note: All "What We've Been Missing" entrées were prepared by actual (undisclosed) food establishments. With a straight face.


The Bristle 'n' Gristle Sandwich is a real mouth-waterer. Look! Some of it is trying to escape!











Is this a spread, or is this a spread? It's the perfect main dish for your next party of buzzards and other carrion-eaters! Just set the poor thing out, and let 'em pick and peck away.









The steak that doubles as a hankie. (Gesundheit.)










This only looks like flaccid, fermented cardboard on a bun. It's actually steamed or… boiled animal parts. On a bun.

The Barbecue/Golf Conspiracy

Golf-playing pigs are the shock troops in a war to cloud your mind.

Cowboys in hotdog form—paradoxical, bizarre, beyond comprehension—were only the first wave of combatants in the War on Rationality. Or, well, to be honest, they were only one wave. There have been a great many. The realm of mental integrity is all but overrun.














This is Black Ops activity here. Real "Hearts and Minds" stuff. Their soft target: your ability to retain your sanity.

Their primary weapon is the sheer nonsensical nature of blending the Harold Ramis comedy classic with suicidal animals. Remember the lovably tenacious gopher? Caddyshack should go down as a testament to a powerful life-force, not another excuse to exalt a cadre of carefree death-seekers!

And, yes, it is an eerie coincidence (or is it?) that we're seeing the suicidefoodistic exploitation of yet another 1980 comedy that starred Saturday Night Live cast members! We told you about the curious case of The Blues Brothers a few months ago. When can we expect to see barbecue based on the 1980 Gilda Radner and Harry Shearer vehicle Animalympics? Sounds like a natural.

Virginia BBQ Pirates

Not the first pig pirate—this was—but the fanciest. Captain Porkbeard is all done up in Pirate Chic, with the breeches, the coat, the hat, and the swashbucklingest belt buckle this side of Jamaica.

He might be an outlaw and a scoundrel, but he knows his place. And so he judges a pig's worth by its palatability, its usefulness to humans.

Remember, this is Suicidefoodland, where men are men and animals are… barely even objects. So the pirate, long a symbol of danger, dastardly deeds, and dark-hearted greed, is rendered a willing pawn. Yes! A pirate! He who bows before no one, who recognizes no law but his own, who epitomizes everything violent and free! This pirate is nothing more than a victim.

Thus is the power of suicidefoodism to bend everything—every vestige of wild nature, of power, of life—to its ghoulish interests.







Addendum: A kindred spirit?











Addendum 2 (12/05/10): And another?

Breaking News: Lobsters' Plans Thwarted

NPR has reported that one Anthony Jones has been sentenced to four years in prison for stealing 91 lobster tails from Bally's Atlantic City casino.

Morning Edition's Renee Montagne puts it all in perspective when she reminds us that the lobsters were "not so lucky, either; the twelve hundred seventy-five dollars' worth of seafood was destroyed."

And isn't that the real crime here?

All those weeks (months?) languishing in Bally's famed tanks, amassing their lucrative flesh, awaiting their lives' culmination! And then… And then it all comes to nothing! They go unbought and—far, far worse—uneaten by casino patrons.

Never have lobsters been so wronged!

Walt's Barbeque

Talk about friendly! Walt's just oozes with kindness.

The benevolent smile. The head cocked at a non-threatening angle. The "I'll be your pal forever" eyebrows.

But does Walt—if the pig indeed is Walt—really think we're buying it? This whole routine reminds us of our "favorite" headhunter joke:

Headhunter 1: I don't like your mother.
Headhunter 2: That's okay. Just eat around her.

(Pause for laughter and applause.)

Sure, Walt just loves pigs. When they're properly sauced and plated, that is.

(Pause for laughter and applause.)

Seriously, folks, look at the picture up there. The pig—one of Walt's beloved—has been reduced to a glistening slab of bones and flesh.

This is not the behavior the pigs were promised. They've been deceived. We all have.

Motor City Barbeque Co.

Detroit's not messing around. Detroit is real. Detroit is serious. Detroit has you right where it wants you. Detroit will fuck your shit up.

How tough is it?

In Detroit, the pigs dare you to eat them.

They barrel down Woodward in a cherry '57 Chevy, wearing their colors, their old lady calling all the chumps to chow. They're hauling the barbecue behind them. Giving you a head start. Giving you points.

You got what it takes? You want a piece of this? Detroit says, "Bring it."

By the end, you'll be gnawing on their bones. And the pigs? They're still smiling. You just got played.

You think you got Detroit beat? Like shit you do.

Williamsburg Salumeria

These happy inmates, their words obscured by thoughtful prison bars!

"I'm hot," says he.

Says she, "I'm sweet."

"Try us both," they say, adding, "We're a treat!!"

Never have victims been more willing. He is proud, she coy. The both of them so playful.

Representing a mom-and-pop salumeria in Brooklyn, Mr. and Mrs. Pig want only to please. To lure. To draw. To advertise.

To die.

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

Swinewerks

So seldom do we see the sacrificial beasts taking such an active interest in the means of their deliverance. Yes, of course, we know the animals who line up, chins raised, to await the ax. And, surely, we know the creatures who exhort their killers to put some muscle into it.

But these two are loyal employees down at the swinewerks. They are no mere objects. They are agents, full of their own intentions. Let the others march across the killing floor, visiting each station in turn. This pig and chicken have a job to do, and not merely a destiny to fulfill.

See the pride the pig takes in the sharpness of his fork.

See the concentration on the chicken's face as the cleaver's edge is honed.

A thing worth doing is a thing worth doing well.

And when their time comes—as it must, as certain as the heart's relentless beating—do you think our perfectionists will leave the task to someone else? Not on your life!

Richard's Meat Market

King Richard provides another example of fool-headed animals snookered by a cheap crown. (Remember this one? How about this one?)

It's like he thinks he's actually in charge. Does he not wonder at the ascension of an overall-wearing clodhopper to the throne? Does he not know whence the ingredients for the boudin come? (Boudin, by the way, is a sausageal product popular, among other places, in the Bayou.) Does he not notice that the population of his squalid kingdom dwindles? Does he not see the humans with the knives behind their backs?

He is a useful puppet. Nothing more. After he has united the "people" beneath a sausage-colored banner—boudin comes in blanc, noir, and rouge varieties—they will be sacrificed. And when they're gone, it will be his turn to be hoisted upon the machinery of state and brought down to his ultimate level.

But who knows? Maybe he has sensed history unfolding about him. Maybe he has decided that serving as a temporary figurehead is worth it.

(Thanks to Dr. skeletonkrewe for the photo.)








Addendum: We can't tell. Is this young pig happy to be turned into living sausage? Or on the verge of tearful panic? He is not a vassal of King Richard's, so far as we know—just a miserable subject of some nameless boudin-based tyrant.