Suicide Horses: a digression

It's been a long while since our last sports-related digression, and we're not sure what took us so long. Because this tradition has been around long enough to have merited attention before now. The event is the World Famous Suicide Race, a cherished part of the annual Omak (Washington) Stampede, wherein riders and horses race down a 62-degree slope and into Okanogan River, swim about 100 yards, and then charge up a 500-yard incline.

Why is this colorful equestrian pageant called that, you may wonder. The spectacle has been around since the mid 30s, and from 1984 to the present, at least 20 horses have died from injuries sustained during the race.

What slots this right alongside our usual niche is that word, suicide. See, the horses choose this dangerous sport and make it their own. They volunteer for it. Their human partners honor the horses' wishes, helping to make their dreams come true.

So when they crash down Suicide Hill and tumble into the water… Well, after all, this is what they wanted.

(Image source: IDA USA.)

Slumpbuster BBQ

This only looks like it's about baseball.

The pig isn't hoping to get off the bench or boost his batting average or up his slugging percentage.

Don't let the bat, cap, and jersey fool you. The slump he's talking about has nothing to do with baseball.

Ever since his sow-and-teat days, this pig's been an also-ran. No challenges gracefully faced and bested, no successes racked up in the ledger of his life. But it's all about to change. When he is transformed into ribs, chops, and the rest, everything will be different.

You see, the slump is his life, and the barbecue's about to bust it. Wide open. This is the big league. Pig's waited for years, hoping for this break.

2nd Annual Holy Smoke BBQ

More nautical fun from Maryland!

Look at this scene of gleeful mayhem—all in the name of the 2nd Annual Holy Smoke BBQ of Easton, Maryland—and see how many adjectives come to mind.

If you're like us, awesome, cool, extreme, and crazy rise to the surface right away.

But keep looking. Concentrate. Ponder the mysteries of the universe, the inexplicable unfolding of things. Breathe. Wait.

Has it dawned on you? The most natural way to describe soon-to-be-barbecued animals enjoying the most enlightening thrills? The word that best describes these boating beasts soaking up the rays as though their lives weren't about to end in a spectacularly awful way?

The word, friends, is holy.

PBC Fried Chicken Run

No head? No problem!

It'll take a lot more than headlessness to keep the chickens from participating in this thing, whatever it is. Hey, as long as the event is dedicated to the proposition that chickens are nothing but objects, they'll be there, dead, headless, and fried.

These are hardy birds and they're used to putting up with the worst the animal-eating industry can dish out.

So step out of their way and see how a real athlete gets the job done!

(Thanks to Dr. Robert for the referral.)

Spammy Fortified Turkey Spread

If there's anything less appetizing than a spreadable turkey paste, it's Spammy, the turkey destined to be enpasted, reminding us of his richness and nutritional value.

Glory be! Spammy Fortified Turkey Spread gives us both in one product!

The good-hearted Spammy, he of undeniable rico y nutritivo siempre qualities, was brought into being by the Hormel corporation to fight hunger in Guatemala. As such, he was born of the finest intentions. It's his motives we question. Is he driven to relieve hunger or merely to get himself eaten? Six of one, half dozen of the other, we suppose. Because either way, he winds up in someone's stomach. For Spammy, it's a classic case of doing good while doing well.

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral.)

Hard Ball Farms

We're going to be honest. What really draws us in here is the stunning, totally unironic aptness of this place's name. Yes, there's the whole pig-with-the-cheap-crown angle. But after all this time, another pig seduced by the false promise of a better life—a life of clout and authority—hardly has the power to move us.

We've seen the Nahunta dupe, the Pork Palace pawn, "King" Richard, the Pink King, and the Brooklyn Boob. And that's just the pigs! So forgive us our lack of enthusiasm.

But the name. Hard Ball Farms. Could the pigs hope for a clearer signal that the good life is over for them? The name conveys the idea that they will now be treated with no tenderness or consideration. As though now they'll learn the true meaning of ruthless.

No matter. The pig doesn't mind. The pig never does.







Addendum: And don't forget the Festival on the "Noose" River. Perfect!

BBQ Fight Club

The animals, they love to fight. They are not the placid nibblers and grazers you have been encouraged to believe. No, these animals have claws. By which we mean, of course, formidable fighting skills.

We've seen all manner of kicking chickens. We've seen boxing ruminants and the battling barbecued.

This is merely the movement's latest tawdry development. A cow, a chicken, and a pig get pumped, don the gi, and put up their dukes, respectively. And all to accomplish what, exactly? Not to combat the power of barbecue to overwhelm them. They've lent their names to sauces created to coat their cooking flesh! No, no. They fight for… Well, not honor. (Is there any honor among lunatics?) You're looking at it wrong. They fight not on their own behalf. They fight for those who would kill, cook, and eat them.

He who makes the most auspicious sacrifice wins. Or... something?

Chickens Who Kick

You know, it's not only pigs who enjoy a hearty helping of imitation, mimicry, and lack of imagination. Some chickens are into that also, which they will now demonstrate:

























































(From left to right, by row: The Kickin' Chicken, Ken's Kickin' Chicken, some other Kickin Chicken; Eagles Pizza Kickin' Chicken, unidentified Kickin' Chicken, Ted's Famous Kickin Chicken (an image we first profiled in a different context); another bird of Ted's, BBQ Fight Club's Kickin' Chicken White Sauce, Coyote Jack's; unidentified kickin' chicken grocery store sign, yet another unidentified kickin' chicken image, Kickin' Fried Chicken.)

The chickens, why do they kick?

The cynics among us—and there could hardly be a less hospitable place for them than here!—would say their propensity for kicking comes principally from the rhyme of chicken and kickin'. Such simple-minded grouchitude.

No! They kick because they are so stuffed with happiness that they can't help it! All that positive energy must come out! It leaks, it trickles, it bursts out! And they kick! With wild, cheerful abandon they kick. It is the chickens' way of telling us, "I am alive! But not for long!"

We could learn a lot from the chickens.

Special Report: Barbecue Battling 2

Continuing a grand tradition of spectacle and misdirected anger, the barbecue battlers battle on. We first became aware of the phenomenon—barbecue battling proper—about two and a half years ago, and we have made a point of checking in periodically ever since. The last time we wrote about it was less than six months ago.











Yes, they've still got scores to settle, these myopic "food" animals. They don't challenge the system that declares them fit only for consumption. Like corrupt regimes the world over, the Barbecue-Industrial Complex pits them against one another, and they take the bait. Seeing in their fellows the cause for their own lowly position, they battle. They wrestle! They brawl! Always against a shadow.










What power they could harness! If they could but see their true enemy, how they could change the world! The empires they could topple!

But no. They make enemies of their brothers. And during the skirmishes of this endless civil war, the barbecuers scoot ringside to take in the circus.

The barbecue battle map we have updated since July, 2008, is now hopelessly parochial, the movement having spread to cover the nation, the continent—a land drowned in feeble rage.

13th Annual Art of BBQ

Looming over Tulsa's Oneok Field, home of the Tulsa Drillers—AA minor league team of the Colorado Rockies organization—Hornsby the blue bull fills the sky like a god of wrath!

His rage is the thunder, his bloodlust the lightning! He will smite all those who have stood against him, swatting them with his iron… spatula…

No, hang on.

Just a sec.

Okay, no, he's not actually smiting anyone. He's just welcoming them to the 13th annual Art of BBQ festival. Which he doesn't seem to have much of a problem with. Even though a number of cows will surely be eaten. And even though he himself might wind up on the menu.

Like other so-called Submissive Dominants (such as this one and this one), Hornsby is only too happy to help the puny humans any way he can.

His is a benevolent dominion. Self-sacrificing to the utmost.

Skewering Training Center

Who will be the best skewered food item? Will it be the bell pepper for the third year in a row, or will the upstart onion make its mark?

What's this? Two new competitors have entered the Skewering Training Center*, and they mean business.

The chicken and pig have fire in their eyes and steel in their hearts, and—if all goes well—they'll soon have a giant skewer running through their abdomens.

They're obviously quite pleased with their performance, and well they should be. Never have animals been impaled on a skewer so skillfully, their internal organs so neatly perforated, their peritoneums so thoroughly punctured.

Vegetables can't hope to compete with thinking, feeling, pain-suffering creatures. How could inanimate objects throw themselves onto sharp rods with anything like this kind of style?

Look at them smiling, arms upraised in triumph. You can do it, chicken and pig! We believe in you! Years from now, when people think of the joy of being well and truly stabbed clean through, they'll think of you!

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






*This is actually what this was (actually) called.