Pig on the Pond

There once was a pig. There was a pond, too, but we're interested in the pig.

The pig had a dream. Unless you're three weeks old, you already know what the pig's dream was. The pig's dream was to get eaten. If he could bob around on an inner tube for a while beforehand, that would be gravy. 

So, the pig did what any pig with a purpose would do: He dedicated himself to the quest for culinary knowledge, enrolled in a pig-fattening class, and got himself fitted for a pair of swim fins.

All the pieces were falling into place. As he drifted off to sleep every night, he warmed himself with thoughts of his future, a future that offered itself to him like a big old plate of pig meat all dripping with, you know, "juice."

And after all that work… nothing happened. The pig floated from one end of the pond to the other, and no one so much as stabbed him with a fork.

Now, the average pig would have been so discouraged he might have given up completely on the idea of being killed and eaten in a superfluous festival of carnivory. But this pig was no average sacrifice. 

He didn't quit. 

No, he redoubled his efforts.

He got himself an advanced degree in Dying Studies and tried again. 

He'd give them something to shoot for. (And, hell, maybe even something to shoot at. He wasn't going to rule out anything!)

Slathering himself with BBQ 30 (ha ha?), he mounted his inner tube and took to the pond once more. Who could resist such an educated pig? He had achieved the pinnacle of academic excellence! He had finally become somebody. Just in time to become nobody.

(Coincidentally—we can only assume—the 2011 Pigs on the Pond event was designed to raise money for schools.)

Colby's Pig Roast Catering Inc

After years of clambering after the cutting edge, this pig has finally found it.

The little round sunglasses, bought in a spasm of self-consciousness, didn't do it.

The supposedly slimming black tee didn't do it.

The striving and struggling, showing up early and leaving late, didn't do it.

The tirelessly positive attitude didn't it.

No, all it took was deliberately lowering himself into the flames, there to be crisped and cooked. In other words, he became his truest self when he finally surrendered the very idea of his own identity. That's when he finally mattered. When he finally became cool.

Byrd'z Bar-B-Q

Can we all agree, once and for all, that the attitude on display here is not what is usually intended when the phrase "with an attitude" is deployed?

Yes, the leather jacketed chicken affects an air of carefree cool. Yes, there are sunglasses involved. And yes, the letter Z has long been recognized as an orthographic signifier of rebellion.

But where is this would-be disrupter? The bird is in the fire, making not the slightest effort to escape! He positions himself just so, to ensure even cooking!

Attitude? While we agree that it demands no small degree of toughness to hold one's ground even as the flames cook one's flesh, it's a toughness in service of maintaining the status quo. No matter the cost.

Guerrila Q

Even though we've seen this kind of "food"-animal-as-radical-smasher-of-the-system before, we still don't get it.

Look at El Jefe here. The Castro-esque cigar, the Che-esque beret, the revolutionary's bandoleer made of pig ribs… It's sad, really.

Sad that he thinks he's, you know, accomplishing something. Standing up for a principle. Fighting an oppressive regime. Instead of what he's actually doing: Joining the struggle to be eaten. In the streets, we suppose.

It's not exactly the stirring stuff of romantic myth-making.

Addendum: And here's the (even less logical) kinder, gentler version of the barbecue-themed freedom fighter.

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.

Virginia Pork Festival

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This pig of uncertain psychological, emotional, and physical make-up is a study in contrasts. Or, well, the same darn contrast we've seen so many, many times before.

Namely, the piquant contrast between living and dying.

On the one hand, he or she grabs life by the scruff of the neck and yanks. The hoisting of beers! The wearing of sunglasses! The carrying of sandwiches! The striking of awkward, unnameable poses! She or he is a one-pig celebration of life's undeniable charms, of the overflowing bounty of life's promise to us all. Live, pig, live! Drink every drop! Bask in every second! Wallow in every moment life offers you!

And yet.

And yet he or she indulges in a too-familiar search for death. For while dancing on the (invisible) table, the pig prepares to die. The pig seduces oblivion. Can you make out the tattoo on her or his arm? MOM inked above a ham?

Ponder that one some night when you can't stop thinking about the poor decisions you've made in your life.

Bacon is the New Black

Naturally, this T-shirt design is associated with an earnest, high-end butcher.

The studied attitude of cool, the nod to fashion—these mark the modern, artisanal dismantler of carcasses no less than they mark today's pig.

And just when a gluttonous nation's obsessive and forced-smile-hilarious dedication to bacon was becoming tiresome, the enterprise is rescued by a pig who's given up on living.

The pig knows it temporarily houses this generation's It Meat, and he capitalizes on it. But remember, pig: You don't own bacon; you borrow it from your butcher.

Pigs with Banjos

It's the newest thing in not rocking the boat! The perfect accessory for the pig striving to maintain the status quo. Exactly what any ambitious lickspittle needs to send those nagging thoughts of independence into the darkness of forgetfulness. The banjo is just what the doctor ordered for pigs to while away those tedious afternoons spent on, you know, being alive.








You just, like, give the strings a little pluck and—plink!—the desire to live another day floats off into the gentle breeze.


Plink! There goes that ol' dignity.













Plink! And self-respect.














Plink-a-plink-a-plink! And that troubling sanity. With that, the pigs have finally achieved their most exalted state: meat.


















Addendum: Ready for a chicken with a banjo? There's this feller from a few years back!

Greater Youngstown Wing Fest

Now this is new. When it comes to animals flinging themselves under the axe, pigs are typically tops.

Well, step aside, pigs. There's a new player in town. And, hey: it's nothing personal. It's just, you know, sometimes a chicken's got to have its wings chopped off and fried up and shoved down someone's throat. Just how it is.

Oh, don't worry about the pigs. They've been in this business a long time. They've seen 'em come and they've seen 'em go. When the smoke clears and the dust settles, they'll still be here, lining up to get killed and eaten just like nothing happened.

But for now, it's this disreputable chicken's turn, this juvenile delinquent with his dungarees and his shades and his exciting air of brash youthfulness. He doesn't take nothing from nobody. Except for the people who have dominated every aspect of his existence from fertilization onward and brought him into being as a commodity for the express purpose of serving their bottom lines and ingrained habits. So, yeah, except for them.

(Thanks to Dr. Liz for the referral.)

Festival of Cruelty 17

Every few months, we leave the safety of suicidefoodism's comfy lies—"the animals want us to do to them what we want to do to them" chief among them—and descend into the dungeons of the truth. Finding there nothing soft, nothing easy, we hold out as long as we can before climbing into the light of lies above. (Our last visit into the darkness.)

Burnside BBQ: Burn the side, burn the front, burn the back. Burn it all. In for a penny, in for a pound. The worst part: The pig's got a napkin tied under his chin. When they said they'd be pleased to have him for dinner, he thought they meant something else.








El Pampero: Who says "food" animals are mistreated, forced to live without adequate space, mental stimulation, or medical attention? Jab! Take that! Jab! And that!

We know that El Pampero means "the one from the pampas," the great, grassy plains of Argentina. But we can't help wanting to translate it as "The Pamperer." That's how we imagine the hypo-wielding pig describing himself, with supervillainish sarcasm.



Law Dawg BBQ: More abuse of canine power. It's an unlikely trope: the uniformed dog or wolf—a law enforcement officer or a pilot or a chef—rousting the local pig populace. In this case, a good ol' boy sheriff ushers a pig into the paddy wagon for a bit of extrajudicial barbecuing.







SS BBQ Team: Although the aproned executioner adheres to a system designed to remove the stink of patronage and caprice, still the deck is, shall we say, stacked. It's a sure thing: someone's going to die. The concession the chef makes is a small one. After all, he doesn't really much care who's next. He knows he'll get around to killing and grilling each of them in turn.








Stu Pit: So much for the respect the barbecuing community professes for the animals their food used to be.

See you next time! (There's going to be a next time?!)

South Park Rib & Wing Challenge

Again the idols are cast down. Knocked from their pedestals, they are dashed to the floor, ensmithereened. First the pirates were emasculated. Then the bikers. In turn, the cowboys, the boxers, the superheroes, and still other he-man archetypes were fettered and enfeebled.

So it is with a mild sense of disgust—yes, we still have a supply of disgust, even if we ration it with more care than in the past—that we take in these (ahem) rockers. When such stalwart symbols of reckless hedonism and bull-headed individuality can be so thoroughly tamed, we are all diminished. Even the power of freedom—the very possibility of defiance—is tenuous.

There they are, crooning into a microphone-bone, bashing out power chords on a meatar (not the first we've seen, mind you: check out addenda 7 and 9 here), and just generally uncooling up the place.

Instead of singing for their supper, they and the other rockers we've presented over the years sing to become supper. Instead of a thorn in The Man's side, rock 'n' roll becomes The Man's servant. Instead of issuing a challenge to the status quo, howling with the pain of the oppressed, the hungry, the stifled, the shut-down, the fed-up, the bored, and the ignored, they bow at the waist.

Ogeechee Meat Market

BACKSTAGE RIDER

COW must be provided with the following:

1 pair sunglasses (Sunset Boulevard style);

1 cowbell-type bell, copper or bronze (no tin), collar to be made of leather, preferably from carcass of COW's children or other family members;

Furthermore:

All meat market employees will address COW as "Hey, You" or "Beef Face";

In the event that live transport is required, any and all trucks must be filthy and unventilated;

In keeping with COW's status as a beloved celebrity, only high quality knives, cleavers, chains, and buckets may be used in the slaughter and dismemberment of COW. (Equipment need not be cleaned prior to use.)

COW appreciates your cooperation.

Pies 'n Thighs

Sure, it's no Packard's (or even a Thee Pitt's), but there's a certain depraved charm on offer in this Pies 'n Thighs menu. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

You've got your tough-guy chicken endorsing the fried chicken box. You've got your fishy skipper pleased about the catfish box. You've got your lazy, degenerate pig nonchalant about the pulled pork box. So even with the conspicuous absence of a cow to point out the brisket box, this is still an impressive range of fauna and temperament.

Animals of the sea, land, and sky (kind of) have gathered to heave a single, unified, unenthusiastic sigh. Together they shrug. Just because the menu features their kinds (and maybe even their own flesh) is no reason to get bent out of shape. Or express much in the way of emotion. Just show up, pose, get eaten. That's all this bunch can handle.