Unidentified Restaurant in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia

Starting close to a year ago, we amused ourselves by pointing out the ugliest suicide food logos we could find. (We started here, then topped ourselves with this example, and then this one, and finally this one, not two months ago.) Our sport is at an end.

For we have found something that is not merely the ugliest yet. No, it is the ugliest possible.

Yes, Edi-Bull is a bull the color of chicken skin. Yes, his lips—and his nostrils—are heavily made up. Yes, he is pulling a steak from the side of his head. Yes, his poignant scrotum is the size of a coconut. Yes, his wig does appear to be made of blue fiberglass. Yes, his painted-on shirt does boast a diamond-and-oranges pattern. Yes, that flower behind his ear is a come-on. (Yes, he is winking.) Yes, his belt is made of dripping paint (even though, yes, he is wearing no pants). Yes, he is hoisting a funnel of booze and balancing a bottle on his knee.

In the face of all the lesser violations against taste, we wondered how appetite could be stoked amid such brute ugliness. And now we can only throw up our hands and admit defeat. Somehow, we will never understand how, the animals' drive to die is matched only by their customers' drive to eat them. Thus is their symbiosis sanctified.

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

La Scottona

Like architecture, dance, literature, and music, suicide food can be a great tool of the ethnographer.

Today's lesson brings us to the Italian countryside, to a charming village called Mede. Imagine good, simple folk living in much the same way as their fathers and their fathers' fathers.

There is a legend among the Mede folk: A farmer had a cow who—out of sheer willfulness, one supposes—would give no milk. Naturally, the farmer did what any of us would in such straits. He broiled his entire cow. (Put yourself in his shoes. Such insubordination cannot go unpunished.)

This delightful scenario is reenacted every year in the countryside around Mede, and the lucky cow is rechristened La Scottona, which means "She who scalds." That is to say, "The disappointing one."

Cultural anthropology has one central moral for us, which it reveals over and over again: strip away our different languages, our different modes of dress, our religions, and we are all… people. Not so very different from one other, all outward signs to the contrary.

And so we dare not be surprised to see that, even in the sun-kissed fields of Mede, suicidefoodism thrives! Look at La Scottona! She is thrilled to play her part, to fan the flames of her own pyre with great gusts of air from her prodigious bovine snout.

Understand that this cow, this disappointer, didn't even commit the sin of selfishness. She is a surrogate for that first Scottona, selected to play a role in Mede's yearly pageant. And even so! Even so, she is proud to die. Not to be punished, but merely to die for the sins of a legend.

(Thanks to Dr. Roberta for the referral, the images, and the history lesson.)

La Pera Brothers Live Poultry

Why so angry, Executioner Chicken? The way you're clamped down on that cigar, every muscle straining, practically leaping at every passerby… Well, it can't be good for a bird.

When it comes to "food" animals desperate to hasten their departure from the world of light and love, pigs come most readily to mind. (With representatives like these famous self-grinders, it's no wonder.) Pigs have practically cornered the market on that kind of crazed, but helpful, ambition.

But there he stands, our chicken, beak leering around cigar stub, axe in hand. He is daring you to take him up on his offer. He has the axe right there—he sleeps with it! Let's do this thing.

Yes, he does appear to be a distinctly peculiar emblem for a purveyor of "live" poultry, but you forget. These birds are alive only up until their time of death, a time chosen by you, the discriminating consumer. And so the axe is the perfect symbol, for it represents that exquisite moment when being becomes matter. That is to say, product.

Executioner Chicken's rage? You're keeping his destiny waiting!

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

Rodolfo Langostino

We here at the Center for the Analysis of Suicide Food have been stricken with the fever that is sweeping the region. So it is possible that our perceptions and judgments are off.

Does this image actually show a Casanova in shrimp-form? Surely it's only our febrile delirium playing tricks on our eyes. Because… a leering shrimp filled with lustful thoughts of dead crustaceans… Even the purveyors of suicide food couldn't conjure up something so bizarre.

If they did, we would have to question the mental stability of Rodolfo Langostino (as the spokeshrimp is called). What sort of self-loathing is necessary to let a shrimp conclude that his company is fit only for the corpses of his kinsmen? Whether necrophilia or a shocking lack of confidence, this fellow's got real problems.

His own death will no doubt be a blessing.

(Thanks to Dr. Mar for the referral.)






Addendum: The package uses the word ultracongelado in boasting about the product. Yes, our Spanish is rusty, but doesn't that term mean "ultracongealed"? Don't they want people to buy this stuff?

Jack the Ribber

Thank you, Jack the Ribber, for giving us this opportunity to return to one of our favorite topics: undead food.

Undead suicide food is former animals in whom the drive to die was so insistent, so much a part of their identities, it survived even death. Thus, we see suicidal hot dogs, suicidal chops, suicidal hamburgers, and now suicidal ribs. It was… well, not natural exactly, but let's say inevitable.

Jack is seething not merely with flavor, but also with an obsessive hatred for himself, the living, everything! Look at that face—the eyebrows drawn down in rage, the tongue sticking out. Even his cute cowboy hat looks mad! And as he balefully regards those who would finally love him, warding them off with a paintbrush loaded with blood, he can't help but chant his woefully inappropriate slogan: Bone Lickin' Good!

That Jack should identify with a murderer of note and not, say, a famous suicide (Sylvia Plath, for instance), is testament to his general mental breakdown. But have sympathy. He is dead, after all.

(Thanks to Dr. Squeakyrat for the photo.)

Jimmy's Grocery

The gentleman/cow says, "MOO MOO," but he imagines a world of wonders made more wonderful through his slaughter and sacrifice!

Behold the bounty he knows will come from his death: meat (sure), hot dogs (naturally), grapes (um...), apples (yeah, whatever).

He's living in a dream world, but what a dream!

With the butchering of one dapper animal, a cornucopia is made available, released from its accidental origins as the body of an inconveniently live animal.

We conjecture that this… thing is on his way to his own funeral. This accounts for his clothes (or, well, what passes for a full suit of clothes: collar, necktie, and lapels) and that unrestrained smile. He means to meet his destiny with a spring in his step and a song in his heart. Until that, too, winds up in the grinder.

(Image courtesy of interestingideas.com.)

El Conejo Fresa

Bugs Bunny has something to show you.

No, it's not his ribcage. It's his shocking mental illness.

Thrilled to die, to be slaughtered, butchered, and eaten, he can still sell even in his current state. But, you forget: this is the state (i.e., dead and skinless, livid organs laid bare) he was born to assume.

For in the world of the suicidefoodist, all life is merely prelude to the main event—death and dismemberment. In that reeking world, Cadaverrabbit is a god. A gristly god holding up as sacred the indomitable urge to be killed.

And so, there he stands, offering himself up again and again, ceaselessly, to a parade of jaded consumers. He wonders, will showing off a little more skeleton make that one extra sale? Will that shot of his bloody peritoneal cavity add a few bucks to his bottom line?

Who are we kidding? Cadaverrabbit doesn't care about such things! This isn't about commerce. It's about being dead and flayed and loving it!

(Thanks to Dr. Adria for the image.)










Addendum: Refresh your memory about other beloved characters from childhood who are hot for suicide!

Reed's Seafood #3

Our bitter fish serves as a reminder that suicidal animals are a varied bunch. Not all are driven by depression’s ragged demons, nor led by stupidity’s deranged deputies. Some, like this fish, are motivated by a force more powerful than misery, greed, fear, or even ignorance. For them, vengeance is the goal. The hunger for it is power. It can make a troubled main dish betray his kind, and perform even grosser misdeeds.

It is left to us only to imagine what scheme the fish has concocted. Clearly, it involves the deaths of many of his finned fellows. That goes without saying. But we believe there is more.

After dispatching his kin in pot after pot of fish-based horror, the chef has one last entrée in mind. His masterpiece, if you will. Having committed such depredations, such desperate carnage, the chef finally feels worthy of the ultimate. At last, he can offer himself to the cruel pleasures of "self-sacrifice."

Remember: Revenge is a dish best served piping hot, with a hint of tarragon.

Chicken Holiday

Now here’s a harmless fellow! A little peculiar, maybe. Simple, even. A happy-go-lucky oddball, you might say.

Hardly!

Look beneath the festive headgear. Look beyond the ridiculous eyes. Look within the package. This mother is hard-core.

When some citizen of Meatville needs a break, a night’s respite from the demands of the kitchen and filling her family’s bellies—in short, when she needs a holiday and picks up the phone to have a dead chicken delivered to her door—the bird throws a got-damn party! Your holiday is his holiday!

This is a chicken who takes his suicidal mania seriously. He celebrates when his number’s up, so eager is he to break free of the tender tethers binding him to his own life. This is one serious (and seriously messed up) chicken.






Addendum: Another suicidal animal in a party hat. (Source.)

Agura Bokujo Farm and Online Beef

In Japan, land of technological marvels, anything is possible. Miniaturization, automation, vicious game shows, and now the first major innovation in dead cow purchasing in years!

Gone are the days when consumers had to leave their homes in search of cow parts. To market, to market, you unlucky men and women, there to wait in line with your unwashed brothers. Navigating those carts, fumbling for wallets, gathering up change, all the while having your meat selections—the very privatest of private matters—scrutinized by shopkeeper, butcher, and cashier alike.

But no more!

For now, thanks to the Agura Bokujo Farm, beef can be purchased online. If that’s all there were, the parades would be short indeed.

Here’s where we come in: The cows, natural proponents of the old system (to be fair, it was the only system they knew of that could insure their reliable processing, purchase, and consumption), have given the enterprise their blessing.

And, really, why wouldn’t they? Buying cow meat on the computer can only increase demand and efficiency. Which is every cow’s treasured hope. The graphic to the right is an Agura Bokujo illustration of their total calf-to-product-you-can-buy-online system!

And to drive the point home with the meat-buying public, AB has prepared a charming (and accurate!) video.

Set to a delightfully off-beat a cappella jingle, the commercial shows us all the true meaning of suicidal cows learning about online beef purchasing.

First, we see two cows peering into a house. "Where is everyone?" they wonder. "Why are we not—as is normal—encountering droves of people offering money to buy our flesh?"

Next, the two cows (now clearly seen to be mother and child), stroll aimlessly through a park. Who will solve this dreadful mystery? Will they never be butchered and bought? In the park, they meet a man in a bowler. The man reads a newspaper: "Agura's Japanese Black Hair Cattle Beef. You can buy it online, too." Glorious truth! Do you see? All is well! Well? Better than that! All is divinely modern!

Our last shot finds our cows in their living room, trying this newfangled thing out for themselves! Yes—they are eagerly ordering beef (their own beef?) online. See the cute cow "hand" pointer icon? Precious!

(Thanks to Dr. Sandra for the referral and background information.)

Festival of Cruelty 5

Every so often, we feel the urge to leave the snug confines of the Center for the Analysis of Suicide Food and enter the wider world of the animal haters. It is there, in the realm of those with no need to salve their consciences, that we find the real sick stuff. We return with a head full of unease and discomfiting reports. (Catch up by reviewing these previous installments of the Festival of Cruelty: 1, 2, 3, 4.) And now, number 5.

Turkey Testicle Festival: It's not only bulls who experience excruciating pain when castrated without anesthesia! Turkeys hate it, too!

Just take a look at this tom, his hands clutching his bereft crotch, his face contorted in agony, his head erupting with tears the size of jellyfish. They are the physical manifestations of his anguish, thoughtfully supplied by the illustrator to remind us how hilarious the situation is.

The website of this Byron, Illinois, institution is replete with the usual testicle-related puns we've come to expect from testicle festival organizers.

It all adds up to a contemptible good time!






East Texas Smoker Company: A pig emerges from his hellish, smoke-filled barbecue for one final breath of sweet life.

He gasps. He wonders at God's hatred for him. He spits out the Apple of Death so that he might offer a final word, to imprint upon the wind some trace, some echo of his existence. And then, after lingering in a twilight of misery, he dies.

Remember, it is not enough that he should die for us. He must suffer for us, too. For only in that way do we feel our own superiority. Our lives grow as his is diminished.

We don't understand it either, but that's how it works. Apparently.




Bulladelah: What better advertisement for a meat purveyor than a giant window painting of an enormous steer rendered impotent in the face of his imminent death?

This New South Wales establishment pulls out all the stops with their depiction of a throat-slitter wielding a knife of Crocodile Dundee proportions.

The steer, pinned to the ground by the standard two-point confinement system, can do nothing but look on in mute resignation. But the man! Though his arms and legs work their magic against nearly 600 years of perspective in art, Sleeveless Joe is pumped full of purpose. His aim is all too clear: to stick that critter (or whatever they call critters in Australia) and bleed him dry.

And, yes, that's what this god-forsaken deli wants on their window.





The Great International Chicken Wing Society: This might not be the first amputee chicken we've featured, but it is the most heartless.

That they let her survive, wingless, to live out her days in the shadow of their sin against her…

Oh, the disgust in her eye!

A maimed bird, an accusing glance, a life destroyed.

Who thought this logo was a good idea?


Bunsen Burners Bar-B-Que: Science in service of animal cruelty, as it should be!

The scientist, freed from the tyranny of discovery and invention, is at last permitted to use his equipment—his flasks, his tubes, his flame—for the One True Good!

And now he can see the animal inside the gigantic glass bulb, as it squirms and writhes, seethes and panics. Which, naturally, really works up the old appetite!

(Thanks to Dr. Christine for the Bulladelah image and referral.)