Reef n' Beef

We have not spent time with the imposter meme for quite a while. We find this example every bit as insidious as anything the suicidefoodists have concocted.

In order to meet an arbitrary standard—unAustralian food need not apply—the animals deny their very identities.

Don't you see? The animals will settle for nothing less than death. If they cannot achieve it through honest means—the pleading, the demanding, the brazen flesh-peddling we've seen so many times we have nothing left to vomit—they will achieve it through fraudulent means. What choice have they been given by Reef n' Beef? (Yes, they really do want the apostrophe there.)

Masquerading as the newest "It" animal of the gastronome's changing tastes, the pig hopes for the best. Perhaps his consumers will be so meat-drunk they won't notice the crude stitching, the ill-fitting tail.

And what must this pig be thinking? So long the despised darling of the professional carnivore class, to find himself forced to impersonate a crocodile? A beast whose meat is typically disdained, whose skin alone is ordinarily deemed worthy of exploitation?! The Earth wobbles on its axis.






















Cows as kangaroos, chickens as emus.

Whatever it takes, people. Whatever it takes.

(Thanks to Dr. Elaine for the referral.)

The Doctor of BBQ

We admit it: we can almost begin to have a glimmer of a hint of understanding when it comes to the sexy sow motif so familiar to students of suicidefoodism. (Her, for instance.) That is to say, we understand that sexual imagery exerts a powerful pull. But this is beyond us.

We have searched, fruitlessly, for any trace of appeal. This image appears to contain no enticement whatsoever.

What are we promised? After all, every advertisement makes a promise, usually a cynical one. What does the cruel doctor promise? What secret fantasy, hidden even to our own hearts, does he promise to unlock?

The fantasy of a callous, sneering surgeon flicking ashes into our gaping chest cavities? An emergency room visit made nightmarish through blatant disregard?

When we need help, a reassuring word, the strength provided by a kind glance, what does the Doctor give us instead? Pig ribs and a bad attitude.

And wait a minute! Presumably, he's a doctor for pigs, yes? So just whose ribs is he rushing to the table? The botched appendectomy in 204?

And when he runs out of patients whose care he can similarly "mismanage"? He'll hook up the IV to himself to supply the finest rack of ribs yet.







Addendum: Remember Dr. Chuckie, the Doctor of BBQ's predecessor?

Cranky Joe's

Any normal, life-loving pig in this position would be cranky. Born to die, fated to be dominated. Who wouldn't be cranky? Or, well, demoralized, maybe, or infuriated, depending on the animal's position on the introverted/extroverted continuum. In any event, crankiness hardly seems out of line.

But remember where you are. You are not in a rational land, a land founded on sound propositions and their logical conclusions. No.

You have stumbled into a world of corruption, a world where even axioms are held up to doubt and ridicule. Where the very concept of truth has been hounded to the borderlands.

Cranky Joe is cranky not because of injustice. Rather, it is because no one is properly saucing him. Untended, he is required to sauce himself. He must see to the details of his death and grilling, and that is what's got him in a bad mood: They're not cooking him right.







Addendum: Are you, like us, reminded of the Bad Boyz Barbecue pig, peeved because his would-be executioner's aim was poor?

Addendum 2: The other day's installment of purported comic strip Crock is likewise relevant. The chicken is upset due to laundry-related matters, not the prospect of being boiled to death.

BBQ Pirates

We thought we had already seen every hypermacho stock character emasculated by the forces of suicidefoodism.

The cowboy, the biker, the rocker, the superhero, the boxer, the cop. Each of these has had its turn in the sickly limelight of animal oppression. Each has glady and freely worn the mantle of the surrenderer. Each of them has attempted to chip away at the temple of self-respect, the fundamental truth that all living things crave life.

So imagine our surprise when we discovered another manly character type debased and defanged: the pirate!

In our legends, the pirate is a paragon of masculinity: fierce, bound to a (crooked) code of honor, living in a world without women. Nothing soft—beyond the love of well-wrought shiny things—finds a place in the pirate lifestyle.

In the legends of the suicidefoodists, however, pirates are patsies. They neither struggle physically against a system that would enslave them, nor repudiate it within the bubble of rhetoric. No! They participate. They roll over. Where are the swaggering antiheroes of yesteryear?

They are hobbled and sissified. They even eat meat with a spoon!

Topps Off BBQ

Do we even have to try? The suicidefoodists dish it up for us ready-to-eat. How little analysis is required, sometimes, to see the truth beneath the surface!

The horrible details we catalogued:

The pipes venting steamy pressure in sympathetic arousal and release. The pavement littered with bottle caps and empties, indicating slovenly debauchery. The bikini top draped over the grill. The burlesque of foaming beer bottles positioned to cover bare breasts. The high heels. The knock-kneed pose of the "innocent" sex bomb.

From what we can gather, the idea is that patronizing Topps Off BBQ will result in the consumption of great amounts of alcohol and the sexual conquest of a pig who may or may not be involved in the pornography industry.

All of which compels us to ask: Is barbecued meat so distasteful, even to its advocates, that they need to tart it up? In whose mind do barbecue and sexy pigs go together? In whose mind can the concept of "sexy pig" even find purchase?






Addendum: The extra P is for prurient!

Mennella's Poultry Co.

To whom can the chickens and turkeys turn when a vicious world means to do them in? To whom can they turn for redress? To whom can they turn for protection and the restoration of their stolen honor? Who will be their advocate? Their voice? Their staff and support?

Who will help imperiled poultry?

Not this joker, that's for sure.

Whatever it is he's up to, it ain't helping the feathered underclass. He is working the wrong side of the street! It's like Batman sharing a condo with the Riddler. Cozy, yes, but counterproductive when it comes to tackling crime.

When the call comes in and the chicken signal lights up the skies as a beacon, SC (Super Chicken?) strips off his skin and feathers (feeling woozy here) and leaps into the refrigerated chicken truck! Then, arriving at the scene of danger, he pushes his people into the flames and jumps in after them.

What did the chickens do to deserve such a crummy hero?

(Thanks to Dr. Mack-the-Spork for the referral.)







Addendum: This is the second poultrified superzero we've profiled. There was also El Pollo Supremo!

Addendum 2 (12/07/08): Another chicken peeling his skin off. Rather, the same chicken peeling his skin off.

Prince George Family Barbecue

Call us cultural elitists—you wouldn't be the first—but we believe these pigs are backward.

No, we mean they are backward.

At least the boar in blue is. (Either that, or he is giving the principle of artistic perspective a real run for its money.) He is wearing his vest so that it buttons up the back. You might say—you wouldn't be the first—that we are viewing his front. "No tail!" you proclaim haughtily. While we cannot explain the pig's taillessness, nevertheless we maintain that he dances with his back to us. Look at his head/neck region. Look at the fat folds there! Look at the folds at the tops of his legs. All of his fat folds mirror the sow's and no one would deny that she is turned away, her back to the "camera."

What does it matter? Since when do we concern ourselves with the costuming of the suicidal animals we analyze? (To be fair, we have commented on such things in the past, but forget that.) We'll tell you:

This matters because we take it as a sign of the boar's determination to dance for his your supper. In his haste to get up there and shake it, to show off his tender, ample proportions, he couldn't even dress himself properly.

This pig—these pigs! These pigs dance not out of the joy of self-expression. They dance to die.

Suicide Toys: a digression

Father: Happy birthday, Mikey!

Mikey: Oh boy! What is it?

Father: (laughs) Well, unwrap it and see!





Mikey: Is it a puppy?

Father: Unwrap it!

The child unwraps the package.










Mikey: Oh. A truck.

Father: Yeah, but it’s a livestock truck! I know how much you like animals.

Mikey: What’s a livestock truck?

Father: It’s a truck that takes animals to the processing plant.

Mikey: What’s processing?

Father: You know. Processing. But first, the truck takes the animals on a long, long ride. Remember when we went to California last year?

Mikey: Yeah.

Father: Same thing! Only the animals don’t get any food or water and the whole thing is horrible and lots of animals die on their way.

Mikey: (starts to cry) Why don’t they get food?

Father: That would be a waste! The animals will be killed before they could even digest it. What would the point of that be?

Mikey: They get killed? (sobbing)

Father: Sure! But they like it!

Mikey: (unintelligible speech)

Father: Now you can pretend to drive the cows and pigs and chickens to their death!

Mikey: (loud crying)

Mother: What the hell are you doing? How did you get in?

Father: I'm just giving Big Mike his birthday present.

Mother: I thought my lawyer explained this to you.

Father: Come on, Helen. It’s his birthday!

Mikey: Daddy wants me to kill chickens!

Father: I don’t want you to kill— I just want him to pretend to kill them! The animals want you to kill them!

Mother: Janet was right! You’re sick!

Mikey: (crying)

Father: Don’t you get it? The animals want to be killed! Besides, it’s good for Mikey’s imagination!

Mother: What the hell are you talking about?

Father: Imagining what it would sound like back there. The screams of fear. And my god! The smell!

Mother: Get out or I’m calling the police!

Father: I’m going, I’m going. Happy birthday, champ!

Mikey: (sobbing, unintelligible speech)

Mother: Get out!

Father: Remember, I’ll see you this weekend, champ!

Mikey: (crying)


(Image sources, top row: HobbyTron, GO Antiques; second row: GO Antiques, Truck Hobby; third row: Mega Hobby, unknown.)

Swine-O-Mite BBQ Team

It's down to the wire: what will kill this poor, crazy pig? Will it be his patented Explosion Hat®, or the hardworking men and women at the local slaughterhouse? (At this moment, the odds are explosion: 65%; slaughterhouse: 33%; stray bullet: 2%.)

Whatever happens, his remains will end up on the insatiable grill, and that's the name of the pig's game. He's not motivated by thoughts of cheating his butchers. For him, it's just about dying and winding up in someone's stomach. How he gets there is more a matter of concern for the touts and punters. Let the gamblers worry about the cause of death. The pig's got a final journey to prepare for.

And look at that crazy, tongue-wagging expression. Do you think the Swine-O-Mite pig cares how he meets his maker? No way! Not him!

(Now the newest odds are explosion: 70%; slaughterhouse: 28%; stray bullet: 2%.)

As long as he gets to die, and can soothe himself with the belief that he can thank his maker for the opportunity to experience an exquisite death—for so noble a cause as the thoroughly redundant exploits of yet another barbecue team—the pig has no complaints.







Addendum (9/09/08): As Dr. Schnauzer points out (see comments), the pig is an obvious homage to Kid Dyn-o-Mite himself, Jimmie Walker. Even as we apologize for missing this, we ask, "Jimmie Walker? Is he an actual cultural touchstone? Does his image scream 'barbecue team'?"

Klement's Racing Sausages

See, it's like the Colosseum:

Slaves, captured enemies, hapless desperadoes—all the refuse from society's unswept corners—they caper and are destroyed for our amusement.

From the far reaches of the globe they are brought. From the hinterlands and newly conquered territories they are hauled. (Pictured here, from left to right: The Hot Dog, The Polish Sausage, The Italian Sausage, The Bratwurst. Not shown: El Chorizo.)

Once here, they are made to run for us. To compete. To battle in the supposedly idealized realm of athleticism. So it was with the gladiators of old.

And how we cheer! (Well, maybe not we, but someone cheers.) Just knowing that this ambulatory foodstuff will run itself ragged for our dubious benefit, and then fling itself onto the fire—winner and loser alike!—adds another layer of festivity to the already-cloying atmosphere.

The artificial rivalry diverts them, prevents them from turning to us, we who applaud their lives spent in death's shadow. Their rage fanned and stoked, they create their own chains.

This is the big-time for these wieners. This is the nearest they will ever get to freedom. This too-brief sprint is the closest they will get to flight. We validate them for only as long as it takes them to round the bases. And then we allow them their crippled imitation of freedom for only as long as it takes to wolf them down. (Again, not we we, but, you know.)

Run, you sausages! You franks! You variously constituted, extruded meat objects! Dance!

Don Juan Rotisserie Chicken

Though best known as a seducer and a dueler, a libertine and a rake, Don Juan had a later career (apparently) as a professional victim. The cape, the hat, the rapier: here, but props. Empty, and mocking for their emptiness.

And see what the Don Juan Rotisserie Chicken company has done!

They have transformed a legendary figure ruled by his passions—for women, for conquest, for sheer bloody-minded selfishness—into a chicken.

A chicken ruled by the one grand anti-passion: the feverish desire to die. In his case, to be impaled and cooked, slowly unfurling the mortal coil and enfolding himself in a shroud of his own crisp skin.

(Are we meant to read into the logo—with its searing orange backdrop—the cautionary tale of Don Juan's encounter with the graveyard statue? The statue who came to life, grabbed Don Juan, and took him to Hell? Don Juan the chicken is extending his hand, all but begging to be dragged into his own Hell!)

When the most alive among us, the outrageous, the bold, the proud, the dangerous, are reduced to inert examples of self-denial, what hope have we got? When the example of a life apart, a life freed from the constraints of society, of propriety, of lawfulness, even of sense itself, is turned on its head, do we laugh? Weep? Or stumble numbly into a world we no longer recognize?

Or do we chuck it all and eat some dead birds?

(Painting: Max Slevogt, 1912.)

Manny's BBQ & Catering

This is some good old-fashioned animal hating! Manny's really gets 'em coming and going!

Pigwaiter's mortification begins with submitting to waiting on us. He affects an air of snobbery—that snout in the air!—but he is ever our domestic flunky. He still uses the service entrance and responds with haste to every snapping customer. "Boy? Oh, boy! More chablis!"

Of course, Pigwaiter's debasement doesn't end there. If only!

No, he serves the ribs of his kin. The ribs are fresh from the ovens and he carries the platter aloft to the tables and the salivating diners like the ring-bearer holding high his blessed pillow.

File this under "Adding Insult to Injury." Bad enough that they force Pigwaiter to serve his eventual consumers, but to compel him to bring them pig ribs!

Then again, could so proud a beast as Pigwaiter allow himself to be exploited that way? Perish the thought! He is here of his own volition. For reasons no sane observer can fathom, he loves putting on the ol' cummerbund, punching in, and dishing up Grandma.

Pigwaiter, you're one for the books.