Sauced Pigs Bar-B-Que

We love animals-as-food punning. Ask anyone. (Exhibit A, and Exhibit B.)

These two pigs are sauced, you see—drunk on the glory of their impending deaths. They're also sauced, as in slathered with flavor-enhancing goop.

Either way, we can see they're feeling no pain. (That part comes later.) Right now, it's all about camaraderie, happy wishes for an eventful future, and the profound satisfaction that comes from fulfilling one's dearest wishes. That they can experience their blossoming present and fructifying future together is icing on the cake. Or more like barbecue sauce on the hunk of pig meat.

Of course, the one on the right looks like he's had a touch too much camaraderie and reminiscing about the paltry pleasures of living.

Addendum: More sauce-related wordplay, this time courtesy of a decapitated pig head wreathed in a bandanna of fire.

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.)

Cohoctah Cook'n

It's the wistful side of suicide food. This pig's heart is about to burst. Look at his eyes. You can practically feel the pain in those big, heavy-lidded eyes. He wants so much. The yearning is written all over his face. His ears hang down, symbolic of his downcast soul. He suppresses a tear. When he's alone, those tears will flow. His sorrow will emerge, tentatively, so afraid is the pig of the mockery he has come to regard as his due.

To be put to work, managing the grill, while his dreams are elsewhere. Not far away, no, but elsewhere. 

Stuck behind the scenes, as it were, tending to the actors, he longs to be on the stage. It should be him crisping above the coals! It should be him sizzling, as his cooking flesh exudes its precious freight of fat! It should be him filling the skies with his smoke!

But they've got him standing behind a board (?), his "hands" alongside his, um, pointy fingernails—look, we're not clear on his anatomy at all—so he can watch. So he can eat his heart out.

But if he wants to be near, to have one foot in that glorious world of dead pigs, this is where he needs to be. Bitter as it is, this is the choice he must make. And always, in the shadowed cell of his mind, the thought resounds: Maybe one day....

Festival of Cruelty 18

It's time once more to enter the shadow world of suicidefoodism, the world where no one's constrained by decency. They don't have to pretend that animals are complicit in their own deaths. It's a world we visit every few months, though we've long forgotten why. (Read up on the custom by checking out Festival of Cruelty #17.)

Rural Route BBQ: As every crazed hillbilly with a knife to brandish and a chicken to choke knows, terror is the finest seasoning.

Pig Chaser BBQ Sauce: Continuing the theme, the Pigchaser menaces pigs throughout Illinois. He's just so villainous, the way he pursues his panic-stricken quarry, sandaled and full of wicked glee. The entrailpreneurs of the various Festivals of Cruelty are no shrinking violets, meekly coaxing the "food" animals onto the coals. No, they tend to drift more into bloodthirsty Harold territory. They are hunters (of penned livestock), and they ask no one for permission!

Virginia Smokis Porkis: It looks like an innocent depiction of Man's brutal dominance over gentle Nature, but you couldn't be more wrong.

See, in the official state seal (no, this isn't the official one), Virtus, the Roman goddess of virtue, is shown triumphant over Tyranny. The legend beneath the vanquished despot reads Sic Semper Tyrannis or "Thus always to tyrants." In the Smokis Porkis (or "Doesn't actually mean anything") version, the role of the tyrant is played by a dead pig. So, like, take that, pig? You, um, tyrant?

Smokin' Up a Storm: It's no longer enough, apparently, to kill and butcher them the old-fashioned way. To satisfy a jaded public, ever more diabolical means of dispatching the animals must be dreamt up. In this case, it's some kind of weather-controlling contraption that has sucked up the cow, pig, and chicken. Within its artificial funnel cloud, it subjects them to punishing speeds and stunning jolts of lightning.

WTF? Smoke -n- BBQ: It would hardly be a Festival of Cruelty without some dog or wolf making life miserable for a pig or two. It's practically a tradition! No, seriously. Take a look at recent Festivals and see what we mean.

Hog Time!

One crucifixion the hard way, coming up!

In this delightful art to be found at Portland's Hog Time! food cart, a peppy pig is willingly drawn into hell by a grasping area code.

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

Suicide Snacks: quickies 9

When the lengthy sermons are too much, we turn to our by-now-classic series of rapid-fire diatribules for relief. (Revisit the most recent installment, won't you?)

You tell 'em, duck! What, do those tofu-munching hippies think they're too good for your repulsive liver or something?




The swiggin' pig of Nashville, Tennessee doesn't do anything halfway. He lives life at full throttle, sometimes spending seven, eight hours a day down at the local tavern. And he dies full tilt, too.








A shrimp crossed with a Segway? It's the cuddliest version yet of half-animal/half-machine monstrosity.










Yes, yes, it's not about meat. It's a rare example of dairy-related business. Still, it's remarkable because it's like the cow's innermost thoughts and feelings will not be repressed. The cow's undeniable gratitude at being used shines out, through bone, muscle, and hide.

Septemberfest Wild Game Cook Off

And here you thought only those effete playthings, those (snort) domestic animals, dreamt of self-annihilation. We've told you over and over that it's all animals! From decadent livestock to the beasts cursed with boundless freedom, all the animals long for the end.

Take this rugged fellow. Fresh from the forests that team with abandoned creatures, his coat still redolent of Nature's neglect, he made his clumsy way to the bright lights of civilization.

There, to tend the grills, to hold aloft the savory morsels bequeathed by the proud animals who have already succumbed to their dearest desires. And one day—dare he dream?—he might find himself upon those dutiful tines.

Reykjavík Svið

It's like that old Icelandic saga:

There was a witch named Hriðmir whose magic had fled him. He wore the white coat and the white hat, and he chanted to the Giants of the North Wind, but the magic was extinguished and flared no more.

As Hriðmir sat on the banks of the River Hvitá, which in those days was called the River of Tears, he wept for his departed magic.

There arose then, in the midst of the river, a sheep with a fleece like gusting (?) winds, and the sheep said to Hriðmir: "Who weeps? Who that wears the whites has need of weeping?"

And when Hriðmir told the sorrow (?) of his departed magic, the sheep withdrew a blade and lopped off its smiling head, which bounded onto Hriðmir's upturned shield. It was the harbinger of his magic's return.

But not really. It's nothing so grand as all that. It's just an advertisement for svið, an Icelandic dish of sheep's head, on display at a large Reykjavík bus station that caters to foreign visitors.

Although, now that we think of it, why should this sort of sacrifice—which we now know has reached Iceland—require any dressing up? It's already the stuff of everyday legend.

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

Special Report: Pig Logo Exposé 11

We're ready to dive back into the world of recycled pig logos. Review, won't you, the last time we indulged our inexplicable penchant for RPE (Repetitious Porcine Emblemology).





























































































(From left to right, by row: Lillie's, Northwest Tennessee Battle of the Pigs BBQ & Car Show, Get Your Pig On; Gourmet Grills, Holy Smokes BBQ Festival, In Hog Heaven BarBQue; Shawn's Smokehouse BBQ, Que-by-the-Sea, Pork U; BBQ Pit Boss, Louisiana State Championship Bowie BBQ Duel & Festival, Microwave Pork Puffies; Greet American BBQ Tour, Bixby BBQ 'n Music, BBQ Bonanza; Eagle BBQ Cook-Off and Spudfest, Giggly Pig BBQ Team, BBQ Throwdown.)

The hallmarks of the breed are the burly forearms and intricate nostrils. True, some examples of Burly (as he is hereby designated) are missing those two f-hole nostrils, but all appear to boast forearms of Popeye proportions. He also always (so far!) sports a bandanna or an apron. Unless those are overalls. It's clear that somewhere in his evolution, Burly split into two variants: the elbow-on-the-bar glad-hander and the dimwitted cowboy.

We'll be watching this one.

Addendum (12/16/11): And here are Burly specimens #19–22.

Don't think this is actually Burly? We admit it's not a perfect example of the form. But look at the curlicue nostrils. Never forget the curlicue nostrils.