Festival of Cruelty 16

It's time. Every 50 posts, we leave the childlike world of illusion and visit the land of brutal truth. We turn our backs on the calming lie of complicit animals who are accessories to their own murders and face squarely an unending anti-animal sentiment. (Our most most recent visit was, as always, sobering.)

Whiskered Dog BBQ: For the crime of being born animals, the chicken and pig have been imprisoned, saddled with balls-and-chains, and then allowed to escape. And all of this, the whole sordid circus—the corrupt courts, the vicious penal system—exists only so that they can be chased down by a dog police officer on a motorcycle and a cleaver-happy little girl. Are we alone in wondering (again, again, and again!) why the animals have to be brutalized, tormented, and ridiculed prior to being slaughtered and butchered? Justice deferred is justice denied! Or, you know, injustice deferred is still injustice.

(Would you believe that two previous festivals of cruelty—this one and this one—also feature images of canine predators on motorized vehicles hunting down pigs and chickens? They might, in fact, have been created by the same artist.)


Jake Culpeeper's Cattle Company: Is Jake Culpeeper hiding his eyes, unable to confront his own cruelty?

No, we believe he is merely wiping away a single tear of mirth.

"Jump, cow! Lookit 'er go!"





Piping Hot: She must not only die. She must die a lingering death. She must die from a broken spirit, as much as from the severe burns, asphyxiation, or whatever trauma actually kills her in their enormous death chamber. The fans they have supplied are clearly intended as mocking imitations of mercy. Dying of thirst? Take this thimble topped to the brim with warm seawater. Dying of exposure to the freezing elements? Have a watchband. Starving to death? Here's a photo of a single kernel of corn. Likewise, the cow slowly dying within a makeshift torture apparatus.



Louie's Chicken Shack: Down at Louie's, they got a lumberjack/Quebecois fur trader who delights in hacking off the chickens' heads out back. They don't even have to pay him. He just shows up, sharpens the axe, and gets to it. When he's ankle-deep in heads, he wipes down the blade and goes home. It's a sweet deal for everyone.







Freestate Smokers: Free state, huh? They sure do have a sense of humor out in Maryland. It's not so free for the "food" animals. Sure, they're free to burst out of the smokers. They're free to be wracked with fear and anxiety. But mostly they're free to shut up and die.

The Parade of Roasted Pigs

It's called Parada ng Lechon—the Parade of Roasted Pigs—and it's an annual blecchstravaganza in Balayan, Batangas (the Philippines).

To honor San Juan/Saint John the Baptist, the people do the only logical thing: Every June 24, they roast pigs to a garish, glowing redness, dress them up in all manner of festive and/or contemptible attire, and pose them to create carcass tableaux, which they parade through the streets.

In a spectacle dripping with reverence for the part played by the pigs, the celebrants (the living human ones) honor the once-living effigies and pay them their respects.

Whether outfitted with wigs made of mops, or adorned with feather headdresses suitable for Carnival, or propped up on motorcycles, the pigs are living out—or, well—a string of universal dreams: of freedom, of expression, of the self.

And if there's a better way to put John the Baptist's message of austere living and justice into practice, we don't have the stomach to hear about it.




















(Source of the rockin' pigs photo. Source of the others.)

Pork in the Park

The porks—forgive us, the pigs—have come by car and motorcycle, to purify themselves ritually before they die.

They've come, to this sacred pond in Wicomico County (Maryland), to atone for their sins (namely, their prideful refusal, up to now, to be eaten). And so, on this, their last day, they languish, bellies stuffed, even as they will soon be the stuffing for other bellies. They loll, even as the sky flares with righteous fire.

Is this scene meant to be tranquil? Between the flammable atmosphere and the clouds of choking smoke, the site speaks more of cataclysm than of respite.

Which is, of course, as it should be.







Addendum: Like you, we are reminded of this.

Australia's Best Kangaroo Dish

We love a novelty, so bored have we become chronicling the greedy deaths of untold pigs, cows, and chickens. Yes, yes, the occasional goat, deer, crab, or rabbit comes along to liven things up. And there was that lovely, deranged sea urchin from late 2008, but that's hardly sustaining.

Which is why we were so delighted to come across this giddy fellow! He speeds into a dark and grisly future of his own making. (Are you wondering why a kangaroo would need to ride a motor scooter? It's just to reinforce the prizes for the contest.)

He is a standard-bearer for the next generation of suicidal "food" animals! All are welcome! Follow the kangaroo! Join him and seek your (imminent) destiny! Has your kind not been considered edible? Have you been scorned? Ridiculed? Have people expressed disgust when they think of eating you? These need not be impediments! Fly, strut, slink, slither, and crawl into the future and demand your place on top of the table! You will have the last—and very brief—laugh.

You don't even need to be cooked. See? The kangaroo is tossing away kitchen implements as he goes!

It is a message of death, of course. But of hope, too.

Pigs and Cars, a retrospective

Oh, those motoring, pleasure-seeking pigs!












Let us pause to consider the newly documented complex known as DPS (Driving Pig Syndrome).












Capable of operating a motor vehicle, of obtaining their own freedom by means of the internal combustion engine, still they remain tethered to the industry that enslaves them. They appreciate their fine retro and/or muscle cars more than life itself.

Indeed, they are fully equipped for self-actualization, with their guitars and sunglasses! They are ready to rock, to roll, to hit the stroll! They could blow this jerkwater berg in two seconds flat… if only they had a life force that continued to function.





These two (or, um, this one?) do themselves up with leather jackets and shades and assume as much attitude as a suicidal "food" animal can muster.

Their rides are mere ornaments, outward signs of their inner emptiness. As long as they can glide up to the barbecue in a sweet machine, there to surrender themselves to the eternal freedom of nothingness, they're happy.

We can summarize the personality disorder at the heart of DPS by misquoting Robert Browning: A pig should put the pedal to the metal and race toward death, or what's a heaven for?










Addendum (10/24/09): Another pig behind the wheel and his (human!) companion, who holds aloft the ribs she has torn from his chest. Keep your eyes on the road now.












Addendum 2 (4/25/10): It's spare, but it bespeaks class.












Addendum 3 (10/02/10): Is there any music dearer to suicidefoodists than wheels and squeals harmonizing in a crescendo of awfulness? Hey, this one's a lot like the Cadillac Ranch Bar-B-Q guy!

Gold Wings & Ribs Festival

Can you imagine the dedication? The expense? The unremitting pain? How hard it is sometimes to live the dream!

Let us catalog the many elective procedures the pig underwent to effect his transformation from gentle snuffler to half-pig/half-machine helldemon:

• Ribs replaced with exhaust pipes.

• Ears modified into handlebar configuration.

• Saddle attached.

• Feet fused with standard motorcycle tires.

• Fire implanted into scalp.

• Tusks augmented.

• Tail insulated and re-coiled.

(And that doesn't even include the tattoo and steroids.)

All this, for the pleasure of being eaten! And not only that, but the pleasure of bringing the eatin' to you! Now, we've seen "food" animals so eager to die that they will bring the means of their destruction right to your door. But never have we encountered a pig who does it with such malicious verve! You will eat him if it kills you!






Addendum (4/25/10): Is this the kindler, gentler version of the surgically enhanced Fury Swine?

The Cowboy Hotdog Stratagem

No sooner had we uncovered the bizarrest suicide food exemplar yet (a chicken prostitution ring) than we stumbled upon the Cowboy Hotdog archetype, a truly senseless new development.
















This most artificial of all foodstuffs, renown the world over as tubular repositories of slaughterhouse sweepings, nitrites, and miscellany, repackaged and repurposed as icons of authenticity! (Although, why is Mustard—he of the Last Stand—riding a motorcycle, and not a horse? Is this a strained homage to the annual motorcycle rally at Sturgis, South Dakota, a scant 85 miles away from the Custer National Cemetery?)

They welcome you to the by-now-commonplace ritual of their sacrifice and death with dancing, wheelie popping, and, um, vague gesturing.

With the kindly hospitality that tamed the Old West, they invite you in. To sit. Relax. Open wide. Eat.







Addendum: Please do compare the Cowboy Hotdog Stratagem with the Fancy Wiener Phenomenon.

Addendum 2 (10/29/09): Look, if an idea makes sense, it just makes sense. (This is the Clifton, New Jersey, Hot Grill frankfurter.)

Kiss My Butts BBQ

Finally! This is just the kind of defiance and contempt for "polite society" we have sought—but failed to find—in other barbecue imagery. (Here, for instance.)

The sneer of the boar and the audacious wink of his lady—how breath-taking to see such an authentic expression of outsider culture. What bravado!

And it's subtle, but see how they're riding away from us, and not speeding toward us and their inevitable death?

"Kiss my butt," indeed! A pure distillation of attitude and...

Just a moment.

No, no, it's "Kiss my butts," not "butt." Butts, as in pork butts. Pig shoulders, that is. Items to be barbecued.

So much for sticking it to the The Man. Like all the other suicidal pigs, they're really just issuing an invitation to kill and devour them.

And another thing: The sow kissed her own backside? It seems impossible, but the garish red lipstick tells the tale.

Dixon May Fair

Suicide Food as interpreted by a visionary with the sensibilities of Hieronymus Bosch! Everywhere your gaze wanders, the quaint livestock fair is revealed as a nightmarish horrorscape!

Wheresoever you cast your gaze, new grotesques await you! All about the panopticon, demons lurk!

Behold!

1. The Trio of the Condemned. While the animals count their few remaining moments, the musicians play on, as uncaring as statues.

2. The incarnation of insanity. The world around him devolves into a hellish hallucination and he swings through the air in a bizarre simulation of joy.

3. Two cows—one a blue ribbon winner (she'll fetch a handsome price!)—lasciviously regard the taurine fiddler. Oblivious to looming catastrophe, they think only of procreating. Lust has overcome them and banished decency. Even amid the conflagration, their thoughts are ever on the bestial.

4. As if acknowledging that they'll never be able to outrun the falling hatchet, the motorcycle-riding hogs pause in their hedonism and face death with enthusiasm.

5. Meek and mild, these sheep will inherit only the whirlwind.

6. Ignorance personified, the goat, popcorn in hand, believes he's watching a harmless performance. He is unable to comprehend the enormity of what is before him.



7. Jitterbugging young chickens. The equivalent of fiddlers plying their craft while Rome burns?

8. A delusional chicken dances alongside her son in an updated retelling of Oedipus Rex.

9. A minstrel show? Oh, great.

10. The duck administers his own force-feeding.