Best in the West Rib Cook-Off

The rib cook-off is finally given its due!

Ensconced within the classical tradition, the rib cook-off can at last be seen as the honorable institution it has ever been.

The pig in his cerulean toga and his laurel wreath signifying high birth and virtuous deeds readies to open the games and make merry.

Friends, Nevadans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to eat this here pig, not to praise him.
The evil that pigs do lives after them;
The good is oft consumed along with their flesh;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was delicious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Blah blah blah. Yeah, that's all very artsy-fartsy and everything, but maybe you should just listen to the pigs and start eating.

Civilization depends on obeying the pigs' wishes.

It always has.

Cubby's Q

Cubby is angry.

Angrily, he endorses his eponymous line of "killer" pig ribs while angrily holding aloft a killer barbecue fork.

We're not sure what Cubby's got to be so angry about. After all, he's orchestrated this entire enterprise according to his own scheme. If he doesn't like it, he could just leave the gigantic cowboy hat behind and assume a life of quiet dignity.

So we know he's right where he wants to be: hawking ribs by the platterful, in the hopes that one day it'll be his ribs up there.

Maybe that's what's got him so mad, the knowledge that it's always someone else's turn, some other pig's chance to sacrifice his meat and bones for the "good" of humanity. What about Cubby? When is it his turn? He has a restaurant, he has standing in the community, he has a set of custom-made overalls. So why not him?

In time, Cubby. In time. Until then, content yourself with the thought that your anger is the secret ingredient that'll make you one memorable meal.

 

BBQ Trophies

You are looking at a bunch of true believers. This Unholy Trinity has fully embraced their status as food. They have totemized themselves, solidifying their very objectness.

The point is that these animals have so thoroughly assimilated the very concept of their own worthlessness that they can appear—excited, eager, with fond wishes for a future constituting more of the same—as living embodiments of others' desires to eat them.

They do not merely offer their blessings on an endeavor dedicated to their destruction; they ratify the worldview and priorities of their destroyers. And so the cow represents herself as beef and the pig as ribs. They are just (temporarily) living stuff.

It is a curious phenomenon, this use of the animals' agency to reaffirm their lack of agency. Curious, but altogether commonplace.

Then again, it should hardly surprise us when animals this warped fail to appreciate the difference between prize-winner and prize.

Red'z Ribs

All we know is that Red looks a little—just a little—evil.

It's those leering, threatening eyes. And that iron grin. His cheeks heavy with menace. From his haughty height, he looks down on you.

Like another apostrophe-z fellow we know, Red is certainly full of attitude. We're not sure exactly how we'd characterize that attitude, but there's something of the bully about him. He's daring you to eat him and his ribs.

With that red vest straining against his girth, he taunts and tests. Do you have what it takes? Will you accept his challenge?

He's going to see you eat him if it's the last thing he does. Which is a convenient arrangement.

Lord of the Ribs

At first we weren't sure whether Tolkien's timeless epic translated well to the world of barbecue. We knew the chicken was Gandalf, the cow was cast as a man of the Second Age (Elendil, presumably), and the pig was some Second Age elf (Elrond or Gil-galad, we assumed), but it all felt contrived. Not as contrived as other barbecue-related stretches we've encountered, to be sure, but where were they going with this? If the One True Rib promised to enslave the free peoples of Middle Earth, then our protagonists want to destroy it? And that's going to sell pig meat?

Then we realized we were looking at it all wrong. We were seeing the details but missing the big picture. For what is J. R. R.'s tale about? Beyond the comings and goings of bearded weirdos and a bunch of business about a giant, evil eyeball, it's a story about brotherhood and sacrifice. Brotherhood and sacrifice? That's the hallmark of modern "food" animals!

It all made sense! Who knows more about sacrifice and selflessness than cows, pigs, and chickens? Who is better suited to hit the battlefield of Dagorlad—also known as the backyard barbecues of North America—and offer themselves up for their friends? In this respect, all the animals are Sam Gamgees, bearing all our burdens, long-suffering, never questioning our motives or intentions.

Epilogue: Five minutes later it stopped making sense again.

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.

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.

Slumpbuster BBQ

This only looks like it's about baseball.

The pig isn't hoping to get off the bench or boost his batting average or up his slugging percentage.

Don't let the bat, cap, and jersey fool you. The slump he's talking about has nothing to do with baseball.

Ever since his sow-and-teat days, this pig's been an also-ran. No challenges gracefully faced and bested, no successes racked up in the ledger of his life. But it's all about to change. When he is transformed into ribs, chops, and the rest, everything will be different.

You see, the slump is his life, and the barbecue's about to bust it. Wide open. This is the big league. Pig's waited for years, hoping for this break.

Chicago BBQ

Too soon, Chicago? It was a scant 140 years ago when the Second City went up in flames. Legend has it that Mrs. O'Leary's cow was to blame, but this pig seems to be rewriting history. Could it be pig-centric barbecue was really to blame?

Then again, maybe this is just suicidefoodism's drive to recast everything in terms of animals hungering for death.

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871? Don't despair! It's nothing more than a charming backdrop for a barbecue competition in which pigs tie their aprons on and prepare to cook their own ribs.






Addendum (8/29/11): We knew it! We've this pig before, way back in 2007.

WIRK Rib Roundup

And here we see the power of a rotten idea to rot animals' minds.

Just as the chicken combatants and various barbecue battlers before them, this cow and pig attended to the sermons telling them they had no intrinsic worth, that their lives belonged to others and not to themselves.

And they believed. When an idea is drummed into you, into your bones and muscles, you believe. This idea took hold. It ran away with them. It fevered their minds. It addled their spirits. Before they knew what was happening, they had signed their lives away.

See what it has done to them!

They fight, yes, but not for freedom. Not for justice. Nor mercy. No, they fight for their masters' reputations, for bragging rights of those who own, kill, and consume them.

Look how they regard one another. They are brothers, born in chains, but that brotherhood has been rendered invisible. Neither sees a brother now. Each sees only a rival. An enemy.

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.

Lucky Me!

Lucky is certainly the word that comes to mind!

Barely hatched, the chicken is transformed into a powder to flavor instant noodles. Talk about good fortune!

If only he could have lingered in this paradise. Just a little longer.

(Image source.)









Another lucky animal! The pig, too—there, just above the Jesus sign—can thank the fates that he was born in this time and place.

Think of it: against the odds, he enters the world. And he's healthy, to boot. With a leg up. And then! Then, to discover that life gets even better: to learn that he is destined to increase the deliciousness of noodles!

(Thanks to Dr. Katie for the referral and the rib-flavored photo.)

Suicide Snacks: quickies 8

It's been close to a year since we allowed ourselves a moment to rest and offer up another installment of our beloved series of "Suicide Snacks." Sometimes, like today, we're just not up to the rigors of our self-imposed campaign.


Can you read the inspiring legend on her sash? She has been crowned Miss Prolificacy, the livestock-makingest pig there is! She's a one-sow pork-producing machine!






This exotic beauty, this made-up, be-kohled octopus in Portland, Oregon, wiggles her sensual arms, beckoning all comers to dine on… well, herself.

Bonus: Impossibly, this seductress is only the third octopus we have ever featured!







Really? It's just us? We're the only ones creeped out by a pig with a beard? Okay. Fair enough.








We're not sure what we're seeing here. The weary satisfaction of another factory shift competently worked, perhaps. Or maybe the muted joy of a lobster facing his imminent boiling out there on the factory floor.