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.

 

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.

Pigs with Banjos

It's the newest thing in not rocking the boat! The perfect accessory for the pig striving to maintain the status quo. Exactly what any ambitious lickspittle needs to send those nagging thoughts of independence into the darkness of forgetfulness. The banjo is just what the doctor ordered for pigs to while away those tedious afternoons spent on, you know, being alive.








You just, like, give the strings a little pluck and—plink!—the desire to live another day floats off into the gentle breeze.


Plink! There goes that ol' dignity.













Plink! And self-respect.














Plink-a-plink-a-plink! And that troubling sanity. With that, the pigs have finally achieved their most exalted state: meat.


















Addendum: Ready for a chicken with a banjo? There's this feller from a few years back!

Gaspar's Sausage

Do you know why we love this little Portuguese pig?

Because he's just so decent. So real.

Let other brands have their educated pigs. Their high and mighty pigs. Their ivory tower pigs. Yeah, and while all that's going on, Gaspar's pig will be out there working for a living.

He embodies the values we all used to take for granted. Nowadays, when we see someone showing up on time and rolling up his sleeves and caring, we roll our eyes. "Sucker," we say with a sneer. "Chump." Well, this chump's getting it done. He doesn't need the limelight. We don't even know his name, but we already know him well enough to know that's not what this is about.

This is about doing what you say you're going to do. This is about punching in and delivering. This is about getting yourself killed and encased in sausage skins made of the lining of your own intestines. Because no one's going to do it for you.

Actually, they would. Without being asked, even. But don't tell him that.

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

Introduction to HACCP

Welcome to the heady world of HACCP! You civilians out there can just call it "Hassup" and appreciate that it stands for the sinister Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.

You might also appreciate that, as with virtually every other concern that involves the disposition of dead animals, cows and pigs think it's the greatest thing since sliced meat!

In an exchange that neatly transforms a supermarket into a house of horrors, a pig confronts a physician/steer on his day off.

PIG: "I know you are an expert in meat. Maybe you can give me some advice on choosing fresh meat."

Okay. Already, we just… Huh? For the first of many times, we ask ourselves, "What purpose is served by having these characters portrayed by animals?" One is a shopper, the other a doctor. Why couldn't they be a human shopper and an equally human doctor?

DR. BULL: "Yes, we usually eat beef, but I feel like eating pork today."

Which makes the conversation approximately 23 times more awkward than it already was.

And now the science begins.

DR. BULL (pointing to the heavens, wellspring of everything holy and pure): "This is how we can have healthy and delicious U.S. meat."

Because "food" animals, destined to short, perfunctory lives before their transformation into full-blown consumer commodity, really care about this stuff.

Fast forward to Slaughter—Phase 2:
1. Clean carcasses with hot water.
2. Sterilize carcasses with organic acid.

PIG: "You are very welcome to join my US meat feast tonight! And many thanks for your explanation about HACCP."




And then: "Chilling."

Yes, it certainly is.

Watch the whole stilted thing for yourself, if you must.

(Thanks to Drs. Alan and Dan for the referral.)

Holy & Oly's BBQ

They're just folks, Holy and Oly. You can tell by the overalls and baseball cap. And by the way they're completely unconcerned by and unimpressed with the kind of stuff those snooty innalekshuls are always yammering about. (Do they ever stop their yammering?)

All that swill about self-determination, autonomy, and the rest of it. Just a bunch of five-dollar words. If it doesn't put food on the table, Holy and Oly don't want to hear about it. All your theories and your perspectives and your isms. All due respect, you can chuck 'em all, perfesser.

These two are practical, you see. They've got their feet on the ground, thanks very much. Give 'em a plate of their grandmother's ribs and their grandfather's drumsticks and they're happy as any animals ever were. What's that? You say they're next? Well, of course they're next! Think they don't know that?

They've learned it's the simple things. Eating, getting eaten, and all that. That's all they need to make their own heaven on Earth.

Chickens Who Kick

You know, it's not only pigs who enjoy a hearty helping of imitation, mimicry, and lack of imagination. Some chickens are into that also, which they will now demonstrate:

























































(From left to right, by row: The Kickin' Chicken, Ken's Kickin' Chicken, some other Kickin Chicken; Eagles Pizza Kickin' Chicken, unidentified Kickin' Chicken, Ted's Famous Kickin Chicken (an image we first profiled in a different context); another bird of Ted's, BBQ Fight Club's Kickin' Chicken White Sauce, Coyote Jack's; unidentified kickin' chicken grocery store sign, yet another unidentified kickin' chicken image, Kickin' Fried Chicken.)

The chickens, why do they kick?

The cynics among us—and there could hardly be a less hospitable place for them than here!—would say their propensity for kicking comes principally from the rhyme of chicken and kickin'. Such simple-minded grouchitude.

No! They kick because they are so stuffed with happiness that they can't help it! All that positive energy must come out! It leaks, it trickles, it bursts out! And they kick! With wild, cheerful abandon they kick. It is the chickens' way of telling us, "I am alive! But not for long!"

We could learn a lot from the chickens.

Fat Albert's

Not only is Fat Albert a late inductee into the ranks of the copycat pigs (he's a member in good standing of the Overalls bunch and, down in the lower-left, a dead-ringer for this fellow), but he's also the barbecue equivalent of a talent agency!

The extravaganza he's put together is quite the spectacle! Albert is all about one-stop shopping!

From the, let's say, arresting wordsmithing ("Put the BOLD TASTE of the WEST in your CHEST") to the use of striking imagery, he's hitting the audience right where they live. We especially enjoy the porcine member of the Canadian Army. We're not sure how Albert was able to persuade him to serve as a (literal) poster boy pig—surely most soldiers need a villain to fight—but there he is, rifle at the ready. Do you think Albert let him know the gun's loaded with blanks?

Fat Albert provides a little something for everyone. Especially for pigs who have grown weary of living.

Hog, Herd & a Bird

Nothing brings friends together like the prospect of getting cooked and eaten!

These three, denoted in such a way that only their generic identities are acknowledged—the pig, cow, and chicken are, respectively, Hog, Herd, and Bird—are so dad-blamed happy it's hard to remember they have no individual personhood. Who would believe that generalized examples of abstract categories could have so much darn personality? It is, of course, an illusion.

They are nothing more than symbols for unseen and unheard referents. We might expect actual animals to approach their impending destruction with reluctance, or at least somber resignation, but idealized placeholders are free to act out anyone's ideas of propriety, no matter how bizarre.

Thus H, H, and B in their full-on fork-hoisting, wing-waving, arm-crossing, life-denying majesty.