Thee Pitt's "Again"

True, when it comes to horrific menus, nothing can compete with Packard's. (We're sure to be proven wrong, but we'd like to postpone it as long as possible.) Still and all, Thee Pitt's "Again" does offer a sturdy example of madness by way of menu.

For instance, a Southwest lawman pig-type person (?) lounges in a hammock above the fire that will cook him. Oh, but it's nothing to get worked up about. Just a little burning and death! A cool glass of lemonade will see him to his eternal rest in comfort.

His stocking feet dangling over the flames, the lawman smiles knowing that his passing will afford you a pleasant dining experience.


Speaking of dying happily, this rattlesnake approaches his impending destruction with giddy good humor. He embraces the sign announcing his availability as a side dish with an affection bordering on the terrifying.

Snakes are such rare participants in this bloody ritual—we've seen only one other in all this time!—we confess we still haven't figured out what makes them behave the way they do.

Otis and the Bird

We've covered plenty of fanciful imagery here, so it's nice to profile something straight out of, you know, reality.

A pig and chicken cowboy, hats pulled down low, just lazing by the fire after a full day's… work?

As The Bird hoists the rotgut, Otis offers up the traditional cowboy toast: a slab of the cook and good wishes for a manly death, painless or otherwise.

Beneath a blanket of starlight, a snake (only the third ever profiled) huddles close.

The whole thing is so realistic, you have to look closely to see that it's not a photograph; it's a drawing!

Having made that discovery, we realized that maybe some of the details of the scene are actually fictional. First off, in real life, pigs and chickens are seldom employed as cowboys. And—from everything we've ever learned—the ones who are wouldn't be propping themselves up on logs around the campfire. No, sir! They'd be smack-dab in the middle of the fire, where nothing is left to chance! And, if those livestock/cowpokes are anything like the hundreds of animals we've come to know so well, they could also be counted on to strangle the snake and drag him into the flames behind them!

Sometimes we just don't know who to believe.

Love Shack BBQ

Another vision of the suicidefoodist's peaceable kingdom!

Down on the bayou, everyone finds a home. On this commune of carnivory, in this shack that love built, neither consumer nor consumed will be driven away.

Raccoons! Come and perch atop our gable.

Gators! Enjoy our homey swamp.

Cows! Bask in our boats.

Hound dogs! Laze the day away.

Busty women! Lean forward and kind of... press 'em together... Yeah, just like that. Now don't move.

Snakes! Um… Be… on our sign?

We will all enjoy barbecued meat of every pedigree! The "food" animals can count on getting killed and eaten in colorful Cajun fashion. Bonhomie reigns as the steaks grill and the ribs sizzle.

Laissez les bon temps roule, indeed! "Let the heads good times roll!"





The longer you linger, the more you discover! Like the chicken and the pig kicking up their heels! And the brassiere caught in the window! And the little, bald human trapped on the second story!

Yes—there's something for everyone!

The Wild Bunch

A logo notable principally for its inclusion of a rattlesnake.

The conventional hierarchy of suicidefood shills, as we all know by now, is thus:

1. Pig,
2. Cow, and
3. Chicken
(in this order)
The fourth figure, when present, is typically a lamb.

So for The Wild Bunch to elect to go with a snake... Well, wild is right! It's just the kind of off-the-beaten-trail nuttiness that will put the Wild Bunch on the map! Rest assured: it's not all for show. They do serve rattlesnake, wrapped in bacon, no less.

Again, what a disjunctive state of affairs! These pals, these partners—how robust and friendly they are. How like the cartoonified animals we all grew up with, they who served as imaginary friends, boon companions, and windows into the world of human interaction. They would be at home raising hijinks in a tony department store, say, or running riot at the opera.

But all of them—even the lowly snake—are reduced to Orwellian spokesanimals. It is as though our shared cultural inheritance were squandered, traded away in the service of filthy lucre.

This bunch might not have escaped unscathed from their treachery: They might well be greeting us not from the chuck wagon, under a blanket of stars, but instead from the afterlife. That ember-red circle—is it the portal to Hell?