Renders Of Flesh

Scenario one goes kind of like this:

It's a gathering. A special occasion. Doesn't matter which, really. Christmas, birthday, graduation party. Thanksgiving. We can go with that. Thanksgiving.

Family. Extended family. Friends of family and extended family. The dinner is set out on buffet tables. Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, ham, stuffing. For the small but growing smattering of vegetarians and vegans, there's a Tofurky, roasted potatoes, some vegan stuffing, veggie gravy, pasta. Everybody's happy and hungry and ready to go, reaching for plates, vying for places in line.

Remembering last year, or just the last "event," when an aunt or an uncle or a cousin reached across the serving table and, casually tipping his plate, sloshed meat gravy all over the Tofurky, I pack all the vegetarian and vegan items into their own little space at one end of the line, as far away as possible from the more "traditional" food, hoping the meat eaters just won't go near it. I don't want to have to explain, don't want to preach right now (sure, my sister calls me a "proselytizing vegan," but it's not true, it's not true). When that doesn't work and someone prepares to dip the meat gravy spoon into the veggie gravy, I cringe, say his name, comment quickly that the vegetarians would really appreciate it if he didn't mix spoons like that. He rolls his eyes, but complies.

I sit down to eat. I dig into the Tofurky, which is great, and wash it down with a little soy egg nog, which isn't. An uncle or a cousin across the table pokes with his fork at a piece of vegan sausage bread that I baked the night before. "What is it?" he asks. I tell him that it's good and that he should try it. "What's it taste like?" I tell him that it tastes like sausage bread. I admit that it's been eleven years since I've had meat, so my sense of what sausage bread tastes like might be off, but I assure him that it is, nonetheless, good. He wants to know what's in it. I have a hard time explaining "textured vegetable protein" so I just say "fake sausage, onions, peppers, spices." He takes a bite. Gags a little. Nudges the person next to him, who takes a bite, gags a little. I know they're basically full of shit because the times I've taken this to parties and just left it out on a table without comment, no one has even suspected that it's not meat and it has disappeared quickly. But I smile. Funny. I keep eating my Tofurky. I forego a second glass of that rancid soy egg nog.

"What's Tofurky?" I describe Tofurky. "I've got to try a piece." He gets up, goes to the line, slaps a big piece on to his plate. The person next to him does the same. "This is gross." They make faces at each other, pretend to gag again. "Hey, has anybody else tried this tofu-turkey stuff? Who the hell would want a tofu-turkey?" A few jokes. People around the table giggle a little. I smile. I tell them they just don't have good taste. I change the subject.

An aunt offers to refill an uncle's plate. "Get me potatoes and gravy," he says. "None of that crazy gravy. Get me meat gravy. I want meat gravy. I won't eat anything that didn't scream first." They laugh. "Yeah, I don't want that wierd gravy. Don't even let it touch my plate." I continue eating my wierd gravy without comment and again change the subject.

The meal's almost over. Pies are coming out. People are dividing up the left overs in their heads. Comments like "is that real pie or tofu pie?" and "don't send any tofu-turkey home with me, I just want dead bird ha ha ha" go across the table.

I make a somewhat irritated but trying to sound amused joke about the path of righteousness and renders of flesh. A one liner. Eyes roll. A half dozen expressions read "there he goes again, always preaching at us, won't let us just enjoy our meal."

Scenario two goes like this:

I'm drunk in a bar. I don't want to talk about bean curd. I don't want to talk about factory farms. I want to talk about chicks. Ladies. I want to goad my single friend into talking to the waitress who keeps flirting with every one at our table. I want to call him offensive names when he admits he's too shy. I want to reminisce about the sex and drugs of our youth, to tell jokes, to say loudly when a halfway decent song comes on the jukebox "oh shit I love this fucking song... this is... who is this?" I want to plan clever ways to seduce my wife when I get home and laugh at the dumb jokes of the stranger who has brought his pitcher to our table.

We order food. Every one gets chicken wings. Or chicken fingers. Or mozzarella sticks. I order some fries. Or a bag of pretzels. Or whatever this bar sells that I know is vegan.

And a coworker who has come along says to me "man, why don't you just order some chicken wings? I mean, come on."

I try to make it a joke. "I can't devour the flesh of my fallen brother the chicken" or something equally stupid. It's a rare night out. I don't want to ruin it with this conversation and, anyway, two pitchers in, I'm not the most articulate spokeperson for the animal rights agenda.

But a joke doesn't end it. I am not allowed to eat my peanuts in piece. My coworker explains to me that all things are good in moderation. I make a joke about our immoderate consumption of alcohol. He tells me about his cousin who became anemic when she stopped eating meat. I point out that I'm neither his cousin nor anemic. He launches into a confusing lecture on canine teeth and man's carnivorous nature. I stare at him befuddled. He asks me if my wallet is leather. I tell him it isn't. He asks me if my shoes are leather. I tell him they're not. He assures me that my soap, shampoo and deodorant were surely tested on animals. I assure him that that's actually not the case. He asks me why I'm willing to kill carrots but not cows. I point out that that's the stupidest thing I've heard in a long, long time. He assures me that carrots are just as sensitive to pain as cows are. I tell him I find that hard to believe but that I'll feel awful bad if that turns out to be the case. He asks me if any mice or insects die when farmers till the fields to grow soy beans and celery. I tell him that some probably do. He calls me a hypocrite and sits back in his seat very satisfied. The next day at work, he makes a comment to another coworker about preacher vegans who are always trying to force their beliefs down every one else's throats.

(Scenario three, by far the most common, consists of the many meals with many friends, relatives and coworkers who ask why it is that I don't eat meat, eggs or dairy, then listen interested-- if unconvinced-- when I explain; or the incredibly considerate friends and family who, when they spend a weekend at my house, order their pizza sans pepperoni; the friends who go out of their way to make sure there's a box or two of Boca Burgers in the freezer if I'm going to crash at their place; my grandmother, who has patiently mastered the art of vegan pie making and, though she may not entirely understand it, brags to her friends about the lifestyle me, my sister, my mother and my brother have chosen; my staff, who, in the few short months since I took over their department, have learned to spot non-vegan items in ingredients lists-- who bothered to know what casein and rennet were before they met the fussy vegan?-- and have mastered dozens of vegan recipes that they happily break out at every single work function. I won't pretend to be persecuted. I'm spoiled.)

My friend Steve once saw me reading a book-- either on Zen Buddhism or vegetarianism, I can't remember which-- and, after asking me what it was, commented that it sounded like the author was "one of those people who shoves her beliefs so far down your throat that they come out your ass." I assured him that she wasn't, and that I gave her my ten dollars quite on purpose because I actually wanted to read her opinions on the subject. Steve, a fellow musician, told me on another occasion that he couldn't stand bands with "messages." Fugazi, Earth Crisis, Rage Against The Machine, that sort of thing. I suggested that a band singing about drinking beer and getting laid was selling a message just as surely as a band singing about being nicer to your mother or recycling plastic containers, just a different sort of message.

And then there's Samantha Burns.

Sam likes Guns N Roses. And that's important because, as I think I've said before, any one who likes old school, crusty, profanity laden guitar rock can't be all bad.

Sam doesn't like vegetarians.

A regular weekly feature of Sam's site is "The Moron of the Week." Past recipients of this prestigious and cleverly named award have been Sean Penn (among other things, for trying to help in the Katrina aftermath, but for not having the level of success that those who did nothing at all deemed acceptable) and Cindy Sheehan (for speaking out against the war that killed her son) as well as, admittedly, a handful of lunks doing or saying truly stupid things.

The newest target for Sam's self-satisfied scorn? Pamela Anderson. The reasons? They are legion. Most, truly, I couldn't give a flying fuck about. Trivial shit. Like it, don't like it, it all sounds like petty middle school gossip to me. "She's so stupid!" "Did you see those stilettos?" "Her tits are totally too big!" "Can you believe she used to fuck Tommy Lee? Ewww!" "Who does she think she is?" The chitter of a pack of pre-pubescent twits reciting a litany of complaints about the new girl who transferred in from out of town.

The meat of the attack, however, the really good stuff, is this:

Pamela Anderson "is taking up the 'good fight' by pledging allegiance to PETA. And, with you all knowing how much I love PETA, you can tell how I've come to determine Anderson's excellency as a moron."

I have no particular inclination to defend Pamela Anderson. As I said before, her sex life, the size of her chest, whether or not she teaches Sunday school... it doesn't concern me. I might find some of it sad, or misguided, but beyond that, I don't have a whole lot to say. There's plenty of sad and misguided people in the world. I don't even feel particularly inclined to defend Pamela Anderson's involvement in the animal rights movement. She threw a wedding for her dogs? That seems silly to me, but I don't really care. Wishes her dog would live forever? I know the feeling, I guess, but, okay, fine, doesn't matter in a "big picture" way.

My objection to almost every word in Sam's misguided, tacky post, is that this (like most of her posts on PETA), is an attack on Pamela Anderson and PETA specifically in exactly the same way that fried chicken jokes and studies suggesting that African Americans are prone to criminal behavior and thus not suitable for political appointments would be an attack on Clarence Thomas specifically. I can tell you that I don't like Clarence Thomas. I don't. If I back this up with comments that can be applied to an entire race, I'm not telling you anything about Clarence Thomas, I'm telling you that I'm a jackass with an ill-conceived grudge against black people. Sam doesn't attack PETA or Anderson; she mocks, often, the animal rights/vegan movement as a whole. Why? The feeling I get is that, like the people in scenarios one and two above, she thinks them animal lovers is just stupid n preachy.

Anderson, Same tells us, has been "known to send threatening letters to companies like Petco." The content that makes the letter so "threatening?" "I would gladly do the appearance if Petco pledges to end the sale of all birds, big and small, by January 2006." Sweet merciful hell! Get a restraining order for this looney. A chain store asked her to make some appearances. She declined because she disagreed with some of the store's policies. She offered to make the appearance if the store changed those policies. That's an interesting spin on "threatening." My mom once quit a gym because she discovered that the owners were giving large donations to right wing groups that she was personally very uncomfortable with. When she canceled her membership, she made her reasons clear. That makes her kind of like the Unabomber, right Sam?

Sam also objects to Anderson's appearances on billboards in Liverpool, wearing a lettuce-like two piece and encouraging the people of Liverpool, recently named England's "second fattest city," to improve their lifestyles by going veg. One could argue that ads like this are tacky. One might be right. I could go either way with a little persuasive arguing. What I wonder, though, is why, in a sea of marketers using tits and ass to sell beer, cigarettes, bathroom cleaners, acne medication, anti-depressants, hamburgers, donuts, and anything else that could possibly be bought (The Roots' "Pussy Galore" comes to mind), Sam finds this particular ad offensive. Sam, like the rowdy guy at Thanksgiving dinner or the coworker at happy hour, wants us all to know that PETA in particular and veg'ns in general are a preachy sort of people. But Sam needs to look around. She needs to count the billboards the next time she goes on a trip. How many are selling hamburgers? Tacos? Ice cream cones? Fried chicken? Milk? And how many are telling people to go vegan? How many, of each, are using thin women to make the sale? She needs to watch an hour or two of tv some night. Count the commercials. I'm fairly certain there will be more ads telling people that milk is good for them, that California dairy cows are "happy" cows, that beef is what America (or Canada?) is all about, that eggs are an "incredible, edible" food, than ads telling them the opposite. The handful of animal rights groups our there that have the resources to do so are marketing their message. The food-animal industries are doing the same. One side spends a few million dollars per year trying to reach people. The other side spends hundreds of billions. Yet, in Sam's world, it's the pesky vegans who won't leave people alone, who are shoving their ideas down people's throats, and who are selling half-naked women on billboards to trick people into accepting their rhetoric. Yep, and when, after listening to an hour of fake gagging, "that's so gross," and "doesn't cabbage have feelings too?," I comment on the reasons for my choices or retaliate with an equally inane joke, I'm the preachy vegan who won't let people enjoy their meal.

And Anderson's "cracked," says Sam, "because she thinks... people give a d'mn whether their eggs have been rolling around freely or whether they've been caged up." This because Anderson had the audacity to ask an egg-seller to label their product, to specify whether the eggs on the shelves were from free range chickens or from hens kept in battery cages. Sam assures us, as she has done before on this topic, that no one cares. The thing is, Sam doesn't care. And she's not alone in that. But enough people do care that many companies have started putting misleading labels on egg cartons. There is, it seems, enough of a market for cage-free eggs-- enough people who "care"-- that it has been deemed as profitable by a number of sellers to label their eggs as such. Why people care, is, of course, a complicated issue. People care for any number of reasons, and I there is not enough space to get into the details here (read Peter Singer's Animal Liberation or Erick Marcus' Meat Market if you've got the time). Keeping it simple, some people care because they think that eggs produced in factory farm conditions are likely to be unhealthy. Some care because there is evidence suggesting that farming chickens in those conditions is quite bad for the environment. Some care because they don't want to see giant corporate factory farms completely wipe out the little guy. Some care because the conditions on factory farms are bitterly cruel-- chickens are confined seven to a small battery cage, are pumped full of chemicals, grow to sizes that nature never intended and that are bound to cause horrible pain, are debeaked to prevent them from tearing each other apart in such confined spaces, never have access to light, can't spread their wings or move about-- and because it's simply completely unnecessary. Causing suffering, even to animals, when it is unnecessary just seems, well, unnecessary. The fact that Samantha Burns doesn't care at all about this may tell us something about Samantha Burns. Her claim that no one cares, or that those who do care must be out of their minds, tells us a little more.

Sam has more. She attacks Anderson on consistency (like the guy just begging God that I've got a leather wallet in my pocket so he can scream "hypocrite!"), and she'd be right to do so if she wanted to see Anderson change the things that did not measure up to her belief system rather than stop doing the things that do-- apparently, to Sam, consistently doing jack shit is more noble than inconsistently tyring your best. (And, regarding consistency, see my previous post, if you will, called Living In The World; consistency to the point of absolute purity sure would be awful neat, but, like it or not, things don't work that way). And she doesn't like Anderson's hats. All in all, it's just more cynical, reactionary drivel. Sorry, Sam. But you're better with just funny. Trying to make points rarely works in your favor.

Maybe for next week's Moron you can choose Sarah MacLachlan. I mean, how stupid is she, making a video that's trying to encourage people to help each other. She must be some kind of hypocrite. Who does she think she is? Have you seen her hair?