Critters
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Pigs Are Always the Best Attraction
We spent yesterday with Dick and Frew ogling the circle of life from birth to deep-fried midway bliss at the California State Fair in Sacramento. Not only did we get to see a bug-eyed and somewhat embarrassed Holstein strain to have her calf right there in front of a live audience, but we also sampled chitterlings (that’s pork intestines with loads of hot sauce for the uninitiated) as well as several corndogs, a Krispy Kreme doughnut chicken sandwich, ice cream, lemonade, venison jerky, divinity, french fries, coleslaw, barbecue (in nearly all its varieties), deep-fried avocados and tomatoes, a mocharita (which we learned was neither boozy nor citrusy), and one beer (a Hefeweizen to be exact).
And of course there were many, many baby pigs (for petting, not eating--at least not yet) and a gazillion more goats than cows, which I’m sure my friend Melody the Goat Farmer will be happy to hear. We saw something called a “Turkey Stampede” that involved Butterballs-on-the-hoof chasing a remote-control pickup around an arena (oh, the spectacle). Then I made everyone go gaze at the Humboldt display in the county exhibition hall. I didn’t think it was as good as last year’s, but it did have this fake sea-farin’ man, which redeemed it slightly, at least in my eyes. Poor Pat was shamed again as Orange County failed to show up with any sort of exhibit. It’s so sad to see him wandering the halls, hoping this year might be the one.... Hey, OC! What’s up?
Frew spent the first few hours at the fair not-so-casually trying to size up who among us was dumb enough to go on vomit-inducing carnival rides with him (he has very fond memories of the year my childhood friend Stacy Ripple paid for him to accompany his wife Jenny on all the rides she wanted at the Fortuna Rodeo--good times!). Frew was able to talk Pat into one “spinny” ride, but neither Dick nor I were game for anything that spun or went upside down. I did, however, suck it up and go along with everyone on the ski lift despite nearly having a panic attack on it last year. As a final hurrah, we all climbed the “EuroSlide” and sped down on gunny sacks (I won the race, but I cheated). Since Dick is from Sweden, I figured he’d know what about the slide made it “Euro,” but he couldn’t tell me. That was disappointing because I’ve been wondering about that for a couple years now.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Of Pigs and Pork
My friend Nadav is probably the only person who can truly understand the wave of emotion I experienced as I spied the 1956 edition of Meat from Ranch to Table tucked in Evany’s bookcase a few days ago. During the Hits.org years, he found this piece of meat industry propaganda (packaged just for kids!) among several boxes of tattered library books that a school was giving away. We brought it back to the office with us where it took its rightful place among the other treasured Webmonkey relics, like the shriveled-up eggplant named Renee that thau! was so fond of sending anonymously to unsuspecting co-workers. Somehow, Renee always found her way back home, but we thought for years that the book had been lost in the great exodus that ensued after a certain East Coast search engine company acquired ours. It turns out, though, that while Nadav and I were reminiscing about the good times we had with Meat from Ranch to Table, Evany had pulled it from the slow-burning metaphorical ashes of what was once our workplace, and has been carefully guarding it ever since.
I can’t speak for Nadav, but I loved that book because it reminded me of another I had as a kid. I paid $5.95 at Main Street Feed for Small-Scale Pig Raising by Dirk van Loon (still five stars on Amazon!). That was back when I was ten and embarking on my first career as a pig farmer. After that came babysitter, marijuana plant hydrater (which didn’t last long once my parents found out), biscuit maker, drive-thru queen, copy store clerk, AV technician, journalist, and eventually Web consultant and aspiring filmmaker. I can’t remember where I got the money to pay for the book, but my folks fronted me $100 to purchase two red Durocs whom--after a few days of careful observation--I named Trouble, after her ability to sniff it out with her snout, and Ignatowski, after Reverend Jim on Taxi. I think I just liked the way that name felt when I said it. A couple years later I also had a pig named Woodrow Wilson, and I am pretty sure there would have been a Calvin Coolidge and probably a Herbert Hoover if I had stayed in the hog business long enough. (Boy, for a period there, America sure seemed to be swayed by the alliterative candidates.)
On most days I would come home after school, grab my pig cane, and earnestly run them around the yard with the hope they would develop huge but not overly muscular hams. A nice big juicy butt would earn us high marks in the judging when it came fair time. Iggy and Trouble would snort and hop around when I let them out of their pen. Sometimes they would chase butterflies or the chickens. I often struggled to pull them with my cane from their determined rooting in my mom’s flowerbeds. And on days when it was hot and they couldn’t find any mud close by, they’d shade up under an apple tree, and I’d lie down with them and wait for a breeze. Just me and my pigs and all that pastoral pleasantness.
How could Iggy and Trouble have possibly known then that come August I would sell them out for cute school clothes and another chance at the big money the following year? Someday, when I’m feeling up to it, maybe I’ll tell you about the day we Windbiglers had to part with Trouble. All I’ll say now is...it wasn’t pretty.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
That Stock I Bought Finally Pays Off
This just in...another cow has sacrificed his life so that you all can have a few more hamburgers and I can pay the bill for that wireless mic I bought recently. The proceeds from the bovine sale arrived in the mail today, and to congratulate myself on weathering another year in the cattle business, I immediately ordered a copy of Forty Guns, one of my all-time favorite westerns. I first saw this movie at the Pacific Film Archive a few years ago on what I will probably always remember as THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.
At the time of THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER, the film wasn’t available on DVD or even VHS, so seeing it on the big screen was a highly anticipated treat for me, one that I figured few others could really appreciate or, at the very least, would be willing to endure. I was surprised, though, by how easy it was to convince several of my friends to attend (despite being huge freaks, they’re all pretty good-hearted). They didn’t care so much that Forty Guns stars Barbara Stanwyck, but they all seemed pretty agreeable once I told them it was originally given the salacious title “Woman with a Whip” and features men in bathtubs singing “woman with a whip” as part of the opening sequence. After that I barely had to heap on any “but it’s my birthday” guilt at all.
Once we had absorbed every glorious second of the movie from the front row, I immediately felt panicked that I might not ever see it again (just like before VHS!). This undoubtedly fed my determination to savor THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER even more, so I hope that when the DVD arrives it’s as good as I remember. I don’t think, though, that it was just me who loved it so much. Dick, who happened to be visiting from Sweden at the time, has never been the same since.
