Just a Few More Reasons NOT to Eat Meat

Picture this:

A room full of the smell of cigars. Florescent lights cut the smoke. In the middle of the room, a ring of chicken wire. A small German Shepherd and a vicious pit bull are thrown into the ring. Their owners watch as the two dogs tear each other apart. Both dogs come close to death. At the end of the night, the men pass money back and forth among each other. They climb into their trucks and head home, sneaking back into bed with their innocent wives.

Tender as Hellfire tells this story. From the eyes of a 10 yr old.

Tenderloin is not normal.

It's true, I don't eat meat. I've never regretted making that decision for over two years. I've never missed hamburgers or the smell of barbecue, and I've learned to love tofu as much as the most fanatic soy-lover. This scene wasn't nearly as vomit-enducing as some of those radical PETA videos I've made myself sick watching, but there was more to this scene than just a couple of bloody paws. It's something I've noticed about meat eaters across the board. These two kids, an arsonist and a younger brother aspiring to be an arsonist, were more than hurt when their mother's greasy boyfriend took them to see this cruelty. They were truly sorry for the dogs who were being turned on one another. Pill even came close to tears when he watched Shiloh the cowardly pitbull come close to death.

And then they went home and ate a steak.

Just kidding.

But who knows, they might've, had I turned the page and continued in opening my mind to this strange, strange book. Maybe I stopped reading because I was disturbed by their insensitivity, but I would guess that wasn't the case. I closed the book only to think about it over and over again. Why do most of us have a strict disconnect between the food we eat and the animals we love? Why do we eat ham when pigs are as smart as a two yr old child? Why are we appalled that dogs in Japan aren't a rare menu item? Why don't I just suck it up and eat a steak?

I have come to a conclusion. I need to write an essay.

Or maybe I'll write another blog.
As soon as I find out whether or not Pill really did eat that steak.

Some Readings That Often Induced "Huh?"

I love this book.

Hooray!

For one thing, this book is a cliched masterpiece. In Tenderloin, Iowa, the fictional or possibly non-fictional capital of meat raising/killing/eating, there is nothing to do. Two relatively small boys were forced to relocate to this town, and because of it, things begin to go badly. The high school includes the stereotypes pulled straight from the earliest of the 90's. There are mullet-wearing jocks, overall-sporting cheerleaders, and the very sad few who fit into neither of these. After all, what is there to do in rural Minnesota besides football or cheerleading?

What would YOU do in Tenderloin, Iowa?

For one, Pill likes Arson. That's right, the oldest of these relatively small boys is named Pill. Pill-bug to his younger brother, Dough. Something tells me these boys are not from a normal family. They live in a trailer park, and are sons of some madman living far far away from his family. This just happens to be the man who named the poor boys. Who knew? For little Dough, things aren't much better. He enjoys drawing gladiators and the executions of a small unfortunate looking chatterbox named Lottie. He also has the hots for his teacher.

This is where things start to get wrong. The boys living in a trailer park are babysat by a 28 yr old waitress named Val. She reminds me vaguely of someone from the movie waitress, with her short yellow uniform complete with stark white apron, shoes, and paper hat. This is all fine, as anyone in uniform usually conforms to some stereotype to some degree. However, this waitress enjoys serving her middle school guests gin and water, as well as inviting cowboys and truckers in to her shiny Christmas-light-clad trailer for sleepovers at night. An average reader would be slightly put-off by this, but not I. It's a trailer park, and frankly I never had high expectations for these characters. It looked as if the miserable lives of the characters were becoming more illegal and mundane with every new paragraph.

And then a large drunk cowboy sliced through the screen door with a switchblade and attempted to kill the two boys and their sitter.

"Huh?"

Once again, I put away the book.

Therapy for a Pop Culture Addict

Tender as Hellfire by Joe Meno


Joe Meno has shocked me with another pop culture novel. There he goes again.

As someone not easily shocked, Mr. Meno has given me things to ponder aimlessly in his books. I've read most of them. This coming from a person who rarely reads for pleasure, he must be a prodigy when it comes to writing intriguing and out-of-place pop novels. Hairstyles of the Damned was fantastic, as was The Boy Detective Fails. But this... this book I can already tell is different. This book is...

Strange...

So it all starts with the back cover. It's like the most highly condensed sparknotes that cover the bare minimum of the plot up until the climax. It's supposed to make you buy the book. This one didn't.

Hairstyles of the Damned was about some kids who shift their lives from punk to grunge, then back to punk again for a brief time. They then dabble in the creative yet non-existent mix of punk/grunge before rebelling into the straight-edge sector, then safely returning to grunge. It also contains explicitly clear instructions on the art of hair dying. It's cliched and within my comfort zone. I loved it. Then there was The Boy Detective Fails. I felt like I was reading something that a young bookworm would buy the exact minute it came out, then stay up all night for the first time while reading said book. It was a mix of the obsessive compulsive detective, Monk, and the autistic main character that I only vaguely remember from the 9th grade outside reading. Something about a dead poodle... but none of this matters. The book as I can remember was fantastic. And as hard as pop-culture-Joe tried to be innovative, his story stayed cliched: just the way it was meant to be.

Tender as Hellfire was different. From the first few pages, I get a vague idea of what it's about. A pair of brothers sits outside an Iowa trailer. Speaking of fistfights and whatnot... I cannot imagine what he means. This, my friends, is not pop. It is not culture. And if I said it was white trash, I would be wrong. This was interesting, yet I wanted nothing to do with it. It was... god forbid... new? There are certain things about which I will admit that I know nothing. I know absolutely nothing about Iowa. I know nothing about what it's like to be a 13 yr old kid getting into fistfights in middle school, or what it's like to live in an aluminum trailer park. I know nothing about their situation, or whether or not they play instruments, or what they're passionate about. I know nothing, and this disturbs me.

What to do?

I put the book back on the shelf where it belongs. Maybe it will get picked up once again.
Once I learn to cope with my pop-culture-xenophobia.

Meno, Joe. Tender as Hellfire. New York: Akashic Books, 2007.

BAM! It's blogging time.

I suppose the concept of blogging must have some purpose other than random-inim-ousity or nonsensical words of that sort... possibly this blog will come down to something directional... something either accurate or precise but not quite either one whatsoever... I hope these things have some chance of coming together... though the whole concept of blogging seems slightly random at the moment nonetheless. And for some reason, it seemed like a good idea at the time...

Here are some random thoughts by me.

Man running through the forest.
Picture this.