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Notes from the Underground Volume 2 Number 2 - Happy Meatout! 'kay. This is the deal. I had the freakiest Meatout I've ever experienced, and unless you were attacked by a doofus in a giant lobster suit, you can rest assured that mine was more bizarre than yours too. This isn't a competitive thing; I'm merely stating the facts. So this is the deal. My buddies Owl, Star and I decided to go out and give people vegan food on Meatout to, like, let them know what kind of stuff vegans eat. Actually, Owl didn't want to go, but he owed me a favor due to me giving him a place to stay when his landlord sprayed his place. So for Meatout I wanted to do something simple, like veggie burgers on my little Hibachi or something, but Star had all kinds of problems with that. See, Star's on a raw foods kick right now and says that she wouldn't feel right about feeding people "poison". She insists that she's got this GREAT recipe for rehydrated kale/seaweed/mung bean sprout burger thingees, and that people "won't know the difference". Yeah. And wheatgrass juice is *just* like champagne. Anyway, Owl didn't care either way - actually he just wanted to go home to take a nap - and I knew that me agreeing was the only way we'd get anything done, so I went along with it. So the day of Meatout, we meet downtown near Water Tower Place and Star's got this big tub of brownish-greenish rock-hard patties and she's all smiling, like I'm going to be so enthused when I see these things. I couldn't help it. I was like, "Star, people aren't going to eat those. They look freaky and they smell worse." She gets all defensive like, "This is REAL food, Pete, and people are going to love it. Seaweed the most mineral-dense food on the planet. It's got B-12, and so many enzymes that it actually reverses the aging process. It's given me so much energy, I can't help but start dancing". Then she starts twirling like Stevie Nicks all over the sidewalk. Since we don't have any music, she decides she has to make her own. But instead of singing, she's making like these weird primal howls and shrieks. Pretty soon we have a pretty good crowd formed around us. So Owl and I start getting people to try Star's freak-burgers for Meatout. It takes us asking about 30 people before we got someone to almost try it. She was a sort of conservative looking person and all she had to do was take a whiff of the burger before she handed it back with a completely disgusted look on her face, like someone had just handed her a cow poo patty or something. Star start's singing, "Just try it. It's good, I swear! Happy Meatout, everyone!" No one was biting. Well, a couple of dogs came by and looked like they were going to try some, but then they had second thoughts. Star looked a little dejected and I was beginning to feel like the whole day was one big waste. I mean, if only the dogs would've eaten some, I'd have felt like I'd have accomplished something. So there we are feeling like losers when this guy in a big ol' tomato red lobster suit walks up to the corner next to us. He's out there shilling for the Seadog Shanty, this seafood joint, handing out coupons and menus and such. Cheezeball. Everyone comes running up to him, all giggly, "Oh, look! It's the lobster man!" So I couldn't help it. I go, "No, it's unemployed actor man!" I figure that if you go out on the street dressed as a giant lobster, you deserve all the razzing you get. I know that when I dress up as biotech corn and rodeo clowns, I get my fair share of ribbing. That's to be expected. 'Cept when you're dressed as an animal who urges people to pick your cousins out of a tank, boil you alive and rip your flesh apart for the purpose of consumption, I'd say teasing is a little more justified than usual. So Lobster Man puffs his big red stuffed chest out and storms over to us "What's your problem?" he says, his pincers gesturing wildly. "I'd say you were the one with the problem," I say, looking him up and down. "At least I don't have to wear a suit to work." "Yeah," he goes, "I guess they don't have much of a dress code at the sprout factory." Then Star pipes in, handing him one of her "burgers" "Oh, you like sprouts? Then you have to try one of my rehydrated veggie patties. Happy Meatout!" So Lobster Man looks at it, then breaks out laughing. He goes, "This is so disgusting! Do you have a license to poison unsuspecting strangers? Keep your nasty regurgitated patty," tossing it at Star. That did it for me. I reached in the tub, pulled out a big cow chip sized seaweed patty and let Lobster Man have it right in the old eye-hole. Now he comes storming over, grabs a big old claw-ful of veggie patties and gets ready to toss them at us. Star starts screaming about bad karma or something, and Owl ducks behind a USA Today box. I'm standing there holding the whole big tub of stink-burgers, ready to dump the whole thing on his little foam rubber head if he so much a grazes me with one of those things. Just then, this group of yuppie women walks up, picks these seaweed thingies right out of Lobster Man's big claw, and pops them right in her mouth. "Oh that's delightful," says one of them, "That tastes just like the Snapper Almondine at Shaw's" Next thing I know, all these people are cramming all these veggie patties in their mouths, thinking their some fancy kind of sushi or seafood or something. Now there's nothing more disgusting to me that watching a bunch of corpulent pricks chow down on dead sea creatures, but I remember it's Meatout, so I start telling everyone how they can enjoy their favorite seafood recipe, without having to make anyone kill a fish for them. Star's all happy again and she starts dancing around and singing some really frightening version of "Octopus' Garden". Even Lobster Man is in the act, handing out our fishy-chunks, and calling them some kind of Vegetarian Special from his restaurant. The only one missing is Owl, who starting reading the front of the USA Today in the newspaper box he was hiding behind, and dozed off in the process. That guy falls asleep as soon as he reads anything. I've seen him nod off while reading a Left Turn Only sign at a stop light. After that, I usually drive when we go anywhere. Anyway, so after about 20 minutes all of Star's puke burgers are gone. Owl's still asleep and Star's so caught up in her dance that I can't get her attention. So I figure my work is done. I wave goodbye to the Lobster Man, and I hop on the bus up to the Chicago Diner for a real vegan meal. It is Meatout after all. Take care, see you next time -Pete |
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