Dear Will Fargo,

Signed,
Feeling nostalgic for summer already… in Carmel Valley

Dear Feeling nostalgic for summer already… in Carmel Valley,

Is this a loaded question, Carmel Valley? Perhaps some psychological test you’re trying to pull on me? Or is this some sort of a koan exercise, and you’re some sort of sneaky guru getting your kicks by putting me on the spot?

You want to know where all the flowers went? Well, I’ll tell you. They went to the hospitals, the funeral homes, and to the graveyard, and that’s it. And after that, they’ll go in the trash.

Or if you’re 19 years old and out on your own for the first time, after they wilt (like you will eventually), they’ll get dried and put on the wall in some cute little arrangement until you finally grow up and invest in some real art that will increase in value some day.

You have to reroute the hippie sentimentality, Carmel Valley. Where were you the day the music died, anyway? Tubing down the Nile river or something?

Dear Will,
Here we go again with my worst holiday, Thanksgiving. How many defenseless turkeys are we going to decapitate, disembowel, and freeze to death before roasting the hell out of their poor dead carcasses? What kind of barbaric culture do I live in anyway?

Signed,
Vegan Pride… in Big Sur

Dear Vegan Pride… in Big Sur,

OK, here goes. I don’t know if this is exactly what you expect, but… I wouldn’t feel so bad about it for one main reason: That reason being… that turkeys are a very naturally stupid bird.

Just listen to how goofy their language is, with all the gobbling and everything. And look at how incredibly herky jerky they are when they walk. Shouldn’t there be a turkey finishing school or something if we’re going to care about them so much?

Quit losing sleep over it, Big Sur. They deserve what they get for being so ridiculous.

Besides, what about all the poor vegetables I’ll bet you steam to death at least 3 or 4 times a week? Don’t you know about all those experiments back in the 70s that proved that plants have feelings just as strong as human beings?

At least when a turkey’s time comes he gets waxed with one clean chop. Plants suffer a far more drawn out and tortured death. How about corn on the cob? First you humiliate it by stripping it naked and rubbing it all up and down, and then you drop it in boiling water for god’s sake!

And just because the human ear is incapable of hearing corn’s terrified screams, it’s no big deal, right? Yeah, well I hope some day you don’t start waking up in a cold sweat every night like I used to during my militant vegan years.

Take my advice and relax behind the whole food thing, Big Sur. If you don’t, I will guarantee you that eventually the nightmares will start haunting you just like they did me.
If you want to know what I’m talking about…just imagine being mercilessly tortured by angry vegetables, like maybe a pack of wild yams or something.

First, they shove marshmallows up your nostrils and then put a baked apple in your mouth so you can’t even breathe like you were some poor pig clinging to a big stick on a one-way trip to hell at someone’s back yard retirement bash or something.

And then they proceed to add insult to injury by beating you silly with piping hot, freshly steamed string beans. Trust me, Big Sur; if you fall into the food chain guilt trap, you’re going to have to pay dearly for every single meal for the rest of your life.

What, you think eating a lentil burger in pensive reflection with a glass of hibiscus juice while reading “The Mother Earth News” is somehow more holy than inhaling a pulled pork sandwich with a cold quart of Miller High Life during Monday Night Football while paging through “Guns and Ammo Magazine”?

You think lentils are going to transcend you to a higher spiritual plane or something?

OK, I’ll admit that yes, lentils are very highly evolved food. Much more so than pork bellies. They are certainly a peaceful dish, I’ll give you that. Just look at their nice mellow color and how still they all are when they’re together with their own kind.

Pigs on the other hand are always snorting away and pushing each other around all the time. Totally uncouth if you ask me. Where’s the tranquility in a pig anyway?

So you see, Big Sur, it’s them and other stupid animals like turkeys that we should be sacrificing, not enlightened plant life like lentils and hibiscus flowers.

Wake up and smell the burning whole grain, Big Sur! You have it all backwards. Go buy yourself a bag of pork rinds and come back to the 3rd dimension. I think Big Sur must be in some Birkenstock vortex or something.