The Age Old Question: Bacon or Bench Press?

The fact that the L.A. Bacon Festival falls on the same day as the Tough Mudder race I've so aptly almost trained for is a most appropriate metaphor for the battle I've participated in since birth. Or, sometime around when my metabolism slowed down and my drinking and eating notched up to excessive.

Whenever I have free time, there is a war that take wages inside my head. Do I eat? Do I exercise? If I eat, how much bacon do I have? Do I have enough? Do I even have any?

I tell you what won't run out of bacon. The Bacon Fest! The best thing about that little nugget of heaven? The VIP admission includes cocktail tastings. And you just KNOW that one of them will serve whiskey...

THIS IS MY HEAVEN!

(Look at that. This was in March of last year, or something 

like that. I was the Bacon Festival before the Bacon 

Festival was the Bacon Festival. I am the bacon hipster.)

(Not actually me. I can't grow that nice of a beard.)

And this is my newest pairs of sunglasses...

(Sadly I never wore them because I ate them.)

And had I not been signed up for the damn death race, I would have been wearing those sunglasses while enjoying my pig belly and cocktail pairings under the beautiful L.A. sun...or the stuffy confines of the Petersen Automotive Museum where our greasy, drunk little fingers will not be allowed to touch anything shiny and fun.

Bacon, the sweet, salty, sometimes maple-y giver of life, smiles, and nutrition. I can't say anything about bacon that hasn't been said before. Everyone loves bacon, and bacon deserves that love. Bacon has been made into all sorts of things: bacon vodka, bacon ice cream, bacon lip balm. (Yes, I've tried all three. Yes, all three were worth the money.)

I even saw this week how to make a bacon candle. Out of bacon fat. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW GOOD THIS SMELLS? Your house can always smell like bacon is cooking. That's probably exactly what it smells like when Bigfoot farts.

God, it just makes me want to do just terrible, awful, sexual things to pigs bacon.

And at this festival I could put my mouth all over all sorts of bacon and other assorted swine products. Because a pig is more than just the cured, fatty underbelly, theres PIGG, which uses almost every part of the pig, so as to create not waste, but happiness.

There's Slaters 50/50, which makes its patties with half ground beef, HALF BACON! How no one ever thought of this before is beyond me. Look at this fucking brownie. Look at it. If you aren't aroused, you are not human. This is Stephen-Hawking-of-food level genius. This restaurant speaks to me in about 20 different languages. Except Hebrew, of course.

And there are others, naturally, like The Sticky Pig, which might actually be the new No. 1 destination on my pig list.

This is where I want to be, and I will be sure that next year, I will be greased up and ready to bacon myself up. It would be an educational experience. The bacon you're likely thinking of is the bacon we eat in the U.S. and Canada. The rest of the world eats bacon from other parts of the pig. 

THE WHOLE PIG CAN BE MADE INTO BACON.

(Pig, simplified.)

Do you comprehend what I'm saying? There are varietals of bacon! Bacon is to obesity what wine is to alcoholism. You can try different cuts. Different styles of curing. Different ages. You can pair it with other sides and alcohols. You can eat it plain. You know those e-cards that always have some woman talking about only drinking wine for dinner. Now you can make one that says you're only having bacon for dinner.

"Excuse me, while I dip into my bacon cellar for another cut. Anyone have a preference? Perhaps a Broiled 18-year Fatback? I think I have a 12-year Unsmoked Loin...What's that? Why, yes, I do have a '96 Sliced Jowl! I'll be right back. Butler Jeeves! Please pour everyone else another glass of the Franzia. It will pair nicely."

Gah! I'm about to faint, and I didn't once mention exercising. I could probably write about bacon for days without even remembering to get off the couch. I'd just stew in my own feces while daydreaming of skillets and fat.

I guess we know how today's battle went. I'll let the artery clogging commence.

And just because this is about the funniest fucking thing I've seen all day...

(HAHAHAHAHA lolololol)