XVII - Meat is for Pussies

I feel to a certain extent that even in moving to London I have kept my personal integrity intact. It's only been two weeks, but so far I have gone to bed before 10 most nights, and both weekends have managed to stay indoors while outside the city roars. This suits me quite fine, I have no intention of becoming a shoreditch hipster or a bicycle courier just yet, biscuits and beer, a good book, and a healthy slap of spotify is all a man of my meagre stature needs to enjoy life.

While we're on the subject of personal integrity, it is probably worth mentioning that certain moralistic principles are not as intact as they used to be. Talk to me 3-4 years ago and I would have still been a happy go lucky vegan straightedge warrior, eager to fight the fight for the cat the cow and the rat (fuck the foetus), but these days I'm guzzling milk and beer (never at the same time) and hunkering down on eggs and cheese like there's no tomorrow. There's even been a few morally reprehensible occasions where I've chowed down on reindeer, fish and a steak or two (and a few bags of haribo, but what's gelatin between friends). It's time like this, when I'm soaking in the ethical mire of the turncoat, that I need a book to engage and enrage me once again, remind me what I came into this world for. It's just a shame that I expected John Joseph's book Meat is for Pussies to be the Ishmael for the 21st Century.

John Joseph, as the 3 people who read this blog already fucking know, is most famous for fronting the best hardcore band of all time, Cro-Mags, and less famous for Both Worlds (better nu metal record than Suffer Survive, pricks). He also wrote an excellent memoir of life in 1970's New York, Evolution of a Cro-Magnon which was hugely gripping and entertaining. I really was looking forward to his next effort. Straight off the bat, I'm not a fan of this book, and I feel terrible for saying so. But it's just not that good. Most of the time the book either feels like a one-sided rant or some kind of street corner hustle. Meat is for Pussies is JJ's attempt at bringing a dose of masculinity and testosterone to the pro-veggie argument. Photos of musclebound vegans abound as well as short, snappy, aggressive monologues presents the book as a sort of get straight programme for the morally inept. A large portion of the book's focus is on health and wellbeing - diet, energy levels, exercise, etc. And that's all well and good, but the book reads more like a pushy conversation in a bar between friends than a reading experience. It reads like a hashly put together zine most of the time, I read the thing literally in two hours and the book's nearly 300 pages long. The font size is large and there's a lot of white space on every page, so it's a lot shorter than it looks. Here's a brief example of what you're letting yourself in for. Think of these paragraphs, but for 150 odd pages.

Now you may say, "Man, it's too much of an inconvenience to do all that." Well, talk to my friend who has to go on kidney dialysis three days a week for five hours each day because prescription medication and a bad diet ravaged his kidneys. Or visit a cancer ward where people are having their colons or cancerous polyps ripped out of their assholes. Or go to a drug store and watch the faces of the people coming to pick up their $300 worth of medicine every week...

I'm gonna tell you something you probably already know deep down inside: you're eating like a lazy pussy. That has to change, and it will. Want to know why? You've already taken the first step by reading this book. The first step in drug rehab is admitting you're an addict. And even though I'm busting your chops like those guys at Rahway State Prison, I care about you the same way they cared about me.

I guess the best way for me to describe the thing is like an entry level book on vegetarianism. If you're a meathead from Dudley and have 'MOSH' tattooed on your shins you will probably find this book illuminating. If you are aware that Paul McCartney is a vegetarian or have heard of PETA, this book will probably not tell you anything you don't already know. And most of what it does tell you is questionable nutritional 'science'and the odd conspiracy theory. The most I got from this book is a few laughs, especially hearing some of JJ's insults in a thick New York accent with my mind's ear, and there's some cool recipes at the end of the book too. So if you see it as a cookbook with a 200 page preface you will probably get quite a lot from it.