shoe horn, 2010
14" x 11", oil on panel
Actually, I've been corrected. It should have been "shoe antlers". Sorry about that.
Okay, I found these things that stick out of a deer's head at our local flea market for $1.00. Yeah, some redneck was clearly judicious in his selection of "game" to have acquired this trophy specimen for his wall. Actually, I'm pretty sure these wouldn't have even made the cut for antlers on those Jackalope things.
I say this one a lot, but it's so good that it really needs to be repeated often. Growing up in the south, there's a thing that avid hunters say in defense of their "sport".
"Hey!" ( in a really slow partially-intelligible drawl)...
"Hey!" ( sometimes "Hey" is often repeated here. I'm not really sure why )
"if you don't like huntin', then don't tawk with yor mouth full".
Yep! That's it. That's the argument for deer hunting. It's not the deep-seated fulfillment of primitive urges from 100,000 years ago. It's also not the necessity to "control" the deer population due to food shortages ( which, they eat leaves and live in the woods, and I'm pretty sure there's no leaf shortage, but...). Nope, It's "weer providin' food for y'all, and you better be grateful!!". Actually, here's an excellent essay ( and by "essay", I mean poorly written ramblings of the type of guy I mean).
Okay, let's get something straight. In the 21st century, we don't "hunt" our food. Nobody is going out and hunting the elusive "wild cow". We don't hunt cattle, or fish, or fowl. We herd them into a place, and then we kill them with hammers and/or electricity. That's not hunting... AT ALL!
My dad ( now defunct ), used to say, "if God wanted us to hunt, He wouldn't have created the meat department". And listen, I love a good steak as much as the next guy, but I am pretty sure that if I had to wrestle the damn thing to the ground with a spear in order to get one that I would eat fewer of them.
Actually, I'm not particularly passionate about the hunting thing. Without hunting, we might lose all of those "accidents" which, incidentally, has a very positive effect on the gene pool. Pin It Now!
