The Sunday Series
Sunday October 11, 2015
Nothing moves forward unless you yourself become extreme. Otherwise it is what it always is, and that, is not going to happen. I started a vegetarian society called “The Friends of Shelley” - named after the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was a life-long vegetarian. He wrote an essay, “A Vindication of Natural Diet, ” where he pisses on the human that eats animal flesh. To quote him in this piece: “And man … no longer now/ He slays the lamb that looks him in the face, / And horribly devours his mangled flesh.”
I went to my local vegetarian restaurant that will remain nameless right now, to protect them from the meat-eaters from that neighborhood, who often shows disrespect to those who choose to befriend the animal than killing them. I left a notice for those who want to go the extra-step in preserving the animal population, that they should meet me at Echo Park Lake near the closed entrance of the bridge going over the water. 9 people showed up - five of them were women, and the other four were male. I read them poetry by Shelley, and told them that I wanted to start a secret society where we devote ourselves to the vegetarian lifestyle and to acknowledge the struggle against the meat-eater, who has nothing but hatred towards us.
Los Angeles is not so bad. There are various vegetarian restaurants as well as a lot of dining places that have a veggie section on their menu. What we want to do is eliminate all meat dishes everywhere. If you allow such a dish to hit the dining table, then that means others will follow. Also it’s getting harder to have a meal with a meat-eating friend. To sit across the table and watch someone fill their gaping hole under their nose with the flesh of an animal is perhaps the most obscene thing ever presented to me. Chewing food seems cruel enough, but to think teeth grinding into something that was once alive, well…
We met at the Echo Park Lake again, but this time at 2 in the morning. We met in the darkest part of the park where the traffic going by would not notice us. I had one lit candle, and as usual read Shelley’s poetry to the gang. It was decided that we will attack all the brand name chain restaurants that feature meat as the main subject matter of their business. With the help of the Google map, we found at least five fast-food restaurants within a ten mile radius. We decided to use as a costume for the gang, a clown outfit, and we plan to attack each restaurant by robbing the place and then handing the dough to the customers, and tell them to spend their money on food that doesn’t rely on once living creatures.
I set up camp in my backyard, where we practiced military maneuvers and sleep on the bushes in the hopes of attracting wild animals. We feel, or I should say I, believe that if you lay yourself down with an animal, one becomes closer to the beast. One night I slept on the hill when I felt a breath above my face. I didn’t respond nor showed fear, but I gently and slowly opened my eye to see a coyote looking straight at me and only inches from my face. Once we saw that I was alive, he or she was scared. But I didn’t move, nor changed my breathing. Once he saw that I was alive, and I wasn’t going to attack him or her, he kindly licked my hand. The tongue was rough, and I gently rubbed my fingers against their paw. He licked my face, and I licked back. I gently took the head and placed its mouth on my mouth. I put my tongue in its mouth and kissed the coyote.
The next morning, I felt my purpose on this planet became crystal clear. Me and the rest of “The Friends of Shelley” gang will be committed for the right change, and won’t back down. One of the texts that we are drawn to is worth quoting fully. It’s by Voltaire and here it is:
“How pitiful, and what poverty of mind, to have said that the animals are machines deprived of understanding and feeling . . .
Judge (in the same way as you would judge your own) the behaviour of a dog who has lost his master, who has searched for him in the road barking miserably, who has come back to the house restless and anxious, who has run upstairs and down, from room to room, and who has found the beloved master at last in his study, and then shown his joy by barks, bounds and caresses. There are some barbarians who will take this dog, that so greatly excels man in capacity for friendship, who will nail him to a table, and dissect him alive, in order to show you his veins and nerves. And what you then discover in him are all the same organs of sensation that you have in yourself. Answer me, mechanist, has Nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may he incapable of suffering?” - Voltaire
I have a large estate in Silver Lake, and I decided, with the great assistance of “The Friends of Shelley” to start a colony called “Monte Verità.” As a group we “abhorred private property, practiced a rigid code of morality, strict vegetarianism and nudism.” We are also against the institution of marriage, party politics and dogmas. Due that it is my property, I decided to take the fence down, so wild animals can come in and mingle with the humans. We, as a group refuse to own pets, because that is slavery in our opinion. At this time, I have a dog, two cats, and a parakeet. I released all my animals to the world, and they are free to stay or wander the earth. And one must remember, “The Friends of Shelley” will not take any prisoners, but on the other hand, we will love you as a brother, sister, or more likely, as an animal.
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