"Thank you, William Brohaugh. Thank you for writing this book. Barbecue is the better for it." --Doug Mosley in The National Barbecue News "The blend of travel, social and culinary history is exceptional and fun in this highly recommended pick." --Midwest Book Review "A must read for aspiring pit masters and great for armchair cooks, too." --Steven Raichlen, author of The Barbecue Bible and host of PBS's Barbecue University		This excerpt from Chapter 10 of The Grill of Victory talks about the fun logos teams use in conjunction with the fun names (see also the excerpt from chapter 10, "Sing a Song of Pig Puns, Pocket Full of Wry" and "Starring Hog-Eye Pierce"): Happy Hog Gets His Rude Awakening "I'm just a love rib machine." --Lyric change suggested by rib cook Clara Scarritt for a toy pig that lip-synchs "Love Machine" Saturday, Sept. 17, 2005. At the Bowling Green Kentucky Balloons, Tunes n B.B.Q. competition, Birm and John David of Natural Born Grillers evaluate the hog they’ve just smoked. Lying on its back inside the cooker, the mouth-open hog is clearly revealing its upper row of teeth in a kind of death grin. No apple. "He's smiling--look at 'im," Birm says. "He's got a happy smile on his face." John David jokes in reply, "It's important to have a happy pig right before you kill and cook him." Thursday, July 14, 2005, Galax. Volunteers are setting up the hospitality room for teams and judges in the abandoned First National Bank building. One of the first decorations to be mounted on the wall opposite the row of teller stations is a hand-lettered pink-paper sign announcing "Welcome to Galax." The hand-drawn pig next to the lettering looks distressed. As well he should, given the culinary activities that are about to ensue. The half-panicked, half-dazed pig is unlike the happy hogs you see on team logos and on barbecue restaurant menus and on judges' business cards (yes, some carry "BBQ Judge" business cards) and as piggy knicknacks . . . . . . And on posters touting barbecue competitions. The pig on the Smoke on the Mountain logo is a chipper little beast, wearing naught but a chef's hat, and posed like he's doing the boogaloo in front of mountains in the distance. On the chef's hat, a first-place ribbon. That's appropriate, because this festive logo was in itself a first-place winner. The Chamber of Commerce held a contest to create a Smoke on the Mountain logo. Becky Guynn's design was selected from among about fifty entries. Happy pigs are strutting up and down the Galax contest site the way they do every contest, from the Kings Cooking scarepig on the south end to the Natural Born piggy chef (apron, red shirt, red shoes, just like the Grillers themselves) triumphantly brandishing spatula and grill fork on the north. In between, Hawg Wild's sly-winkin' coveralled butcher pig and the rarely encountered green-snouted antennaed alien porker at Smoked Encounters of the Third Swine. The stylin' pig with sunglasses, the cocky grin and the blade of grass sticking out of his mouth at Pit Connection--he's new. "We didn't start out with the pig that we have right now," says Pit Connector Mary Dyer. "We had an ugly pig, so we had to change it, 'cause this one looks cool." Pig Pounda Kappa's bright-eyed piggy professor (with mortar board and bow tie) was drawn by Roger Kerce, though teammate/brother Gary has encouraged Roger to come up with something more "animated." Why are these pigs so gleeful? Why are they as happy as shigs in pit (to borrow one of the KCBS circuit team names)? Wouldn’t you think that running away would be the kind of "more animated" that the pigs would be aspiring to? They're gonna die! All along the circuit, the anthropomorphic pig is celebrating the gobbling-down of its brethren in all manner of get-ups. Flying pigs, hillbilly pigs, pigs in US military garb. Pigs on pogo sticks, pigs with mouth harps, card-playing pigs. Pirate pigs, blues-crooning pigs, pigs making happy homes in backyard grills and lolling about on them like they're on tanning beds. The suave tuxedo-garbed pig of the Q-2-U team (as least the happy pigs depicted on the Q-2-U chairback covers wear "Please eat beef" aprons). Elvis pigs, Marilyn pigs, and The Loin Ranger ("Hi-Hog Silver!). Fat pigs, skinny pigs, pigs who climb on rocks. Tough pigs, sissy pigs, even pigs with chicken pox. Speaking of chicken . . . poultry and moo-cows get their exercise on the non-MBA circuits. Like the scared-eggless chicken on the back of the Chicago Smoke Competition Team. Or the cow and chicken running away from home with hobo kerchief packs on the Ulcer Acres BBQ logo. Or the cow, chicken and pig with chefs hats on the 3 Men With Nothing Better to Do logo (the pig, by the way, is the smart one–chicken and cow hoist fork and spatula, respectively, while pig hoists a full beer stein). And the booth decorations--figurines and stuffed piggies, from porcine salt-and-pepper shakers to battery-operated walking-oinking pigs to pigs in dominatrix outfits to the Hogs on Harleys. And, oh yes, the pinkish coffee cup that, when you tip it up to take a drink, makes you look like you have a snout. In Columbus Mississippi, Rib Boss Clara Scarritt of Porky's Pride shows off one cute-little-bastard pig--a battery-operated stuffed animal wearing a red tie. Activate him, and he lip-synchs a piggy-playful snippet of "Love Machine." All these porkers are obviously in a different frame of mind than the scared little devil on the Galax hospitality-room wall. And obviously in a different frame of mind than another pig that appears on the Smoke on the Mountain poster. Standing on a reversed-out text block saying "Memphis in May Sanctioned Contest Network" is a woodcuttish illustration of a hog, branded with a big letter Q, and sporting butcher-shop dotted lines outlining the various cuts. The hog looks a little dazed. Madison Indiana in 2005 conducted a similarly themed "decorate the pig statue" contest. Local businesses painted, dressed and otherwise embellished two-foot-high pig figurines. Entries ranged from John "Deere" Pig to Batpig to Dragon Pig. One statue was accompanied by a hoof-painted "Eat More chicken" Sign, playing off the Chick-Fil-A promotion in which cow figurines painted the Don't-Eat-Cow sentiment on billboards in childish ("bovinish"?) scrawl. The eat-more-chicken pig in Madison was cute. Clever. Until you thought about it a moment. This pig statue was wearing a chicken mask. Accompanied by an "Eat More Chicken" sign. This smacks of cross-species suicide. At least the pigs are better spellers than the cows, who scrawl "Eat More Chiken." A couple hundred yards away from Rib Boss's Love Machine in Columbus Mississippi, a first-time team displays its stuffed-animal pigs in appropriate fashion. Team Hog Wild (not to be confused with the Hawg Wild cooking in Galax) displays its name on a banner about six feet wide hanging from the front of their booth roof. Tied to grommets at each side of the banner's bottom are long white cords holding anchor weights. Those weights are a pair of cute pink stuffed-animal pigs about the size of a couple of fistfuls. Like Rib Boss's Love Machine, they wear neckties, too--these once-happy hogs anchor the banner by hanging at the end of little nooses. At Galax, Sweet Swine's logo pig is fairly natural illustration of a hog; it seems neutral about the whole affair. The pig illustrated in outline on the back of the Jack's Old South rig seems at least mildly wary. As well it should be. (Check out "Sing a Song of Pig Puns, Pocket Full of Wry" for discussion of associated team logos, and "Starring Hog-Eye Pierce for a discussion of boys playing with fire and heavy metal objects. And read the book's Foreword, too.) (Copyright 2006 by William Brohaugh)