City Harvest: where good intentions turn just ugly

CITY HARVEST

Cyprus, Nick, Johnny, and I went to the prestigious CITY HARVEST Benefit last night here in NYC in Chelsea. I love the feeling of being of service and help to so many who suffer, but this benefit was entirely out of our league, of course. Just to GET IN cost $200 per person (minimum) with the point of the benefit to be the various auctions that would go on throughout the night. Each auction would bring in a huge amount of money for City Harvest, who could then use those funds to help gather and distribute the city's surplus of food to the homeless and hungry. Because Cyprus's printing company does the printing for all of City Harvest's events, we had comped tickets, or you wouldn't have been able to see our asses there.

Now, one would think that a sense of compassion would exponentially expand throughout a person, organization, or culture just by the sheer power of awareness that is required by compassion, and that IS true, but not when that person, organization, or culture is completely REMOVED from the very thing in which they claim to have compassion. I am sure the HEART of City Harvest is still intact, but it's an ugly thing to see what has to be accommodated for the rich to give even a little bit.

First, for this event to even be of interest to this crowd, the ambience had to be as removed from its cause AS POSSIBLE. The ballroom was filled with the artful foods of top chefs from around NYC:

We took photos of these two chefs because they were the cutest, most famous, and Tyler had prepared a vegetarian dish. Thank you, Tyler, or we would have joined the starving masses for which this organization was created!

The other things that pissed me off about this function were that people were wandering around in FURS and mindlesly devouring all kinds of animal body parts. It just saddens and angers me sometimes just how ignorant and mindless people can be, touting compassion and kindness, but only exclusively, selectively, and above all else CONVENIENTLY. If it's inconvenient, FUCK THAT SHIT! I'm really starting to return to a more sickened and repulsed state of heart and mind toward the hypocritical and self-delusional. It reminded me of the ASPCA's fund-raisers where VEAL was chosen as a feature for the dinners and Fur-wearing bitches would prance around acting like they CARED about animals. BULLSHIT, BITCH! The benefit/fundraiser is just a delusional ploy to make you feel like you have a heart, but you don't; you just have a WALLET and seek the prestigiousness of trendy kindness.

Most horrific was the fact that 3 chefs offered FOIE GRAS! Any kind of harm to an animal for our convenience is just unacceptable, but there are some practices that are beyond comprehensible. What is Foie Gras, you ask? Well, let me show you:

STEP ONE: imprison birds (ducks or geese) with little or no room to move, force to live in own feces and urine, while battling open sores, horror, and pain.STEP TWO: force-feed the bird 3 times a day through a long, metal tube so that the animal's liver swells to 12 times its normal size, its throat is scraped, peeled, and torn internally by the metal pipe. STEP THREE: Do this for an entire month, and hope that this is accomplished before the animal actually bursts from over-feeding.

HOW THE FUCK COULD ANYONE THINK THIS IS OKAY??? It fucking breaks MY HEART to know this goes on, out of sight, out of mind, and people heartlessly, mindlessly, BUY THIS SHIT! And the cycle of cruelty and indifference continues, extending into our friendships, society, culture, and world and showing up as starvation, war, racism, sexism, and ultimately, SPECIESISM.

STEPS FOUR & FIVE: (what we can do)

DON'T BUY OR EAT THE CRAP! It has become banned in California, and every person and state should follow in that consciousness. The only other foie gras farm in the United States is located in New York, and legislation is pending to ban the practice. Several other countries, including Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the majority of provinces in Austria, have already banned force feeding to produce foie gras.

LET ANIMALS LIVE AND ENJOY THEIR LIVES IN THE SAME WAY YOU WISH TO DO SO! Animals are amazing, sensitive, beautiful, funny, and playful, innocent creatures who enjoy social structures, family bonds, sunshine, grass, wind, and pleasure. Why anyone could ever think it our right to remove that option from another living being is beyond me.

LINKS:
FAUX GRAS recipe (if ya really want the flavor, but not the cruelty)

HOW TO HELP

And don't EVEN get me started on the inhumane and thoughtless practices behind THANKSGIVING! That's inevitable, though... entry coming soon.

So back the CITY HARVEST shindig: I just find it repulsive to see people acting like they really care about something when they would never get their hands dirty with the care, thought, and consciousness that is really required.

BUT, free Ketel One drinks, so I got into it as best I could, LOL!

NO, I am NOT drunk, my CAMERA is!
(I don't know WHY I can't get that damn thing to take better pictures, but that's blurry me, toasting hypocrisy!)

CYPRUS & NICK

CYPRUS & JOHNNY