Ever heard of that NBC show, Last Comic Standing? Tonight the top 10 finalists are up for a vote, including Myq Kaplan (pronounced like "Mike Kaplan") a Boston & NYC-based comedian and proud vegan. Myq has been vegan for about 7-8 years and was a vegetarian for 4-5 years before that. In April, he released his first comedy CD Vegan Mind Meld.
Last Comic Standing airs tonight at 9pm EST on channel 4 and after he performs a phone number and weblink will be posted on air to direct folks to vote from 10pm-midnight tonight. He's going to post the toll free number to his Facebook and Twitter pages.
This is a great opportunity to keep him on the air and bring a humorous vegan to the masses.
I don't have time to write much (any) commentary, but yay for The Onion! They're really coming out with a lot of hard-hitting animal stuff lately, with this and the Horse Beating thing. (And maybe some others I'm forgetting? Please comment if you have more.)
Topsy also delighted the audience after the trainer repeatedly thrust a hooked rod into his skin, causing the miserable animal to lift one leg and his trunk to simulate waving.
"Aww…" said the assembled circus-goers, who were taken by the cuteness of the barbaric spectacle.
Branden Helger, 9, said Topsy was his favorite performer at Ringling Bros. because the elephant knew how to do neat tricks like pretending to limp. The third-grader also excitedly pointed out the "cool necklace" clamped on the animal's foot.
Topsy and the other elephant performers, who are separated from each other at all times, preventing the socialization that's so crucial to their well-being, received a standing ovation from the crowd when they marched into the center ring, nervously rocking back and forth.
"Look, they're dancing," said 5-year-old Jonah Meeks, mistaking the elephants' constant swaying for something that wasn't a maladaptive behavior caused by serious psychological trauma. "I can dance like an elephant, too. Look at me!"
Today, SuperVegan blogger "Brownbird" Rudy "Relic" posted an excerpt from SuperVegan's upcoming interview in Time Out New York. In it, Rudy complains about the "animal rights BS" that pervades the vegan community. We want to assure our readers that this interview was done without SuperVegan's knowledge or permission, and that we don't approve of anything contained within it. (Also, we know that honey isn't vegan.)
We've read your angry emails and comments, and we want you to know that we understand and agree. To that end, we are using this post to publicly announce that "Brownbird" Rudy "Relic" will no longer be writing for SuperVegan. We are simply fed up with his incessantlyfrivolousblogposts, not to mention his obscenely unhealthyartery-cloggingrecipes. And we're pretty sure that whatever gunk he puts in his hair can't be vegan.
Furthermore, we recognize that Rudy isn't the only culprit, and that this culture of frivolity has degraded SuperVegan for years. Therefore, within the coming weeks, we will be conducting training sessions with the rest of our staff, under the leadership of noted activist Bevin Cass-Campbell. Hopefully most of our bloggers can adapt, but we won't rule out replacing them with writers who focus on serious issues. Veganism isn't supposed to be fun. Animals are fucking dying out there and humor has no place in helping us cope with that.
Oxygen Network sexpert Sue Johanson has been served with a lawsuit from the American Meat Institute for what the industry group calls "unsubstantiated claims based on limited or anecdotal evidence."
In a segment of Talk Sex with Sue Johanson called Hard to Swallow (watch video above), the octogenarian sex educator tells a caller to tell her husband to "give up meat" to help improve the taste of his semen. Johanson goes on to say, "vegetarians, vegans who only eat fruits and vegetables...their ejaculate is sweet and nut-like, whereas males who eat meat, their ejaculate tastes bitter, like burnt leather."
Though the lovable, sex-advice dishing grandma has retired, the American Meat Institute's public affairs manager, Tonya Allen (who ironically also serves as the "chief media contact and spokesperson for AMI's National Hot Dog and Sausage Council") says they are seeking an unspecified sum for punitive damages for "irreparable harm to meat's image" and "an immediate cease and desist judgement" to end reruns of the show and the online availability of the clip.
PETA vice president Dan Mathews vows to defend Johanson. "This is the same sort of frivolous lawsuit that the meat industry has slapped on Oprah and others before to stifle free speech," says Mathews. "We're calling on vegan men to volunteer to take part in a blind, scientific taste test study to back up Sue Jo."
New York City is a bastion of imagination; a city that literally thrives on creativity. SuperVegan is lucky to be a part of that dichotomy. Next week's Time Out New York will spotlight the blogs that make NYC special and we're fortunate to be included!
Here's a sneak peek at our interview!
What Makes SuperVegan super?
That we are a not just a blog, but a community too, plus we have the best New York City restaurant guide in the world. Our content is lively and fun. We try to stay away from all of the animal rights BS out there and try to focus on the enjoyable things about being a vegan in NYC. We leave all the crazy protest-type stuff to the militant goose-steppers – that’s not us.
What's the biggest misconception about Veganism?
That honey is not vegan. There's plenty of debate out there for and against it; thankfully the general consensus is that honey is vegan. We have more important things to attend to than such in-fighting. In the end the argument over honey makes us seem way too militant - we want veganism to be inviting.
Vegan Drinks was born out of SuperVegan right? Can you tell us about that?
Vegan Drinks is an event where like-minded vegans can get together and just be normal for once. You have a drink, learn about what others are doing in the vegan community and, if you’re lucky, take someone home to make sweet vegan love to. Ha. Seriously though, it’s about having at least one normal night a month. Veganism can be daunting sometimes.
Read more of our featured interview in next week's Time Out New York; on newsstands April 7th.
What do you call a gathering of vegans?... A buzzkill. This witty observation sprouts from the genius of Doug Abel, co-founder of the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. "Recently I was joking around with Dan Piraro about the words used for plurals of animals--a gaggle of geese, a cackle of hyenas, a murder of crows--and I came up with a 'buzzkill' of vegans," he explains.
This punchline will be proved all kinds of wrong this Thursday at Comedy for Karma, the all-star stand-up comedy event to benefit the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. The tall "boyish man" Gary Gulman and sidesplittingly self-deprecating Louis C.K. return for their third time, while gritty insomniac Dave Attell makes it for a second round. New this year are two Daily Show celebs, co-creator Lizz Winstead and fake news correspondent Wyatt Cenac. Em-cee will be illustrious funny-man Dan Piraro.
Doug elaborates on his buzzkill coinage:
"I recall a joke from my college days in the late '80s...
Q: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: That's not funny!!!!
"If written today," Doug says, this joke "would certainly be about vegans. We have a reputation for being militant misanthropic schmucks (because we refuse to eat corpses). Actually, the version I heard just a few years ago was, 'That's worse than a vegan birthday party'--probably a reference as much to the dry, carob-based cakes of a decade ago as the dry, carob-based personalities that vegans are supposed to have."
"But the reality is that lots of vegheads have well-formed funnybones despite their Buzzkill Baselines," he adds. "And in fact the phrase "happy vegan" kicks angry vegan's butt by a factor of 15 on Google!"
Oh, do I love me some candy. This graph was ripped off from inspired by this. (Granted, my derivation is both glaringly rudimentary and a bit contrived - but, y'know I'm okay with that.) Please share your candy-related thoughts in the comments section below.
Update:I called Ferrara Pan and have confirmed that Lemonheads are in fact not vegan. I have replaced them in the hierarchy with something equally as delicious and confirmed as vegan from various sources. Thanks to Ezekiel Grave for the tip!
If you watch or read or listen to the news, you may have recently heard the story about the woman who sent a stripper to her high school reunion in her place, and had a film crew document the whole thing. But did you know that woman is SuperVegan's own Andrea Wachner?
The actual reunion went down a few years ago, but the media storm is now--Andrea is the focus of a gazillion news items and blog posts--and will reach a fever pitch next Monday, May 11,, um, Tuesday, May 12 (they keep bumping the segment; who knows, sigh...) when Andrea and and Cricket the stripper sit down with Diane Sawyer on the Good Morning America couch.
Join Team SuperVegan in congratulating Andrea on the world finally catching on to how awesome she is! You can say you read her blog posts way back when. Oh, and here's the trailer for the movie:
Just by being vegan, we eat a much healthier diet than if we were omnis or even vegetarians. But there’s always new information waiting to be discovered. Is spirulina good for you? Is MSG harmful? Which are healthier, red onions or white ones? The answers to these and more probing questions await you in two new nutrition DVDs from Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture for HSUS.
In Latest in Clinical Nutrition 2007, Dr. G reveals horrifying facts such as that we might already have cancer cells growing within us in the womb (yikes!). The good news is that by eating well, we can slow down their growth; only three spinach leaves a day can make a difference! (I did not know that.) Other gems: As far as lung cancer’s concerned, one joint is the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes. Spirulina and blue green algae contain neurotoxins that can lead to Alzheimer’s. A handful of nuts a day can cut your cardiac risk in half. And the good doctor has this to say about the fiber-loving ways of vegans: “Vegans are just regular people.” Argh! (Actually, I enjoy his corny sense of humor. I hope you do too, because the DVDs are rife with it!)
