Pork butts in flames!

So what’s the deal with the flaming pork butts? Honestly, it’s just fun to say.

Those who know me know how suggestible I am … a random phrase can put a song in my head ALL FRICKIN’ DAY LONG. “Carry on?” Yep, damn you, Kansas. “Take me on?” Argh, A-ha!!! And no matter how hard I try, no one is able to stick “Bohemian Rhapsody” in there for very long, which I can at least have some fun with.

Sometimes, even my 76-year-old boss manages to infect me with an earworm, such as Billy Idol‘s

Rebel Yell (song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Rebel Yell,” all because the phrase happened to be in a column about the Gettysburg Address. That’s always weird. Billy Idol from my boss, not the Gettysburg Address.

Being in a profession that deals with words all day every day, I also have a love affair with random phrases that evoke odd imagery or jump-start an idea for a short story. Somewhere I have a list of several that I’ve used as inspiration, such as “slow dance with a greased pig,” “hot pants and halter tops,” “extra charge for blue-eyed Jesus,” etc.

“Flaming pork butts” came about because of a mangled and wildly out-of-place phrase in a column. I ended up having to excise it, but of course, the phrase stuck with me. On doing a Google search, I found only one instance of it, an interview with a chef in Houston (said interview also included the funny but not as evocative “candied pork-ass”).

From that moment on, I was hooked, and have made it my mission (along with being goofy and a bit of a smart-ass) to populate the Web with flaming pork butts, which means randomly attaching said fiery porcine derrieres as tags on blog posts.

Join me, will you? Can’t let the fire go out on those pork butts.

Flaming pork butt courtesy of John Deering, copyright 2013.

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