Also Sprach Bacon Bits

(A tale of pork, protests, and paranormal pari-mutuels)

Every now and again, some event will occur, a happening of such jaw-dropping significance that history is forever altered, plus there’s a spike in business for the struggling Jaw Repair market.

And if you’re the alert and lucky soul – if you’re paying attention when the window of opportunity knocks on the Cape Cod split-level of metaphor – you get to see it.

Last week, I was that soul.

It was beautiful. A headline for the ages. And if you were a humor columnist, or a diehard fan of the Psychic Friends Network, it was an absolute gift:

Topless Protest Spices Up Psychic Pig’s Feeding Time

Yes, I already had a column half-written. Didn’t matter. There are times when plans must be put aside. Tactics must be revised, adjustments must be made. Pigs must be consulted.

Here’s what we know, at its purest, most distilled level: somewhere in the Ukraine, there’s a pig named Funtik, and Funtik is a bookie.

I’m kidding, of course. As a rule, no self-respecting bookie (with or without cloven hooves) would accept wagers in Soviet currency. I mean, the pig’s not an idiot.

But these were odd days – all this was happening during the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, and Europe operates by a different set of rules (or symptoms) during soccer season. Picture, if you will, one those cheesy B-film horror movies, where all the residents spend the first half-hour modeling farm-labor fashions, strolling along the main street, and calling each other by their first names, and then suddenly they all contract some brain disease from the local water supply, causing them to set the town on fire, eat each other (by their first names), and re-elect Orrin Hatch.

It’s like some continent-spanning, multi-national group psychosis, compounded by people speaking 230 different languages, France surrendering to 229 of ‘em, and Greek politicians running around kiting checks.

So when a psychic farm animal started picking futbol winners, Europeans barely blinked.

BACK-STORY SIDEBAR: This extra-sensory-pig story comes to you courtesy of that international news giant, Reuters, which is not pronounced “rooters” for a reason. Reuters is not pronounced “rooters” because my humor column is about a pig, and the universe has a rigidly-imposed irony limit.

Say what you will about our universe – it knows when enough is enough.

According to Reuters, Funtik the pig was selected as the Ukraine’s unofficial Euro 2012 mascot because several largely unsupervised Ukrainian soccer fanatics believed Funtik could predict the winning teams in the Euro Cup finals.

BACK-STORY SIDEBAR: It was just this sort of moronic, out-of-control, free-style thinking that led to Vladimir Putin’s easy re-election as champion of the Semi-Naked KGB Agent Atop A Party-Sympathetic Horse Party.

Now, as far as we know from the Reuters’ story, Funtik had no particularly impressive curriculum vitae, nor did he present a list of stellar references during his interview, although he was once spotted having a light nosh in Laguna Beach with Miss Cleo. And during employee orientation, he did drop Dionne Warwick’s name several times.

BACK-STORY SIDEBAR: It should also be noted that Funtik’s record as a porcine prognosticator was not all that impressive, which would shock nobody, except maybe Miss Cleo, or maybe those investment geniuses at JPMorgan. (“Look! Our investors lost 2 billion dollars! No, wait! 4 billion! No, wait!”)

Twice a day, Funtik’s feeders would interrupt the slumbering fellow’s musings to bring him two bowls of whatever it is that supernaturally-endowed pigs eat. Each bowl bore the national flag of one of the two futbol teams playing each other that day. The crowd would wait for Funtik to tuck in, and the flag on the first bowl chosen identified that day’s winning country.

And don’t you dare start judging the Ukrainians. Remember, every February, American humans are perfectly willing to make six weeks of travel plans based on the meteorological expertise of a groundhog.

I’m still not sure how we got to the top of the food chain.

Still and yet, none of this could have occurred unless some local sports fans, gathered at some big-screen-infected post-Soviet saloon, had decided to go with a psychic pig instead of ESPN. Imagine that meeting:

Citizen A: I propose that, instead of reading sports column, we should buy pig.

Citizen B: That is brilliant plan.

Citizen A: All in favor, don’t say ‘nyet.’

Citizen C: But we are Ukraine! We have Chernobyl! Why we can’t get our own mutant pig?

Citizen B: That is brilliant plan.

Citizen D: Why are we all talking like Boris from The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show?

But on this particular day, says the Reuters report, things got weird, even by European standards. On this day, the Czech Republic squad was scheduled to face off against Team Portugal.

Now, in America, this would be a yawn-fest of channel-changing proportions; a wench-bring-me-caffeine-and-be-quick-about-it moment, the equivalent of a quark-sized college post-season game; say, the Bickering Bisons of Lower Tuna Chancre, Montana, pitted against the Congenital Gophers from Marginal Aptitude, Iowa, in a real nail-biter at the Supplementary Bowel Incision Bowl. (sponsored by the League of Frumpy Plus-Sized Women Voters)

But in Europe, the Portugal-Czech showdown was serious business.

Serious, yes. Not quite as serious, however, as the issues that were irritating a Ukrainian women’s rights group known as Femen. (literal translation: League of Frumpy Plus-Sized Women Voters)

And on this day, before Ukraine’s finest paranormal wagering pig could get a good aura going, he was interrupted by a Femen-backed dissenter wielding an encrypted brace of breasts. An impromptu push-up protest, if you will. A bare-your-grievances breast-in. A full frontal united front.

Suddenly, as Funtik was getting his slop on and his vibe on, the Femen protester busted up into the pigpen and started getting her strip on (assuming, of course, that they speak hip-hop in the Ukraine).

As reported by Reuters, Femen had been scheming to organize this little pigpen protest with one of their own, a 31-year-old Femen-nazi named Olexandra Nemchinova, who barged in, ripped off her blouse, and bared her “protest placards.”

BACK-STORY SIDEBAR: See, Femen felt that the Euro soccer tournament helped promote the sex industry. So, naturally, their response was to interrupt a pig’s dinner and lob a half-naked woman into the argument.

Now, as we mentioned, Mizriz Nemchinova’s demands were encoded. Sort of. The activist’s sweater assets were protesting in a Cyrillic language. Fortunately, we were able to obtain a translation, provided by a roving reporter from Reuters Foreign Desk in Belarus (“The Bureau Best Abreast of Brest’s Best Breasts!”). According to the translator, the lady’s sternum-scrawled screed basically expressed a desire that the Euro 2012 tournament should go perform a highly improbable biologic function upon itself.

In case she hadn’t made her point, young Olexandra than began shouting similar (though equally unlikely) suggestions, all designed to crystallize Femen’s displeasure with the tournament and its sordid effect on the citizenry. For example, Femen claims the tournament’s “fan zone” is nothing more than “a cattle pen for deceived fans who are seduced by swill in the form of beer and mindless entertainment.”

As if that was a bad thing. They should see America during football season or, for that matter, at either political party’s National Convention.

Shortly, though, the whole thing ended as such things often do: police arrived and carted off the 31-year-old and her two equally 31-year-old, uh, pamphlets.

But for Funtik, life – and lunch – went on. No stranger to the media kliegs, Funtik took the whole thing in stride, assuming, of course, that psychic Ukrainian hip-hop pigs that have seen half-naked slogan-tattooed coed protesters during a Putin administration are allowed to stride.

Funtik sniffed the protestette’s discarded blouse, handicapped next year’s Kentucky Derby, and spotted Dallas 6 points in the NFL playoffs.

And then he ate Portugal.