2001-04-26 - 4:21 p.m.

I want to remove myself from the memory of this experience.

I went to the Beefkill plant in East LA to shoot a series of photo's. It is a cow slaughter house. I'll tell you several details and I'd probably suggest that if you are weak stomached or really tender hearted and already a vegitarian, to not to read further.

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As I drove through the row of factories, desolate besides groups of men in hard hats, semi's and brick buildings encasing worlds I have a notion people never could imagine and certainly never think about, I started to wonder, now why the fuck am I doing this?

I got to the beefkill house and waited for my man to give me a tour. I fibbed a scosh, telling him that it is a project for school, and that my Dad was a butcher in Colorado growing up. The only truth is that I am a student of life, learning a lot and doing a project. The minute I got there I became aware of a particular stinch that is absolutely indescribable. It was a quiet smell at this point, and subserviant to the waves of strong, cheap cologne that would pass on the bodies of the Mexican men. They all wore white lab coats and hardhats. One burly, bearded white viking man had red stains, like small countries mapping out deaths on his arm and back.

This plant has been around for 72 years. 72 years American people have kept this place a busseling business. 700 cows are killed A DAY. 700 lives. 700 spirits. 1400 eyes.

When I met my guide, Eric, I remembered not to give him my WWX handshake, trying to act the part of a shy student, who doesnt' have alterior motives. He was surprisingly handsome. He was all American, just what you might imagine, a blond, blue eyed meat and potatoes man to run a beefkill plant. He said hi to all his laborers, they all seemed to genuinly respect him.

We walked into the first part of the plant, starting at the end stage of the process, which provided me with excellent perspective. Everywhere we walked, the ground was slick with blood. The stinch got stronger, but not unbearable. I saw what you might see at a meat shop. Hung beef. He pointed out a bit excitedly the parts of the beef, tenderloin, fillet mingon. That word made me think of five star resterauntes, luxury and past pieces of enjoyment I've intoxicated myself in. I thought of all the amazing resterauntes that 'x' and I went to. It all seemed normal. It seemed a part of life, the cycle. It still seemed store bought and contained. I thought, oh look at me, I'm so tough, I'm able to stand this and I have no notion of becoming a veggitarian, poor ripe she'll never understand (she's a veggie).

We walked past brisk men who shoved large carcasses that were all hung from a pulley system on the ceiling to different parts of the factory. I saw a man slicing innard parts out, Eric noting that they have to get these pieces out while 'it's' still warm, otherwise they will get hard.

okay.

We walk into a refrigerated room with dozen's and dozen's of hanging carcasses, bulking with raw, red meat. I snapped mad photo's. Enthralled that he let me have such free reign of the place.

Then we walked into this factory style room, where there were assembly line, steal machinery and men hard at work, in a rhythm where one gets into doing the exact same thing over and over. Skimming fat from meat, tossing it into a vat. Two of the workers wanted their picture taken. I was trying to act like this is all normal and I am just fascinated by it all. At this point I saw a row of de-skinned cow heads, donning black eyeballs. I snapped more photo's. REcording. Noting. The artists roll is to explore the broad experience of being human, bringing to the forground the parts of life we'd rather not see. Think. Feel. Remember.

The smell was rising into every cavity of my body now.

I saw metal sheets of cow brains, long dark brick red livers hung, vats of hot fat.

As men from ladder's pulled hanging carcasses to one side and another, so that we could walk through the bloody floor, I turned quickly to see the face of a woman pausing in her hard work to look back at me.

He then asked me if I wanted to go to the slaughter room. I said yes, but only quickly, he said no photo's.

What first hit me like a powerful gust of nautia, was the heat, coagulating into a bloody steam that lived in every part of the air of that room. The smell was incredible, indescribable, trapped. I lost my macho poise at this point and was covering my mouth. One guy laughted at me, saying it wasn't that bad.

Cow's heads hung from the ceiling. I saw one of them, its blue grey veins pulsating in it's head without a body. I asked why it had a hole on its forehead? I hated that I asked this. He said that is where they knock them out. It was all more graffic and bloody at this point. We went over to the brink. The place where for any sensitive person life changes.

I saw a freshly killed cow hung, hind legs up, in all it's girth, with it's skin being torn up and away from it's body. The last thing I saw was the skin lifting off a bloody face and the tongue gyrating, long out of its mouth dipping toward the ground, ensconced in a deep black blood. At this point, I got dizzy with the smell and the impressions slapped on me like fingerprints left after a beating onto my soul.

We walked into the next room and he was explaining that the barral was full of hooves, I was heaving, deep coughs, begging myself not to throw up. I almost threw up, my whole body was overtaken by the hot steaming air that filled my lungs with a smell of systematic murder like I've never known.

I don't rememeber moments after. We went outside.

I asked where the cows come in from, where are they killed. I couldn't stop now. We walked up onto a bridge over looking a dozen cattles, butt to butt, one by one being lead to a shot in the head, or as Eric said, "getting knocked out". I tried not to feel. I tried not to be that liberal screamer who preached the evils of meat eating. I sat looking at the cows pretending that this is the way life is. It's as old as humans, but at least the American Indians respected what they ate. They used all parts of the animal and thanked it for giving him his life. They honored it.

I saw what is always described by veggitarians, the desperation of life hearded in, having some sense of the doom about to descend upon them. I saw some suddel frenetic energy. We walked back down the metal bridge and as I glanced over and saw the eyes of this one cow, who seemed to be looking straight into me and I tried to say a little prayer of love to this one who was about to die. To be so close to a living spirit, about to be killed. I'm crying again.

I saw. Or maybe I just imagined. BUt I felt it saying to me, get me out, can't you do anything? It's last part of it's life. It must of had a calf.

Eric told me not to get sad. We all tell eachother not to feel. LIke feeling is the most dangerous thing in the world. Damn right it is. If we felt more, we may prompt ourselves to change the crazy ways that we live.

The rest of the field trip wrapped up really quickly and I was able to drive away confused. Drive into an empty warhouse lot and sob. I felt guilty for going there. For thinking I was invincable. For not thinking through how it might make me feel.

I felt dirty all over, like the bloody steam had permiated into every part of me. I felt like I had been raped, or had been an accessory to a murder I hadn't agreed to committ.

I sobbed sick, gutteral, baby girl tears down the 10 freeway back to the safe, pretty west side. I had to shower myself in my perfume, "Happy", to try to rinse myself of this experience. Distance myself from it, because the feelings were too intense. Too compounded.

I wondered how I, the most carniverous woman from Colorado, who loves a good summer cheeseburger, who loves beef stroganoff, who loves the marinated filet recipe I just learned, how I can be a vegitarian! I'm going to try. I certainly have no taste for beef right now. I'm going to take it one meal at a time and at the very very least cut way back on my mindless American consumption.

Can you?