Big Guy appeared in little danger of being eaten, or even insulted

Press conferences are events at which people often do strange things, for the purpose of luring other people to tell the world that they did them, thereby teasing open the door a crack for a sales pitch.

Those who stage them have a chicken-and-egg relationship with reporters: The reporters are there only because something a little strange is going on; and of course something unusual is going on only because reporters root out weirdness as pigs do truffles.

That was why a bird the size of a great Dane was strutting around the living room of an otherwise conventional apartment in Burbank.

The second-floor apartment was small and bright, painted in whitish colors, with a Monet print over the floral-patterned couch, and Godzilla the Turkey pacing the carpet.

Actually, the turkey’s name was Big Guy, and he was in the apartment as a representative of millions of his be-wattled brethren, for whom November and December bring the last grain in the sands of time.

Big Guy was the star of a press conference arranged by the Vegetarian Society of Southern California and Prism, a local vegetarian group. They wish to urge their fellow citizens to forsake 367 years of American tradition and unknown millennia as predatory omnivores to celebrate Thanksgiving without eating turkey, or indeed anything else that comes from an animal, such as the eggs in mayonnaise or the cream atop pumpkin pie.

“I never eat anything that had a face,” explained Hans Siegenthaler of Northridge.

The idea was that reporters would note that the vegetarians were lunching with Big Guy, instead of on him. This was to publicize the $15 vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner they are throwing tonight at the Magnolia Park Methodist Church on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank.

The big gobbler will also be the guest of honor at that banquet.

The vegetarians advance several arguments for giving up the eating of faces and attached parts and emissions:

1) It is healthier, sparing arteries from being bricked up with trainloads of cholesterol and other noxious substances;

2) It is more responsible, sparing forests now cleared to provide grazing room for cattle and saving grain for poorer people and nations, instead of animals.

3) It is nicer, sparing gentle animals with big brown eyes from lives in factory farms, at the end of which they get the chop.

Across one wall hung a banner reading “Thanksgiving with a heart.” Vic Forsyth of Culver City, president of the vegetarian society, wore a “Save the Earth” T-shirt and carried a bag emblazoned with the slogan: “I don’t eat my friends.”

Indeed, Big Guy appeared in little danger of being eaten, or even insulted. He weighs “about 60 pounds,” noted Sandra Behm, who lives in the apartment, and he has the naturally assured truculence of a sumo wrestler in a room full of Smurfs. It would take a brave soul to so much as whisper “stuff you” in his presence as he strutted about, ruffling his feathers indignantly and looking for white running shoes to peck, his favorite sport.

He probably couldn’t be carved with a chain saw and looked tough enough to go 10 rounds with Mike Tyson, with one drumstick tied behind his back.

Of course, Behm and her friends did not want anyone thinking about drumsticks.

Think soybeans instead, they urged.

They had spread on a small, round table a sample of some of the food they will be offering at the dinner tonight. These include mock turkey, with mock chicken chunks swimming in mock gravy--all made from soybeans--and meatless stuffing. There was also a lentil ring and cranberries, but soybeans bear much of the burden of impersonating the untouchable, including soybean-based ice cream and mock mayonnaise in the Waldorf salad.

There was some excited talk among the vegetarians about the appearance of a new fast-food chain that caters to their tastes, and the great many things they make from soybeans.

“The hardest thing is to give up cheese,” said Behm, because restaurants, fast or not, “put it on everything.”

Some vegetarians, she noted, actually do not give up dairy products or eggs, apparently figuring the cows and chickens don’t miss them much. In fact, there are many varieties of vegetarianism, which is apparently as riven by factionalism as Christendom. Some are in it to discourage killing things, others to avoid heart attacks and look younger, she said.

Behm, a ballet teacher who said she was brought up by vegetarian parents who also opposed vaccinations and other medication, said that in 25 years as a dancer, she always had more endurance than the others in the company. Her best argument may be herself, because she looks at least 10 years younger than the 44 she claims.

The vegetarians hope to attract people to their un-traditional dinner who are “not into vegetarianism now” but may be curious about it, she said.

The conference over and the food sampled--the stuffing and gravy were quite as tasty as the real thing, it must be conceded--Big Guy was manhandled reluctantly back into his cage, hissing and flapping and resisting arrest.

On Thanksgiving Day, he will be strutting about the yard of his vegetarian owner in Sepulveda, presumably gloating over his luck and keeping a beady-eyed lookout for white running shoes.