A Clam Plate Clarification.

Judging by the number of emails I've received about my post of two days ago (which may be found by scrolling down a bit, or by clicking here), it would appear some clarification is needed. Most of the emails I've gotten follow a similar vein; namely, "Mat, what the hell is a 'clam plate orgy'?" Please allow me to explain.

Back in the 1970s a man named Wilson Bryan Key was dining at a Howard Johnson's restaurant. Looking over the establishment's board of fare, Key came upon a photograph depicting one of Ho-Jo's most-famous dishes: fried clams. Whereas most customers saw the picture for what it was (a plate of fried clams), Key saw something far more carnal. To his trained eye, the clams in the photographs were substitutes for naked bodies in the midst of an orgy. That's right: it was a bivalve bump and grind. Key surmised that the photo on his menu was just another in a series of subliminal use of erotica to increase sales.

Wilson Bryan Key also saw subliminally disguised in this photo something even more sinister: a donkey partaking in the humans' hedonistic fête of touchy-feely. I would have loved to be in on the ad pitch of the new menu to Ho-Jo's execs: "Our research shows that a large percentage of your customers enjoy dining out...oh, and bestiality."

Key's belief in Madison Avenue's use of the sensual subliminal led to his penning a 1980 book, The Clam-Plate Orgy and Other Subliminals the Media Use to Manipulate Your Behavior. It was during the promotion of said book that I had the chance to meet Wilson Bryan Key. He came to the University of Georgia to speak about subliminal advertising...and, in a not-so-subliminal way, flog sales of his book. Of course, as a college freshman, I was all about anything with the word 'orgy' attached to it, so I eagerly attended his lecture.

I left his presentation unconvinced...and slightly amused that a grown man would so publicly proclaim his wacko conspiracy theories. Key suffers from the same malady of Mark Dice, whom I wrote about here. Whereas Dice sees spread-legged prostitutes on a coffee cup, Key sees orgies in fried food. Admittedly, Dice's delusions are much more wacked in that he has the bad form of bringing religion into his diatribes.

For those of you who, like Key, find truth in a Clam Plate Consiracy, let me indulge you with a little bit of food porn:

I know, it gets me just hot looking at it!

Instead of taking that cold shower, why don't you chill over at humor-blogs.com?