Hello! I’m assuming you’re all here to win Sean O’Callaghan’s EXCELLENT, HILARIOUS, INFORMATIVE, WONDERFUL, PERFECT new book, “Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink, and Live Like You Give a Sh!t,” right!? Well, it’s easy!
TO ENTER: Just go to THIS INSTAGRAM POST and make any sort of comment you want, I don’t care. Tell me your favorite color or just write “fart.” Your odds of winning are the same and it doesn’t matter to me. Hooray for you! ENTER TODAY! (I’ll pick the three winners in a few days and update this post so you don’t try to enter and I’m all, “TOO BAD SO SAD NO BOOK FOR YOU!”
NOW ONTO THE INTERVIEW!!!!
First, should start by saying I love Sean and his partner Josh very much. They’re two shining lights on this shit planet and we’re all lucky they’re around tearing it up and showing everyone what’s what. Sean’s book is truly very wonderful and if you don’t win, you would still be wise to buy a bunch of copies and give them out to friends, lovers, neighbors, family, pets, attractive people, unattractive people, dogs, cats, seals, and also everyone else. OK ON WITH THE SHOW FOR REAL!
Your book is hilarious! How do you find the humor in truly shitty things, like animals (including humans!) being treated like crap just so people can eat gross ol’ meat, dairy, and eggs?
This is already my favorite interview due to you opening with a compliment. Thank you. Humor is a great coping mechanism for dealing with hardship and unpleasantness, and there is no denying that industrialized farming and exploitation of non-human animals is incredibly unpleasant. Finding humor in horror is a way for us to not feel completely swamped and overwhelmed by what would otherwise hurt our hearts and minds too much. We laugh so we don’t cry, often. I find my irreverent approach to championing the vegan message makes me approachable to readers. Fat Gay Vegan would be a great Sesame Street character. Education about compassion with a goofy, sassy kindness and overeating.
What’s your best advice for people who are freaked out about where meat/dairy/eggs come from but are scared to take the step into veganism?
To take the vegan fork in the road, we need to ensure we have the correct map and coordinates. Arm yourself with all the facts, bookmark your favorite recipe blogs, and surround yourself with like-minded people so you don’t feel alone. The strength of community comes into its own when helping you break free from the habit of relying on animals for food, clothing and entertainment. Seeing how other kind people navigate vegan living is a fabulous form of inspiration and can be the kick in the trousers you need to take the leap.
Why is intersectionality so important to you?
First of all, I am unlikely to use the term intersectionality to describe my work as a vegan campaigner as I know the term was coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw to describe the crossover oppressions specific to black women. Apologies for getting a little too learned, but something powerful I’ve taken on is how harmful it can be to appropriate terms and concepts designed for realities different from my own. You know what I mean? Intersectionality just doesn’t feel right for me to use as I see fit as a white man from Australia.
[Ed.: My apologies for the sloppily worded question and the reminder to be more specific and correct in my language! Learning is fun and necessary!]
But to get back on track and to what I think you are asking, it is important to me to fight to redress multiple oppressions affecting our communities and not just sit at home Instagramming my latest box of vegan donuts.
When we understand that the forces of capitalism, colonialism, toxic masculinity and white supremacy are powering lots of fucked up shit in our world (racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, body shaming, industrialized oppression of non-human animals, wealth disparity, farmworker exploitation, etc) we can start to understand that we need to tackle the root cause of multiple oppressions if we have any hope of enacting meaningful change.
If you are still with me, I’d like to also tell you that being vegan is not enough. If we don’t fight the oppressive forces that make all this shit happen in the first place, it will just keep springing up. So eat your vegan donuts, but make sure vegan donut companies are paying fair wages, are not employing sexist and racist advertising tricks, and are concerned with the safety of farmworkers growing the donuts. Yes, I have a fantasy of vegan donuts growing on trees.
And please don’t just take my fat, white man word for it. Some smart and clever people you should pay attention (and money) to include Dr Breeze Harper [Ed.: Heranthology, “Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society,” is indispensable!] and lauren Ornelas [Ed.: Food Empowerment Project is AMAZING!]. They know much more than I do and should both be cited in any discussion about fighting multiple oppressions within a vegan framework.
You are essentially a professional vegan – what advice would you give other people who are looking to turn their passion for veganism into a FT job?
My number one piece of advice is to couple your love of veganism with another passion. I have always wanted to be a writer since I was small child writing poems to my local newspaper. I once won a calculator ruler for a poem called ‘Friends’ in which I recounted my sadness at being abandoned by my friends. I was a barrel of laughs as a kid, obviously.
If you are good at something and have a drive to do it (like me with writing), it makes it so much more fun to turn it into your livelihood. You might not be a writer but perhaps you are a teacher, an artist, a community organiser, or an event planner. There are so many meaningful ways to work veganism into your other life passions.
You list a bunch of cities that are very vegan friendly in your travel section, but I want specifics? What are your top 5 favorite vegan restaurants in the world?
Vedge in Philadelphia is the best vegan restaurant on the planet. If you can afford to eat with them, you won’t get finer food. Wulf and Lamb in London is a beautiful place to dine and it helps that they do the best vegan mac n cheese in the UK. Temple of Seitan in London is more of a fast food joint but I couldn’t leave their world-altering vegan fried chicken off my list. How many have I got left? Two? OK. Get into Napfényes Étterem in Budapest. It will change your life for the better with glorious goulash and decadent pastries. My final pick is a bit of a cheat as it is a chain. I really think that Veggie Grill has done a lot of good in the world by serving up consistently tasty comfort food to the masses across the USA.
And more about food because I’m also fat and I love it! What are your top 5 favorite vegan dishes?
I’m all about potato and black bean taquitos served with salsa verde. My go-to snack for when I’m Netflixing (with a borrowed account because I’m too cheap to buy my own) is a bowl of fresh popcorn dusted with chipotle powder, nutritional yeast and pink salt. The fried vegan chicken two-piece from Temple of Seitan is going to be served at either my wedding or funeral, whichever comes first. I adore an old-fashioned English fry up (or hot breakfast) featuring sausages, baked beans, toast, rashers, and scramble. I’m not famous for eating raw food but I do love vegan ceviche featuring mushrooms ‘cooked’ in lime juice. My beloved friend Julio taught me how to make it, so it arouses an emotional response as well as a greed response.
How much do you love Vegansaurus and can we do a vegan cruise with you?
Before I was a z-grade vegan blogger, Vegansaurus was one of my inspirations and made me feel that I could do this whole ‘being a sassy vegan online’ thing. So thanks for letting me steal all your ideas and thematic approach to life. If I had my way, Fat Gay Vegan and Vegansaurus would ALWAYS be on a vegan cruise together with an unlimited supply of donuts and reality TV cameras trained on us to catch our every witticism. Come at me, bro.[Ed.: OK, WHO WANTS TO GIVE US A SHOW? Let’s go, Hollywood! You heard the Fat Gay Vegan!]
