I am definitely guilty of simply looking up “yakiniku” on wikipedia (I challenge you to find a food critic today who doesn’t occasionally google something) and was informed that it is a Japanese term meaning “grilled meat”. Perhaps that is not acccurate and you can take it up with wikipedia.

The take-home from this weekend’s first-annual Sacramento Bacon Fest which took place at various eateries in midtown seemed to be, unfortunately, that Sacramento’s bacon scene is on life support. That it needs some kind of “renaissance.” That 2012 should reboot as “year zero” for local bacon—or at least it needs to be according to this event’s creators, some scene-making legends of the SAMMIES-bestowing variety.

Citing the lack of a flag-ship all-ages bacon venue, excessive fatty content, dwindling Atkins diet craze participants, arterial clogging, and a dearth of smaller cafes and eateries serving bacon with entrées not-strictly-of-the-breakfast variety, event organizers Brian Guido, John Conley and SN&R managing editor Nick Miller cited these examples (and more) as thwarting the scene from flourishing as it did in the “slaughterhouse days.”

Let’s just stop right there.

First, it’s seriously time for a moratorium on slaughterhouse nostalgia. Yeah, they were great and formative days for high school dropouts and neophyte serial killers during the 1990’s (yadda, yadda, yadda…). And I too fell down the snout hole of local bacon, where many a tasty BLT was consumed.

But that scene is dead.

And maybe that’s the problem: There was a sense that Bacon Fest’s attendees–which reached marginal capacity—didn’t really “get” the bacon scene they were trying to unnecessarily revive. The clique at this weekend-long event seemed to have little clue about the many other bacon scenes (and cliques, and peer groups, and tribes, and cells, and other appreciators of fatty, fried pig flesh, etc.) are, in fact, doing marginally well despite all of those inanely cited obstacles.

As one attendee asked on AdultFriendFinder: “Bacon Fest … Or are we all getting fat?”

Before you start lobbing baked potatoes at my Facebook wall (assuming we are indeed “friends”), let me just say that I can h-e-double-hockey-sticks empathize. At 36, this flabby temple I call “Cybertron” for some reason is swiftly approaching an age where I should actually take my doctor’s advice concerning heart disease and fried foods coated in a thick layer of sizzling hot grease. Bacon resonates best with youthful colons, and if it wasn’t my compulsion to down wheel barrelfuls’ of bacon, I too would sense the flat-line my doctor assures me is soon on my horizon.

But I don’t.

I get a crispy read on it quite often, actually—when I dine at Lucky Café, or take out-of-town guests to marvel at the clownspolsion that is Pancake Circus, or the bacon cheeseburgers various outlet’s around town provide to bald white dudes who are trying vainly to hide their second chins behind goatees, or some random house in Curtis Park.

The local bacon scene’s grease-clogged pulse is stronger than it’s been in a decade.

And Sacramento’s “bacon boot camp” (natch!) is thriving. It’s a veritable bacon free-for-all! However, it’s truly troubling how (ahem!) un-well-rounded (double natch!) these naysayer’s are in concentrating their efforts on one fried breakfast confection, while completely ignoring the contributions from sausage, Canadian bacon, fakeon, Bac-O’s and Bacon Bits. Pardon my calling these folks out as being exclusionary while being exclusionary myself, but our bacon scene deserves better.

Maybe the problem is that people want the scene to be as big as they are becoming.

Well, reality check: bacon fanatics won’t come out to exclusive events like Bacon Fest when they can simply get bacon for less. They may show up out of curiosity, sure, but who in this economy has $20 just to watch self-important judges evaluate culinary “artistes” as they defile the simple luxuries bacon offers, when they can get it much cheaper at any number of local restaurants or corner stores?

Why pretend we need a Bacon Fest at all? I’ve watched people scarf-down fist-loads of bacon, and it’s pretty gross. Do we really need venues outside of your average, everyday eatery to devour this tasty treat?

How about this: grab $5. Then grab another $5. Then grab ten more dollars and take a friend or lover or enemy out to breakfast (yes, you can still buy breakfast in Sacramento).

Let’s work on supporting the bacon scene we have. Why even think big? Our bacon scene good enough as it is: all small and in no way conducive to traveling bacon chefs. Simply settle for the bacon scene you have, Sacramento, then we can entertain the idea of Bacon Fests, bacon coalitions, bacon kiosks, and better crackling noises while that delicious pink flesh sizzles in the pan.

I once did an interview with Lux Interior of The Cramps. I’ll never forget what he told me before he and his band packed it in and left town: “Leave me alone! I’m trying to eat my fuckin’ breakfast.”

“Jackass!”

I think his point is clear: Sacramento, are you?

-Clark Nova