Friends, our nation lost a great figure last weekend. As we all now know, Gulak the Baby-Eater passed away after trying to eat a particularly large baby at a county fair. Our condolences to the parents of the baby, of course, but that isn’t who we are here to celebrate today.
No, today we honor the legacy of Gulak the Baby-Eater, an American iconoclast who embodied the bravery and individualism required to make a career out of eating babies for nickels at public events.
Now, I didn’t agree with everything Gulak the Baby-Eater said and did. For example, his practice of eating babies. I was also troubled by his stance on affirmative action, but that’s neither here nor there.
To those who would judge him harshly in death, I would ask you to look at the context of the man’s words and actions. We all know that Gulak was born human, but was abandoned by his family in a forest during a blood moon and was shortly thereafter captured and raised by the ogres that rule the mountainous plains. Normally the ogres would have devoured him, but since he was no longer a baby but instead a tall, stringy human child, he was adopted into their tribe and raised according to their customs.
While humans frown on baby eating, it is an incredibly popular practice among ogres. Human babies are delicacies to ogres, and we cannot bear too much anger towards Gulak for simply following the social norms of the culture in which he was raised. He was a product of his time and place, no more culpable for his actions than Henry Kissinger, Baroth the Bone-Pulverizer, or the Unabomber.
I would argue that these negative “hot takes” about Gulak sully his memory in this time of mourning. Instead of focusing on a career spent eating babies, we should focus on the better qualities of the man that ate them. Gulak the Baby-Eater was a man of conviction, and principles, and ignoring those principles just long enough that he could continue to line his pockets with the nickels of hicks and rubes who did not believe a man would eat an entire baby in one sitting at a county fair.
Despite his years of profitable baby-eating, Gulak the Baby-Eater showed genuine remorse for his actions on many occasions. Often he would speak out at the carnivals and boat shows where he was booked, saying things such as “I am sorry I am going to eat this baby” and “It is really a shame that people have to eat babies for nickels in this day and age, but oh well, pass me that baby.”
Gulak the Baby-Eater was not afraid to speak out against the practice of baby-eating, and to decry the ridiculous amount of money he made from people who wanted to watch him do it.
And yes, he did continue to eat babies, but he looked very sad when he did it.
Also, consider all the babies that Gulak failed to devour throughout his career. This beautiful country of ours is full of large, succulent babies that were not eaten by Gulak at all, not even a little bit. It is a testament to his principles that he only ate as many babies as he absolutely needed to, leaving thousands of other babies untouched in their cradles and pack-and-plays.
Those babies and their parents owe their thanks to Gulak the Baby-Eater. A man who had the strength of character to look down at a ball-pit full of toddlers at a Magic Mountain and say, “No thank you, I have eaten my fill of babies today.”
After all, in the end, isn’t it just as much about the babies he didn’t eat?
So please join me in remembering Gulak the Baby-Eater: not as he was, but as we liked to believe he was. A hero. A patriot. A servant. A person who loved this country. And a person who we have all agreed to celebrate despite the fact he ate babies for nickels at many, many public events.
God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.