Chickens Are Very
Hot
Animals have a way of entering even the finest journalism. The New York
Times reported recently that “Cocks Have the Advantage.” One has to get
deep into the article to realize The Times was referring to roosters who
were being trained for cock fighting. It seems that these cocks are treated
like royalty, being fed and stroked by handlers who know these cocks
generate more than chicken feed. On the other hand, run-of-the mill
chickens who are destined for the roaster, are stuffed into crowded cages
that make an oven look warm, spacious, and inviting. So cocks have a
decided advantage over sister chickens or eunuchs. They live better,
fuller, and longer than their less rapacious brethren. And while pullets
have a very high suicide rate--slightly higher than Norwegians--roosters
would rather die in a sleazy building in McKeesport,Penna. slicing
competition to shreds in front of a beer-drinking crowd.
This would be another silly sidebar except the same argument is being used
as a rationale to legalize cock fighting which is basically an underground
sport that thrives in bodegas from Wall Street to Havana to Subic Bay in
the Philippines. Not only do these fighting cocks live long and productive
lives--5.8 years if they remain in fighting trim--but they have a very rich
history. Proponents of cock fighting remind us that George Washington was
an avid practitioner of this feathery art. Apparently, Alexander Hamilton
tried to put a cock on the first $5 bill but was over-ruled by his wife. We
learn that President Lincoln held cockfights in the White House as did
Herbert Hoover, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge. History suggests
that this presidential practice continued into FDR’s tenure until an
incident in which fighting cocks got crushed by his wheel chair, sending
feathers flying, thanks to the gun-happy Secret Service. There is little or
no evidence that cock fighting was practiced in the Kennedy, Nixon, or
Clinton administrations. However, cock fighting was important to Henry
VIII who kept his cocks in gilded cages. He kept his wives in prison
despite protests by women’s groups. So cocks have ruled the roost for some
time.
For politicians, this is a sensitive issue because, by-and -large,
cock-fighting is a clandestine Southern practice. No politicians wants to
come out against the activity because, next to watching minor league
baseball and paint dry, cock fighting is an important part of the culture.
So pervasive is this sport that some politicians, particularly those in
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, have vowed that Little League
baseball will disappear before cock-fighting. Little Rock soccer moms have
said that they would rather give up coon hunting than cock fighting ,
which has taken on a Southern sacredness similar to school prayer before
high school football games.
In fact, cock fights are regularly held before football games, with cocks
being blessed by local ministers before the feathery beasts cut each other
to pieces with razor blades and sharp beaks. So popular are cock fights in
Birmingham that the activity has replaced bingo games as a revenue raising
activity for the Catholic Church. To take the sting out of this brutal
activity cheerleaders with pompoms strut around the cock ring holding ring
cards announcing the next round. Advocates are attempting to marketing cock
fighting as just another bird-brained brand of boxing. And help is on the
way.
The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) is considering cockfighting as a
marquee events that would get the same billing as studio wrestling and
ballroom dancing. This idea, recently floated in the media, has caused WWF
share price to increase from $1.50 to $17.00, suggesting that consumers
have a genuine fascination with chickens. A new event, tentatively titled
“Cockomania”, will consist of a thousand roosters, with sharpened beaks and
razors attacked to their claws, thrown in a caged ring for a fight until
the death. The last cock standing will be declared the winner and will be
sent to a stud farm in Tennessee. The other 999 cocks will be literally
thrown into the audience along with a supply of fries. WWF organizers think
the reaction will be similar to what Elizabethans displayed during popular
bear-baiting contests before the presentation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
In fact, the WWF is seriously considering bear-baiting contests in addition
to cock fighting because bears look and act like professional wrestlers.
Moreover, many wrestlers carry as much body hair as bears and are used to
being baited by the crowd who might well have been a part of Shakespeare’s
“puke-faced, scurrilous mob” in Coriolanus.
Always looking for a gimmick the WWF will be dressing its wrestlers as
chickens, turkeys, and mad cows. The latter will invariably die after a
contest but, thanks to modern medicine and a healthy purse, will recover
before the next event.
Though detractors suggest the WWF is simply embracing chickens for
marketing reasons, more reflective observers, such as Philosophy and
English professors, suggest that “unwittingly professional wrestlers are
changing the very meaning of language and words by associating brave,
albeit somewhat exaggerated, behavior with chickens and turkeys,
traditionally at the bottom of the self-esteem barrel.” James Wanewright,
professor of odd usage at Cornell, says professional wrestlers “are
literally changing the meaning of words before our eyes in a brutal kind of
pay-per-view deconstructionism.”
Wanewright is thinking of bringing chicken-robed wrestlers into the
classroom to act in the roles of minor literary characters, such as Bottom,
Rump, and Mildew, who have been the butt of jokes for years. According to
the professor wrestlers are perfect players in the drama of deconstruction
because they change mask, meaning, and matter before your eyes. And the
added advantage is that wrestling fans, who are not usually well-read, are
exposed to the latest thinking from the best thinkers of the day. Think how
short people will feel after such a presentation.”
WWF, never lost for a gimmick, has embraced the theme, “The Chicken is Very
Hot,” an obvious play on “A Chicken in Every Pot” idea. Hard as it is to
believe, the chicken used to be the “other white meat,” much more rare than
steak, pork and porcupine. This was due to the fact it took a chicken 16
weeks to reach two pounds. Now a chicken reaches four pounds in a week and
a half. So chicken has been hot at least since the introduction of spicy
wings.
However, chicken breeders have been astounded at the increase in chicken
consumption since The Undertaker, a wrestling figure, legally changed his
name to Chicken Man and lives entirely on a diet of chicken thighs and
Perrier. After a win he throws kisses and thighs to his adoring fans.
Manufacturers of video games have also seen a spike in sales, especially
those dealing with cock fights. What was once an underground activity is
now a very mainstream, suburban activity. Some Chevy Chase students have
actually brought live roosters to school for cock fights during lunch time.
School officials declared that roosters were dangerous weapons, similar to
guns, and banished them from school. Chicken Little T-shirts are also
prohibited.
Professor Wanewright suggests that “the country is in the middle of a
seismic change in attitudes and meaning, led almost unwittingly by
professional wrestlers who, 700 hundred yeas ago, would have joined Chaucer
on his journey to Canterbury.”
Reminded that The Wife of Bath is a popular wrestler on the Tulsa circuit,
Dr. Wanewright was joyous.
“Precisely, and Chaucer was a cock-fighting fan.”
Wanewright holds out great promise that Cockomania will be a
transformational event.
“After this event, no one will kick sand in a chicken’s face again.”
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