0:01

When

0:01

I talked to Charlotte Holdman, she'd spent 35 years

0:03

working with defense teams on death penalty cases,

0:05

including some very high-profile cases. But

0:07

she hadn't given an interview to the press in decades,

0:10

ever since an incident where she had a few drinks with a reporter

0:13

and said some things she was unhappy to see in print.

0:15

It was so embarrassing. And I thought,

0:17

well, I either have to quit drinking

0:19

or quit doing interviews. And I wasn't ready to quit drinking

0:22

yet, so I

0:22

quit doing interviews. So

0:25

this interview is a very rare

0:28

event for me. I haven't done any kind of interviews

0:30

with the media since 85. And you

0:33

are ending the moratorium in this one

0:35

instance. For this story,

0:37

why? Well,

0:42

a fluffy, red-combed

0:46

leghorn deserves his

0:49

moment in the sun.

0:54

I mean, just the image. And

0:57

I'm not talking about any chicken. I'm talking

0:59

about, you can just picture this beautiful

1:02

leghorn, his tail perked

1:04

up and that red comb sitting

1:07

at kind of a rakish angle on his head and his

1:09

head kind of cocked to the side. And he looks at you with

1:11

his little eyes.

1:12

That's what

1:14

this story is about.

1:20

That is not just what this story is about. That

1:23

is what a lot of today's radio show is about. Back

1:26

in the early days of our radio show, once a year,

1:28

during the highest poultry consumption time in the country, which

1:30

is, of course, if you think about this for a second, you can guess the

1:33

answer to this. It's the weeks that begin with

1:35

Thanksgiving and go through Christmas and New

1:37

Year's. I mean, during that period, for

1:39

years on our show, we had a tradition here. We would devote

1:41

an entire hour of our program to

1:44

stories of chickens, turkeys, ducks, fowl

1:46

of all kind,

1:47

and an homage to Chicago's poetry slams, which

1:49

are spread across the country, but were created at the Green Mill

1:51

Bar on the north side by poet Mark Smith. We

1:53

named these programs, Poultry Slams,

1:56

Poultry. But I just want to be clear before

1:58

we begin, the word slam.

1:59

we are using that with no malice toward

2:02

any bird of any kind at all. No

2:05

birds were hurt, no birds were slaughtered, no

2:07

birds were slammed in the making of today's program.

2:10

And we have incredible stories today, incredible

2:13

enough that at least one woman has ended a quarter-century

2:15

moratorium on talking to the press to

2:18

be here with me. And you should too.

2:21

From WBC Chicago to This American Life, I'm

2:23

Eric Glass. Stay with us. Next

2:35

one, witness for the barbecution.

2:38

So Charlotte

2:40

Haldeman didn't just get the idea of calling

2:42

a chicken as a witness in a murder case

2:44

out of the blue. She was

2:46

working on this case, and we're going to call this guy Harry,

2:49

and there was no question that the guy had killed somebody.

2:52

This wasn't about whether he'd done it. It was just about what sentence

2:54

he would get. He had sat on death row at Sam

2:56

Quentin for 10 years, but Charlotte

2:58

says he was schizophrenic with an IQ

3:00

of 58 and just out of touch

3:02

with reality.

3:04

And one of the things he did, he

3:07

wrote messages and symbols on little

3:09

pieces of toilet paper and rolled them up

3:11

in a ball. And they'd done this for years on death row,

3:13

rolled their little secret messages up in a ball,

3:16

and then rolled them in feces, his

3:18

own feces. And then

3:21

to little tiny bead-sized

3:24

balls and put those

3:27

into the braids in his hair. Oh my. So

3:30

that they dangled around his forehead.

3:32

And the things he was putting

3:34

in his hair, and from his point of view,

3:36

were they communicating some information, the little

3:38

messages?

3:40

Exactly. But he couldn't

3:42

tell me what the messages

3:43

were because they were secret. When

3:46

I would talk to him about his mother, he

3:49

would tell me she lived in a Coca-Cola

3:51

can. It's against a law to execute

3:53

somebody who is so crazy he doesn't understand

3:55

why he's being executed. And Charlotte said

3:58

that was true for this guy.

3:59

And I would say, do you know what's going to happen

4:02

on the 12th of June? He

4:06

was kind of befuddled. And with

4:09

pressure, he would finally say, well, yeah, he thought

4:11

he was going to be reupholstered.

4:14

The state of California did not agree with Charlotte

4:16

about this guy. They wanted to execute him in 30 days. Charlotte's

4:19

team was making a last-ditch appeal

4:21

to stay this execution. Meanwhile,

4:24

the state was gathering its evidence.

4:26

Anne Quinton sent in a prison psychiatrist

4:29

to determine, was he competent

4:31

to be executed? Did he know he was going to be

4:33

executed? And did he know why he was

4:35

going to be executed?

4:37

So the psychiatrist goes and interviews

4:40

Harry. And then the psychiatrist

4:43

testified in court that

4:45

not only was Harry

4:49

aware that he was going to be executed, she

4:52

was so certain of this because

4:56

she had played tic-tac-toe

4:59

with him and Harry

5:01

had beat her.

5:03

Well,

5:04

it was so absurd and

5:07

so outside of any normal

5:10

experience in a courtroom, and this is

5:12

after 30 years of being

5:15

in death penalty cases in the South, around

5:17

the world. You

5:20

know, I really couldn't believe she had said it. But

5:23

at the same time, the

5:26

only image that came to me, I'm from the

5:28

South, obviously, and

5:30

growing up, we always went to the Mid-South

5:33

Fair. And they had

5:36

a chicken that played tic-tac-toe that

5:38

absolutely mesmerized me.

5:40

And it was pretty

5:42

clear to me, okay,

5:43

we've got to find

5:46

a chicken who can play tic-tac-toe.

5:48

Shirley thought, and this is not a joke,

5:50

it's not an exaggeration, she thought that

5:52

a chicken like that could save this man's life.

5:56

Jurors after all tend to believe the state and

5:58

its witnesses. And a chicken... like that

6:01

could totally undermine the psychiatrist's testimony

6:03

by proving that playing tic-tac-toe doesn't mean

6:06

that you understand things like why you're

6:08

being executed.

6:09

I just knew a chicken would work. It's

6:12

a sad state, but I think a chicken has more credibility

6:15

than the defense team did. And

6:17

I think it would have brought the jury over

6:20

to seeing us as people rather than as

6:22

these obstructionists who were interfering

6:25

with an execution.

6:29

And who can doubt a chicken? I mean, you can't, you know,

6:32

chickens aren't going to lie. Chickens

6:36

have integrity. I

6:40

had this image of

6:43

the psychiatrist being on the stand,

6:46

and I would

6:49

quietly enter through the

6:50

wooden doors as they

6:52

opened with this beautiful

6:55

leg horn under my arm,

6:57

right? And I

6:59

would

7:01

walk into the courtroom,

7:03

not saying a word, and quietly

7:05

took a seat on the front row. The

7:08

psychiatrist,

7:09

who we knew because we'd investigated her background

7:12

from New York City, would see a

7:14

person with a chicken and think, why

7:16

is that? Oh my God, no.

7:19

And that psychiatrist would

7:21

slowly realize that

7:24

she was going to have to play tic-tac-toe

7:26

with a chicken.

7:27

So you're trying to

7:29

get inside the psychiatrist's head and make

7:32

the psychiatrist unravel even before

7:34

you pull your stuff? The jury's

7:36

eyes as awareness overcame

7:38

her. So it wouldn't work

7:40

with the frazzled chicken. I

7:43

didn't want a splotchy, beat-up, tired,

7:44

exhausted chicken. I

7:47

wanted a chicken that could capture the

7:49

audience's attention. In this case, the

7:51

audience was the jury. Right. You

7:53

needed a chicken like in a cartoon.

7:55

Look, I had to have a chicken that could take on a psychiatrist.

7:59

You know, there's no way. had to be a stand-up

8:01

chicken.

8:01

Noted. So

8:04

Lee began to hunt for this stand-up

8:07

chicken.

8:11

Well this test fell to the illegal interns.

8:14

A man was scheduled to die at that point in less than two

8:16

weeks and they needed a chicken and they

8:18

searched the places that you find tic-tac-toe

8:20

playing chickens, namely county fairs,

8:22

carnivals, and really within

8:25

hours they found a tic-tac-toe playing goose

8:28

in Montana.

8:29

But of course Charlotte says that

8:30

was totally unacceptable. I

8:32

mean goose

8:33

are nasty. You know they bite you. They're

8:35

not anyone who's goose running

8:37

around the courtroom chasing someone.

8:39

Next was a guy at a roadside stand in Wyoming

8:41

who did have a chicken and it did play tic-tac-toe

8:43

but he said that flying

8:46

or driving it to California for the trial would

8:48

probably upset it so much that he could

8:50

not guarantee that it would win the game

8:53

of tic-tac-toe so he was out. And

8:56

they found a fella in Arkansas who trains chickens

8:59

to play tic-tac-toe and

9:01

he had a whole list of chickens that he had trained

9:03

around the country and he sent

9:06

the legal team to one of those birds in San Francisco

9:08

that turned out to be a dead end. San Francisco

9:11

had actually passed an ordinance banning

9:13

the playing of tic-tac-toe by chickens,

9:16

animal cruelty. Fortunately

9:18

another chicken on the list was not far from there

9:21

at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. They

9:23

had their chicken.

9:25

So the next step was to

9:29

convince the court to let us bring the

9:31

chicken to court as a witness,

9:33

as demonstrative evidence to introduce the chicken

9:37

and let the chicken play tic-tac-toe. Now

9:39

of course I wanted the chicken to play

9:41

tic-tac-toe with a psychiatrist but I realized

9:44

that

9:48

most likely

9:49

no one was going to let us get away with that

9:51

but I did think that any of us,

9:55

a really healthy group of interns, they know how

9:57

to play tic-tac-toe so that we

9:59

could demonstrate. to the jury that playing

10:01

tic-tac-toe did not mean that you

10:03

were

10:04

aware of the consequences

10:06

of your actions. Why wouldn't you

10:08

be allowed to make the psychiatrist play tic-tac-toe

10:11

with a chicken? Like, I understand why the psychiatrist

10:13

would not want to do it, but

10:15

from a legal point of view, like, what

10:17

line does that cross?

10:20

Well, evidently, I agree

10:23

with you, but the court

10:26

failed. It never addressed the issue

10:28

of having to play the

10:30

psychiatrist, but the court felt

10:34

that bringing the chicken into the courtroom

10:36

to play tic-tac-toe

10:40

would degrade the dignity of the

10:42

court.

10:43

I thought that the dignity

10:46

of the court was degraded by executing a mentally ill

10:48

person. So the

10:50

court denied our motion and said we could

10:52

not bring the chicken

10:55

into the courtroom for demonstrative evidence.

10:57

It ruled against us.

10:59

They weren't even allowed to show the jury a video

11:02

of the chicken playing tic-tac-toe.

11:04

And without a chicken on the stand, without a video of a chicken,

11:06

the jury found the psychiatrist credible and

11:09

ruled to execute Charlotte's client.

11:12

His life was saved later on appeal,

11:15

and the years since then, in 2002, the Supreme Court ruled

11:17

that a person at his level of mental retardation

11:20

cannot be executed. For

11:22

Charlotte, though, the story stays with

11:24

her, the story of the chicken, because

11:27

in decades of doing these capital trials, bringing

11:29

hundreds of witnesses, it is the greatest

11:31

courtroom move she ever invented,

11:33

bringing in the chicken.

11:36

And she never got to try it, you know? She

11:38

invented this thing. She never got to try it. It was

11:40

snatched away from her.

11:42

Something like that sticks in

11:44

your craw.

11:45

Well, yeah, because I didn't get to do it.

11:48

But

11:50

it's also because of the nature

11:53

and quality of a chicken. When

11:55

you do this kind of work, you know, when you're down

11:58

in the... the

12:00

worst part when you're trying to work for

12:03

folks that literally the

12:05

community wants to kill.

12:09

It can be pretty discouraging. But,

12:11

you

12:13

know, this nice fluffy leg

12:15

horn brightens up your day,

12:18

you forge on.

12:20

And not all of this, all of this is

12:24

not to, you know, make light of death

12:26

as punishment, of people with mental retardation,

12:29

of people who are mentally ill, or

12:31

of chickens. Thank you for saying that. Yeah.

12:34

No, it's really not. I

12:36

actually am a member

12:37

of P.E.A. Charlotte

12:48

Holdman in New Orleans. Today's

12:49

show is a rerun. We first broadcast this story

12:52

back in 2011. In the years since,

12:54

capital punishment was suspended in the state of California

12:56

by Governor Gavin Newsom. Charlotte,

12:59

this incredible person that I loved talking to, shows

13:02

called the Angel of Death Row for her work in

13:04

getting proper legal representation for people on

13:06

death row. She died in 2017.

13:15

Back to Chicken Diva. Chickens

13:20

are what we make of them in lots of ways.

13:22

If you could possibly need further evidence of that

13:25

after that first act,

13:27

we have this story from Jack Hitt.

13:29

Oddly enough, it wasn't Susan who was obsessed with

13:31

chickens. It was Kenny, a

13:34

pal who worked backstage at the 92nd Street

13:36

Y in New York. His house was filled

13:38

with chicken cups, chicken masks. He

13:41

got the whole staff onto chickens, including Susan. For

13:44

a time there in the 80s, poultry-related jokes

13:46

and references became the fast way to get a

13:48

laugh at the Y. I

13:50

guess most of us are condemned to see

13:52

nothing more than the easy comedy of chickens. But

13:55

Susan Futuchi saw something else.

13:57

Their potential greatness.

13:59

Their hidden beauty. beauty.

14:00

Their grandeur. One

14:03

day she glued together some finger puppets for a 10-minute

14:05

rendition of the Chicken Little story for her nephew.

14:07

That was 14 years ago. Today

14:10

it is a full-length opera, enjoyed

14:12

by a cult following whenever it goes up in a

14:15

workshop or cafe or small theater.

14:18

It still performed with finger puppets, but

14:20

now it has a complete score written by a noted composer,

14:23

Henry Krieger, who did Dreamgirls.

14:25

The Chicken Little opera he wrote with Susan Vitucci

14:28

is called Love's Fowl.

14:30

Needless to say, that's F-O-W-L.

14:34

Well, we were going to start with

14:37

the opening, Siamo del Teatro,

14:39

Repertorio della Malete. We are the closed-pin

14:42

repertory theater. And we have

14:44

a special singing guest for you, which I

14:47

don't know if we have... Susan and I are sitting at Henry's Baby

14:49

Grand Piano.

14:50

Henry's guest is his Maltese Terrier named

14:52

Toby. Perhaps Toby would be kind

14:54

enough to... Yeah, would you sit on your lap for that? Yeah,

14:57

I know. Yeah, let's see what we can do. Okay.

15:01

Okay,

15:01

listen carefully. Because once Toby gets

15:04

going, he actually harmonizes

15:06

with Henry and Susan. Siamo

15:08

del Teatro, Repertorio

15:10

della Malete.

15:15

Gilebria,

15:34

a bunch of puppets in a box

15:36

with a good idea.

15:38

And then suddenly, as soon as it went into Italian,

15:40

it became something bigger than what

15:42

it had been. And it's because when

15:45

it's in English,

15:47

we all kind of know it, and it's really not that interesting.

15:49

It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as it's in Italian,

15:52

it gives us enough distance that we can

15:54

come in. It makes us... It's

15:56

just like the lover who doesn't

15:59

want you. You don't want anybody

16:01

more than you want the one who doesn't want

16:04

you Right,

16:06

and so it's sort of the same thing

16:34

You may recall that when you last heard of Little, back

16:36

in kindergarten, she was just an average

16:38

barn door fowl who had an acorn drop on

16:40

her head, which she mistakenly understood to be

16:42

the sky falling. Her alarms excited

16:45

her friends, Goosey Lucy, Turkey

16:47

Lurkey, and Ducky Lucky, and

16:49

they joined her for a journey to the king to tell

16:51

him the important news. On the way,

16:54

they meet up with Sly Fox. Little's

16:56

pals eagerly accept his invitation for

16:58

dinner, literally as it turns out. Fortunately

17:01

for Little, hunger is not enough to distract

17:03

her from her mission, and she treks on. When

17:06

she meets the king, he tells her that the

17:08

sky is not falling, it's just an acorn.

17:11

So the enlightened Chicken Little returns to

17:13

her coop, and that's where the story ends.

17:16

What are we to take away from

17:19

Little's experience? I'd

17:21

like to think it's that Little is rewarded with life,

17:24

precisely because she went off on this quixotic

17:26

mission, totally in the grip of a wrong

17:28

idea. Little, I'm

17:30

down, I'm down.

17:44

The children's fable barely figures into

17:46

the story. It's just one small episode

17:49

in the life of Chicken Little, now known

17:51

as La Pucina Pecula. After

17:54

the acorn incident, she goes on to become

17:56

an internationally renowned figure in almost every

17:58

field imaginable, to deal with the world. of politics,

18:01

academe, theater, art, bearing

18:03

due. Like Venus, she arrives

18:05

from some of the world, transported on a scallop

18:07

shell. But the triumphs of her life

18:10

begin after a youthful love affair with a fighting cock

18:12

ends bitterly, and she consoles herself,

18:15

as we all do at some point in their lives, by plunging

18:17

into Shakespeare. She becomes

18:19

an overnight sensation as an actress, celebrated

18:22

all over the world for one role.

18:24

Juliette?

18:25

Cleopatra?

18:26

Ophelia?

18:27

The company then performs an

18:30

excerpt of recreation

18:32

of her signature role, which was Richard

18:34

III.

18:38

Well,

18:40

you know,

18:41

I mean Sarah Bernhardt did Hamlet.

18:43

Well, there's a great tradition of women playing the men's

18:45

roles in Shakespeare, but I think Richard III

18:47

is one of the more rare roles

18:49

to be played by a woman. Well, that's how

18:52

adventuresome an actress

18:54

this chicken was.

19:00

I can assure you there's nothing like watching a four-inch

19:03

tall finger puppet crying out, a horse,

19:05

a horse, a kingdom for a horse,

19:08

in Italian.

19:10

Not to mention that that puppet is a chicken,

19:12

surrounded by a whole supporting cast of poultry

19:14

and other avian supernumeraries.

19:17

Susan says that, artistically, there's

19:20

something special about chickens. They're

19:22

a clean slate.

19:24

You can put anything on them.

19:26

You can project anything under them because it's

19:28

not like they have, to me at least,

19:31

a very strong personality.

19:33

Except for Lapulchina. In

19:35

the opera, she moves into the field of archaeology,

19:38

masters it, needless to say, and

19:40

makes a great discovery, the last tomb

19:42

of Galapatra. But

19:45

not before she sails the Seven Seas, is

19:47

shipwrecked, gets rescued, but

19:49

is by pirates, and then she meets the pirate

19:51

king.

19:52

As soon as he meets her, he falls in love with her because

19:55

of her sweet spirit. Because

19:56

she comes in and she says, here

19:58

you see a little chicken.

19:59

who,

20:02

although I'm dripping wet, I'm

20:05

proud and yellow.

20:06

Let me repeat that lyric for you in a pure

20:08

translation. Although

20:10

I stand before you,

20:12

a chicken

20:13

who is dripping wet, I am proud

20:15

and I am yellow. Okay,

20:18

back to Susan.

20:19

And although I've loved

20:21

and I have lost, I have learned

20:23

to follow the call of adventure. So let's

20:26

sail on. Keep in

20:28

mind that all of the action,

20:30

like everything that

20:33

occurs in every Susan

20:35

Fittucci

20:44

production

20:49

ever since the first one for her nephew and

20:51

continuing to this day, occurs

20:54

among characters created by sticking

20:56

a small painted styrofoam ball onto

20:59

a larger painted styrofoam ball, poking

21:02

in two map tacks for eyes, gluing

21:05

on a tiny felt beak, and then

21:07

impaling the whole thing on top of one

21:09

of those really old fashioned clothespins that

21:11

a forties cartoon figure would clamp to

21:14

his nose around a chunk of Limburger cheese.

21:17

And I could go on.

21:40

Susan has written, or she puts it translated,

21:43

La Pulcina Piccola's Diaries, which

21:46

detail the other adventures that happen in between

21:48

those in the opera. There are 60 pages

21:51

so far, excerpts of which have appeared in

21:53

closed lines, the official fan club newsletter

21:55

of the opera. Love's fowl

21:58

has a strange effect on people. I

22:01

didn't understand it until Susan loaned me a videotape

22:03

of one performance. To be honest,

22:06

I thought I would be annoyed at the intentional irony and

22:08

hokeyness of the puppets. But

22:10

there I was with my three-year-old daughter, who

22:12

loved the show, watching a plastic

22:14

bird pantomime one of the simplest human

22:16

moments, but also one of the most profound.

22:19

The confession of a great love. In

22:21

this case, with a cock robin.

22:24

The song that she sings as she enters goes,

22:27

I am a chicken and ready for love. My

22:30

heart is as fragile as the egg

22:32

from which I was born. Treat

22:35

me gently and so will I treat you. Together

22:37

from earthly love we will reach for the divine. And

22:39

then she sings, I am a chicken and I can't fly

22:42

without love.

22:43

My heart is as strong

22:45

as the egg from which I was born.

22:48

And so forth. And so it

22:50

is only with cock

22:53

robin that she flies.

23:19

And after they have agreed to fly together, and

23:21

they are soaring in the air, cock robin

23:23

is shot and killed, murdered by

23:25

a jealous sparrow. I couldn't

23:27

believe it, but I was getting choked up, especially

23:30

when cock robin appeared on the stage. His

23:32

styrofoam body spray painted black for the

23:34

lament, his little magic marker

23:36

eyes drawn as X's. I

23:39

gathered my daughter my arms and held on tight, as

23:41

I was helplessly drawn into an expression of the grief

23:43

and suffering of this little sad bird. In

23:46

this era of slick special effects, there

23:48

was something unexpectedly liberating in the

23:51

marriage of this crude medium, painted

23:53

styrofoam balls bobbing up and down behind

23:55

a cardboard box and the high melodramatic

23:58

art of Italian opera.

24:00

picture it.

24:36

I want a subscription to that newsletter.

24:38

Are you going to do this? I mean, are you going to be working

24:41

with Pucina Picala, you think, for the

24:43

rest of your life?

24:44

It's possible, and I like working

24:46

with her because I get to go into

24:49

a world that's inhabited

24:51

by a very sweet spirit and

24:54

play with

24:55

the mechanics of the world.

24:58

And because it's very small,

25:00

like I could never have afforded to produce

25:02

this show with people, but

25:05

I could afford to do it

25:07

with clothespins. So I can do as big

25:09

a production as I want

25:12

with clothespins. I can have stuff fly in and

25:14

out and come in from traps, and I can have

25:16

all kinds of fancy flashy stuff that

25:19

costs millions of dollars to do

25:21

on Broadway. And it

25:23

cost me $200 because

25:26

I had to buy lots and lots and lots of styrofoam

25:28

and clothespins and stuff and all this in a new

25:30

table maybe. And I get to do whatever

25:32

I want. And

25:43

I get to do

25:46

whatever I

25:48

want.

25:58

Arrivederci,

26:01

Pulcianina, Buon Vio,

26:04

Charles.

26:19

Well,

26:30

these are photographs of chickens.

26:58

The first one here is a

27:01

silver-laced wine dot.

27:03

It's a black and white

27:05

bird, essentially, but the tail feathers have a

27:07

lot of iridescent green

27:10

coloring. In a world where chickens get no respect,

27:12

Tamara Staples treats them the way the humans treat

27:14

those we revere most. She takes their portraits

27:17

lovingly. Her shots are like fashion

27:19

photographs, beautifully lit, color backdrops.

27:22

They're beautiful.

27:23

The first one looked regal, but now you've just turned

27:25

to one where it almost looks like

27:27

a clown. It looks comic.

27:30

It's a modeled hudan, which

27:32

I always sort of call

27:34

the Phyllis Diller chicken. Oh

27:37

my god, the chicken does look like Phyllis Diller.

27:40

It does. It's the hat. It looks like it's

27:42

got this huge feathered hat

27:46

sort of thing and a strange body

27:48

shape. In a way, it's like Tamara Staples

27:50

is running an odd little cross-species science

27:53

experiment,

27:54

one that asks this question. What

27:56

happens when you try to treat a chicken the

27:58

way we treat humans? even

28:00

if it's just for the length of a photo shoot.

28:02

What happens, it turns

28:04

out, is that you learn just what the thin

28:06

line is that divides human beings

28:09

from birds.

28:10

All right, maybe it's not such a thin line, but it's

28:13

definitely a line. And like most city

28:15

people, I had never thought about it, about where

28:17

it lays, about what it might be, what it might consist

28:19

of

28:20

until Tamara and I headed out

28:22

to a farm. I

28:31

think that is the best thing yet. We gotta get him.

28:34

We don't want him to get dirty or anything, do we? Or does

28:36

it matter? He runs loose every day. Have you signed her?

28:39

Yeah, we can figure out. We're gonna have to get him to... We're gonna have to wrangle

28:41

them, you know.

28:42

We're at the Davidson's Dairy

28:45

Farm, about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago. Family

28:48

members present, Paul, who's helping Tamara choose a bird

28:50

to photograph, his sister, Laura,

28:52

who's studying photography at a nearby university, the

28:55

grandfather, George Cairns, a veteran breeder,

28:57

their father, Dick, who seems the most skeptical

29:00

of this whole project, but

29:03

who patiently shows Tamara and her assistant,

29:05

Dennis, the milking barn as a possible

29:07

place to set up and shoot. What kind

29:09

of an area are you looking for? Well, maybe, I

29:11

mean...

29:13

It could be a little wider, don't you think? It could

29:15

be a little wider. It could be from here to there,

29:17

and, you know, from like that pole to

29:19

that pole.

29:20

For what? Well,

29:24

we're... Maybe this is a good

29:26

time to pull out the portfolio. You

29:28

want to grab it? I'm actually...

29:30

I mean, it's a study of the birds, but

29:33

it's an isolated study, so it doesn't... People

29:37

aren't necessarily associating it

29:39

with the farm and something

29:41

to eat.

29:42

Tamara takes a saw outside the barn, so Dust

29:44

won't get on her photos, and shows them her

29:46

shots, name-dropping the names of some big

29:49

chicken people, people whose birds she's

29:51

photographed, including Bob Wolf,

29:53

editor of the Poultry Press. Dick notices

29:56

that a bird in one photo has crooked toes.

29:59

Probably on a hard surface in

30:02

return. What

30:06

do you guys think of this for the pictures?

30:08

Well, the pictures are nice and

30:10

sharp. I mean, nothing

30:12

wrong with the pictures. If there's anything to find,

30:14

faultless of birds. You

30:17

know, they aren't posing the way they should.

30:19

Some of them.

30:21

Fact is, most city people usually go

30:23

nuts when they see timers pictures. A

30:25

lot of chicken breeders don't like them. And

30:27

to understand why, to fully comprehend

30:29

this little culture clash here in America. We

30:32

have to leave the barnyard for a minute and

30:34

flashback to something that happened back at Tamara's

30:36

apartment in the city.

30:45

Tamara showed me this old red book

30:48

from the turn of the century. This book with the CEO

30:50

of the American Poetry Association and gold

30:52

on the front and then right there in gold letters.

30:54

Standard

30:54

of Perfection. The standard

30:57

of perfection is really the

30:59

Bible of poultry

31:02

standards. You know, what birds are. Tamara

31:04

flipped past the engravings and illustrations of chickens

31:07

of all types and breeds. These were

31:09

show chickens standing the way that chickens

31:11

stand in competition. Then

31:14

Tamara pulled out one of her own photos to compare

31:16

it to show me how her poses do not meet the

31:18

standards in the book.

31:19

The tail needs to be higher. Her

31:22

feet are not erect. You know, standing.

31:25

Chest isn't out. Head needs to be

31:28

up more. And it shows, I mean, you

31:30

can see the shape of the chicken much better in the

31:32

standard of perfection

31:34

pose.

31:36

See, to me what's the, so in chicken though, is that the standard

31:38

of perfection doesn't include a personality.

31:41

Right.

31:43

Because it's not about personality. It's about

31:45

breeding.

31:47

And so is that a pose that the owners would want

31:49

to own a photo of?

31:51

They're

31:53

very particular about this. They want to see their

31:55

bird in the standard of

31:57

perfection pose. Definitely. because

32:01

that's what they've been taught from 4-H

32:03

when they were kids to do.

32:06

That's for them. For herself,

32:08

for city customers, she uses the others. Okay,

32:12

back to the barnyard. Tamara

32:19

and the Davidsons decided to set up the photo session

32:21

in a room that's usually used to store feed

32:24

for the cows. I think you have 45 minutes

32:26

to set this up. That 45 minutes includes

32:28

dismantling and moving a wall of hay

32:30

that is probably 10 feet high

32:32

and 15 feet long. This

32:35

takes five people. Then,

32:38

in comes the power and the fancy lights and the clock

32:40

backdrop that gets hung from a steel pole. The

32:42

backdrop is ironed first with an iron and

32:44

ironing board brought from the city just for that purpose. 11 and

32:47

a half, 11 and an 8 and a half. Yeah, 11

32:50

and a half. Your test is going to be at 11 and

32:52

a half, 11 and 8 and a half. You should

32:54

go film at 11. It was cold,

32:56

well below freezing. So cold that the Polaroid

32:59

film that Tamara uses for lighting tests would

33:01

not fully develop. You

33:02

ready for the bird? I

33:05

just want to commune with the bird.

33:08

I just want to make you pretty. Look how sweet.

33:11

Aren't you? You know what? I'm going to photograph you. My

33:14

name is Tamara. I'll be your photographer for

33:16

today. Our first bird

33:18

is a white Cornish, a showbird who belongs

33:20

to George. The showbird is used to being

33:22

picked up and handled. Part of preparing

33:24

chickens for shows involves handling them a lot

33:27

so they'll be calm with the judges. He

33:28

does nudge his head up a little bit. He's perfect.

33:30

He's got his chest out. Now

33:33

he's got his face in. Okay,

33:35

yeah, you know what we want. Great,

33:37

George. He's got a feather on his back.

33:40

Tamara has the Cornish stand up on a stack of little

33:42

red antique books, kind of unsteady. Things

33:45

go well for a while. She gets a half dozen good shots

33:47

of the bird. Expressive shots. More personality

33:49

than standard of perfection, George tells me. The

33:52

bird's chest isn't high enough. Its body is

33:54

not turned correctly to the camera. And

33:56

then the bird stops cooperating.

33:59

He gets

33:59

tired.

34:01

Paul has a suggestion. Bring in a pullet.

34:03

You know what? You know that works.

34:05

Maybe you should explain

34:07

what that is. What does that mean to bring in a pullet?

34:11

Maybe, thanks maybe a female, perk him

34:13

up.

34:14

Laura

34:17

grabs a hint and waves it at the flaccid cock.

34:20

The cock does not rise. I

34:23

can say that on the radio, right? It probably would have been

34:25

better to get the one from the other pen that he's

34:27

not used to.

34:29

Fresh blood. Bring

34:32

him around a little bit. The

34:36

rooster will show off more for

34:39

a hand that it doesn't know. Yes. Do

34:42

you put a new hand in with him or

34:45

him in with a group of new hands? He will

34:47

really show off. They

34:49

try this and that. Nothing with much success. Finally,

34:52

with one shot left, Paul suggests

34:54

putting a hand into the picture with the rooster.

34:56

The girls are like, she looks like her feet

34:58

are so far apart, she's really struggling

35:00

to stand. She's supposed

35:03

to be right apart. That's

35:04

alright. Did

35:06

you see that? Why

35:09

would you just do the scruff? She looked up at him very

35:11

sweetly. Like that.

35:12

With her head cocked, the

35:15

male bird was posing

35:17

and she was posing also, but had

35:19

a personality of just being like the sweet

35:22

doting mother.

35:23

But not standard

35:25

of perfection.

35:26

But not standard of perfection.

35:30

So we're done with this background

35:32

and...

35:33

Not standard of perfection. Even

35:35

these perfectly bred cornishes could not

35:37

achieve standard of perfection today. And

35:40

even in this goofy, unbirdlike

35:43

situation, an hour of watching

35:45

them makes clear just how hard it is

35:47

to ever get birds to hit the standard. Which

35:50

is to say, Not only

35:52

do we completely dominate every aspect of

35:54

the lives of chickens, their births, their feed, their eggs,

35:56

their slaughter, Not only have we bred them to

35:58

human specifications to meet... human needs, but

36:01

we have created a standard of what it means

36:03

to be a chicken that most chickens

36:06

can never eat. That's

36:08

what the standard means. We judge them as

36:11

chickens and we find them mocking. If

36:14

they had the brains to understand this, they

36:16

would be right to feel indignant. But

36:19

of course, this is a city person's

36:21

perspective and that means that it is completely

36:24

wrongheaded from the point of view of anybody who actually

36:26

raises birds. Starting in the

36:28

cold feed room, I had a long, long talk with

36:31

George about this. George is 80 years

36:33

old. He's been raising birds since the, I

36:35

guess, the Calvin Coolidge administration.

36:38

And he says the whole fun of raising birds

36:41

is raising them to the standard. Well, like for instance,

36:44

if your birds lack

36:47

bone, okay, you

36:49

go out and buy a bird as near to like them

36:51

as you can with better bone. But

36:55

when you've made them together, you might

37:00

get long-legged birds or too short

37:02

or, I mean, you don't

37:04

get what you want just by mating. It takes

37:07

four or five years to gradually get it

37:09

up. And by that time, in breeding,

37:12

you need new ones.

37:14

George tells me that when he's breeding a new batch of

37:16

birds, he'll hatch 65 of them and

37:18

only one or two will be anywhere near the standard

37:21

of perfection.

37:22

That's how hard it is. Do you get frustrated with

37:24

the standard of perfection sometimes? No,

37:26

we get frustrated with the judges. Because

37:30

every judge has his own idea what the standard

37:32

should be. I thought that's the whole point

37:34

of the standard, is that judge— That is, but

37:38

one judge will want it this way and another another.

37:41

Today, if you bred your birds

37:43

to the standard of perfection, weight

37:46

and everything, and took them to the show,

37:49

you probably wouldn't get anywhere. You

37:52

gotta breed to the fads.

37:59

are supposed to have shorter legs than the real standard

38:02

of perfection. Vertical tail feathers

38:04

are out, and all sorts of breeds that really

38:06

should have them. In the country,

38:09

among the chicken breeders, they think about

38:12

a lot of things we never get to in the city.

38:14

And are there, when you're raising these

38:16

birds like I, with any of these birds, I mean,

38:18

do you have a close relationship with the bird the

38:20

way somebody would have with a pet? I

38:24

don't have time.

38:26

Yeah, I've

38:28

got too many things to do. Three

38:33

years ago, I almost died of cancer, and the good

38:36

Lord told me how to cure myself. And

38:39

so I've been working with that a lot the last three

38:41

years. I've helped people put

38:45

it in papers. Now it's getting all over the United

38:47

States. What did you do? What did you do? That

38:50

you use the root of a dandelion. Simple

38:53

as can be. But there's something in that

38:56

that builds up your blood and your immune system.

38:59

Wait a second. You're saying that you were diagnosed with cancer,

39:02

and this is the only treatment you had, and

39:04

it cured you? Yeah. And

39:06

I've given it to other people when the medical

39:09

world has told them that there's nothing more they can do,

39:11

and they've got well too, but not all of them. If

39:14

they're too far gone, it won't help them. And

39:17

you make it into tea or something? I have. Why?

39:20

We just put it in a little water, a little milk.

39:23

Kool-aid. You can put it on a sandwich. Anything

39:27

that isn't hot. Church gives

39:29

me a pamphlet that he's written up.

39:31

No doctor has actually checked him out to prove the cancer

39:33

has gone from his body. He's actually got no hard

39:35

scientific proof that this really works. But

39:38

he says, God told him that this is the way he should be spending

39:40

his time. And it is cut into his

39:42

bird breeding a bit. Church

39:45

leaves, off another business. Cameras

39:47

finish hanging and lighting the next backdrop. And

39:49

the rest of us begin with the second bird. A

39:52

bird called a Brahma. They collaboratively

39:54

patterned brown and white feathers.

39:59

She is big.

40:01

Is a chicken

40:04

like the size of a dog? Not

40:06

that big. Small dog.

40:10

Our second bird demonstrates the great distance between

40:12

bird instinct and intelligence and

40:15

the demands of modern fashion photography, which

40:17

is to say, of civilization.

40:21

Called upon to do human tasks, even rather

40:23

passive ones,

40:24

a bird

40:25

remains a bird. Paul carries

40:27

the huge hand onto the fragile little

40:29

set Tamara spilled. Beauty.

40:32

What's eating there, buddy?

40:34

Ooh, it slapped

40:38

me. I'm scared of this

40:40

when she says, quietly, when she adjusts her camera. The

40:44

chicken is so big, nine pounds, the size of a small consumer turkey, and

40:48

she has to pull the camera back. The Davidson's looking

40:50

at her skeptically. Paul asks pointedly

40:53

if she's ever shot a bird this big. Hello,

40:56

bird. Are you going to

40:58

slap me in the face again? I hope

41:01

not. It's time to jump right in your face.

41:03

You know why you're here? Let's talk.

41:08

You need you to be beautiful.

41:11

Here's your moment. There are more

41:13

where you came from, buddy. You better act up

41:15

here. This

41:16

combination of coddling and threats might

41:18

motivate an aspiring supermodel or an eager

41:20

puppy, but this, after all, is a chicken.

41:24

Lara tries to war it up with a handful of corn. You

41:28

take corn where she's trying to get it, but she has to stand up high

41:30

for it. Is that where

41:32

you want to stand? Somewhere during this ordeal, a funny

41:34

thing happens. All the Davidsons,

41:37

who all started off skeptical, they are completely

41:39

engaged. Dick suggests

41:42

a pose that is pure art concept, a

41:44

pose that could not be further from standard of perfection.

41:48

Lara words the bird with corn, Paul smooths feathers, and

41:50

when the bird quivers or moves a wing, three people

41:53

jump in to fix it back up.

41:54

not

42:00

real clean down there.

42:02

She's a little farther. You guys are a great team. I'm

42:04

going to hire you to come with me. I

42:08

got a hand in there. That's

42:10

my move a hand. Move the hand. Move

42:12

the hand. OK, great.

42:14

It wasn't until this point that I realized that I

42:16

came into this sort of expecting the bird to be more human.

42:21

Partly, I think, because

42:23

I never really thought about this one way or the other. But

42:26

partly because Tamara's photos make

42:29

the chicken seem so

42:32

thoughtful.

42:33

Hi, Tino. Over

42:35

here. Look at the camera. Look at the camera.

42:37

Right there. I'm actually completely out of frame. Those photos

42:40

are of eye.

42:41

Hello.

42:44

I think you're going to have a one shot opportunity

42:47

here. It's going to be when I

42:49

let go. Geez,

42:55

I didn't let go. I just started to let up and he yanked

42:57

it right out of my hand. The fact is,

42:59

you can try to give chickens respect. You can try to

43:01

treat them with dignity and photograph them the

43:03

way you'd photograph anything or anyone that's serious.

43:06

But the chickens will not care. You can

43:08

make them look dignified, but it is a brainless,

43:11

bird-like dignity.

43:13

And it is ephemeral. Do you feel

43:15

like your relationship with chicken

43:17

has

43:18

changed because of this?

43:21

No.

43:24

Not at all.

43:25

How could that not be so?

43:31

I ordered the chicken when

43:33

I'm at the show. I eat it right in front of the chickens.

43:37

You eat chicken while you're standing there

43:39

with a chicken? Yes. Is

43:43

it wrong? Oh. I'm

43:46

hungry.

43:50

Well, no wonder they want to sit still. Yeah.

43:53

Ah.

43:56

Ah. Ah. Ah.

43:59

Ah.

44:04

We pack up our gear and move the massive

44:06

wall of hay back into place. As

44:09

we do this, chickens hop by, Brahmins,

44:11

Americanas, mixed breeds. They seem

44:14

utterly uninterested in us. The

44:16

cluck at each other, there's feed to eat, hay

44:18

to nestle in. They have better things

44:21

to do with their time. And

44:23

you know, there's nothing that makes you realize just

44:25

how inhuman chickens are than spending

44:28

a day trying to make them seem

44:29

human.

44:38

A core

44:39

winged migration.

44:41

So it was Saturday, January 10, 2004.

44:44

And Spalding was in our apartment

44:46

in New York with our daughter Marissa, who

44:49

was 16 at the time,

44:50

and Theo, who was 6.

44:52

This is Kathy Russo. Her husband was Spalding

44:54

Gray, who is best known for delivering monologues

44:57

on stage, like Monster in a Box and

44:59

Swimming to Cambodia. Both those monologues

45:01

were also filmed as movies. Spalding

45:04

Gray went missing on January 10, 2004. Witnesses

45:08

say they saw him on the Staten Island ferry that night. His

45:10

body was finally found, pulled out of the East River

45:13

two months later. Our program

45:15

today is about birds and the hold they

45:17

had on us. And Kathy Russo tells this

45:19

story about Spalding's last night

45:22

and the days immediately after that. Like

45:24

she just said, her husband was with two of their kids that night.

45:27

She was out. They

45:28

have a third child, Forrest, who was 11 at the

45:30

time. He was in Sag Harbor, Long Island,

45:33

with friends and a babysitter. They had a house

45:35

out there, too.

45:36

Spalding had had dinner with the kids,

45:38

and then it got to be about 7 p.m. He

45:40

said he was going to meet an old friend. And

45:42

Marissa goes, oh, that's fine. You know, I'm here. I

45:45

can watch Theo. And

45:48

he went out. And about

45:50

an hour and a half after that, he called,

45:52

checked in on the kids. Theo answered.

45:55

And he said, how's everything going? He goes, good.

45:58

He goes, well, I love you very much. much, and

46:00

I'll be home soon.

46:03

And we never saw Spalding again.

46:06

The next series of events still

46:09

seemed like a blur to me, even five years later. But

46:11

the first thing I had to do was

46:13

go report Spalding missing. I did

46:16

that, and then I decided to send the kids home

46:19

back to Sag Harbor

46:21

to join their brother.

46:24

So I stayed for two days, did whatever I

46:26

could, which was pretty much nothing. And

46:28

after two days, I just decided

46:29

I'm going back to Sag Harbor to join all the

46:31

kids. So I'm driving

46:33

on the Long Island Expressway back to Sag

46:35

Harbor,

46:37

and I get a phone

46:38

call on my cell phone.

46:39

And it was Theo, and he was all excited. And

46:42

he said, Mom, Mom, we came home today from

46:44

school, and there was a bird,

46:46

a little bird flying around the island

46:48

in the kitchen. I said, and then

46:51

what did you do next? And he said, Well, we we

46:53

followed the bird and Marissa followed

46:55

him into the bathroom. And

46:57

she tried to calm the bird. And

47:00

she took a hat and cupped it

47:02

over the bird and captured the bird and

47:04

went outside and let him out free. And

47:08

I was just so dumbfounded

47:12

and awestruck. The first image

47:14

that came to my head when he said that there

47:16

was something a bird in particular,

47:19

circling over this island, was

47:21

I thought of Spalding and how for the last two

47:23

years, he had obsessively

47:26

circled around that island, talking

47:29

to himself just circling and total

47:32

anguish.

47:33

You see,

47:34

two years before that we had been in

47:37

Ireland celebrating his 60th birthday.

47:40

And the second day there, Spalding

47:42

and

47:42

I were in a horrible car accident. Spalding

47:46

suffered enormous head trauma.

47:48

He was never the same. They

47:51

actually had to put titanium plate in his

47:54

head. He was

47:56

in and out of hospitals for two years after

47:58

the accident.

48:00

Doctors prescribed various cocktails

48:03

of pills for him. Nothing worked. Not

48:05

even the 20 electric shock treatments

48:08

that he had. And

48:10

the

48:11

second thought I had when I heard about

48:13

the bird was, was this

48:15

a message from Spalding? Was he trying to tell

48:17

us something? We've never had a bird in

48:19

our house before. And

48:21

I remember the Irish have this saying that

48:23

if you find a bird in your house

48:25

after someone dies and it's alive,

48:28

the person's soul is free. And

48:31

if you find a dead bird,

48:33

the person's soul is restless. And

48:37

I remember Spalding. I'll never forget the story

48:39

after his mother killed herself 35 years before.

48:43

His father woke up the very next day and

48:45

next to his bed

48:46

where his slippers were on the floor was

48:49

a dead bird.

48:51

And that story just stayed with me.

48:54

So that night after the kids went to bed, I

48:56

went around the house and I was making

48:58

sure that another bird could not get into this

49:00

house. Because I wasn't going to take the chance

49:02

of another bird coming into the house and dying.

49:05

So I checked all the windows and I closed all the fireplaces

49:08

to

49:09

make sure, to guarantee

49:11

that there is no way a bird could come into our

49:13

house.

49:14

And the

49:16

next day, I

49:17

was at the dining room table reading the paper

49:20

and I looked up and there was a

49:23

bird across the table peering at me. And

49:26

I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.

49:29

So I yell out to the kids who are in the other

49:31

room and they run in and

49:34

the bird takes off and flies up the stairs.

49:36

And we all follow it

49:39

and it goes into what's our office

49:41

and it's perched on top of this

49:43

window. And I shut the door

49:46

behind me and for some reason

49:48

I held up my hands thinking

49:50

the bird might magically come to my hands.

49:53

And

49:53

I go, Spalding, it's

49:57

okay. You're safe now.

49:59

It's okay.

49:59

come to me. And

50:02

Forrest and Theo are on the other side of the door

50:04

going, Mom,

50:07

why are you calling the bird after dad?

50:11

And the bird

50:12

just sat there staring at me, and

50:15

then it took off,

50:16

and it flew over my hands, and

50:19

in between the space in between the door and

50:21

the floor, it scooted out, went

50:23

past the boys, flew down the stairs, and

50:26

we had already opened up the kitchen doors, and it flew

50:28

out the kitchen doors,

50:30

and it was safe, and it was gone.

50:33

The next day, I'm in the kitchen,

50:35

and Forrest calls out from the TV

50:38

room. He was watching cartoons.

50:39

He goes, Mom, the bird's back.

50:42

It's at the end of the couch. So

50:44

before I even go into the room, I open up

50:46

the kitchen doors just to make sure we have an

50:48

exit for the bird, and I run

50:51

into the family room,

50:52

and sure enough, there's the

50:54

bird. And we do, it's

50:56

like become a drill now. This is the third

50:58

day, consecutive day with the bird in our

51:00

house, and we follow the bird around,

51:03

and this time, it goes through the living room,

51:05

then it comes back into the kitchen,

51:07

and I actually got the camera out, and

51:09

I took a picture of it, and

51:11

the birds flew out.

51:15

Just like that, it was gone.

51:18

And two months later, they found Spalding's buddy

51:20

in the East River.

51:23

I think with suicide in

51:26

particular, it's really hard death

51:29

to digest. There's

51:31

a lot of guilt. You

51:34

go back and back, and you get into that

51:36

mode of,

51:37

I should have done this, I could have done that.

51:40

It's a seesaw of guilt

51:43

and forgiveness.

51:45

So last year was my 47th

51:47

birthday, and I was

51:49

feeling kind of blue, and I was really missing Spalding.

51:53

And I went on this bike route

51:55

that the two of us used to take together,

51:58

and it ends up by the water, and just before I got there, I was like, to

52:00

the water. I saw this little brownish

52:02

gray bird sitting on the side of the road,

52:05

just like the one that we had in our house.

52:07

And I passed by on my bike. I ride pretty

52:10

fast, but something told me, go back. And

52:13

I did. And the bird was

52:15

just sitting there and I get up close to it and

52:17

didn't fly away. So I figured the bird

52:18

was hurt.

52:19

And I'm looking at the bird crouching over

52:21

it and this jogger goes by

52:23

me and he said, oh, that bird was there

52:26

two hours ago when I started my run.

52:29

So I raced back home on

52:31

my bike and I went into

52:33

the house and I collected a shoe box and I filled it

52:36

with grass and bird seed, got some rubber

52:38

gloves and I drove back to where the bird was. And

52:40

the bird was still there. It was about a mile from my house.

52:43

And it's just looking up at me. So

52:46

I thought it was really hurt and I tried to scoop

52:48

it into the shoe box and

52:51

it just gets up, looks at me and

52:53

flies away. There's nothing

52:56

wrong with it. Wings were fine. I

52:58

saw it flying off into the distance and

53:01

I thought it just hit me like a ton of bricks

53:04

right at that moment.

53:06

There was nothing I could do to save

53:08

this innocent little bird, which

53:11

in the end he was fine. He flew away and

53:15

there was nothing I could do to save Spalding.

53:18

Cathy Russo.

53:19

These days she's a producer on the podcast, You and Me

53:21

Both, Hillary Clinton, and the executive

53:24

producer of the podcast. Here's The Thing with

53:26

Alec Baldwin.

53:48

I sure do. For

53:57

the various stories in today's rerun were produced by Alex

53:59

Bloomberg.

53:59

Susan Burton, Ben Calhoun, Blue Cheveney, Jane

54:02

Marie, Sarah Koenig, Jonathan Van Heever, Lisa

54:04

Pollack, Brian Reed, Robin Simeon, Alyssa Schipp,

54:06

Julie Snyder, Elise Spiegel, and Nancy Opdyke.

54:09

Music up from Mr. John Connors. Other help

54:11

today from Larry Josephson and Jay Headblade. Additional

54:13

production on today's rerun from James Bennett II, Michael

54:16

Komete, and Stone Nelson. Some

54:18

updates on the people in today's rerun. Tamara

54:21

Staples has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a new project,

54:24

a documentary series about show chickens. It's

54:26

called The Standard of Perfection. George

54:28

Karens, the grandfather

54:29

from the Davidson's Dairy Farm, died back

54:32

in 2011.

54:33

Susan Vecchucci's opera about Chicken Little is available

54:36

on CD and also on several streaming

54:38

platforms. More information on where you can find

54:40

it at www.pulcina.org.

54:44

That is Pulcina spelled, of course, P-U-L-C-I-N-A.

54:49

That's its story about her first airing all the way back in 1997.

54:53

Our website, thisamericanlife.org,

54:55

where you can stream over 800 of

54:57

our episodes for absolutely free. Also,

55:00

there's merch for your holiday shopping.

55:02

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by

55:05

PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

55:08

Thanks to the show program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia.

55:10

You know what product drives him crazy? Chicken

55:13

of the sea. He's like, is that chicken?

55:15

It's tuna. Typical that

55:17

a tuna would fib like that.

55:19

Chicken never would. Chickens aren't going to lie.

55:21

Chickens

55:24

have integrity.

55:27

I'm Eric Glass. Back next week with

55:29

more stories of this American life.

55:49

All the way.

55:57

Next week on the podcast of This American Life.

55:59

dog out for a walk on the beach in

56:02

Quincy, Massachusetts,

56:03

not far from her house,

56:05

walking on the sand.

56:06

And then my one foot

56:09

started to really sink. And

56:12

then I was attempting to pull

56:14

that foot out. And then my

56:16

other foot started to sink. I

56:19

was really thinking quite fast.

56:23

Not on desert island, but like in

56:25

the neighborhood,

56:26

getting yourself out of scrapes when the cavalry

56:28

is not coming. Next week on the podcast,

56:31

we're in your local public radio station.