Birdman

I know that you must've read this title and thought of 4 or 5 different avenues I could go down. Is he talking about jazz great Charlie Parker? Are we going to hear about some cat at Alcatraz? Is this an ode to Mike Tyson, well known curator of pigeons, and not a bad prize fighter when he doesn't have a hankerin' for an ear. Perhaps you thought I was going to keep it a little more current for our Dirty Southt fans and speak on one of those fellas from New Orleans on the Cash Money label. Is that 4 yet? Or maybe, speaking of rap music, you thought I might talk about that underground economy topic that Ice Cube immortalized when he said a bird in the hand, is worth MORE than a bush.

Well, the first one and the fifth might be good guesses. If you know me, you know that Charlie Parker or 'Trane or Miles might be on my mind at any given time. But that's not it. If you've talked to me about my travels lately, you might have deduced that #5 had to be it since I'm soon to be on a plane headed for the place (Colombia) that Hollywood, pop culture, and of course hip-hop has glorified and made synonymous with drug trafficking. That thought has crossed my mind this week, but no, that's not what I'm talking about tonight either.

Tonight, I'm not that complex at all. In fact, I'm downright superficial. I'm talkin' bout the bird, as in Golden Bird. Chicken. I think I just like saying the name Golden Bird, and thinking about how good my uncles would make it sound to drive over to Central and Avalon to get some Golden Bird Chicken. They'd start tellin' those kind of stories where alot of the sentences don't even end with an action but with a sound and maybe a hand gesture. "Boy, lemme tell you. We'd roll on down Central to Golden Bird and WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" (Insert the same hand gesture that the older folk at church make when something that the preacher said gets good to 'em). It was as if no matter what had preceeded the mention of Golden Bird in those stories was quickly nullified by the power of Golden Bird. It was like the magic antidote for whatever had ailed my uncles. Whatever hardships they had encountered paled in comparison to the Golden Bird that lay waiting for them. It was the light at the end of their tunnel. It was the pot of gold at the end of the runway.

To this day, nary a drumstick from Golden Bird has touched my lips, but I hold it in pretty high esteem nonetheless. I keep saying that I'm going to try some the next time I'm down around that way, but I just haven't managed to get around to it yet.

I fried up my own chicken this evening, and it was of the finger-lickin' variety. Nevermind the fact that my being out of napkins made the finger-lickin' necessary lest I get up several times during the meal to wash my hands. It was pretty good. I fry some pretty good bird, if I do say so myself. I like it. I'm a pretty tough critic on foods, so it must be pretty good. I hadn't intended to fry it, but you know how it is when it gets late. I didn't get home until after 830pm and I hadn't yet thawed anything out. I turned on the oven to bake it, but then realized that I wouldn't be eating for about an hour if I went that route. I kicked around the idea of browning and then boiling in some red wine (a little coq au vin style...) but I didn't have any of the other trimmings like rosemary or anything else to cut in to make it really "sing". So I fried it. Give me a minus one in the cholesterol game for today.