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Eat an Extra Dessert Day

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Today is Eat an Extra Dessert Day, always celebrated on September 4th. We don’t know who started it or when, but we sincerely hope it will go on forever because, let’s face it, the only thing better than one dessert is two.

Eat an Extra Dessert Day

We’re neither mathematicians nor philosophers, but we wonder: Is there such a thing as half a dessert? To paraphrase Yoda, there is only dessert and no dessert. Wouldn’t that apply here, too? If eaten at once, there can be only one dessert. (We’re throwing in a little Highlander here, too. Please pardon our mixed movie metaphors.)

Theoretically, one dessert could last forever. Perhaps the purpose of Eat an Extra Dessert Day is to allow us a moment to escape the sweet-time continuum. It may be the only chance we’ll get all year.

Good luck, and when you come back to the table, please bring the chocolate sauce. There’s work to be done.

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Chicken Boy Day

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Today is Chicken Boy Day, celebrating the birthday of the fiberglass legend on September 1, 1969, or thereabouts. Official birth records are unavailable.

chicken boy day

Image – chickenboy.com

Twenty-two feet tall, referred to by many as the Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles, California, Chicken Boy stood atop his namesake restaurant on Broadway between Fourth & Fifth Streets for fourteen years, betraying no emotion regarding the dismembered, fried fowl that presumably filled the golden bucket he held before him.

When the restaurant closed in the autumn of 1983, Chicken Boy awaited a fate similar to that of his flesh-covered counterparts: mechanical separation followed by the discarding of his skeletal remains. Artist Amy Inouye, who had grown fond of the landmark since her move to Los Angeles in the 1970s, decided to save him.

While the owners may have been unsure of her sanity, they were persuaded by her sincerity. With permission secured, she made numerous calls to moving companies that started with, “Can I get an estimate to dismantle and move a 22-foot-tall fiberglass statue of a man with a chicken’s head, also known as Chicken Boy?” Eventually, she convinced one company that she was not making a prank call, and the move was scheduled.

On May 4, 1984, Chicken Boy was removed and taken to the first of many storage facilities. Inouye sent letters to several museums, certain they would want to include the Los Angeles icon in their sculpture gardens. Only one or two responded that Chicken Boy was a sign and, therefore, did not qualify as art.

Inouye began selling Chicken Boy t-shirts, followed by lapel pins, pens, mugs, and other items. She put together a souvenir catalog. The proceeds helped pay for storage. At its zenith, her mailing list boasted 14,000 names. The shop, sadly, is shuttered.

Of the phenomenon, Inouye says, “The legend of Chicken Boy grew far beyond downtown LA—it became obvious that his appeal was universal. In every person, it seems, there is a little or a lot of self-conscious awkwardness trying to accept those cards they were dealt—we are, in fact, all Chicken Boy.”

Despite mentions in Newsweek, Esquire, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, airtime on countless radio shows, and a brief viewing at the underground Arco Plaza mall, Chicken Boy had no place to call his own.

In the film Chicken Boy: The Movie, he comes alive due to the Harmonic Convergence of 1987, a Mayan/Hell/astrological alignment and prophecy that is even less believable than a fiberglass statue receiving the breath of life and learning to play the accordion.

chicken boy day

In early 2007,  Inouye found a small office building in Highland Park where she could run a small art gallery while Chicken Boy watched over Route 66 from his rooftop perch. The neighborhood of artists and musicians welcomed them both. She applied for and received a Community Beautification Grant.

Then, after eight months spent navigating the permit process, Chicken Boy was hoisted to his new roost atop Future Studio at 5558 North Figueroa Street. On October 18, 2007, after twenty-three years, five months, and fourteen days, Chicken Boy was finally home.

chicken boy day

Image – chickenboy.com

Mel Brooks once said, “The whole word chicken is funny. The ch, the i, the k, put it all together, youʼve got the funniest word in the English language.” Maybe that explains the appeal of Chicken Boy. It definitely explains why we’ve used the word seventeen times.

Happy Chicken Boy Day! (Whoops, eighteen!)

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Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw

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On the Friday and Saturday before Labor Day, a festival known as the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw takes place in Sauk City/Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin. An estimated 40,000 people attend each year. The current record for a throw is 248 feet, set by Greg Neumaier of Sauk Prairie in 1991. The women’s record is 157 feet, 5 inches, set by Oak Creek’s Terry Wallschleger of Oak Creek in 2005.

Perhaps a little background will help explain the historical significance of the cow chip and the genesis of the festival.
wisconsin state cow chip throw

The pioneers who settled the Plains in the 1800s faced cold winters with little water and timber. Hunters had discovered that dried buffalo dung patties, or chips, could be burned for fuel. They were odorless and burned with intense heat and no soot.

The buffalo were all but gone by that time, hunted out of existence, so settlers gathered cow chips and stored them for winter when they would rely on them to warm their homes and keep their cooking fires burning. The chips were so valuable that they were often used to barter for food and other provisions.

In 1970, organizers of the Cimarron Territory Celebration in Beaver, Oklahoma, trademarked the “World Championship Cow Chip Throw,” requiring other towns wishing to host an “official” throw to certify their events with the Beaver Chamber of Commerce. (So far, it has authorized throws in South Dakota and Illinois, as well as Wisconsin.)

In 1975, the Sauk Prairie Jaycees declared the Sauk Prairie area as the Cow Chip Capital of Wisconsin and, with Beaver’s blessings, organized the first Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw. In 1989, the Wisconsin State Legislature proclaimed the cow chip the Unofficial State Muffin.

wisconsin state cow chip throw

According to the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw Committee, the following rules apply to today’s Corporate Throw and tomorrow’s Men’s and Women’s Throws. In the event of a dispute, the Chip Judge has the final say.

  1. Each contestant must choose two chips from the wagon-load provided by the official Meadow Muffin Committee.
  2. Chips shall be at least 6 inches in diameter.
  3. Of the two chips, the one thrown the farthest shall count.
  4. If a chip breaks up during the throw or while in the air, the piece that travels the greatest distance will be scored.
  5. Any attempt to alter the shape of a chip—except in rare instances when a loose fragment may be removed, provided the removal does not render the chip less than 6 inches in diameter—will result in a 25-foot penalty. The decision of the Chip Judge will be final.
  6. While no gloves may be worn while throwing, licking your hands is allowed to get a better grip.

That last one is optional, folks.

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Presidential Joke Day

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presidential joke dayToday is Presidential Joke Day. On August 11, 1984, while preparing to give a weekly radio address from his ranch in California, Ronald Reagan was asked to do a routine sound check.

Although the president enjoyed telling jokes about Russia, on that morning, his remark was meant only for the sound engineers getting ready for the National Public Radio broadcast. Instead of counting “one, two, three” and so on, the president said:

My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation which will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

The comment was captured on tape and leaked to the media, then the world. NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw reported that on August 15, 1984, a coded message sent from Soviet headquarters placed troops on wartime alert, stating, “We now embark on military action against the U.S. forces.”

The alert was withdrawn 30 minutes later, after ships in the North Pacific contacted headquarters to question their orders. The official word from the Kremlin claimed that someone in the Far Eastern Command had declared a state of war without authorization.

Some U.S. officials believed the Soviet government had sanctioned the action to retaliate against Reagan’s offensive words. Others thought it was a joke. One speculated the culprit had been drunk. We’ll never know because the guilty party was never revealed.

Setting aside its questionable humor value, we must conclude that Ronald Reagan’s joke is the most powerful ever told because the hard feelings it engendered could have caused a nuclear war.

Hear the quip here. Have a happy Presidential Joke Day and remember: Always, always, always assume the mic is live and don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to hear on the six o’clock news!

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