Speaker 1: Cool Zone media. If there's one thing Americans love, it's excess,
Speaker 1: and the most intense example of all that is one
Speaker 1: that I'm a bit of an authority on, not to brag.
Speaker 1: It's the Nathan's Hot Dog eating Contest on Coney Island
Speaker 1: on the fourth of July. I've been twice. By the
Speaker 1: time you hear this, I may have been three times,
Speaker 1: and I regret to inform you that competitive eating is
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing in the entire world, bar none,
Speaker 1: and like many of the most interesting things in the
Speaker 1: entire world, bar none, there's a ton of weird baggage
Speaker 1: stuffed into the arteries of this contest. I have written
Speaker 1: a literal book on the topic, but as a lover
Speaker 1: of the extremely bas I legally must watch the Nathan
Speaker 1: Hot Dog Contest every single year, preferably in person, preferably
Speaker 1: with questionable press credentials, and so believe me when I say, folks,
Speaker 1: there's such a thing as too many hot dogs. The
Speaker 1: man who can eat the most high dogs at present
Speaker 1: is someone you may have heard of before, and someone
Speaker 1: I have performed a two hour fan fiction piece about
Speaker 1: on stage for about a year and a half.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name's Jamie Bethany Chestnut, and I was Joey
Speaker 2: Chestnut's wife. What a weird accident that I had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with it. I'm so grateful. No one plans
Speaker 2: to investigate what did not happen.
Speaker 1: His name is Joey Chestnut and that show was called
Speaker 1: Missus Joseph Chesnut America USA. And this man, this king,
Speaker 1: has eaten seventy six hot dogs in ten minutes. I
Speaker 1: saw it, and you're going to see history.
Speaker 3: Bud.
Speaker 4: Wow, what a rash you were hearing unofficially seventy six
Speaker 4: hot dogs and bonds for Joey Chestnut, which, if confirmed,
Speaker 4: would they yet another world record?
Speaker 5: And rich The crowd wanted this moment, Joey wanted this.
Speaker 4: Moment, and we may just have it.
Speaker 1: This is probably the event that most people in the
Speaker 1: Western world associate with competitive eating at large. Not only
Speaker 1: is it wrapped into a jingoistic and false idea of
Speaker 1: what America is, it's also highly publicized and on TV
Speaker 1: every year. But competitive eating actually took a long time
Speaker 1: to catch on in America. It was Japan where the
Speaker 1: concept of mass consumption first took off, creating celebrities and
Speaker 1: popular televised events. Hell, it's where Major League Eating's first
Speaker 1: great champion came from. The incredible to Karo Kobayashi, whose
Speaker 1: explosion onto the American scene in the two thousands immediately
Speaker 1: began doing laps around the nearest Western competitor. He made
Speaker 1: the Coney Island event what it is today and has
Speaker 1: inspired virtually every single professional eater who's come since, and yes,
Speaker 1: that very much includes Joey Chestnut. Kobayashi was the eater
Speaker 1: who showed the US that eating an excess was something
Speaker 1: that one had to train their body to do. He
Speaker 1: was a slim guy, but he had this very specific
Speaker 1: technique and preparation process, one that most eaters still use today.
Speaker 1: There's an incredible thirty for thirty about Joey and Takaro's
Speaker 1: rivalry in the late two thousands, one that heavily relied
Speaker 1: on Major League Eating's chairman, George Shay stoking racist sentiments
Speaker 1: about Kobayashi. Because yes, this is a very American contest,
Speaker 1: and if you want to know more about that, the
Speaker 1: link to my book is in the description. Anyways, when
Speaker 1: I first heard of this episode's main character, my mind
Speaker 1: went directly to Joey, who I'm pretty sure I am
Speaker 1: still legally married to today's main character, traffics in the
Speaker 1: disciplined consumption of food that can kill you, and became
Speaker 1: a folk hero in much the same way, but unlike
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut and to Karo Kobayashi. The only reason I'm
Speaker 1: talking about it now is because this character, as is
Speaker 1: often very dangerous, had a weird idea and then posted
Speaker 1: about it on Twitter. Because the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating
Speaker 1: Contest and Major League Eating in general has certainly benefited
Speaker 1: from but isn't defined by the Internet. If anything, the
Speaker 1: biggest media bolster of the Hot Dog Eating Contest has
Speaker 1: been ESPN, which broadcasts the contest every year and promotes
Speaker 1: it in the way that other news networks promote war,
Speaker 1: and it's supported by the wave of traditional media that
Speaker 1: represents it. The Internet comments along, but it's never been
Speaker 1: the engine of why the event endures as it does.
Speaker 1: But as the years of worn on, more and more
Speaker 1: of Major League Eating's champions have emerged from the Internet
Speaker 1: or made most of their money by adapting to it.
Speaker 1: The only eater who has ever defeated Joey Chestnut, this
Speaker 1: guy named Matt Stoney, began as an eater on YouTube
Speaker 1: and then later stepped away from Major League Eating and
Speaker 1: found even more success by continuing to create his own
Speaker 1: eating challenges online. One of my favorite eaters, who if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen, Oh my god, his name is bad
Speaker 1: Land Booker.
Speaker 4: I'm the Baddest Man, I'm the bad Lamp.
Speaker 1: Is still a prominent figure in Major League Eating, but
Speaker 1: is even more famous and very likely it makes more
Speaker 1: money doing chugging videos on YouTube. I know you've heard
Speaker 1: of makes the pepsi and milk and getting what's called.
Speaker 4: Pilk, but have you ever heard of doing.
Speaker 1: It with chocolate milk.
Speaker 4: Well, we are going to do it today, folks.
Speaker 3: I present to you the Chocolate.
Speaker 4: Pilp Chuck and the Biggest dos ever.
Speaker 1: And this all kind of makes sense, right, Like, if
Speaker 1: there's one thing the Internet loves that isn't spewing hate
Speaker 1: speech with complete anonymity, it's a performance of excess that
Speaker 1: could very possibly kill you. I used to do it
Speaker 1: too when I first moved to Los Angeles and was
Speaker 1: working as a fact checker at Playboy. Oh and for
Speaker 1: the record, I checked and all the breasts were in
Speaker 1: fact large. I didn't online performance piece called Shrek nudes
Speaker 1: somebody where I painted myself green and sold my own
Speaker 1: nudes to make money for Planned parenthood. The year after,
Speaker 1: I was working at a bookstore and had sold a
Speaker 1: lot of David Foster Wallace to guys who were rude
Speaker 1: to me, and I did this different performance art piece
Speaker 1: that I just posted on Twitter where I ate a
Speaker 1: third of a copy of Infinite Jess. Do I stand
Speaker 1: by these actions today? Fuck you, none of your business.
Speaker 1: She was having fun. All this to say, when it
Speaker 1: comes to people doing weird things for attention online, I
Speaker 1: am in no position to judge, and I would never
Speaker 1: Today's main character stands bravely and with great physical discomfort
Speaker 1: at the intersection of a physical challenge and an Internet stunt.
Speaker 1: From one jokey tweet, one man was lifted by the
Speaker 1: algorithm to infamy, forced to consume day after day, tempted
Speaker 1: by capitalism and politics along the way, and depending on
Speaker 1: who you ask, united or disgraced the nest of the
Speaker 1: American colonial Project for a single afternoon Philadelphia, Chicken Man,
Speaker 1: your sixteenth minute starts now. Now, this is the first
Speaker 1: episode of sixteenth Minute, where I have to admit, if
Speaker 1: this one didn't catch you, I don't really blame you.
Speaker 1: But even if you don't know who the Philadelphia Chicken
Speaker 1: Man of twenty twenty two is, today's character Alexander Timinski.
Speaker 1: The phrase chicken man is a potent one. Maybe you've
Speaker 1: heard it before. Con Thank a lifetime supply of frozen
Speaker 1: chicken butt your cook on. Imagine you the chicken for
Speaker 1: a year.
Speaker 5: Now. Another exciting episode in the life of the most
Speaker 5: fantastic crime fighter the world has ever know, Junior.
Speaker 1: Everywhere, or in an extremely specifically ric sent to me
Speaker 1: by my brother shout out ben.
Speaker 6: Here when it blew up the Chicken Man and Philly
Speaker 6: last night.
Speaker 1: Whether we like it or or not, the very concept
Speaker 1: of the Chicken Man, whatever the fuck that means, surrounds us.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a special episode because I wasn't
Speaker 1: really planning on making it. When I hear Philadelphia Chicken Man,
Speaker 1: I think, Eh, maybe too regional. Eh, doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: there's much of a story. Sure, it meant a lot,
Speaker 1: and I mean a lot to the people of Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: but didn't mean anything to anyone else. But the Chicken
Speaker 1: Man was calling to me out of nowhere. About a
Speaker 1: month ago, my friend Andrew and Philly reached out to
Speaker 1: see if I could headline a comedy show on short notice.
Speaker 1: I could. I really really like Philadelphia. It kind of
Speaker 1: reminds me of Boston, the kind of place where people
Speaker 1: get angry with you for no reason and set their
Speaker 1: uncle's car on fire if their sports team loses. They're
Speaker 1: very different places. But when I'm in Philly, I feel
Speaker 1: like I get it. And then I remembered there was
Speaker 1: a main character in Philadelphia who's been brought up to
Speaker 1: me a lot, and it's a fairly recent story. Come
Speaker 1: with me if you will to November twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, we were just in October for
Speaker 1: the Coffee Wife episode, but bear with me, because twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two is a weirdly huge year for main characters.
Speaker 1: Something was in the water. November twenty twenty two, gay
Speaker 1: marriage is legalized in Japan. Everyone's having a meltdown about inflation.
Speaker 1: In the US, the midterm elections are sending everyone into
Speaker 1: an absolute hailspin. And in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a man named
Speaker 1: Alexander Taminski ate a rotisserie chicken in one sitting for
Speaker 1: the fortieth day in a row. It all began with
Speaker 1: me doing math to figure out that this started on
Speaker 1: September twenty eighth, twenty twenty two, Alex and I'll let
Speaker 1: him introduce himself. In just a moment, Alex ate an
Speaker 1: entire rotisserie chicken in one sitting. Prior to this, he
Speaker 1: was living his life with his wife, working for money
Speaker 1: as a server at the Barclay Prime Steakhouse in the
Speaker 1: Ritzy Rittenhouse Square, our neighborhood, and in previous years worked
Speaker 1: as a musician. The first chicken went down easy. Our
Speaker 1: boy wanted this chicken. It was a twat, maybe, he
Speaker 1: tells his wife. And it's a near certainty that his
Speaker 1: coworkers saw him do the deed before a shift began,
Speaker 1: but it's an act relegated to Alex's personal circle. On
Speaker 1: day two, he thinks, you know what, let's do Round two,
Speaker 1: Stay three, day four, and at some point before he
Speaker 1: goes public on day eleven, he decides he's going to
Speaker 1: keep this thing going, and by October eighth, he takes
Speaker 1: to his occasionally active Twitter account at alex icon Tom
Speaker 1: display name smooth Recess. He hadn't tweeted since September twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: Retisserie Chicken Eve the.
Speaker 6: Tweet I am jealous of people that can shit in
Speaker 6: public bathrooms without anxiety. A tweet from the same day,
Speaker 6: the ghouls have started to arrive.
Speaker 1: It all feels eerily connected, like an omen and by
Speaker 1: the time that Alex twet on October eighth, his life
Speaker 1: has changed. He posts a picture of himself at the
Speaker 1: restaurant he works at. He's a white guy in his
Speaker 1: early thirties with a beard, a hoodie, and a hat,
Speaker 1: sitting in front of a chicken that he's already started
Speaker 1: in on, and looking confident. He makes eye contact with
Speaker 1: the camera with a near indiscernible smirk, a cloth napkin
Speaker 1: bib tied in, with his fork and knife in each hand,
Speaker 1: pointing upward, ready for war. The rotisserie chicken itself is
Speaker 1: already skinned, but no salt or sauce is in sight.
Speaker 1: A glass of water, a vanilla polar seltzer, and a
Speaker 1: conspicuously gigantic carrot sit on the table before him. Most
Speaker 1: chillingly of all, it is broad daylight.
Speaker 6: The tweet reads, I would like to invite you all
Speaker 6: on a journey that I am on. I am eating
Speaker 6: a rotisserie chicken every day for thirty days. Today is
Speaker 6: day eleven. I will keep you all updated as I
Speaker 6: get closer to my goal. Thank you.
Speaker 1: At the time I'm writing this, this tweet has five
Speaker 1: hundred forty favorites and forty seven retweets. Respectable, sure, but
Speaker 1: nowhere near the heights that this character in this story
Speaker 1: will reach. You'll also notice that he's saying the challenge
Speaker 1: goes for thirty days, when we citizens of the future
Speaker 1: know that it actually goes for forty days. Anyways, this
Speaker 1: first chicken post is supported mainly by Alex's existing followers.
Speaker 1: He gets a hell yeah, he gets a do you
Speaker 1: eat a giant carrot? Every day? As well. He thanks
Speaker 1: everyone for their support and posts again the next day,
Speaker 1: accompanying a picture of Alex looking at a yet to
Speaker 1: be tampered with rotisserie chicken gazing down in a scenic
Speaker 1: public park. It's a repost of his Instagram story saying.
Speaker 6: Enjoying day twelve of eating a rotisserie chicken every day.
Speaker 6: A beautiful chicken on a beautiful day in a beautiful park.
Speaker 1: It keeps going from there. Alex eats chicken on the floor,
Speaker 1: Alex kisses the chicken, and as time goes on he
Speaker 1: starts to look sick. Is it a performance. He'd probably
Speaker 1: say no, I'd probably say yes, But no matter who's right,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to look at. By day nineteen, he's holding
Speaker 1: his head in his hand in exhaustion. On day twenty
Speaker 1: four he's standing in active discomfort. Day twenty five is
Speaker 1: the first time we see him say fuck it and
Speaker 1: eat the damn thing straight out of the bag in
Speaker 1: the grocery store. The goal changes to forty chickens, and
Speaker 1: as Alex inches closer to thirty rotisserie chickens with polar
Speaker 1: Seltzer at the end of October twenty twenty two, the
Speaker 1: internet is growing interested. He hits thirty chickens on October
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, and it's a post he's sitting at the
Speaker 1: same table at the restaurant he works at, Alex looking
Speaker 1: full of sodium and triumph as he sits before an
Speaker 1: uneaten rotisserie chicken with candles that announce thirty along with
Speaker 1: a little CVS centerpiece. Sixty four retweets, eight hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty six favorites we're cooking. Later that day, things really
Speaker 1: start to kick up. Alex posts an image to Twitter,
Speaker 1: one that will live on in temporary Internet infamy into
Speaker 1: the literal day that I'm writing this. It's a simple
Speaker 1: white poster with three pictures of him eating chicken in
Speaker 1: distress and the following announcement in all.
Speaker 6: Caps, come and watch me eat an entire rotisserie chicken.
Speaker 6: November sixth will be the fortieth consecutive day that I
Speaker 6: have eaten an entire rotisserie chicken. Twelve o'clock noon, the
Speaker 6: chicken will be consumed on that abandoned pier near Walmart.
Speaker 6: And most critically, this is not a party.
Speaker 1: This poster is just decisive and weirdly phrased enough that
Speaker 1: it starts to do numbers online because, as I said,
Speaker 1: Philadelphia is a sports town, and the combination of a
Speaker 1: contentious midterm election coming up in a week and two
Speaker 1: important teams still in play at the time the poster launched,
Speaker 1: the Phillies were headed for the World Series, the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Union was set to compete in the Major League Soccer Cup.
Speaker 1: Philly was up, and Alex continued in the days leading
Speaker 1: up to what I've decided to call the event. And
Speaker 1: here's where the story balloons from local weirdo does thing
Speaker 1: near the docks to a full blown national human interest story.
Speaker 1: And can I just say. Human interest pieces have got
Speaker 1: to be some of the most dreadful writing on the
Speaker 1: face of the fucking planet. Every single one of these
Speaker 1: stories lightly echoes the other, reducing the human it claims
Speaker 1: to be interested in with the same three or four
Speaker 1: collection of traits, no matter who's reporting it. Anyways, here's
Speaker 1: what the New York Times said. The city had lost
Speaker 1: the World Series and the Major League Soccer Cup final
Speaker 1: on Saturday in a span of about five hours. But
Speaker 1: at twelve pm on Sunday, at an abandoned pier along
Speaker 1: the Delaware River, a bearded man in a white sleeveless
Speaker 1: shirt sat at a makeshift table and stared intently at
Speaker 1: the plate as dozens gathered around. They braced for gusts
Speaker 1: of wind in order to cheer him in the final
Speaker 1: stretch of a self imposed challenge to devour forty rotisserie
Speaker 1: chickens in forty days. Maybe the man Alexander Tominsky thirty
Speaker 1: one would like to be the one to bring them
Speaker 1: redemption after a miserable weekend filled with defeat. Most of
Speaker 1: these pieces, the one in Food Network magazine, the one
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia Magazine, the one in the Philly Inquirer, and
Speaker 1: on and on and on, all feature the same matters
Speaker 1: of information. Alexander Tominsky is thirty one, his day job
Speaker 1: is server at restaurant, and all of this somehow has
Speaker 1: to do with Philadelphia sports and from where I'm sitting
Speaker 1: and the main character's opinion. The story is even less
Speaker 1: complicated than this implies, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Speaker 1: In the ten days leading up to the event, Alex
Speaker 1: introduces cauliflower florets as a side dish to the chicken.
Speaker 1: On day thirty four, He's pulling over a thousand likes
Speaker 1: on every Chicken post by day thirty five, twenty two
Speaker 1: thousand life by day thirty seven, and on the eve
Speaker 1: of the fortieth Rotisserie Chicken, a picture of Alex palming
Speaker 1: a chicken on the pier and scowling has forty six
Speaker 1: thousand likes. And then it happened. On the morning of
Speaker 1: November sixth, twenty twenty two, at nine twenty one am, Alex.
Speaker 6: Tweeted, I hope they greased the poles.
Speaker 1: At eleven twenty three am, he posted the tableau of
Speaker 1: where he'd be eating as promised, on that abandoned pier
Speaker 1: near Walmart, and while as he said it was not
Speaker 1: a party. A makeshift red carpet was held down with
Speaker 1: bricks leading up to a simple table with a white tablecloth.
Speaker 1: The setup is as it was in the previous thirty
Speaker 1: nine days, a rotisseriy chicken, a polar seltzer, a single seat.
Speaker 1: At eleven fifty three am, he posted a picture of
Speaker 1: his view from the table with a caution tape line
Speaker 1: across the end of the red carpet, where a crowd
Speaker 1: of hundreds of people are gathering to watch the fortieth
Speaker 1: chicken be consumed. Alex enters through the I have to admit,
Speaker 1: very polite crowd and walks to the right of the
Speaker 1: red carpet. He's really big on this not being a party.
Speaker 1: There's no music playing, and he doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: interested in interacting with the most festive thing about the
Speaker 1: space the carpet. One of the assembled members asks him
Speaker 1: where the chicken came from. The crowd continues to grow
Speaker 1: as the noon start time ekes closer and Alex keeps
Speaker 1: the crowd laughing. In the meantime, the clock strikes noon.
Speaker 1: The whole event takes about an hour, and Alex is
Speaker 1: milking it. It's an unseasonably warm day, but still pretty
Speaker 1: windy right on the pier, and the act of eating
Speaker 1: forty chickens is so intense on the body that no
Speaker 1: one is surprised when the chicken Man needs to remove
Speaker 1: layers until he's down to that white tank top that
Speaker 1: men wear that's nicknamed after domestic violence. It's an undershirt.
Speaker 1: It's a white undershirt. We can retire the other word.
Speaker 1: And as the Chickenman gets closer, wind sing through it,
Speaker 1: crushing the water bottle beside his trusty polar Seltzer, the
Speaker 1: crowd starts to get rowdy, but to be clear, this
Speaker 1: is not a party, and when that last piece of
Speaker 1: heavily processed chicken clears, Bruce Springsteen's Streets of Philadelphia begins
Speaker 1: to play, and the crowd is permitted to rush past
Speaker 1: the yellow caution tape and embrace the Chickenman. In celebration,
Speaker 1: he gives a short speech announcing to the crowd.
Speaker 6: I'm no hero, I'm but a man. I ate the chicken.
Speaker 6: I did the best I can. I just thank you
Speaker 6: all for being here and thanks for watching me consume.
Speaker 1: His final tweet on the matter has one hundred thirty
Speaker 1: eight thousand likes and ninety seven hundred retweets. It's a
Speaker 1: picture of Alex, his face flushed with sodium and adrenaline,
Speaker 1: holding the empty rotisserie chicken tray above his head in celebration,
Speaker 1: shouting to the crowd of thrilled Philadelphia denizens, He's done it.
Speaker 6: It's captioned forty days eating an entire rotisserie chicken hashtag chicken.
Speaker 1: When We Come Back. I walked from my friend's apartment
Speaker 1: in South Philly to go and see the Chicken Man.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I was the president of
Speaker 1: something I called Mad Cow Club in the fourth grade,
Speaker 1: and I'll say it again, it was not my plan
Speaker 1: to interview the Chicken Man. But as I walked down
Speaker 1: the street to where the Chickenman lives with his wife
Speaker 1: and his dog in South Philly on that Saturday, four twenty,
Speaker 1: to be exact, I couldn't help but think it was
Speaker 1: meant to be. I'd been having a hard week and
Speaker 1: it would turn into a few hard weeks, but Philly
Speaker 1: was kind of my last stop to really enjoy myself
Speaker 1: with my friends, and I wanted to make the most
Speaker 1: of the day. The Chicken Man had replied to my
Speaker 1: DM on Twitter within a few days and said he
Speaker 1: was usually available Saturday afternoons. Just let him know where
Speaker 1: we should meet. I thought about asking him if I
Speaker 1: should bring chicken, but then remember a dah fuck. When
Speaker 1: I was writing about hot dogs, the last thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to do was eat a hot dog with a stranger,
Speaker 1: so instead I asked him if he wanted Dunkin Donuts.
Speaker 1: He didn't, and when I got to his house he
Speaker 1: answered the door and a homemade Philly's hat. I had
Speaker 1: a lovely time. Here's my talk with the Chicken Man.
Speaker 1: And just so you know, this interview has been edited
Speaker 1: for time and clarity. Okay, first, if you could just
Speaker 1: introduce yourself.
Speaker 4: Sure, my name is Alexander Timinski.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for welcoming me into your lovely home.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my humble abode.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I feel like people say that in
Speaker 1: Philly and then you're like, this is the nicest place
Speaker 1: I've ever.
Speaker 4: Seen in my life in comparison to New York City.
Speaker 1: I would say, well, I guess I'll just how are you,
Speaker 1: How are things? How's life?
Speaker 4: Things are good? You know, everyone has their ups and downs,
Speaker 4: but for the most part, I've been feeling pretty optimistic
Speaker 4: when I wake up every day.
Speaker 1: So it's been I guess it's been what a year
Speaker 1: and a half now since.
Speaker 4: It's just about it was a November of I think
Speaker 4: twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Two since the incident. The incident, so I guess for context,
Speaker 1: I've done. I was trying to figure out how I
Speaker 1: was going to write it out in the show. It's
Speaker 1: like I've done protracted almost performance already internet stuff before,
Speaker 1: but I've never completed it, and I feel like it's
Speaker 1: I mean, on my end, it was almost certainly because
Speaker 1: I was too ambitious and I was like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to eat a whole copy of Infinite Jest was the goal?
Speaker 1: Like that would kill you. You can't do that.
Speaker 4: It wouldn't be easy, but maybe your body would acclimate
Speaker 4: After chapter.
Speaker 1: Three, Yeah, then it really picks up and you're like, no,
Speaker 1: I see, I still kind of like I don't really
Speaker 1: I didn't read it. But you completed a challenge that
Speaker 1: you sent for yourself. How did you get there? What
Speaker 1: was where did the idea come from? Sure?
Speaker 4: So I guess I just ate a whole chicken and
Speaker 4: it felt really good. I'm a very impulsive person, so
Speaker 4: I'll get like micro ob sessions about certain things, and
Speaker 4: sometimes it's outlandish, but yeah, I just felt this strong
Speaker 4: urge to just keep going and there really wasn't any
Speaker 4: reason to it at all.
Speaker 1: What are what are other examples of micro obsessions of yours?
Speaker 4: I got really obsessed with cracking bull whips for a while. Whoa, yeah,
Speaker 4: right now getting my ass kicked by thirteen year olds
Speaker 4: on chests online chests.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay.
Speaker 4: I was doing this one really strange thing where I
Speaker 4: was cutting traffic cones with copper wire in my basement
Speaker 4: to an end, uh the very end.
Speaker 1: Okay. What was it for? Though?
Speaker 4: It just felt really relaxing to do. Really Yeah, Like
Speaker 4: I'd come home from work and you would start, you know,
Speaker 4: rubbing the wire against the cone, and then you'd see
Speaker 4: like smoke coming up off it, and then once you
Speaker 4: got a nice ring, it felt and then you could
Speaker 4: also see on the ground all these rings of the cone,
Speaker 4: and you kind of felt this, I don't know, like, oh,
Speaker 4: you're being productive. You can see the evidence of your
Speaker 4: hard work.
Speaker 1: I feel like that applies to the chicken challenge too.
Speaker 1: I'm very satisfied by that kind of activity too, where
Speaker 1: you can actually physically see this is what I have done.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, what would you do with.
Speaker 1: The chunks of traffic home? Once there?
Speaker 4: I think it's Yeah, it's still down in the basement,
Speaker 4: like kind of tucked away in a corner. There's just
Speaker 4: a nest of copper wire and you know, pieces of
Speaker 4: traffic home. Yeah. So sometimes I'll forget that it's down there,
Speaker 4: and then I'll see it and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I remember that really strange obsession that I had that
Speaker 4: I really didn't tell munch people about because it would
Speaker 4: probably seem a little bit alarming.
Speaker 1: That's good. I mean most people just like play the
Speaker 1: drums or something. Yeah, but you're innovating. So you've always
Speaker 1: sort of had this kind of hyperfixation personality since you
Speaker 1: were you were really young. Where did you Where did
Speaker 1: you grow up? It get back to the beginning, Chicken Man.
Speaker 4: Yes, So I grew up in Rhode Island, and I
Speaker 4: was always a pretty strange kid. And the thing is,
Speaker 4: I didn't realize how strange I was, but people would
Speaker 4: make sure to tell me how strange I was. Not
Speaker 4: in a bad way, but yeah, just my brain has
Speaker 4: always seemed to navigate the world a little bit differently,
Speaker 4: if that makes any sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I used to like bring wild dogs into school. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was doing this thing where and there was like
Speaker 4: stray dogs for some reason near my school, and I
Speaker 4: would bring them in and bring them into class and.
Speaker 1: Big dogs, small dogs.
Speaker 4: Well, there was one dog I bring in twice. Okay,
Speaker 4: so I guess I've only done it three times.
Speaker 1: Three times feels like a habit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I feel like I did it also to just,
Speaker 4: you know, get to rise out of some of the
Speaker 4: other students. That makes any sense, it does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I when I was a kid, I mean
Speaker 1: I did. I kept a lot of it to myself.
Speaker 1: That was more of a copper wire in the basement
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Okay, so you grew up in Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: How do you end up in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: I used to play music, and I played in Philly
Speaker 4: a few times.
Speaker 1: And what kind of music?
Speaker 4: More like kind of like avant garde sound stuff, Okay,
Speaker 4: sometimes performative as well. Like I would basically just buy
Speaker 4: different electronics and then pour water on it. Whoa, yes,
Speaker 4: and then the water would react to or the electronics
Speaker 4: would react to the water. It felt really pure, like
Speaker 4: this is the exact sounds that need to be made
Speaker 4: because the water is like kind of the one in control, right,
Speaker 4: and I could only use them once, so I'd have
Speaker 4: to spend a lot of money on this stuff. And
Speaker 4: then I'm kind of upset about it now because I
Speaker 4: use a lot of tape machines. Yeah, and the inflation
Speaker 4: on those machines are astronomical. I'd probably be pretty rich
Speaker 4: if I so, I guess I'm a bit of a masochist. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is really interesting that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess that means you can perform live rarely? Is that?
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, occasionally? And I'd like to backtrack. I meant
Speaker 4: my wife in Providence or to be Yeah, she lived
Speaker 4: in Philly, so oh okay, that's what sealed the deal.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 4: Well, I do have to say that Philadelphia is the
Speaker 4: best city in the entire world.
Speaker 1: I agree with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's an air of honesty that I just crave,
Speaker 4: and everyone is just so real and everyone's kind of
Speaker 4: like going through the sh and like we all realize
Speaker 4: it and it's like almost like we're all on the
Speaker 4: same team, but a team that also hates each other.
Speaker 1: When did you get to Philly?
Speaker 4: I think it was about nine years ago. Now, Okay,
Speaker 4: it was crazy. When I first moved here, it seemed
Speaker 4: like the locals like somehow new, like like people would
Speaker 4: yell out at the window of their car, a lot
Speaker 4: of heckling for no reason. Yeah, and then once maybe
Speaker 4: a certain time passes, are you like this weird like
Speaker 4: spiritual energy of Philly like floods your brain and your blood,
Speaker 4: Then they know that you're here now. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: definitely acclimated because no one yells at me anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm coming back around to the chicken and promise. I
Speaker 1: am interested to hear that you were an artist, because
Speaker 1: in all of the articles, it's so funny, like reading
Speaker 1: through and you're only identified as as a server in
Speaker 1: all of these articles. Was that intentional? Was that just
Speaker 1: sort of how it.
Speaker 4: Went or yeah, I mean that's pretty much it. I
Speaker 4: had no intention of being like, oh, I'm creating this
Speaker 4: art piece. I think I was just doing this thing.
Speaker 4: I mean maybe my inner artistic self kind of had
Speaker 4: some sort of influence, but I didn't set out to
Speaker 4: do it as a sense of for art. And for
Speaker 4: that reason, I didn't want to say, oh, I'm an artist.
Speaker 4: I didn't never tell anyone I'm an artist. I'm just
Speaker 4: I think I'm just a weird guy navigating a weird world. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's all I am right now as a server, which
Speaker 4: I'm flyind to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. To me, it feels
Speaker 1: like an art piece. And this was sort of a
Speaker 1: continuous thing throughout the coverage of it. There's like this
Speaker 1: purity to it, because I think so many of the
Speaker 1: stories that I've covered or found online, there is this
Speaker 1: it starts as a pure thing and then becomes something
Speaker 1: that is eventual we monetized or like continued or merchandise
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and sometimes like whatever, I'm not
Speaker 1: passing judgment, but that seems to be the general tendency.
Speaker 1: So when you started it was for fun, what made
Speaker 1: you decide to continue? Why? Forty Well?
Speaker 4: Very christ like, Yeah, well it it became something that
Speaker 4: like I enjoyed, I really enjoyed eating it, and then
Speaker 4: slowly it turned into something that was really challenging. And
Speaker 4: I liked the idea of like feeling the pain and
Speaker 4: to like push through it and to like kind of
Speaker 4: focus on this transition of something that's so tasty, so
Speaker 4: good into something that's barely tolerable. Yeah, just to push
Speaker 4: through felt good. I was gonna go to thirty, and
Speaker 4: then thirty just didn't feel right, and then so forty
Speaker 4: seemed like the right number, and a lot of people
Speaker 4: going back to the monetization thing, offered me a lot
Speaker 4: of money to like it, sponsor the next event, to
Speaker 4: do this and that, but it had to be finished
Speaker 4: at forty because it just felt like that was It
Speaker 4: felt like the end of the book or something like.
Speaker 4: As much as people offered me, it would destroy the
Speaker 4: whole purpose of it, because I didn't do it to
Speaker 4: make money. I don't want to turn it into something
Speaker 4: that's for money. I did it for myself and it
Speaker 4: ended up being something that made a lot of people happy,
Speaker 4: which that in itself was rewarding enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and that was something as I was
Speaker 1: reading through these pieces that it seems like people who
Speaker 1: as people who came to kind of this grand finale,
Speaker 1: really valued and appreciate it. Was the fact that it
Speaker 1: hadn't turned into a graven thing, even though and I
Speaker 1: don't know if they would have known that you had
Speaker 1: those opportunities. When did that? When did the project like
Speaker 1: start picking up and changed from like this is something
Speaker 1: that your friends and maybe Philly knows about to something bigger.
Speaker 4: Sure. So the whole like kind of midway through I
Speaker 4: was my brain was like cycling all these ideas and
Speaker 4: then I would focus back on the chicken thing because
Speaker 4: it almost had a sense of routine and stability. It
Speaker 4: became so I was like, maybe I'll like eat it
Speaker 4: on the pier, the last one, and because it would
Speaker 4: be so much fun if like I was the only
Speaker 4: one there, yeah, and if there were people there that
Speaker 4: would be cool too.
Speaker 1: Alone It's like a Norman Rockwell painting kind of Yeah.
Speaker 4: So there was one day I had to go to
Speaker 4: work in like two hours and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to do this. I made a poster
Speaker 4: on Photoshop within like ten minutes and I printed out
Speaker 4: like fifteen posters. And I can be kind of shy
Speaker 4: at points, even online. I don't really posts very often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it.
Speaker 4: Was really hard for me to even put up the
Speaker 4: posters because like I didn't want to concern anyone or
Speaker 4: I just I don't know people would be surprised to
Speaker 4: hear it. But I'm a very shy person. And so
Speaker 4: I put all the posters up and it was really
Speaker 4: exciting at the end of it because I went all
Speaker 4: the way down near like Cheese Steak Avenue and as
Speaker 4: I was walking back home, each poster at each pole
Speaker 4: there was like six people like looking at it. And
Speaker 4: so it's really I don't think this whole thing was
Speaker 4: like spiritual in any sense, but it had this weird
Speaker 4: power that I don't know. I think myself and other
Speaker 4: people really felt it, and it felt good to share.
Speaker 4: And it also felt really good that growing up and
Speaker 4: being afraid of exposing some of the weird side of
Speaker 4: me was accepted. Yeah, not only by people with like
Speaker 4: a creative mind, but every sector chapter of seemed like
Speaker 4: it was widely accepted, which has really helped me feel
Speaker 4: good about who I am and the fact that I
Speaker 4: can be exactly who I am and if you do that,
Speaker 4: people will definitely cherish and accept it.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more of my interview with
Speaker 1: the Chicken Man. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I know
Speaker 1: what the Chicken Man's home address is. Here's the rest
Speaker 1: of our interview. I mean, I have a lot of
Speaker 1: questions about sort of that last day, but leading up
Speaker 1: to it, just pragmatically did you get the chicken from
Speaker 1: the same place every time? Did you mix it up?
Speaker 4: I mixed it up. Getting back to the fact that
Speaker 4: I have come to realize them a bit of a
Speaker 4: masochist is I would always try to choose the like
Speaker 4: the worst chicken, what qualifies as the word like super
Speaker 4: dry and unseasoned.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: So there is one place, Rittenhouse Market, which is right
Speaker 4: next to where I work, and I got to say,
Speaker 4: the staff there are so nice and it was really
Speaker 4: fun to see how confused and concerned they were at
Speaker 4: the start, and then towards the end, before you know
Speaker 4: this even took off, they started to get kind of excited,
Speaker 4: which was fun. But they had the blandest chicken. So
Speaker 4: I would get that a lot. But it all depend
Speaker 4: depended on like what was available and.
Speaker 5: Where I was.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were personally hand picking there rotissery chicken
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so most of them come in bags. Those
Speaker 4: are the ones I prefer because you can kind of
Speaker 4: touch it and feel it. The ones that are firmer
Speaker 4: were the ones that I would choose because you know,
Speaker 4: the firmer ones were the dryest.
Speaker 1: Right. How does your relationship to eating the chicken, whether
Speaker 1: it's duration approach, whatever, how does it change over time?
Speaker 4: So to start, it was really quick, I could probably
Speaker 4: do it in fifteen minutes, no problem. And then when
Speaker 4: I started, I would use a fork and knife, which
Speaker 4: is kind of weird. As the days passed, it just
Speaker 4: became more barbaric, use the hands, and then it would
Speaker 4: slowly take longer by the end, and people think that
Speaker 4: I'm like exaggerating, but it would really take about like
Speaker 4: sometimes two hours, and so my technique would kind of change.
Speaker 4: Like I wouldn't be able to eat it before work
Speaker 4: because you know I had, or i'd go in super
Speaker 4: early and just before the staff got there and enjoy it.
Speaker 4: The hostesses would be there and they'd be like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, Alex. There was definitely a clear transition from
Speaker 4: day one to take day forty, which also made it
Speaker 4: interesting for me.
Speaker 1: There ended up being like a water component at some point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so when it gets dry, it's almost like like
Speaker 4: dust or like like it's hard to explain.
Speaker 1: So it's like it would take longer because your mouth
Speaker 1: is just drying out with every single bite.
Speaker 4: From the salt too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I would use like sparkling water. Okay, that
Speaker 4: seemed to help and kind of swish it around in
Speaker 4: my mouth and it would create this almost like paste.
Speaker 4: And then I realized that if I put like a
Speaker 4: little bit of lime or lemon, that acid would make
Speaker 4: it a bit easier as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, all the hot dog competitors will, you know, dip
Speaker 1: the buns in water and like have this wild technique
Speaker 1: that does sort of enable them to almost kill themselves
Speaker 1: on TV everywhere?
Speaker 4: Are they required to drink the water?
Speaker 1: No, No, that's good. Yeah.
Speaker 4: There was one time that there was no chicken, so
Speaker 4: I had to result to like a garlic seasoned Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, brutal.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your honestly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think I've mentioned that yet.
Speaker 1: But can I. I mean, I'm just curious because I
Speaker 1: feel like every you know, description of a corporate offer
Speaker 1: feels a little cursed. Do you remember sort of the
Speaker 1: nature of how people were approaching you. What kind of
Speaker 1: stuff were you being offered? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Like every angle, when someone gets a lot of attention,
Speaker 4: I think people want to like latch onto it. Like
Speaker 4: there was there was an election day. Yeah, it was
Speaker 4: the following day, and there was different politicians trying to
Speaker 4: get in touch with me. Really or their staff at
Speaker 4: the very least. So they were calling like the restaurant
Speaker 4: I work at, and like trying to get my phone
Speaker 4: number somehow. I have no idea how someone got my
Speaker 4: number and was texting me and it was like, can
Speaker 4: you please come down and do what you did? And
Speaker 4: you did chicken for democracy? Like come on if like
Speaker 4: at least it like asked me like for an endorsement
Speaker 4: or something. But I wanted to leave politics out of
Speaker 4: all of this because it's for for everyone, really, different
Speaker 4: grocery stores, different sponsorship offers. People were asking to make
Speaker 4: the poster a what's that crypto thing where they take
Speaker 4: pictures or like posters. Yeah, someone offered me, and who
Speaker 4: knows if this is true or not, but they seemed
Speaker 4: like a like a legit source one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 4: to make it an NFT. And then also I would
Speaker 4: get like a percentage from each sale of the NFT. Okay,
Speaker 4: but that seems so stupid, so I passed that up. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't want to like go into it too much,
Speaker 4: but I was offered a lot of money. People were
Speaker 4: trying to send me their like clothing brands to like
Speaker 4: for free, but clearly they wanted me to like post about.
Speaker 1: It, wear it while eating chicken.
Speaker 4: Something like that. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much every stupid thing
Speaker 4: you could think of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because I think about like that and
Speaker 1: not to like generalize where I live too much, but
Speaker 1: I think about like this happening to anyone in LA
Speaker 1: and how quickly they're like, yep, great, let's do it.
Speaker 1: It feels very philly to be like.
Speaker 4: No, fuck that, Yeah, exactly, fuck that. And there's there's
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm in a lot of credit card debt sadly,
Speaker 4: but there's times from like oh man, maybe I should
Speaker 4: have done one or two of those things, and then
Speaker 4: I snapped back to reality and like, no, I would
Speaker 4: have I wouldn't change anything. I mean, I could have
Speaker 4: used this easily. I could have gone to fifty. I
Speaker 4: could have gone to sixty. Yeah, I could have gone
Speaker 4: to three hundred and sixty. But I wasn't looking to
Speaker 4: chase and get more out of it. When it ended,
Speaker 4: that was it was complete.
Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting to hear that people wanted
Speaker 1: to extend it too, because that makes me, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm like hot dog killed, but like the that reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of that sort of world too, where
Speaker 1: it's like it's just like a push to hurt yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of people were into it for that reason,
Speaker 4: which is fine. You know a lot of people were
Speaker 4: into it for their own reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think I made a post like after the fortieth
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm done eating chicken, you sickos.
Speaker 1: How did you feel at the end of the forty days?
Speaker 4: Physically, my body was super severely affected. Like a lot
Speaker 4: of those chickens are pumped with hormones and then they
Speaker 4: actually take like saline baths. That's what makes them like
Speaker 4: really salty and tape. Okay, So my stomach was just
Speaker 4: so twisted that I had zero appetite. I would get
Speaker 4: like cramps, my joints would hurt, which is weird. And
Speaker 4: then you know, with not having an appetite, it would
Speaker 4: make me really fatigued. And it took like a week
Speaker 4: after I finished for my body to reacclimate to you know,
Speaker 4: my regular self.
Speaker 1: Have you returned to rotaserie chicken at all?
Speaker 4: Sinse I ate one piece not to be rude for
Speaker 4: this one interview. They surprised me with it, and it
Speaker 4: was on that pier. Yeah, and I took one bite
Speaker 4: and it was a great reminder of why I'll never
Speaker 4: eat another rotisserie chicken, probably for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that seems probably for the best. I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to go through the final day. So you
Speaker 1: hang up the signs at what point? Do you how
Speaker 1: far it advanced? Do you hang up the signs for
Speaker 1: the final day?
Speaker 3: Do you?
Speaker 4: I can't member. I think it was five days, maybe seven,
Speaker 4: and so.
Speaker 1: Going into that day, do you remember, like what did
Speaker 1: you have any expectations of how the day was going
Speaker 1: to go? You made note that it was not a party.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it was just like I'm
Speaker 4: there to like go to war, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I didn't want people like drinking beers and like bringing
Speaker 4: their hu hulul loops or is that? How do you says?
Speaker 4: I just associate that with like large gatherings for some reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it's almost like Coachella just turning
Speaker 1: into red tasty chicken Coachella.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's I did not want that. It just it
Speaker 4: was more of like a stand and wash, but.
Speaker 1: It seemed like people did that anyways.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a few people that drank beer. Well,
Speaker 4: there was some laughter, but the cool thing is there
Speaker 4: was less laughter more or like excitement. As I am shy.
Speaker 4: I normally am comfortable and like performing in front of
Speaker 4: a lot of people, But it's different when people are
Speaker 4: watching you eat. Yeah, it's a very vulnerable thing. And
Speaker 4: then like imagine if like I got like stage fright
Speaker 4: and couldn't eat the chicken, how different all of this
Speaker 4: would have been. Right, I would have turned around and
Speaker 4: probably jumped in the water, and which be it would
Speaker 4: have been cool.
Speaker 1: But and then your your wife was at the event too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm curious. I mean, as this is gaining momentum
Speaker 1: throughout the month plus that's going on, what do they
Speaker 1: say when they realize they're doing this or they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is an Alex thing. This makes sense.
Speaker 4: Well. I brought it up to Mallory like kind of
Speaker 4: when I was just like brain like, I thought of
Speaker 4: the idea and I told her and she seemed really
Speaker 4: like she's like, oh, yeah, okay, Alex. Sure, And then
Speaker 4: once it picked up, I don't know, she's like, oh,
Speaker 4: Alex is actually onto something. Not that she doesn't support
Speaker 4: all of that stuff. She would have been maybe the
Speaker 4: only one there watching me eat the chicken, and she
Speaker 4: would have had a big smile on her face. But uh,
Speaker 4: it was nice because some people were pretty confused, especially
Speaker 4: my family's. And the funny thing is it's interesting how
Speaker 4: you know a lot of people accepting something can give
Speaker 4: them validation or something or you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: like life, Like.
Speaker 1: There is a shift once what you're doing is validated
Speaker 1: by something larger than yourself that all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: people who I'm close with, I mean, like their attitude
Speaker 1: towards all of a sudden, it was like a little
Speaker 1: cooler that I was doing this disgusting thing I've been
Speaker 1: doing for for three months.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I was concerned with my family thinking
Speaker 4: that I was having like a mental breakdown or something,
Speaker 4: so I I didn't post it on Instagram. That's why
Speaker 4: I used Twitter because most of my family doesn't use Twitter.
Speaker 4: Good for them, yeah, I know, right ye. At a
Speaker 4: certain point I started posting it on my stories, and
Speaker 4: I think one of them was like Alex everything, Okay, yep.
Speaker 1: I think that's the sign of a good family member.
Speaker 1: You gotta check in when you see your your loved
Speaker 1: one becoming the chicken man. But My last question about
Speaker 1: the final event is that you made a some kind
Speaker 1: of speech once the job was done. Yeah, was this planned?
Speaker 1: Did you write it? Did it just come out of you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just came out of me. I like to
Speaker 4: do everything off the cuff, like. That's why I really
Speaker 4: enjoyed making the music I made, because vulnerability I crave
Speaker 4: and and also like it does add a sense of
Speaker 4: purity for sure. And so I don't remember what I
Speaker 4: said something about, Oh they're yelling hero, yes, Hero, hero,
Speaker 4: and I said, I am no hero.
Speaker 1: I've got it here.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, what is it you said?
Speaker 1: I'm no hero, I'm but a man. I ate the chicken.
Speaker 1: I did the best I can. I just thank you
Speaker 1: all for being here and thanks for watching me consume.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's a good way to end it. I
Speaker 4: didn't think they'd be calling me hero freeding chicken. You know,
Speaker 4: how could I expect something like that?
Speaker 1: For some reason, it was often like, oh, there were
Speaker 1: two championships that Philadelphia lost, and then the chicken man
Speaker 1: took it home for everyone. Did you feel connected to
Speaker 1: that narrative at all? It was just when I saw
Speaker 1: come up a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought it was really cool that it happened
Speaker 4: that way. There's nothing I enjoy more than making people happy.
Speaker 4: I'm like getting emotional, But yeah, I was really lucky
Speaker 4: that I got to comfort the city of Philadelphia. It
Speaker 4: was a really nice perk to the whole thing. I mean,
Speaker 4: Philly loves their sports, so people were broken in half
Speaker 4: for sure. But yeah, I feel really fortunate that I
Speaker 4: got to, you know, lighten up their day somehow.
Speaker 1: And just going back to like how you described, you know,
Speaker 1: people yelling at you and sensing the newness to Philly
Speaker 1: on you when you arrived to you know, whenever. Seven
Speaker 1: or so years later, this like huge embrace from the
Speaker 1: entire city. That's so cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was. I'm a really lucky guy because a
Speaker 4: lot of people do really interesting stuff and stuff that's
Speaker 4: even more impressive than what I did. Eating the chicken
Speaker 4: wasn't that impressive. But I got lucky that it took off.
Speaker 4: It was a very lucky thing to happen.
Speaker 1: Eighteen months later. How do you feel about having done this?
Speaker 4: You know, when it first happened, it was very overwhelmed.
Speaker 4: The day after when it was really everywhere, I was
Speaker 4: driving and called mouth and I was like, I got
Speaker 4: to stay out of the city and I got a
Speaker 4: hotel room in Trenton, New Jersey, and for some beautiful reason,
Speaker 4: my phone broke and so I was just left to,
Speaker 4: like myself, to internalize everything, and that that sort of
Speaker 4: feeling lingered a bit. It was very confusing and overwhelming.
Speaker 4: It was extreme. I got very depressed. Actually really, yeah,
Speaker 4: I got really it was everyone reacts to different things
Speaker 4: in their own way. But yeah, yeah, it was like
Speaker 4: it kind of fucked me up for sure.
Speaker 1: What was it bringing up for you? I'm sorry, like
Speaker 1: and like what was sort of prompting that?
Speaker 4: Uh, it was like my reality that I was very
Speaker 4: comfortable with, that felt routine was disrupted. Yeah, everything from
Speaker 4: people trying to like leech off the attention, throw me money.
Speaker 4: It pissed some people off too. People were like, oh,
Speaker 4: he's he just wanted to be famous, which is such
Speaker 4: a stupid thing. Like like I was eating chicken. Narcissists
Speaker 4: were finding we're finding a like a tool or vessel
Speaker 4: to to release their anger. Yeah, but then there was
Speaker 4: people that you know, enjoyed it and that helped balance
Speaker 4: it out. But slowly, I guess I acclimated to the
Speaker 4: attention and it's weird. It really hasn't gone to my
Speaker 4: head at all.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting too, just that like there's been
Speaker 1: no story, regardless of what it is or what is
Speaker 1: actually happening within the story, that doesn't come with this
Speaker 1: wave of reactionary like anger, which seems like too much
Speaker 1: for one person to have to absorb.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was. It took a lot of energy
Speaker 4: to absorb. I would kind of hang out in the
Speaker 4: house a lot, not go out very much. It was psychotic.
Speaker 4: I'm like walking down the street and like people were,
Speaker 4: you know, running up to me, or I think someone
Speaker 4: threw like trash out their window at me. So it
Speaker 4: was like all these extremes, Oh my god. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: the narcissists have found other things to worry about. So
Speaker 4: now it's pretty much positive reactions, which is nice. I
Speaker 4: don't know, I do struggle with depression a bit, and
Speaker 4: so that's like one little element that can kind of
Speaker 4: help pull me out. Knowing that and I keep saying
Speaker 4: it over and over again, but to like make other
Speaker 4: people feel good makes me feel good, as that's my
Speaker 4: reaction to it. So it really has helped me a
Speaker 4: lot in.
Speaker 1: The long that's amazing. Well, thank you so much for that.
Speaker 4: Such a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: I really, I am just so grateful that you found
Speaker 4: this interesting enough to talk about.
Speaker 1: I guess, oh my god, No, I was really really
Speaker 1: excited that you wanted to talk. And also I just
Speaker 1: feel like there's like a unique purity to this saga.
Speaker 4: Well, I also going to thank you for not asking
Speaker 4: me the same stupid ask questions.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Alex for inviting me into his home.
Speaker 1: To Alex's wife Mallory for taking the dog out for
Speaker 1: about an hour or so so I could come by
Speaker 1: and see you next time you're in Boston. I mean,
Speaker 1: what else is there to say? Actually this because I
Speaker 1: was unsure where to put this in the episode, and
Speaker 1: I say this as a hot dog and processed meat scholar,
Speaker 1: even if you are not a vegetarian. The vast majority
Speaker 1: of rotisserie chickens on shelves have died horrific deaths in
Speaker 1: processing plants where the human employees are treated nearly as bad.
Speaker 1: It is an absurdly frustrating and complicated issue whose villain
Speaker 1: is squarely the owners of the plants themselves, who have
Speaker 1: routinely abused animals and not allowed death dignity, all while
Speaker 1: cutting corners with employee safety and producing a tremendously unhealthy
Speaker 1: product for a majority poor consumer base Buck Ties in
Speaker 1: Foods Fox Smithfield. I write about it extensively in my book,
Speaker 1: but it felt bizarre to have an episode that so
Speaker 1: thoroughly addressed processed meat without mentioning that. But as for
Speaker 1: the Chicken Man himself, he's still polarizing in some circles
Speaker 1: of die hard what does it mean to be from
Speaker 1: Philadelphia types?
Speaker 6: And I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it the same way when someone living from
Speaker 1: Boston does something to Boston. But the more time that passes,
Speaker 1: the more the Chicken Man's legend becomes solidified. As far
Speaker 1: as the kinds of art side projects that Alex talked
Speaker 1: with me about, there is one more thing I want
Speaker 1: to say, something I think is kind of funny. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Alex was spotted selling t shirts on
Speaker 1: the side of the road in South Philly that read
Speaker 1: this is not a Party. I spoke with several South
Speaker 1: Philly residents who recognized the Chicken Man back at it,
Speaker 1: and a few of them even took him up on
Speaker 1: the twenty five dollars price point and just day before
Speaker 1: I'm recording this, an impostor surfaced. A man in New
Speaker 1: York masked like a coward, started flying with a poster
Speaker 1: in Alex's exact style. The poster reads, watch me eat
Speaker 1: this entire jar of cheeseballs. Union Square Park, April twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: three pm. Alex responded in stride, posting a screenshot of
Speaker 1: a news report on ABC with the cheeseball controversy. The
Speaker 1: chiron reads chicken man rip off. He captions the image.
Speaker 6: It can't be a ripoff because this cheeseball guy didn't
Speaker 6: eat them for forty days. Also was clearly a party.
Speaker 6: Everyone on that pier was simply there to see me
Speaker 6: go to war. Very different hashtag Philly, But in a.
Speaker 1: Town like Philadelphia, they don't take kindly to their heroes
Speaker 1: being threatened. A Philly resident named Eric Fink quote tweeted
Speaker 1: the cheeseball guy sign, replying, New.
Speaker 6: York just ripping off our chicken man. Be original, nyc.
Speaker 1: Our chicken man. And so the Chicken Man enters the
Speaker 1: pantheon of local legend. But as for here, Philadelphia, chicken Man,
Speaker 1: your sixteenth minute ends now, And for this week's moment
Speaker 1: of fun. Our amazing executive producer, Sophie Lichtemann sent me
Speaker 1: this TikTok of an old man who wears a T
Speaker 1: shirt with the barcode for Rotisserie Chickens at Costco to
Speaker 1: expedite the process of buying Rotisseri Chickens at Costco.
Speaker 5: Enjoy.
Speaker 1: See you next week.
Speaker 5: You know who I am.
Speaker 1: I don't want any trouble.
Speaker 6: I got five chickens.
Speaker 1: I don't want any led on them.
Speaker 6: Nun scan my shirt five times, buddy, five times.
Speaker 2: I hit the Costco for.
Speaker 1: That's a regular credit.
Speaker 2: I hit the Costco.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on, I got one.
Speaker 6: Here you go?
Speaker 2: What's you?
Speaker 6: And don't want to chog it on this card?
Speaker 1: I want to work on this plot scan it.
Speaker 5: I think he's a stick talk.
Speaker 1: I think he's a TikTok scannon.
Speaker 2: I did okay.
Speaker 3: Done sixteenth minute as a production of Cool Zone Media
Speaker 3: and iHeart Radio. It is written, posted, and produced by
Speaker 3: me Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichtman and
Speaker 3: Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: You amazing. Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen and pet shout
Speaker 1: Outs to our dog producer Anderson, my Kat's flee and
Speaker 1: Casper and my pet rock Bird cool outlive us all Bye,