Tender Chicken vs. Loaves & Fishes
As loathe as I am to overshadow the genius of today’s Inane Query Letter PLANET SHARK, breaking news has caused me to add another post.
The Pope, it seems, is dead.
Or not dead yet. Depending on where you read.
At 10:30am PST today, The Drudge Report featured the 60-point headline “POPE DIES” above a picture of the pontiff. By 10:45, the headline had been replaced with a more descriptive yet less stark headline (which I unfortunately cannot quote from memory). By 11:00, the headline was gone, the photo accompanied only by a link with the line “ITALY'S SKY ITALIA QUOTING VATICAN SOURCES SAYS POPE'S BRAIN, HEART STILL FUNCTIONING….” At 11:10am, an AP report appeared stating that the “Vatican has denied reports that Pope John Paul II has died…”. CNN, Fox and other more *wink* reputable news outlets have resisted the temptation to declare JP2 deceased as of yet, though headlines on their sites range from the optimistic “Pope clings to life” to the macabre “Pope close to death…” But as of this writing, the old fart was still alive & kicking, or at least his heart and brain were, according to Vatican Sources. Of course, they also believe that a big man in the sky created the heavens and the earth in six days (and took Sunday off to watch football, I believe), that dinosaurs never existed and that priests don’t have sex, so who knows what to believe.
The same cannot be said, sadly, for another octogenarian whose work has changed the lives of millions of the poor and hungry around the world. I speak, of course, of Frank Perdue, founder, President and spiritual figurehead of Perdue Chicken, the self proclaimed “tough man” it takes “to make a tender chicken”.
I dare not compare the two’s life works, for both have clearly made enormous contributions to the culture of the world. But yet, the similarities between the two are striking. Both are/were 84-years-old. Both were slight, somewhat fragile looking men, even during the prime of their celebrity. Both rose to great heights from relative obscurity: Perdue from a small family chicken farm in Maryland his father started after leaving the railroad business; John Paul from a small monastery in Poland that his “Father” started after leaving his job as a carpenter, preaching peace and charity, walking around Judea for a while, getting the shit beat outta him and nailed to a cross, buried and reborn as some sort of evangelical zombie of Goodness. Also, both were bald.
And so it is these similarities that bring me to my greater questions:
1. Has anyone ever seen the two men in the same room together?
2. Was Frank Perdue a Catholic? And if so, did he eat fish on Fridays during Lent or did he stick with drumsticks?
3. Is there truth to the rumor that during the Pope’s wordless Easter blessing on Sunday, he was hovering over a plate of tender Perdue chicken wings?
4. If it does in fact turn out that Pope John Paul II and Frank Perdue were the same person this whole time…would this go down as the greatest April Fool’s joke of all time?
If this blog disappears over the weekend and you never hear from me again, I think you will have your answers. In the meantime, who wants to grab a drumstick and go to mass? Anyone?
The Pope, it seems, is dead.
Or not dead yet. Depending on where you read.
At 10:30am PST today, The Drudge Report featured the 60-point headline “POPE DIES” above a picture of the pontiff. By 10:45, the headline had been replaced with a more descriptive yet less stark headline (which I unfortunately cannot quote from memory). By 11:00, the headline was gone, the photo accompanied only by a link with the line “ITALY'S SKY ITALIA QUOTING VATICAN SOURCES SAYS POPE'S BRAIN, HEART STILL FUNCTIONING….” At 11:10am, an AP report appeared stating that the “Vatican has denied reports that Pope John Paul II has died…”. CNN, Fox and other more *wink* reputable news outlets have resisted the temptation to declare JP2 deceased as of yet, though headlines on their sites range from the optimistic “Pope clings to life” to the macabre “Pope close to death…” But as of this writing, the old fart was still alive & kicking, or at least his heart and brain were, according to Vatican Sources. Of course, they also believe that a big man in the sky created the heavens and the earth in six days (and took Sunday off to watch football, I believe), that dinosaurs never existed and that priests don’t have sex, so who knows what to believe.
The same cannot be said, sadly, for another octogenarian whose work has changed the lives of millions of the poor and hungry around the world. I speak, of course, of Frank Perdue, founder, President and spiritual figurehead of Perdue Chicken, the self proclaimed “tough man” it takes “to make a tender chicken”.
I dare not compare the two’s life works, for both have clearly made enormous contributions to the culture of the world. But yet, the similarities between the two are striking. Both are/were 84-years-old. Both were slight, somewhat fragile looking men, even during the prime of their celebrity. Both rose to great heights from relative obscurity: Perdue from a small family chicken farm in Maryland his father started after leaving the railroad business; John Paul from a small monastery in Poland that his “Father” started after leaving his job as a carpenter, preaching peace and charity, walking around Judea for a while, getting the shit beat outta him and nailed to a cross, buried and reborn as some sort of evangelical zombie of Goodness. Also, both were bald.
And so it is these similarities that bring me to my greater questions:
1. Has anyone ever seen the two men in the same room together?
2. Was Frank Perdue a Catholic? And if so, did he eat fish on Fridays during Lent or did he stick with drumsticks?
3. Is there truth to the rumor that during the Pope’s wordless Easter blessing on Sunday, he was hovering over a plate of tender Perdue chicken wings?
4. If it does in fact turn out that Pope John Paul II and Frank Perdue were the same person this whole time…would this go down as the greatest April Fool’s joke of all time?
If this blog disappears over the weekend and you never hear from me again, I think you will have your answers. In the meantime, who wants to grab a drumstick and go to mass? Anyone?
posted by bd @ 4/01/2005 11:35:00 AM
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