PILTDOWN MAN AND THE CARDIFF GIANT
Two longtime friends, one a former comedian and the other a world traveler, riff on life, the arts, music, sports, travel and Horehound candy, and follow rabbit holes on just about anything. Much of it tongue in cheek while entertaining themselves and hopefully you. Future plans are interviews and at least one listener.
PILTDOWN MAN AND THE CARDIFF GIANT
(39) "From Chicken Wings With Tweety, To Backyard Birdwatching"
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Chicken wings turn out to be a gateway topic. We start with the kind of everyday life that feels small until you say it out loud: a family birthday, pizza, a 14-month-old cracking herself up with a couple of simple words, and the quiet sweetness of spending an afternoon together. Then we slide into comfort food mode, comparing notes on wings, sides, leftovers, and why having tomorrow’s meal waiting in the fridge can feel like real peace.
From there, the conversation takes a sharp and joyful turn into backyard birdwatching. We talk through what it’s like to intentionally attract birds with feeders, flowers, and suet, why some pests still outsmart you, and how a hummingbird feeder camera with bird identification can change the whole hobby. The numbers surprise us, too: dozens of bird species showing up in a single yard, plus the “wait, that’s not just one kind of sparrow” moment that every new birdwatcher eventually hits. If you’re into backyard bird feeding, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, or Kentucky bird species, you’ll find plenty to latch onto.
We also zoom out into art and history, from Audubon to modern giclee prints, and what it really means to support artists when originals cost thousands but prints make the work reachable. And because our curiosity never stays put, we end by looking toward Chicago and the Field Museum to see Sue, the famous T. rex skeleton, and the mind-bending link between dinosaurs and birds.
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thanks for listening
Joe
Welcome And Quick Catch-Up
SPEAKER_01Hey everybody, it is Pilt Down Manland the Cardiff Giant. We're now in episode 39. That means that we've done 38 episodes.
SPEAKER_00Up until now, yes. Yeah, up until now. You're a math genius, aren't you? You really are.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah. You know, I I knew that from early age. You know, you uh have an apple and your sister takes it. How many do you have now? I was good at those little things.
SPEAKER_00Well, you liked apples. Uh that's probably within it.
SPEAKER_01Did I mention I'm Joe Flush and this is my partner Ed Penn. Good afternoon, folks. Well, what you up to, Eddie? Well, I'm glad you asked that, Joe, because I usually I usually dominate with the early stuff, don't I?
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah. So um as as a matter of
A 71st Birthday And A Toddler
SPEAKER_00fact, I I had a little excursion, and it's not the same kind of excursion that Trump took into uh Iran. So it's it that which is not an excursion at all, but this was an excursion, and uh it was to my sister's house. She had uh she was had her 71st birthday today. Were you supposed to mention the actual age? I don't think she cares. I mean yeah, I don't think she cares one way or the other. Oh, wait a minute. I meant to say that she was 26. She's 26 years old. Yeah, that's a ticket. She's 22 years old.
SPEAKER_01I try to use the Jack Benny theme. 39. 39, and and you know, people our age are always they always smile at that and say things and they love that. So she doesn't care, and I don't care.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she she doesn't care one way or the other. I don't think. I'm just guessing. I haven't uh really talked to her too much about it, but uh 71 is her chronological age, and and uh you know there's not much you can do about that. But anyway, uh we we uh sat together and talked for a little while this afternoon, had some pizza, and uh just kind of hung out. She has a new granddaughter named Hayden, and she's 14 months old, and she was kind she's pretty entertaining for a 14-month-old you know kid. Yeah. So, you know, we didn't have much conversation except uh ball and by and ball and by pretty much. Not with the with her grand with her granddaughter, not my sister, Cecilia, who's turned 71 today. We had regular conversation. Oh, did you? Okay. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01Well, ball and by is not too bad uh that young. I mean, it's as funny as you're gonna get, really.
SPEAKER_00It is, and it was hilarious each time. She thought it was just hilarious every time she said either
Comfort Food And Wing Logistics
SPEAKER_00one of those words. But I every time she said bye to me, it made me think that I was no longer wanted or needed there. So you know, you know what I'm saying. But anyway, that's what I did with my afternoon.
SPEAKER_01Well, Mary Kay and I went and uh decided to get some really good top grade food, so we went to Lee's recipe.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I like Lee's recipe. Do they have chicken livers there?
SPEAKER_01They do, but I I didn't get them because if I eat livers or something like that, Mary Kay makes these noises and sounds and yuck and act like she's throwing up and everything like that. So I I've just quit eating them. You know, I I love them. Uh but uh but no, I also had I had wings. And uh I like wings too. I got uh I got eight-piece wing, uh even though they only had a four-piece, it was kind of hard to get that through to them. That you know, maybe double the number of wings in there. Then do you want hot wings? No, I'm not don't want the hot ones. I want the regular recipe. And then, you know, then they want to find out how much uh the sides that you want and that kind of thing. It I'm like you, I love it, but I try to tell Mary Kay, even though it was like $28 for the wings and all the yeah, I said, well, look, that's two meals for me right there. Yeah, yeah. Uh I I don't eat that much anymore, and uh I like having having them in the fridge and you know, pull them out in the next day.
SPEAKER_00It gives you a sense of comfort. It gives you some comfort and I and I dig that. I I understand the comfort part of it. And and you know, uh I'm just thinking that you know how many people can have a three to five minute conversation about chicken wings. At what point do you have you really covered it all? And I don't think we have quite, probably.
SPEAKER_01I mean because we're not gonna argue about leaves being the best of those.
SPEAKER_00Not necessarily, not necessarily. I mean, uh I like wings from all over, I really do.
SPEAKER_01You might you remember when me, you, and uh uh Tweety all those wings? That was in my heavy days, and uh tell him who Tweety is.
SPEAKER_00Tell the listening audience who Tweety is.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if I can describe Tweety. Uh he was uh he worked at supplies and stuff like
Tweety And The 150-Wing Legend
SPEAKER_01that in revenue, go from place to place, providing people what they needed, and just was an all-round uh you know, jack of all trades. Was as Tweety his real name, was Tweety his given name? It it wasn't, but you know, Charles doesn't sound quite right. Yeah, Charles was his name. So and uh he was an African-American guy, maybe just a little younger than us. Was he young? Yeah, yeah. Had one big tooth missing in the front. He had gotten in a fight one time, which if you met Tweety, you'd think, how in the hell did I get in a fight? How in the world that happened? Well, he wasn't the one that there was other people fighting, and he was trying to break something up and suddenly got a fist in the mouth. And the guy told him, he said, Look, I'm gonna go to dental school. And I get Yeah. Did you not know this story? No. Oh yeah, he said the guy told him he was the guy that punched him said, I'm gonna go to dental school. I can make it up to you. I can make it up to you. And last time I saw, yeah, last time I saw Tweety, it so hadn't happened. But he was a fantastic young man, and I enjoyed being around him. And and you know, no matter what had happened to me with the demotion and some of the stuff that happened to me, the he stood by me the whole time. Uh he was one of the things.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, yeah, he was an honest kind of loyal sort of friend, I'd call him probably. Do you remember when we'd I'd seen downtown Frankfurt with with women slash girls? I'd say, Tweety, who was that girl girl you were with downtown? And every time he'd say, Oh man, that's my cousin. And I'd say, How many cousins? How many cousins do you have, Tweety? I've seen you with 25 different women downtown. Do you have that many cousins? And he said, Yeah, man, I got a lot of cousins. Happens to be one of my cousins.
SPEAKER_01And he had no interest in having uh uh a marriage or anything like that. It was he he was just he was just a nice guy, right? Um but me, you, and him, we went to is it deshays? It was deschays where we ate uh 150 chicken wings. Yeah, I I think I finally won. I think I had by myself I had about 50 wings. And uh but I was big enough then that I could hang with. But it was uh it was fun times, and I'm
Turning The Yard Into Bird Country
SPEAKER_01glad to even think about Tweety. It makes me great.
SPEAKER_00I get I get you know, I and I guess you could talk about any kind of birds if you wanted to. Why don't you you could talk about birds?
SPEAKER_01Okay, well chickens almost don't count as birds, but they uh but you know, Ed, I I I don't know if you've been over here to see what I put out, but I got I've got all these fears and stuff that they put out. It's a fantastic thing.
SPEAKER_00Well, wait a minute. I didn't have any idea you were gonna go there when I started talking about wings and birds. I didn't have the idea. Well, let's get there.
SPEAKER_01I don't care what you thought, let's do it. I I decided uh, you know, I I've always liked birds. Um and uh until really till last year, I've I've not done as much as I could to kind of draw them to the yard. I have a lot of reasons for drawing them. I first of all, I'm hoping they'll take care of some of those damn stink bugs when they come out. Uh, but they seem to be smarter than that, too. They don't want the stink bugs.
SPEAKER_00Well, they've they've tried stink bugs probably in in the past, and they know not to try to try to eat them.
SPEAKER_01So but I have, I mean, I've got so many birds now that you fully expect to see me like Alfred Hitchcock walking down with a little cage of canaries as he goes by. You could probably hear the bird sounds now. I don't know. No, but I do hear Tippy Hedron.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it was that was a great movie, by the way. Yeah, it was fantastic. Uh but uh yeah, I I like them. And uh I Mary Kay was, you know, she she liked them, but in California where they lived, uh they would look out the window and see, you know, blue jays or something every now and then. And they were different kind of blue jays than we have around here. They were actually blue.
SPEAKER_00I mean almost really blue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And uh they'd see things like that. But as far as drawing of birds, I don't know that they ever did that much. I like them, and I started trying to last year uh to set up things that would draw. I I wanted to get hummingbirds in here because I rarely saw hummingbirds, and I put some feeders in, and it was fantastic. I got I got uh one one of those feeders that has camera on it. Right. And and the nine months that I've had that camera thing, how many species do you think have?
SPEAKER_00Uh 2,387.
SPEAKER_01You're closer than I thought you'd be. No, I've had and and this that you know, there's a lot of birds that don't come to that feeder, like I'm seeing uh buzzards or thank god they're not coming. Yeah, they're not coming. Although one got really close one time because uh Felix had killed the groundhog and I chucked it over the fence, and the next thing I know I got one close up, but not in camera range.
SPEAKER_00Well, they've also they've also seen you walk to the mailbox. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_01There's potential food, potential food every time I leave the house. Uh the uh, you know, and I'm not getting burn swallows or anything like that there, but I I certainly see them around here. And the other one is uh, and we we have a bunch of these uh geese, uh most mostly Canadian geese. Do they come into the yard? They they come really close. Do they? Yeah, the church next door is only busy really, you know, a little bit on Sunday, and that's about it. I mean, there's it has some other activities going over there, but while they're not doing anything, these geese land over there, and it's you hear them all
The Bird Camera And 47 Species
SPEAKER_01the time. You think, oh man, they're must be circling around. Then you look over, and no, they're just sitting their butts on the ground there and making making a racket. But I've had at this feeder, at the one with the camera, I've had 47 different species at that camera in the last nine months. That is shocking to me because I had no idea we had that many species even in the state, even in context. I did, I did not. I and there were there are things that I've gotten there uh that I never really saw in a situation where you could really see them very well, and that is like the woodpeckers. We got the downy woodpeckers, and then I got uh the red bellied woodpeckers. And uh it's kind of fun because I've gotten some suet and put it out there so I can see them more clearly.
SPEAKER_00Spell that word for me. Spell that word for me. Yeah. S-U-E-T. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's what I thought. And how do you identify them?
SPEAKER_01Uh the the camera itself has an identifier on there. It's some some of it's not some of it uh is not as good as it should be because a lot of times the same bird will come in there and you'll see, and it didn't identify at that time. But I've seen things like uh the dark-eyed junkos, I saw them for a period of time. The uh red-breasted uh I'm rose-breasted uh now I'm gonna forget what it what it is. Oh, gross beak. The rose breasted gross beaks have been here for several times, and I don't think I've ever seen them in the wild.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure I've I even know what that bird species is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, there's it's it's kind of neat. And uh, you know, when it comes to let's say, okay, uh sparrows. There's probably been five different kinds of sparrow come in. If I thought there's just one. Yeah. I would go, okay, well, there's a little house sparrow. It is, but it might be the white crowned sparrow. And you can see their heads and markings and all that are completely different. So uh it's been educational, it's been fun. It's something I can do, even limited, is to go out there and uh mess around. And I, you know, I put certain uh flowers out and uh to draw them. To draw, to draw them and and also to kind of give them a little bit of privacy. Uh yeah. So there's just not human beings out there.
SPEAKER_00Can I ask you a few questions about them? Sure. I'd like to ask uh two or three questions about it. So, first of all, first of all, have you seen and I'm being a little bit silly with this question, but uh totally anywhere in Kentucky, you know we have um way more bald eagles in Kentucky than we used to. And they used to be down around western Kentucky, land between the lakes and then that region there. But people are spotting them all over Fayette County and Justin County and Scott County. Did you know that? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy. I haven't seen any eagles in this area, but if you remember when you and I went to Wisconsin, you remember that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I thought it was a hawk at first, and then we both went. That's an eagle.
SPEAKER_01It gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and you go, holy crap, it's uh it's a bald eagle. Yeah, yeah, it was beautiful. And and what was the other one we saw? We saw one in a marsh, somewhere. One of those big tall birds, one of the cranes of some kind.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was a sand sand crane crane, I think. I think it was a sand crane, I if I remember right, because there are lots of those in the north. I saw one
Eagles, Cranes, And Favorite Sightings
SPEAKER_00up uh sand crane in Michigan the last time I was up there, and they they've got this wild, crazy uh yell, you know, this really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Well wasn't there a when we went there though, wasn't there a farm or something? Were they I I was thinking there was like a crane farm. Maybe we didn't get to that, but no. Uh but yeah, I like I like that. I mean, I've always liked uh like when we're playing golf for some damn reason, there's always a blue heron somewhere right on the golf course.
SPEAKER_00I love those, I love those birds. I see them from time to time. Uh you know, if you've lived in another time, and I guess you could sit still even do it now. Uh you would have been John James Audubon or Ray Harm or somebody like that, I guess maybe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well that guy was that guy was interesting. I mean, when you see all the books, the identifying uh different birds and stuff, Audubon, I guess, is the go-to guy, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And he was sort of a classifier, wasn't he? He was interested in the classification, sort of like Darwin, as I recall. And uh, but Ray Harm was the artist, wasn't he? I mean, he was he was the total artist, if I remember right. And you made a good point before we started the uh episode that he he he did he obviously had original art, but he sold a ton of stuff that were just prints. And uh my mother had one of a cardinal, and when I was as a kid growing up, I used to see it in the bedroom.
SPEAKER_01So but yeah, that whole uh that whole print business, and I'll say this as an artist myself. I mean, it's nice to expose people to your art by doing prints and things, but it about ruins it for the actual artist. I'm sure you cannot uh charge people what it would cost to do the do the painting at the time and all that, is to then memeographing off
Prints, Originals, And Buying Local Art
SPEAKER_01every bit of it.
SPEAKER_00There's something called, and I think I've asked you this one time before, um, there's something called a Gickly print, G-I-C-L-E-E. Are you familiar with that? No. That's what that's just a print, and I don't know what makes it different from any other prints, but uh Emily and I have a couple of artist friends, and we at one point we said we'd like to buy some original art from you, but uh she was getting uh 3,000 to 5,000 to 7,000 to 10,000, those kinds of prices. And she said, I've got these Giggly prints that that I sell all the time, and that they're $50 or $100 a piece. And of course, my cheap butt, of course, said that sounds like a good deal to me. I'd rather spend $100 rather than $2,000. Call me crazy.
SPEAKER_01But uh anyway, we've got some of these Giggly prints of uh I tell you what, Ed, I tried to uh buy, I try to support artists by buying original uh pieces because I've got uh pieces by so many different artists in here, and some of them, some of them a little bit famous and some are not. I mean, I've I know that I've got uh, you know, I guess my thoughts I went to the UU church the other day. They're having the and in fact Friday they're having another art show down there. And I I bought a watercolor, which is a a medium that I've never done, and I liked it. It's it's simple and all that. Plus I get the uh and it wasn't it wasn't that expensive. Um but again I like to throw money toward uh up-and-coming artists and stuff like that. Uh it's always stuff that I like myself, you know. I don't just I don't just buy anything.
SPEAKER_00Right. I've bought a few pieces of original art, and one of them is one of them is a female nude, and uh, and my wife Emily said, I'm not sure I want you to put that up in the house because we've got young kids that come in from time to time. And I said, I guess if you had the uh Venus de Milo in your in your house, you'd throw an overcoat over the top of it to keep people from uh young children from seeing it.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, yeah, that's I mean, part of that is the way we were brought up. Oh, I know that nude, that nude meant sex, you know. Yeah, and yeah, the truth is it it doesn't. No. And and some of the things that I've seen are nude, you know, you look at the statue of David, uh uh it's nude. Yeah, but I don't know that it's that flattering for David.
SPEAKER_00Well, I you imagine David afterwards said, come on now.
SPEAKER_01And the artist said, you know, I I can't add length and girth. Can't do it. I'm here to do the way you look, and there you go. But uh, but no, I I like all that art and stuff. And you know, since we're talking about birds, I've got one that's kind of unrelated. Related, uh, but also related, and that is I'm going to see uh uh next week, I'm going to see a huge bird, and that is Sue,
Sue The T Rex And Bird Evolution
SPEAKER_01uh the dinosaur. Oh, okay. Uh that's it. Mary Kay and I talked about that in an earlier episode, but it's uh it's the most complete uh T-Rex skeleton every ever recovered.
SPEAKER_00I thought it was a pterodactyl. I thought that's what you were talking about. No, no, this is a pteranosaur pterodactyl.
SPEAKER_01Yep, gotcha. And I've seen some pictures, but I also uh have talked to people that have been up there and see you really can't get the full, you know, just by looking at a picture, uh you can't really tell as much as being in the room.
SPEAKER_00Right. And where is that?
SPEAKER_01A pterodactyl?
SPEAKER_00Where is that? Where are you going to see a pterodactyl?
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry, T Rex. In Chicago. It's at the Field Museum in Chicago. Oh, okay. All right. And it it'll be one of many dinosaurs there, but I I think the after all the lawsuits and everything that it finally ended up in Chicago, they decided to build uh a special room uh just for Sue. Yeah. And uh and Sue's head. Uh you have an aunt named Sue. That's not if it's it's it's totally different, isn't it? No, no. But my aunt Sue tried to make me play piano, and this Sue will not. This Sue this Sue's been this Sue probably can't play piano. You know how T-Rexes look, they their little arms are not.
SPEAKER_00They're little short arms, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I get that. Yeah. But no, I'm doing that, and it it's interesting to me that uh when people talk about dinosaurs, they they think about you know long-ago stuff. Well, way, you know, millions and millions of years. But the offshoot of that is the is the bird. Right. And uh they have done some funky things with some of the birds to make them look like dinosaurs. Do you know about that? I've seen some, I think I've seen some pictures maybe. Which is awful. I mean, they don't need to make a Frankenstein monster. No, eat it even out of a bird. But uh I don't know. It's it's just been an interest of mine, and I I I find myself interested in just about everything.
SPEAKER_00So everything? I mean everything. You did say just about, didn't you? I I did, and uh I was That's a big old net.
SPEAKER_01You know that's huge. It is, it is, you know. Um uh a woman is having a funeral for her husband, and uh one of the husband's friends comes down to me and says, Can I say a word? She said, sure. And he goes, Universe. And she said, that means everything to me. That's a dad joke, isn't it? It is. I got another one. Same funeral. The guy comes over and he says, He can I say a word? She said, sure. He goes, plethora. And she thinks, thank you, that means a lot.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure I get that. I guess plethora.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know what the definition of plethora is? Yeah, I guess I do, but I I'm yeah, I guess. You're supposed to laugh at my jokes. You're supposed to actually hilarious. Even if it's not you're gonna ruin the podcast. We're we're gonna get tainted and oh that happened along.
SPEAKER_00Oh, don't put don't put that on me, man.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, okay, a funeral. Uh woman's having a funeral for her husband that passed away. A guy comes up and he goes, water pit. And she says, I know he means well.
Dad Jokes And The Sign-Off
SPEAKER_00Wait what what I thought, and that's a good one, yeah. Ha ha. Uh the the the thing a bit with the plethora is that what it was one of the main lines from um the three amigos and one. Right, right. And uh I hope you know what the word plethora means if you insist on using the word plethora, if I remember, or paraphrasing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, El Guapo said that. Yeah. I I'd hate to think I'd hate to think that you're the kind of guy who would tell somebody when they had a plethora when you don't know what a plethora is, and so yeah, it was a fun thing, but from your Spanish, do you remember what guapo means?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, I don't. Handsome.
SPEAKER_01Oh, is that right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it means handsome, yeah. Guapo. And I hear that all the time when I'm traveling in four uh in Spanish-speaking country because I am a 7.25 on a 10-point scale. So well, you were. I was, yes, I was, no longer.
SPEAKER_01But uh anyway, Ed, I I think we've uh beat this bird thing to death, and I I don't have anything more for right now. Do you have anything?
SPEAKER_00I I don't think so. I I don't think so. We've we we I think we covered everything that you'd possibly want to say or want to know about birds, really.
SPEAKER_01Actually, uh you could tell that we uh had covered everything we wanted to say when it started doing those jokes that are exactly he's using some fillery right here at the very end. I should have had I should have had like bird jokes, though. That's right. Anyway, all right, let's get out of here, Ed. Talk to you later. All right, see ya.
