Mayor: No Chicken! | News | Salt Lake City Weekly

Mayor: No Chicken! 

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Mayor: No Chicken!


Nobody is about to call Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson a chicken. There’s nothing he loves more than facing down city council members and fire-breathing dragons. (No Nancy, we weren’t referring to you—necessarily.)


But what we’re talking about here is something completely different. Rocky hates chicken. Remember how George Bush I hated broccoli? Well, Rocky hates—no, detests—chicken. His hatred of the fowl is practically Freudian. He’ll tell you that he won’t eat chicken because he thinks they inject the birds with all kinds of weird growth hormones. It’s as if he fears that eating chicken would leave him with the urge to run around a barnyard flapping his wings.


Then, on the other hand, he takes his son to Burger King for dinner. Rocky, we’ve got some bad news for you, pal. There is a reason they don’t list the ingredients on those Whoppers. But don’t worry, you haven’t started mooing yet, have you?


• The mayor’s hatred for chicken came up recently when he joined the staff of SmartBomb on a field trip to the Rio Grande Cafe. It’s part of our continuing investigation into why in the hell Gov. Mike Leavitt wants to turn the town’s favorite café into a gall-darn archive. As is our custom, the SmartBomb staff ordered the daily special, which included a chicken enchilada. Upon hearing the special, the mayor went pale for a moment, but then steadied himself and ordered the cheese enchilada.


Special note to mayor: We said the conversation was off the record, not what you ordered for lunch. We think we’re within the bounds of good journalistic ethics here.


• Speaking of name-dropping, did you see where Bill “I Feel Your Pain” Clinton is considering hosting a daytime TV talk show. The L.A. Times reports that Bubba wants $50 million a year to become the male answer to Oprah. Move over, Montel. Oh, and by the way, Oprah makes $125 million a year for hosting her show.


Nothing official yet, but one proposed name for Clinton’s show would be The Definition of Is. Another possibility is Bubba Time, where Ed McMahon would introduce the former president much in the same way he introduced Johnny Carson: Heeeeerrrrreeeee’s Bubba!


• As most animals-lovers in Utah have heard by now, there’s been a critical review of Hogle Zoo. Everybody seems to have their feathers ruffled over the state legislative audit that called into question practices of the zoo’s administration and its board. A recent story in the Deseret News pondered whether several desert bighorn sheep the zoo sold might have ended up as trophy heads mounted on a wall in someone’s den.


The story noted that Hogle Zoo sold bighorn sheep to a buyer who might have been a middleman for trophy hunting ranches. Zoo authorities appeared sheepish over the report.


• And finally this: A high school wrestling coach in Richmond, Ind. served community service rather than face animal cruelty charges after he bit the head off a live sparrow at a party with his team.


The episode makes Rocky Anderson look like something of a wimp. Real men eat crow, sparrow and, yes, even chicken. Real men eat anything, Rocky.

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