RIP, Chicken King
So this is one of the weirder posts you will see on TNG, but I feel a little compelled.
Al Copeland opened his first "Popeyes Famous Chicken and Biscuits" in 1972. He died last Sunday at age 61.
I grew up on Popeyes fried chicken because I grew up poor in South Louisiana. As you may know, poor southern people share a special relationship with fried food, and in an area of the country that asks a bit more of its fare, no place nurtured that relationship quite like Popeyes.
Some of my earliest memories involve Popeyes, and some of my fondest, too. Friend to family, palate, and budget, It was my grease soaked oasis--the first place I wanted to eat as a kid and as a college student. I remember when "Popeye the sailor" was the actual symbol of the company, and I've taken a familial interest in following the marketing campaigns over the years, each one different yet all progressively prostituting my ethnic group's name and culture in order to sell their product. Annoying? Yes, but forgivable due to consistent proclamation of a singular, bold, and incontrovertible truth: They make good fuckin' chicken.
In spite of attempts to maximize my health and incorporate more fashionable food into my diet, I maintain no shame in my ability to tear up a 3 piece and a side of red beans. I know the secret ingredient that makes their biscuits so good, I know how long it takes to fry liver before it gets too hard (not a menu item outside of Louisiana), and I remember when the rice dressing actually tasted like a Cajun made it. For me and the area where I was raised, Popeyes is more than a chain. It's a Louisiana cultural institution.
So, with genuine feeling I give respect to Al Copeland, the playboy chicken king who scrapped his way out of the New Orleans projects to create a 700 store empire. Famous for fast living, an extravagant style, a feud with fellow New Orleans resident and novelist Anne Rice, and numerous acts of both outrage and charity, he and his story are bigger than life, and typical Louisiana.
Thanks, Al. You made great fuckin' chicken.
Oh, and he had a helicopter called the "Chicken Chopper." Somebody hit the awesome button for me.
11 comments:
RIP, Al.
It's no coincidence that my apartment is a block away from Popeye's in my neighborhood.
I see your Popeye's chicken and raise you a cheese steak!
I wanna ride in the chicken chopper!
if there were really justice in this world, mr. copeland would have died from having his throat slit, being hung upside down, dismembered, fried, and then crapped out by some fat guy.
Who knows, Parker. Maybe he got what he had coming:
Some studies have found that a diet low in vegetables and high in animal fat increases the risk of developing salivary gland cancer... From Cancer.org
christ...i mean the man fried some chicken but he's not exactly a war criminal. sheesh.
...or a self satisfied frat boy. that totally warrants dismemberment and/or cancer.
he's responsible for more deaths than the average frat boy: chicken deaths and, i guess, salivary gland-related deaths as well. he's also responsible for the bizarre collection of derelicts who hang out at the corner of 14th and n streets.
omg really? all this venom and bile over "chicken murder"?! i think i just lost a little more faith in humanity thanks to crazy pam anderson up there... they're birds, damn tasty ones, at that. I say fry the suckas (btw, i'm pretty sure chickens aren't slaughered the same way cows and pigs are)! "If animals weren't meant to be eaten, they wouldn't be made out of meat." ~ Unknown
controlphreaq - it starts with the chickens and then, before you know it, it's you and me.
...and there was no one left to cluck for me.
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