The recipient of his encouragement wasn't a cage of numbered balls. It was Henny, a brown hen clucking around a plywood board with a grid of numbers on it. The game hinged on where she decided to leave her mark. "Turn the curve!" Mr. Gelernter yelled. (click below to read more)
This sport is known in polite company as chicken-poop bingo. Along with its cousin, cow-chip bingo, this twist on the church-hall pastime has proved that an age-old game of chance can cause quite a stir when it is centered on an animal. At least a few decades old, the chicken antics have become a popular staple at fairs, festivals and fundraisers in small-town America, and beyond.
It requires no particular genius to play. Here at Ginny's, an Austin institution that has been holding the game for a remarkable 11 years, players put up $2 to place a bet on a 54-number grid. Then Ginny Kalmbach, the saloon's 77-year-old proprietor, fetches a chicken from an outside pen, places it on a plywood-covered pool table and waits for nature to happen—which tends to occur with some regularity. "It's incredible!" said John Owens, 50, a resident of Morges, Switzerland. In town to attend a business conference, he had one reaction when he heard about the game: "I said, 'We have to go there immediately.' "
No one seems to know the origins of the game, although news accounts said this fowl variety of bingo became a minor sensation at New Orleans bars in the 1980s.
It has spread elsewhere since. Just in the past two months, it was part of the Kiwanis Car Show in Columbia, Ill., and the Sequoia Union School District carnival in California, where organizers enlisted the aid of an eighth-grade girl's pet rooster. In Girard, Kan., it was part of the festivities at Girard High School's homecoming weekend.
A few countries away, as many as 500 tourists and locals crowd into a local bar in San Pedro, Belize, on Thursdays for "The World Famous Chicken Drop."
Noele Sutherland-McLain, co-owner of Wahoo's Lounge, credits two expats from New Orleans with coming up with the idea 24 years ago. She said it has become quite a spectacle, with street vendors and tree-climbing contortionists setting up camp outside. The bingo itself is run by two guys wearing "Chicken Security" shirts.
Those who attend such events enjoy this game of chance and nature, but the idea has irked some animal-rights groups, including the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
"A crowded bar or stadium filled with a screaming audience is no more a proper place for a chicken than a factory farm," says Jane Dollinger, a spokeswoman for the Virginia-based PETA. "Human beings can come up with a method of entertainment less thoughtlessly exploitative."
Another obstacle is the law. In 2005, Minnesota's Gambling Control Board started looking into regulating cow-chip bingo, which revolves around the bovines' fertilizing of football fields and other open spaces.
The game had popped up in rural areas, prompting Tom Barrett, the board's executive director, to ponder potential problems. "Let's say you have square No. 10," he said. "So you go out Saturday and put some feed around the square." Other concerns included people intentionally scaring cows so they would move, as well as patties deposited between numbers.
The board in 2007 settled on a page-long list of rules for the game, which it calls "Cow-A-Bunga." They state the animals must be "let free to roam within the area until a cow pie is placed on a grid." If the cow drops on several numbers, "the grid containing the biggest volume of cow pie" wins.
In Austin, Ginny's says it doesn't take any proceeds from its game. The Texas Lottery Commission doesn't bother to supervise it anyway; a spokeswoman there said it "doesn't meet our definition of bingo."
The game at Ginny's was concocted in 2001 by Ms. Kalmbach's late husband, Don Kalmbach, and the leader of a honky-tonk band that plays during bingo on Sundays. The initially sparse attendance boomed after local publications and travel guides found out about the game that seemed to fit Austin's unofficial slogan of "Keep Austin Weird." National Geographic's travel website called it a "a popular crapshoot."
Ms. Kalmbach is in charge of making sure the chickens run on time. On a recent Sunday, she offered them feed at 4 p.m. The hope was that one of the chickens would feel the urge in an hour, when the first of three bingo games starts.
It is a science she hasn't quite perfected. "We're not sure if it'll take five minutes, or the longest was, what? Two hours?" said bartender Will White, looking at Ms. Kalmbach. She nods.
Regulars were already gearing up, including Phyllis Jamar, a retired state employee who has won the bingo game a record 50 times. "The secret," she said, "is you play a lot."
For a shot at a $114 jackpot, players lined up to buy randomly selected slips of paper with one of 54 numbers. Three other tickets bear the words "line," "intersection" or "border."
At just past 5 p.m. Ms. Kalmbach put Henny inside the cage, inspiring the flock of bettors to scream and shake their betting slips in the air.
Ten minutes later, it was over, when Henny made her mark on No. 16 (and to a lesser extent, No. 5).
Shelley Ryan wasn't pleased. "I was so close!" said the 33-year-old Dell Inc. employee, who, along with her husband, was attending the bingo spectacle for the first time. "A third of the [dropping] was on my number!"
The victor? Dewayne "Tex" Thompson, a 58-year-old grocery manager who won for the eighth time. He announced to the crowd he was going to use the money to buy beer, which he did for his friends.
Meanwhile, Ms. Kalmbach had changed into a fresh shirt. Her chicken had let loose on the way into the bar.
It is a tendency that Ms. Kalmbach sees a potential new betting opportunity, particularly if a dropping lands on her. "I need to make a 'Ginny' ticket," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment