The Enduring Spirit of Philadelphia.
Is there any value in purity?
A few years ago, I recall seeing a tweet from user @mikeyil that said, “The rest of the country will never understand the enduring spirit of Philadelphia.” Attached was a photo of a crudely made flyer affixed to a telephone pole. It read, “Come watch me eat an entire rotiserie chicken. November 6th will be the 40th consecutive day that I have eaten an entire rotiserie chicken. 12 O’clock Noon. The chicken will be consumed on that abandoned pier near Walmart. This is not a party.”
“Rotisserie” was misspelled both times; there were three photos of the man eating some of the previous chickens, looking to be in pain, and the words “This is not a party” told me everything I needed to know. If I can exaggerate for the sake of storytelling, I’ve thought about this flyer and the events surrounding it every day for two years.
When the set time came, around 500 people gathered to watch the man, then 31-year-old steakhouse server Alexander Tominsky, who had no prior internet fame, eat the chicken. There were no elevated platforms or chairs, and the fanfare on the pier didn’t extend much beyond Tominsky bringing a small red carpet. But after an hour (his time taken to consume rotisserie chickens increased over the month, as the challenge took a toll on his body), Tominsky swallowed his final bite of meat. The crowd erupted in cheers, swarming him with congratulations and love—a person later telling Tominsky that his flyer was the first thing they had seen when they got out of the hospital for behavioral health disorders.
Tominsky’s triumph made the rounds with stories in Vice, The New York Times, and several other outlets. To his credit, the day seems not to be something he overly dwells on but rather something he felt called to do, did, and then felt proud of. All the while refusing offers to monetize the event along the way.
When I look back at my journal entries from the time, every other stray thought would loop back to something like, “Damn, I love that chicken guy.” I’ve considered writing about him for years, but even now, I hesitate to do so. As a writer, my job is to connect ideas and articulate meaning. But every time I approach what so enraptures me about the Philadelphia Chicken Man, a part of me rebukes breaking into that further level of analysis. You don’t need to understand the tides to appreciate their beauty. This story is an anchor. To analyze it is the same futile pursuit of questioning why there is existence at all. It is a fixture around which everything else becomes something.
There’s a scene in another Philly classic, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where the character Charlie tells his friends that he has written a musical just because. They stand around in confusion and interrogate him. They all can’t comprehend the idea of him putting effort into it because he simply felt called to. They shout, “Who versus? Who are we doing it versus?” Charlie ultimately having an ulterior motive in the episode notwithstanding, that line of questioning is cynical and the same obstruction that could prevent someone from seeing the inherent value of what happened on that Philadelphia pier two years ago.
The day before Tominsky ate his final bird, Nov. 5. 2022, the city of Philadelphia lost two championship-level sporting events. The Union lost the Major League Soccer Cup, and the Phillies lost Game 6 of the World Series. The city was down. Defeated on two massive stages, one might think then that this next challenge would, too, result in a loss. That a man could not succeed in eating 40 rotisserie chickens in as many days. But to think so would be a mistake; you would be underestimating the sheer voracity, the grit, the Enduring Spirit of the great city of Philadelphia. Because on that pier, the one 500 people were able to locate despite no specific street address being listed, an adopted son of Philly gave the city a win.
In a story Tominsky wrote for The Guardian a few months later, he said, “People still ask me why I did it, and I don’t have answers. I think it’s best that it remains that way. When everything is always known and understood, it can make life sad. It’s important to have a little wonder, to be surprised by others.”
A few weeks back, me and my group of nearly 30-somethings grabbed some bikes and skateboards and rolled over to an old church parking lot in South Austin. Our buddy Ash laid on the pavement, and we made chalk markings around him. Turns out, he’s the perfect length to measure boxes for the old schoolyard game of four square. For hours into the night, we played. Our friend Brit chatted about preparing for her brother’s wedding in a few days. We played and added sillier rules as the night went on. Whoever played the best that night would take home a shitty scarf I bought earlier in the day, which we had deemed the “#1 headband.” The competitive aspect didn’t actually matter, but still, we played. We played. And we played. And we played. And we vied for that shitty scarf.
If it’s not too bold of me to say, I think we have it too. We, the children of South Austin, carry it as well. The Enduring Spirit of Philadelphia.
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More words to read!
Thanks for the support gang. Very proud to have gotten this one out on schedule. And shouts to my friend Connor MacDonald, who introduced us to the concept of the #1 headband in the context of four square. And shouts to the anime Afro Samurai for the idea, generally. If you enjoyed this letter, please do share it with someone you think may get something out of it!
Reading this while I’m on a train to Philadelphia, feels kismet.