Why “Shouter To Dead Parrots” as a public moniker? It started with a joke at work when I decided that everyone else’s e-mail signature was boring – really boring. I considered that a challenge, so began to I drop in various quotes from Zippy The Pinhead, who at the time was my white boy’s version of “sprit animal” (later replaced by Bender Bending Rodríguez). Nobody noticed – which just reinforced my notion that nobody reads any of this crap anyway.
I then started dropping Zippy quotes into my weekly work summary as well – I wrote a small program to select a random quip for the weeks report. Again no one noticed. So every other entry was a Zippy line – and finally someone in management noticed and turned off the automatic report generation and distribution, leaving some poor slob to actually read all the boring crap everyone claimed to have done within the last week. That took all the fun out of it, so I retired Zippy and brought forth “Shouter To Dead Parrots”, which I have been using ever since.
So where’s the damn parrot? Dead of course, and sold by a very disreputable dealer in exotic animals and fowl. Got it yet? I’ll wait a minute … tick … tick … tick … tick. Got it yet? Of course you do – its the famous Monty Python “Dead Parrot Sketch“. (Did I mention that Python filled the “spirit animal” gap between Zippy and Bender? Or that I can still recite most of the dialog from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”? )
So that’s it? A Monty Python call out? A bit more than that. I’ve been seeped in science fiction since childhood – I grew up with Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury – to drop a name or few.
Peruse Larry Niven’s Ringworld and I think you’ll figure the rest of it out.
So “Shouter To Dead Parrots” is a complicated little quip on my part and though people really complain about the length of the name (www.shoutertodeadparrots.com), my response is that it’s really easy to remember and spell. So there.
And no, I have not personally shouted at a dead parrot. However I have been know to curse out one of our cats when he does his usual troublemaking with that blank look on his face that doesn’t even say “humph”.
PostScript The First
What do you do with a dead parrot?
The first thing to do is take the bird back to the venue from which you purchased it. Proceed to thwack the proprietor with the dead parrot until they are amiable to either refund your money or provide you with a noticeably less dead parrot. This should be done as soon as possible after detecting the deceased state of the parrot, for freshly dead parrots make better thwacking tools than stale ones.
PostScript The Second
Is it OK to bury a dead bird?
Depends upon the species. Large birds such as eagles and hawks demand a proper funerals. Do not be enticed or intimated into doing so. Spend ten dollars on the first one and the next will demand twenty dollars.
Small birds are used to be at the bottom of the avian pecking order, and are usually satisfied with a modest ceremony and being wrapped in at least two layers of plastic before being remanded to the rubbish bin.
Chickens, however are another thing altogether. The appropriate thing to do when encountering a dead chicken is to determine the condition of the ex-bird and estimate how much charcoal it would take to properly prepare it for tomorrow nights dinner.
PostScript The Third
What happens if a bird dies in front of you?
Some people say when you find a dead bird the meaning is someone you loved passed away. Those people are, of course, superstitious idiots.
Others say that dead birds actually are a good sign, showing you that an end to turmoil or pain is coming. How they come to this conclusion is a mystery, but that may be because they are also superstitious idiots.
A dead bird doesn’t necessarily portend physical death, but metaphorical death. Don’t you think the bird would have a different opinion about that? Provided they could discuss such metaphorical issues, a trait most bird species have shown to lack or they don’t have an old pin feather to give about the whole thing.
PostScript The Fourth
How do you tell if a bird is knocked out or dead?
The best way to tell if a bird is stunned or dead is by checking the bird for signs of slow breathing or heartbeats.
If another bird is standing over it flapping its wings and counting down, then it’s probably knocked out and unless it wakes up and gets its feathered ass moving, will lose the World Bird Boxing Championship for the third year in a row.
If the bird is not breathing or moving, it may be dead. Or it may just be in a deep meditative state where it only appears to be dead. Some birds can project their astral forms, leaving the body behind which appears to be dead. Best to check back just after sunset or just before sunrise – the projection spells tend to wear off at those times and the bird wakes up not remembering how it got here and wondering why its tail feathers itch.
Shouter to Dead Parrots 