11/22/2004: Annual swan roundup

So you thought the beatiful swans on your favorite waterway just magically appeared there as if it was, as Douglas Adams might have put it, "artistically correct"? Not in the case of the swans found in Hamburg, Germany, where it's this guy's job to round them up in the fall so they can be housed, fed, and cared for until the spring.

What a crap job, swans as viscious bastards.

Those are some big ass birds. It's nice they're looking after them for the winter.

Swans are mean.

Is the same team that rounds up America's ugliest people for that new "Reality" show of the same name?

Man...talk about a low-tech job. So this guy just reaches into the canal, grabs the bird, and ties its wings down with baling twine?

That's nice that the swans are cared for during winter. Lucky for them to be housed and fed while other birds and wildlife are freezing their behinds off during winter. Mind you, all the swans in the boats look quite relaxed and probably are quite used to this happening.

These swans are pampered whores.

Yep, well that's another way of looking at it.

Tazer

I'm surprised he doesn't at least have a face shield on.

Swan: One of the other white meats.

I think they would be best "En Croute" drizzled with balsamic something or other.

I suppose it's easier to take care of a few boat loads of actual swans than a few boatloads of enchanted ballerinas whose forms switch between human and avian during a specified diurnal cycle.

And then again...

The swan roundup comes but once a year. It's like Marichiko and the phone books. Once you run out of swans, you run out of work.

Pizzas are steadier income.

But when the weather gets bad, you might want to consider a more "indoor" part time job. Although I genuinely feel for our most frequent delivery guy at the hospital, and tip extra in really bad weather, I know that most people don't do that. He tells us. (usually in appreciation of a $5 tip on a $10 order. Yes, we are softies.)

Not only are they mean, they're also surprisingly strong. One swipe from a swan wing can break your leg. As for eating them: in Britain you have to get the Queen's permission first, because they all belong to her (with the exception of a few swans located on one stretch of the Thames, which belong to the Dyers and the Vintners Companies).

I wanna be a swanboy,
and you can be my swangirl,
Looking like a hero,
Six-gun at my side,
Chewing my tobacco.
Out on the horizon,
I see a puff of smoke.
Indians on the warpath,
etc.

'Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane
Wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong'

-T Rex.

thank you

Look a swan in the eyes, and you'll find it hard to decide if it's an innocent bird your admiring or Hannible Lector in disguise...... Sorry, I said I was finished with the term innocent.... I"ve never seen such evil in a persons eyes. However, this is probably justr my warped perception. Try it, and decide for yourself.

Them crazy, them crazy
We gonna chase those crazy
White swans out of town
Chase those crazy white swans
Out of town

I and I build a cabin
I and I plant the corn
Didn't my people before me
Slave for this country
Now you look me with a scorn
Then you eat up all my corn

We gonna chase those crazy white swanns
Chase them crazy
Chase those crazy white swans out of town

Griff Knows.

So does Paula Cole:
Where is my Roger Tory Peterson*
Where is my canal song*
Where is my happy ending*
Where have all the swanboys gone?
Yippee aye Yippee yea

BTW,
I asked the Queen and she said the swans taste like a cross between a spotted owl and a California condor. But not like chicken!

What with all the songs going about, I keep thinking of Loreena McKennit's Bonny Swan, you know the one where that girl kills her sister by throwing her in the river, and then she turns into a swan and then a harp that sings the tale of her murder at the wedding of her sister to her boyfriend? It makes more sense when you listen to it.