#Pratchat81

[pratchat]

Thanks to listener @natski07 who asked @dduane about the story behind “Hollywood Chickens”! For our part, Ben’s research suggests they arrived under the underpass in late 1969 (so a bit earlier than the story suggests), and their exact origins are unknown. There’s more in our episode notes, but we love that Natalie asked, and Diane answered!

Im listening to Pratchat podcast ep81 https://pratchatpodcast.com/2024/11/08/pratchat81-notes-and-errata/

They are discussing the Terry Pratchett short story "Hollywood Chicken" which Terry wrote in his author note that it was inspired by a trueish story from yourself. Did you ever visit or see the chickens in your travels around Hollywood?

Yes: often. They lived at the patch of ground on either side of the Vineland offramp of the Hollywood Freeway/US 101. You could see them scratching around and doing their thing pretty much any time you went up that offramp in a car or bus. (As for “trueish”: God love ‘em, they’re still there. In fact, they’ve apparently spread to the next offramp down.)

Terry’s exact wording about this in his forenote to the story is, “Diane Duane swore it was true, and I wasn’t about to argue.” 😏 This would have been because when the subject came up in some convention bar or other, (a) we were in Telling Another Writer About A Cool if Unlikely-Sounding Thing mode—at which time you do not “pull the long bow,” just lay out the facts as known to you—and (b) I knew quite well Terry’d later do his fact-checking and possibly find out more about the story than I knew: which would be fun. …Thus (eventually/accidentally) leaving me with one of the greatest blurb slugs ever seen. 😄

HTH!

[dduane]

Im listening to Pratchat podcast ep81 https://pratchatpodcast.com/2024/11/08/pratchat81-notes-and-errata/

They are discussing the Terry Pratchett short story "Hollywood Chicken" which Terry wrote in his author note that it was inspired by a trueish story from yourself. Did you ever visit or see the chickens in your travels around Hollywood?

Yes: often. They lived at the patch of ground on either side of the Vineland offramp of the Hollywood Freeway/US 101. You could see them scratching around and doing their thing pretty much any time you went up that offramp in a car or bus. (As for “trueish”: God love ‘em, they’re still there. In fact, they’ve apparently spread to the next offramp down.)

Terry’s exact wording about this in his forenote to the story is, “Diane Duane swore it was true, and I wasn’t about to argue.” 😏 This would have been because when the subject came up in some convention bar or other, (a) we were in Telling Another Writer About A Cool if Unlikely-Sounding Thing mode—at which time you do not “pull the long bow,” just lay out the facts as known to you—and (b) I knew quite well Terry’d later do his fact-checking and possibly find out more about the story than I knew: which would be fun. …Thus (eventually/accidentally) leaving me with one of the greatest blurb slugs ever seen. 😄

HTH!