The Flightless Birds Expertease

Our audience tonight is composed mostly of lovers of flightless birds. And Mr. Danno Sullivan, that's your Expertise. Spelled wrong? Naturally. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Each podcasode of Expertise brings you the recognized expert in the field. Whatever the field happens to be, and whether or not that expert actually knows anything about it. When it comes to oddly specific expertises you probably never thought you needed to know more about, we are the experts.

Welcome back to the program, ladies and gents and gentle lades. We are very excited today to have as our guest on Expertise, Mr. Danno Sullivan. I thought we could probe your area. What? Your area rug. Would you mind? Roll out the area rug, we'll have an area rug of fun. Oh my gosh, ladies and gentlemen, you have been asking for this expert for quite some time in our mailbag. And I am so happy that I was able to mailbag him for the show. Danno Sullivan, your love of flightless birds is renowned. My love of flightless birds. If emu Susie, like emu Susie. Awk, awk, oh what a bird.

Flightless birds is my life, Claire. Flightless birds and of course, musicals from the 1920s and 30s. They go together like birds of a... Flock group, flock group. Birds of a flock group. Your love of flightless birds started at a very young age. Yes. With an experience that a lot of us would consider traumatic. Claire, before my first experience with the flightless birds, I was in a zone of comfort, a zone of peaceful familial bliss where flightless birds simply didn't enter into our everyday world. We were surrounded by sparrows, by wrens, even by crows.

I stepped right out of my comfort zone into an unfamiliar situation. You went and you did spend some time on an ostrich farm, studying, really admirable. And you were 11 at this time? I was 11 going on 12, which for the Albuquerque tradition, that's when a boy becomes a man. I stepped over the New Mexico, Arizona line. I became an Arizonian. I became a man and I became someone exposed to flightless birds for the first time. So was it being exposed that had you become a man? Yes. I was hoping you wouldn't bring up this particular point. But the farmers at the ostrich farm were a little less conservative than the folks I'd grown up around.

And there was a lot of exposing, both the accidental, you know, in quotation marks. Well, we'll just leave it at that. No, let us leave it at that. Let's just get the coveralls covering all. Once again, get back on that farm. And with those emus, ostriches, they were ostriches. What is the difference between an emu and an ostrich? If emu, ostrich, like emu, ostrich, oh, oh, oh, what an egg. You know, I just want to point out for our listeners that we've not learned anything yet. Well, you've learned some of my backstory, Claire, and I thought that was kind of why you had me on.

Do you just want facts about flightless birds, or do you want to know about me as the expert that you brought on to discuss them? Absolutely both. Yeah. So regarding those overalls, they were not overall. They were not even over most, Claire. If you can picture a denim hanky, basically, over sums. Can we just call them over sums? I don't want to picture a denim hanky of the farmers at the ostrich farm. The thing is, it's hot out there in the desert, and certain bits need protection. There's no doubt about it. That's why God made hats. Okay. Dano, so you met your first emu.

It did not go well. No, no, no, no. I've heard you speak of this in the past. Now, to me, that did not even look like a bird. That was like a squatty giraffe. Right. But, whoa, there's an egg underneath, you know. Oh, my goodness. When was the last time I saw a giraffe lay an egg? Right. It's been a long time. Go back far enough in your evolution. Yeah, all the way back to the giraffic period. Right. So, did you feel tender feelings then for this giant kind of monster, but that had a little baby in its nest? Yes. Several omelettes later, we learned that they could hatch and create offspring, just like birds.

The idea of a leaden, heavy-based, walking bird that didn't even try to fly. These birds, Claire, don't even flap. Now, they do have feathers. Yes, and their feathers are used in products that man can benefit from. And I feel like that's the value of a bird. How much they help man's needs? That's the value? Not any man. Not man in general. Specifically, the man that we called Old Gus. Old Gus was the one with the denim hanky I was telling you about. Yeah, yeah. So, he would take the ostrich feathers, and he could just manipulate them in a certain way? I'm waiting for you to cut me off real quick.

You know, I don't think we need to hear about Old Gus's feather dance. I told myself we were not going to discuss Old Gus on the podcast. There's so much controversy around this. Wasn't he the one that installed a zip line to try to force these birds to fly at one point, resulting in all kinds of broken emus at the bottom of an Arizona canyon? Claire, I was proud to be a participant in the zip lines of Arizona. You were there during that time? Claire, I helped build the zip lines. I feel like I brought my philosophy to Old Gus as much as Old Gus brought his philosophy to me.

You know, here was a man saying, these are flightless birds. How can we call them birds if they're not flying? Right. Let's latch them onto the zip line and start zipping them down. Right. And believe me, Old Gus understood about zipping things down. Let's keep moving on, please. But what I brought to the conversation, Claire, was I pointed out to Gus, these ostriches are big and dumb, but they're wonderful animals that really could serve as the inspiration for multiple singing and dancing musicals. I think, really, once we set the ostriches aside and started focusing on the emus, mostly for the fact that they were so easy to rhyme with.

You know, there's emu, pu, like a stink that smells. U2. Not a stink that smells. That kind of stink? OK. Wow, you guys are really pushing some boundaries. We were really onto something new, Claire. Right. We were really pushing the boundaries of flightless birds in big stage musicals. And to me, that was what I wanted out of this experience. You know, I felt like I had traversed the desert in the hot sun. I'd experienced life under the thumb, literally and figuratively, of old Gus. Well, look, I'm not going to say that I don't have some admiration for what the two of you did.

Old Gus in his denim handkerchief and an 11-year-old going on 12, you actually did open a show on Broadway, the All Emu Review. And even the title rhymed, Claire. Did you hear how clever that is? Gus was not writing that stuff before I got there. That's what I brought to the creative partnership. That's all fine. But the show itself killed dozens on the first night. Well, we paid a heavy, heavy price for the small success that we had. The ACLU was up in arms. Is that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Did I say that right? No, it is not. No, that is not ACLU.

The IATSE and the stage managers union, I mean, backstage was a stinking mess. Yeah, we did not have crates big enough for the emus. If you call up Broadway animal handlers and tell them you need some backstage cages, they're thinking, oh, you're doing Annie and you've got an adorable pup. Or a lot of orphans. But it wasn't just the wildness of literally wild birds backstage. I mean, talk about emu PU. Yeah, that was the audience experience. The noxious, noxious fumes. This is where old Gus's ziplines really came into play. And, you know, they were both the hit of the show and the very thing that brought the show down.

Because we had those emus ziplining out over the audience, Claire. And this had not been done since the 1930s when Zeppelin was playing in Berlin. I'm familiar with it. And I have to say, I am going to give you this. I'm giving you a bit of a hard time. But the thought, the audience experiencing flying emus. Yeah. That's very exciting. Because that's the magic of the theater. You know, you're not going to get flying emus in real life because they don't fly. That's right. And it feels like it's a show full of hope and possibility. It's like if emus can fly, what could I do?

If emus can fly, then why can't I? Claire, this is the beginning of Act Two. It's like you're singing the song. I understand the thrill of that live experience. I'm only glad I wasn't there. Yeah, because besides the thrill, there's also the poop. You know, I do have some of the reviews from your opening night here. Oh dear. I see. The Hollywood Reporter, it just simply says, Flapping and Shatting. I personally did not take umbrage about that review. Flapping and Shatting was the big closing number of the show. It was very similar to, I think you're being sued for plagiarizing that song.

Yeah, yeah. Flapping and Shatting. And pooping and stinking. Unconscious plagiarism is what I am pleading. There was one review that absolutely loved it. Yes, the Albany Report. Yeah, they just said, Wings in the Wings. What more could one want? We really appreciated that. We appreciated that opening night crowd, despite, you know, having to cover the dry cleaning bills. Well, and a lot of injuries. People were harmed in the making of this musical. We weren't given the opportunity really to rehearse. The emus, ironically, were flown in from Arizona at the very last minute.

Right, right. Okay. So they would have been very upset and disoriented. Yeah, yeah. Stomach problems. That explains a lot. Yeah. So we did pay that heavy price. We got what we wanted, but I feel like our reputation really suffered. And for me, anyway, I felt like, I'm not a big city boy. I'm not a showbiz guy. You know, this is not for me. You say that, but I have heard that there's another show in the works for you. Gus is doing that on his own, Claire. Is that right? Yeah. He's working on an Irish play called Ostrich. He's taking the works of Henrik Ibsen and putting an apostrophe in after the O each time the word ostrich is used.

Well, you know, I mean, I wish him well. I'm honestly quite relieved for you that you can just get back to your plain old, the love you found as a child for these flightless birds, you know. I think that I had to go through that process to learn that about myself, that I am a flightless human. I belong with the flightless birds. Right. While I was in New York, you know, trying to live the life of a Broadway gallant. Yes, yeah. Both my parents, unfortunately, were pecked to death in my absence. Oh, yes. Your father was Gregory Peck. Yeah, not the actor, but Gregory Peck, past tense.

You changed his name after he died. Yeah, it really only seemed appropriate. Well, it's been a very interesting turn of events for you. Are you 14, 15 now? I'm 17, Claire. I've been back on the farm for a year and a half. Wait, which farm? My parents' farm, the old Peck farm. Okay. I feel like overall I have changed. I love the flightless birds, but I've lost my need to be involved with the flightless birds. Okay. I'm growing apples now. Oh, wonderful. They are flightless apples, which seems to be what people expect. Right. You know, it's been a very interesting ride for you.

I'm just going to say, if you don't mind me wrapping up a little bit, but that I feel a little bit of sadness for your... I feel like you've accepted flightlessness. And for a young man whose wings have not been spread, except by Gus, that you might want to keep a little bit of that dream, that dream of soaring to great heights, alive in you. I think that's wonderful advice. Thank you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, what an exploration it has been to go with little Danny Sullivan. Oh, my God. Get him off me. Get him off me. From farm to farm to farm. Ladies and gentlemen, just remember, when your birds can't fly, neither can your soul.

I'm being pecked to death. I'm Claire. Sarah, this has been Expertise, your knowledge podcast. The Expertise, spelled wrong, podcast is free. And, like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.co and follow us in your favourite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are. Expertise.