“Keep Austin Weird” is a long running slogan down in Austin, Texas. Sticking with that tradition I present to you one of the local past-times: Chicken Sh*t Bingo. Every Sunday at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon around 5 pm you can lay down a couple of bucks, listen to Dale Watson, and hope a chicken takes a dump on your number and win some money. Now THAT is how you relax on a Sunday in Texas!
Austin resident, musician, and Chicken Sh*t Bingo regular Eric Hartsfield told us:
You get the excitment of a cock fight without all the moral concenrns. It’s just one chicken fighting its bowels and you just pray it sh*ts in your favor. Plus, a soundtrack by Dale Watson is worth the Sunday trip alone. Some people call it Chicken Sh*t Bingo, I just call it Sunday.”
Here is how it works. A 9′ x 6′ checkerboard is laid out on a pool table with each square on the board having a number. A makeshift chicken coop is set up on the table and a chicken is let loose. You drink your Lone Star beer and patiently wait for the chicken to poop. If the poop lands on the number that corresponds with your ticket you win. And that my friends is chicken sh*t bingo.
Here is a little video to give you a taste of the action as well as the sights and sounds from Sundays at Ginny’s (that word I keep inserting an asterisk into appears fully on the video):
Seeing that little clip makes me think of that line from Lyle Lovett’s song “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas).”
“At a dance hall down in Texas, that’s the finest place to be. The women they all look beautiful and their men will buy your beer for free.”
As I mentioned, Austin honky-tonk legend Dale Watson plays each Sunday at Ginny’s to get the crowd good and ready for bingo time. (Austin Sh*tty Limits?) Here is a video of Dale twanging it up with an introduction from one of the greatest living songwriters, Billy Joe Shaver, on the day Shaver got out of a little trouble with the law. It’s a tune Dale wrote about Shaver called “Where Do You Want It?”
Yeah Lyle, that’s right I’m not from Texas but I love Billy Joe Shaver, Dale Watson, and Chicken Sh*t Bingo. To find out more about Ginny’s you can go here. Mr. Dale Watson got all fancied up with his own website here.
