LIFE CULTURE
“Rent� to premiere at the Krannert Center this weekend The Illini Union Board presents their 104th student-run show, “Rent.� Turn to Page 5A to learn more about IUB’s rendition of the Broadway hit.
6A | THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014 | WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
PORTRAIT BY SARI LESK THE DAILY ILLINI
JUSTCLUCKINGAROUND Patrick Taylor’s chicken car turns heads, makes memories at UIUC BY TERYN PAYNE STAFF WRITER
For Patrick Taylor, junior in Business, there is never a dull moment while driving his car. Taylor’s car is not your typical means of transportation. In fact, the only normal feature about the vehicle is that it has four wheels and an engine. Designed in Sparta, Wisc., by a fiberglass specialist, the front of the 1993 Ford Mustang is covered with red and white stripes, leading into a design of white feathers with blue trimming and white stars wrapped around the middle of the car. On top sits a huge chicken head with a white feather-printed tail on the hood. By looking at the chicken car, the initial question one might ask is, “What is this car
that Taylor was not going to return the car. Since Taylor has been away at the University, his mother calls to tell him that the driveway just is not the same without the chicken car parked on it. In high school, Taylor didn’t always have positive experiences with being the owner of the car. “I got a lot of crap for the car in high school. People would egg it and stuff, and that was really annoying. It was funny at first, but it started to happen every weekend,� Taylor said. Taylor started to feel that it was not even worth keeping the car because of all the trouble it was putting him through. However, he realized that the positive experiences he had with the car outweighed the negative ones and decided to keep it. “When you hear how you are affecting other people and making their days, it just kind of makes it all worth it,� he said. One of Taylor’s most memorable experiences as a result of keeping the car was when
and where did it come from?� In high school. Patrick worked for “BBY,� a chicken restaurant in his hometown of Dixon, Ill. The owner of the restaurant had the car made so that it could be used for local parades and food deliveries. “The owner just got tired of it and was about to send it to the junk yard, and I hadn’t bought a first car yet,� Taylor said. Without asking his parent’s permission, Patrick impulsively decided to buy the car during spring break of his junior year in 2010. Although Taylor was excited about his purchase, his family was not initially happy about his decision and thought it was a joke. His brothers thought it was a stupid idea but were impressed, his little sister liked it and his dad took a couple of days to realize
the British band, Mumford and Sons, invited him and the car to go on tour with them. In 2012, the band came to Dixon in late July during a stop over and they heard that there was a chicken car in town. Mumford and Sons reached out to Taylor to inquire about renting the car to take it on tour and decided to ship the car to make sure it could get to Ohio and Oklahoma. To save money, the band’s managers were able to get the TV show “Shipping Wars� to ship it. “They picked up the car in Dixon, and I went home to see the car off. My portion of the show was only a minute long, but I was still able to be on TV which was pretty cool,� Taylor said. After talking to his family, his aunt suggested that he should make and sell chicken car T-shirts to bring on tour. He bought 200 shirts in the same color and sold them for $15 each. He currently sells the shirts in 12 differ-
SEE CHICKEN CAR | 5A
‘Scumbag Steve’ coming to local bar
Famous meme persona to appear at Fat City on Fri. BY AUSTIN KEATING STAFF WRITER
One of the most iconic memes on the Internet will be coming to Champaign on Friday. His name is Blake Boston, but he is more popularly known as Scumbag Steve — the popular meme featuring a “scumbag� standing in a doorway wearing a backwards, checkered Boston Red Sox hat and a fur coat. Too White Crew, an old-school hip-hop tribute band, will be playing for the opening of Wrigley Field on Saturday in Chicago, but on Friday, the band and their guest, Boston, will come to Fat City, located at 505 S. Chestnut
St. in Champaign. “Part of our show in Chicago is that we have an ‘extremely worthless posse’ which are three guys who sit at a card table and do nothing but drink Hennessey,� said John Cordogiannes, member of the Crew. “Nothing personifies this more than Scumbag Steve. I mean if they could draw a caricature of a person that would best represent the spirit of the posse, it would be Scumbag Steve.� To which Scumbag replied with a chuckle and said, “Hell yeah, hell yeah, son.� The show in Champaign, however, will not include an “extremely worthless posse� due to stage size. Instead, Boston will perform some of his own work inbetween sets, and he will join the Too White Crew for a song. He was 16 when he uploaded his picture to Myspace, but four
years later, it wound up on the front page of Reddit with more than 8,000 upvotes. Threads of his picture popped up with captions that reflect stereotypical “scumbag� behavior. He became the guy who says, “Don’t worry bro, I’ll pay you ... next week� and the guy who pockets lighters. Soon, Boston joined the ranks of Grumpy Cat, Philosoraptor, Bad Luck Brian, Overly Attached Girlfriend and countless other memes. But at first, Boston didn’t like his internet fame and the 1,000-plus messages in his Facebook inbox. “You know, I was walking around with a chip on my shoulder ready to beat anybody up,� Boston said. “I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, ‘Listen, don’t you want to be an entertainer?’ and I go, ‘Yeah, what’s your point?’
And he says, ‘This might be your in.’ So I decided to embrace it.� Boston, a father, a student and an aspiring rapper, used the added fame to his advantage. He started going to Internet conventions, performing and talking to fans. Eventually, he even released a music video that is up to more than two million views. Then one day, he noticed a tweet from Too White Crew. The tweet offered up a bottle of Boone’s Farm to whoever could get Scumbag Steve on stage with them. @BlakeBoston617 tweeted back: “How the (expletive) is someone going to get me on stage???� From there, the group worked out a date with Boston to “scumbag it up� on stage.
Austin can be reached at akkeati2@dailyillini.com.
PHOTO COURTESY JOHN CORDOGIANNES
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