COCKFIGHTERS:
THE INTERVIEWS contains 26 interviews in an 8-hour
DVD/VHS set. Stephanie personally edited these
interviews down from 30-plus hours of filming done
during the summer of 2000 while traveling to 10 states
and 2 legal pits. She says although she took the
"meat off the bone" to create a compelling,
fascinating collection of interviews, a lot of good
stuff was left on the cutting room floor. Here are
a few snippets pulled from the stuff that got left out
or had to be edited down.
Stephanie
talks with . . .
JOHNNIE
JUMPER about Sunset Recreation Club & other pits.
MARTIN
EDMONDS about being a cockfighter and "what does
that really mean?"
PAUL
ROMIAS about fighting in the Philippines.
BACON
NIVISON about the Internet and how cockers are using
it.
DAMON
YORKMAN about what people don't understand about
cockfighting.
Johnnie
Jumper, Ripley, Mississippi
SC:
What makes Sunset so special as a place?
JJ:
I think the people that live here makes it so
special and if I could say one thing about it, I think
the people that live here makes it special because they
want us here. The merchants, the people that’s not
merchants, they all want us here. They enjoy our company
and we enjoy their company. They want us here and maybe
that’s what to me what makes it so special to come
here.
SC:
You must see a lot of hotel rooms in a lot of
different places.
JJ:
Yes, we do but probably when I ever quit going to
places where you show your rooster. If I ever quit
coming here probably I won’t go any more. It’s a
good meeting place. We get to come visit our friends.
People visit us more here than they do any other place
I’ve ever been and that’s one reason people enjoy
coming here.
SC:
How often do you come here then?
JJ:
Once a month. We come from like January to this
time of the year, six months a year one time a month.
You have to be away from home a lot. That takes you away
from home 6 or 7 weeks out of every 6 months so it takes
a long time. Takes you away from home a lot.
SC:
Can you tell us something about this derby
that’s going to happen tomorrow?
JJ:
It’s called the Cajun Classic and, of course,
that’s a lot of entries to a lot of people. Of course,
the people down here, I think they call each other
Cajuns. I don’t think they’d like it if I called
them that. Well, your friends wouldn’t mind but I
don’t do that. It’s more in an honor for the people
that lives here. Again, that’s my opinion. It’s a
good time and it’s the last one of our season. People
gets to come and visit each other and, well, I won’t
get to see you again till January. So it’s something
you look forward to get and come visit everybody. You
say bye to ‘em for maybe 6 months. So that’s one
thing that makes it special.
SC:
It’s got pretty precise rules on how things
happen? Is that part of why the club has a good
reputation? It’s run well in that sense?
JJ:
Well, most of all of our prominent clubs,
they’re all run well these days. I can’t say that
this one’s run any better or any worse than the other
good places. There’s a lot of places for people to go.
I don’t go to them places that’s not like that.
That’s one thing that hurts us as cock fighters is
people, there’s lot of people out there, I don’t
want to talk about no people and I’m not better than
they are. I tell you there’s lot of people that cause
they don’t even know that we have a bill in
Washington. They don’t take the time to care. Again,
some of those people is the one that causes us problems.
That cause themselves problems, not us, but they cause
themselves problems.
SC:
You’ve fought in many, many places. If you
could just fight at one place where would that be?
JJ:
That kind a puts you the spot because you like
all the people at all the other places but, of course,
it would be Sunset, of course. And the most exciting
place is maybe in the Philippines cause there’s so
many people there. We fought in the Philippines over
there and maybe there’s 30,000 people in the Araneta
Coliseum. I think it seats 35,000 and I’ve seen it
when it was full of people. Like a Super Bowl of a
football game.
SC:
It’s a very big sport there, isn’t it?
JJ:
It is. That’s their national past time sport in
the Philippines. I know Mr. Chungbyong. He told me, I
said how did you get started with it? I just always
loved the chickens. He said my dad he’d catch me
leaving school a lot of times. Boy, he’d give me a
whipping for it you know. This man’s one of the most
prominent business mans in the Philippines. If you’ve
been there you know everybody has fowls on the side the
highway you see a rooster or two stacked out. They just
love their chickens.
return
to the top
Martin
Edmonds, Molokai, Hawaii
ME:
Yeah and maybe they don’t have to understand
it. I don’t think everybody has to embrace fighting
roosters. It’s not everybody’s calling. There’s no
question, there is an air of brutality to it. At least
certainly in the context of modern man who’s not used
to a farm life or or dispatching animals or butchering
animals and certainty the sport of that is even more
abhorrent to them. It becomes a cultural thing really
and those of us that are raised in it don’t share any
of these kind of bleeding heart feelings. I think in
many ways we’re even more humanics but not in the same
sense as a city person or a more modern person. We show
infinite care to these roosters and to us it’s only a
question of how they die and whether they would die in a
slaughter house of die in a ring, what’s the
difference? People that don’t have the cultural
background think there’s an incredible difference. It
is a cultural thing and the person who wasn’t raised
with animals and the slaughtering or the eating of
animals will probably never really understand the
rooster man. I generally, because I confront people
travels and airplanes, about the best I find I been able
to do is neutralize somebody’s feelings towards cock
fighting so at least they’re not negative about it.
They may not want to embrace it but they can see that
I’m a normal, real human being with a normal, real
family and that I’m not mean and I’m not ugly and
I’m not cruel so they’ll eventually say to me, okay
Martin, we can see that cock fighting’s okay for you.
That’s a real victory because I’ve got somebody to
see that they shouldn’t judge it just because of a
name that’s charged with emotion. Cock fighting. What
does that really mean? Does that denote who I am as a
breeder and raiser of roosters? Not really and so it
becomes a cultural understanding and it’s impossibly
difficult concept for people who weren’t raised around
the farm. I think people of a certain, not all, majority
of people in a certain age are all very comfortable with
it. Europeans. Anybody’s grandmother or grandfather
has no problems with cock fighting. It’s younger
people today from cities who have no country roots.
Almost everybody with country roots doesn’t have pro
or con. It’s just a part of life. It’s really
interesting. What’s really interesting is that the
city people want to take it away from us country people.
That’s what’s really interesting. Not just call us
bad names. They want to see that we can’t do it and
that we’re going to be law breakers. I don’t feel
like I’m a law breaker at all. I feel my father died
in World War II so there’s certain freedoms. Certainly
cock fighting was one of those freedoms. I don’t feel
even the least bit criminal and I have having that
imposed upon me. I really feel like I’m a gentleman
farmer with high ideals.
SC:
You said their going to make a law and then
they’re going to make people law breakers. People are
going to do this. It’s a culture. If people pass laws
about not being able to ship your birds, what will that
do and how will people react to that? Will they stop it?
MV:
Surely felony laws could stop it. There’s no
question about it. Who wants to face a felony conviction
if you’re leading any kind of minimal life. Lose your
right to bear arms. Lose your right to vote because you
raise chickens? I mean let’s be real here. I don’t
know. I’d have to face that when it happens.
Some day America’s going to have to wake up and
realize that we’re a complex nation with many
divergent types there, with many different kinds of
ethnic roots, and those of us were born and raised into
certain things should be allowed to continue them as
long as we’re not hurting other people. Unfortunately,
that’s not the direction and the way things are going
and you’re going to find that roosters and the rodeo
and hunting and fur trapping and all these kinds of
things are going to be history in time to come and
it’s going to be America’s loss because the
diversity is what made America and once America has that
sameness it won’t have that great strength and depth
of humanity that America has drawn upon for the last
couple hundred years.
return
to the top
Paul
Romias, Waianae, Oahu, Hawaii
Paul:
Why are we going to Manila?
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Paul:
Well, we put in about maybe fifty of these birds
and then we go into what they call the eliminating
process, so you look for, you know, the good traits and
the bad and so far.
But then, in Manila, my experience there, one has
to have style birds, they call it, birds that wait,
birds that don’t come rushing in.
If you do that, they’ll kill you.
The pit is big, maybe oh, maybe 20 x 30, or 25 x
25 feet. And then they go to the end of the wall.
In the US, how we fight, or in Hawaii, they put a
line maybe about I think 8 feet you know, and then what
they do is that you gotta release your birds behind that
8 foot line, so usually that’s the standard way, so
you get rushed birds, no problem, you know because the
birds are close. But
with the birds that fight in Manila, they call it style.
Stephanie:
Do you know why they do it that way?
Paul:
That’s their way. I
guess its from the beginning.
The reason is they fight far.
They release the birds far from each other and as
I guess whatever the experience that they have, is that
during all that time the birds that usually rush in,
usually get eliminated first in the pit.
Stephanie:
How long have you been going there?
Paul:
Um, this may be about my 10th trip to
Manila, maybe about there or more.
Stephanie:
And why do you like going there?
Paul:
Well, number one, they’re really good people.
You know, they say a cockfight is this and that, but I
would say the majority of the best people I know is
cockfighters on a straight basis.
You see a lot of guys, they talk, they tell this,
they say that … but they don’t mean it.
I don’t mean only cockfighters, but you know,
but they usually are.
But they get bad kind too.
Stephanie:
And the people in the Philippines?
Paul:
They are very nice.
How I met them is I went on a trip with Johnny
Jumper. He
invited me to go there and after we got there and I met
the congressman, he is the person that goes to the farm.
His farm is King Cobra, they call him.
So anyway, I met them, and then we went back and
fought again different times.
I went with Johnny maybe twice and then we fought
maybe about another two or three times after that, but
then, we haven’t been going for a quite a while to the
Philippines as far as fighting roosters.
The reason is Filipino Airlines is off, you know
they got off from flying into Hawaii, so by doing that I
didn’t want to take the risk of other airlines where
you going to have to stop over in Japan or Guam, and
then a layover of maybe about two hours, you know, and
so far and then fly again.
The roosters, it’s very difficult for them to
do that, it’s hard.
So this is a direct flight.
It’s still hard on them.
You know the disadvantage is with us, we just
gotta know what we’re doing and try our best. But, we’ve been traveling a lot so, you know, we know more
or less what we should do.
And if they go there and they say that they fall
apart, that they mean they don’t feel good, then we
just don’t fight.
You know, we won’t fight them if we don’t
think we can win.
Stephanie:
So they get jet-lag, like that?
Paul:
Yeah, I would say some.
Some get, they call crop bone, where they cannot
pass the feed from the cup and they get stuck, you know,
they cannot eliminate the waste.
So, it depends.
Some birds can fly good and some just can’t.
But I think these will be all right, they’ve
been in training now for about a month, you know, and
…
Stephanie:
So you’re pretty hopeful.
Paul:
Uh, well, uh the way I feel is that we’re going
to kick their ass.
So the Filipinos gotta watch out!
For the Hawaiians are coming!
return
to the top
Bacon
Nivison, Logan, Utah
SC:
Can you talk about the community that’s out
there and the internet.
B:
It’s a huge community. I’m surprised. Before
the internet I didn’t really understand how many
people there were involved in the cocking community.
It’s usually a pretty close and tight community so you
don’t, I mean even for me, I raise game chickens and
I’ve been in the sport for a long time but yet I’m
an outsider in other areas. But the internet seems to be
bringing people out and turning into a more open
community.
SC:
How do you think the cockers are using the
internet?
B:
They’re using it to exchange ideas. I see that
a lot on the different news groups and thing. They will
share their techniques. They will when they come across
a question or they’re having a problem, they can refer
to the entire community to get ideas on how to deal with
that. They’re also using it as a tool to fight against
the opposition to cocking. We’re on the doorstop now
of totally illegality. There’s just a few legal states
left and it’s quite a struggle trying to stay alive
and the internet has been a good tool to put information
that’s true. It’s understandable how people would be
against cock fighting especially somebody that hasn’t
been around it, doesn’t understand it and the people
that are against it can say anything they want. And
who’s to know that they’re not telling the truth and
the internet has been a good tool, that’s somebody
that’s interested in knowing can find the truth, can
talk to people that are really involved in the sport and
see what kind of people they are and what they’re
about. Where the image that’s being painted of cock
fighters as a bunch of hillbilly drunks and drug abusers
and out there getting their kicks by watching little
roosters kill each other and that’s not what it is. So
it’s been a good tool in that area too.
SC:
Have you discovered anything about the community
yourself through the internet that surprised you?
B:
Yeah, that they’re as technologically advanced
as they are has surprised me. In the past, most of my
dealings with them have been through articles I’ve
written in the journals and letters that I’ve gotten
and telephone conversations. Not to demean the community
but a lot of them are really back woodsy characters that
sometimes I have a hard time even understanding what
they’re saying. But through the internet I’ve run
into a whole array of people that are real well
educated, well spoken and communicate very well and
that’s surprised me a little bit. I don’t why
because in the local community that’s the way it is.
There isn’t a stereotype cock fighter. One guy would
be a Mormon Bishop, the next guy’s a business man and
the next guy is a drunk. It just runs the full gamut
just like any area but it still did surprise me that
there was as much . . . when I put this site up I
didn’t expect much response and so it’s been a
surprise that they’re on top of things the way they
are technologically.
SC:
Do you think the internet will change the world
of game cocking?
B:
I don’t know. I hope so. I hope that it brings
it out into more of an open light and gives people a
better understanding of what the sport’s about but
it’s hard to say. I don’t think it’s going to have
a radical effect.
SC:
What are some of your favorite sites?
B:
My own is my favorite. I like the Filipino site,
Sabong. I think that’s a real interesting site. Pit
master is an interesting site. Mostly I couldn’t name
specific sites. I try and visit them all and they’re
all interesting. They all have their good points but I
think the most interesting I’ve seen is the Sabong and
I like to look at other sites from areas like Puerto
Rico or Saipan, different areas where they do things
differently. I think that’s really interesting.
SC:
Friends of Game Fowl?
B:
Yeah, that’s a good one, that’s excellent.
Friends of Game Fowl is one that really do think is an
important site. They have a good site. I don’t spend
as much time as I should going around and checking up on
things. In the wintertime that’s when I really spend
my time on the internet.
SC:
Tell me briefly again how you personally use the
internet for your cocking business.
B:
For me, the internet is strictly a tool to sell
chickens and sell information. My web site is designed
to give people information that they need about who I
am, where I came from and where my fowl came from. And
I’d like to share information with people about how to
take care of birds but the aim and the goal is business.
It’s to make money so, and that’s how I see it,
that’s how I view it. It’s a business tool and
it’s very effective.
return
to the top
Damon
Yorkman, Chelsea, Oklahoma
SC:
What would you say is the one thing or the thing
that most people don’t understand that you’d like
them to understand?
DY:
The one thing that I want everybody to understand
is the hard work we put in this, and the love we have
for these chickens, and somebody trying to take this
away from us. This is what we like to do and for all
this other people that don’t like chicken fighting and
want to stop it and make it illealt, all we know is to
fight chickens; and for have somebody just out of no
where come out and take it away from us, it’s bad.
This is what we like to do. We live in America. That’s
the freedom we have. We do what we want to do, and
there’s lot more important things to worry about than
worry about the chicken fighters. All these activists
and animal rights people worrying about chicken
fighters. They should be worrying about their kids
instead of chicken fighters. I think worrying about your
own kids is more important than worrying about somebody
fighting chickens. I think they should be worrying about
their kids hanging around the right people in school and
making sure they learn the right things in life and
teaching them the right directions in life and keeping
them away from drugs and alcohol and stuff. But no,
they’re spending all their time and their money on
this chicken fighters when we’re not even bothering
nobody. I can see if we was downtown, in the middle of
downtown Tulsa making big commotions, raising hell,
taking up all the parking spaces and making big
commotion down there. Yeah, I can see that but we’re
out in the country secluded area and bothering nobody
and here come these people bothering us. Bothering
people that’s not even bothering them. That’s why I
don’t understand.
SC:
Why have you decided to be as vocal as you have been?
DY:
Cause I think I have the general idea on how to
people understand this sport cause I’ve been around
‘em since I was born. My grandpa raised me into it,
and my son now is 7 and he’s been raised into it since
the day he was born; and if he grow up and he don’t
want chicken fighting, that’s fine with me. But if he
wants to get in it, he’ll take over after I’m gone
like how I took over from my grandfather and my
grandfather took over from his father and his father
fought. It’s just passed down through the generations
and it’s a fun sport.
SC:
What do you think it taught you and teaches your
son to be around chickens?
DY:
Hard work. That’s what teaches people the most,
the hard work. Being responsible. There’s all the
parents out there that’s not responsible. But raising
these chickens because you have to be here every day. If
you’re not here every day, you’re not going to make
it in this sport.
SC:
Do you think you’ll ever go back to Hawaii?
DY:
It all depends. If it comes down where we can’t
fight ‘em no more and, of course, if we can’t raise
‘em no more, can’t ship ‘em, can’t do nothing,
then I might move back. But right now, Hawaii is my home
but then Oklahoma is my second home. I got a good job
here. I built this new farm all by myself. I put a lot
of sweat and hard work behind this farm and so I like it
here. The people have been great here. Of course, the
people in Hawaii is the greatest but people around here,
all the people I’ve known help me and showed me around
and they’ve been real good, very helpful so I like it
here in Oklahoma.
SC:
If you could fight your chickens anywhere, where
would you go?
DY:
I would say probably the Philippines because
that’s where it all started. Philippines is the
capitol of chicken fighting. It is an international
sport there. It’s just like how football is to
America, chicken fighting is like the same way in the
Philippines. Their stadium is a chicken fight arena, the
big stadium in downtown Manila is chicken fighting
stadium. They have thousands and thousands people and
they fight chickens there every night. It’s their
international sport. That’s the capitol of chicken
fighting and that is the where it all started so for me
to go back there and that’s where my grandfather’s
from and that’s where the tradition is and to go back
there and fight in it, it would be wonderful. That would
be the place that I would want to go and fight chickens.
return
to the top
