On a mid-November morning, the jingly-jangly silver bells of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” play over the speaker system inside of Ford’s Feathers at Carson Plaza. The small business has been selling birds and avian supplies and providing boarding and grooming services to South Bay bird owners since 1985. Various bird toys and bags of seeds are scattered around the floor, and storeowner Robert Chen is in the middle of reorganizing.
Upon introducing myself, Chen says calmly that he’s not doing well. Immediately I think he’s annoyed that another movie fan has just shown up to disrupt business.
My assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.
At 2:10 AM the night before, a few masked burglars pried open the back door and stole some highly valuable birds.
“They took my birds,” says Chen. “I have birds that I’ve rescued over the last ten years.” Gone are a twenty-year-old cockatoo and a ten-to-twelve-year-old miniature macaw, each worth at least $2,000. He took his other “babies” home after the break-in.
Still wrapped up in the stress of the morning, I’m surprised that Chen is in any kind of mood to talk about Friday After Next, the third installment of the Ice Cube-starring Friday trilogy that turned Carson Plaza into a main filming location.