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This Week In Dave: The Curious Case of the Kelly Clarkson Bird Automaton (Patreon)

Published:
2026-10-13 23:52:07
Imported:
2026-10
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This Week in Dave is our quasi-weekly podcast where David shares what's going on behind-the-scenes in his life.

On this week's episode David Chen is joined by Peter Sciretta and David Cho discuss the curious case of the Kelly Clarkson bird automaton.

See Adam Rubin's interview with Curbed.

Video of the bird

(Bonus Thoughts: David Chen's Non-Spoiler Thoughts on You Can See Everything)

PATRONS: You can get this audio in your podcast app by going to patreon.com/davechen and clicking on the podcast icon.

Files

Comments

Joy o Napping

What an unbelievable crossover: the celebrity rep expertise x the magician historical context

Pixel-davis

Thank you for this important release. I side with Clarkson

Matthew LaBerge

That was a fantastic hang, I would love more of this trio.

Nathaniel St. Clair

I rarely agree with Peter, and here I am fully on his side.

Nathaniel St. Clair

I will add that the one guy from the store that you guys mentioned is genuinely off-putting. Still, gotta side with the small niche store over the incredibly popular and wealthy celebrity that was mad they weren’t allowed to buy a 15 thousand dollar toy bird.

Amazing Spider-Talk

I can’t believe I’m commenting on this, but I enjoyed the conversation and feel compelled to give my take. We’ve got this store where, as described, most of the items in it are $50 at max, with some $2k automaton birds that are stowed away in the back. But at the front of the store is a showpiece, customized bird that they use in their magic acts. And so, they slap a $15k sign on it, thinking it’s some outrageous price to pay for this thing, when they’ve got $2k similar ones in the back. And they do so with the knowledge that their average customer isn’t spending remotely that much in their store, they sold cards and other relatively inexpensive novelty items. Additionally, behind the counter is someone who is likely making just above the minimum wage in NYC, or at least a store clerk’s wage, who also likely thinks that $15k is an insane amount to pay for an automaton bird that truly makes it, in their mind, not a serious item for sale. And so, in walks, in a fairly absurd scenario, someone who actually wants to pay that amount. But how are they to know? That’s not their lived experience, or the lived experience of their average, or even above average customer. And so, they reroute her, almost reflexively, to the similar birds that aren’t priced in a way so as to make them unaffordable. To this point, even after all this has blown up, they slapped a $15mil price tag on the bird. Imagine if Clarkson walked in now and said, “How much for the bird?” Sure, it’s still presumptuous to assume she couldn’t pay for it, when in all likelihood she still could, but for 99.9% of customers it makes more sense to tell the price and then reroute them away from what was meant to be an absurdity to the other birds in the shop. - Dan Gvozden

Carole M

Waiting for David Cho’s comment on the bird video as promised

Simon Williams

Epic episode. Regular feature? Dave on Dave on Peter?

David Cho

I STAND BY WHAT I SAID ON THE POD

Ralf Haring

Don't put a price on it if you don't want to sell it. 🤷

Patrick Neon

Ok, I just went there because I happen to be in the area, and I gotta say: I think Kelly Clarkson is full of shit! 😄 Spent half an hour solving some of the puzzles, talking to them and eventually buying few (reasonably prized) items. Super nice guys, and on the way out I got recommendations for pastries and a coffee shop. Very hard to believe they could agitate anyone that badly. But yeah, of course we can all just speculate. 😌

CDMatthew

This was a Dave Chen classic, and an absolutely delicious listen!! When the world is on the brink of disaster and our country is verging on a collapse into total fascism, this is the kind of escapist pop culture mechanical bird content I needed!!

Elizabeth Musser

When I was shopping for my anticipated son’s crib and other baby furniture in Beverly Hills, prepared to spend a ton of money as a relatively older first time mom, the staff literally ran away from me to welcome a minor celebrity. Look, whatever, but it felt pretty crushing to the ego in the moment. I walked away and texted my sister, but I could have been tempted to call out the store publicly if I had a big platform