"Pigeon Kings," a Film by Milena Pastreich

B.C. Wehman:
Down in South Central LA, there's a phenomenon taking place.

Heather Grayson:
An event so unique that men gather in the street in large groups to take part in it.

B.C. Wehman:
Pigeon rolling.

Heather Grayson:
We meet Keith London, a legend in the pigeon rolling community and Chu-Chu, an up and comer.

B.C. Wehman:
Both men spend all of their free time breeding, raising and training Birmingham roller pigeons to compete.

Heather Grayson:
In order to win the competition, the pigeons must do somersaults in the air and return home while staying in their kit.

B.C. Wehman:
Throughout the film, we also learn there's more to pigeon rolling than just a competition.

Heather Grayson:
Something to strive for in life, and hopefully prevents them from getting into other trouble. Hi. I'm Heather Grayson. Writer, producer and director. Who craves passion in filmmaking and documentarians are just that. I write fiction, but I love to watch the truth.

B.C. Wehman:
My name is B.C. Wehman. I'm an actor, a writer, an entertainer, all sorts of creative endeavors, but what I love most, being a storyteller. It's why I love documentaries. They're extraordinary stories from everyday extraordinary people.

Heather Grayson:
This is Behind the Doc, and today we are behind the scenes with Pigeon Kings.

Keith London:
I came out seeing birds struggling, helped them out, and that's it. I'll give him a little crack on the shell here and there. Not there are some guys that say, "I wouldn't do that, man. They got to get out of here. They're too weak if they do that," but they give you all these rules for life as far as pigeons, but people have the same problems. Babys are born early. They put him in the incubators and all this stuff all hooked up to him. Trying to say they should die because they weren't strong enough to live? No. You can help them out. They might turn out to be some of your best birds one day. If I look and I see a bird hatching in the morning. If I come back in the evening, and he haven't got too much further than he was in the morning. Something going wrong. I help him out of it. I just put little extra cracks going around so he can break out easier.

B.C. Wehman:
Hi, welcome everyone to Behind the Doc, a podcast where we take a deep dive into documentary filmmaking and the people that make them. The people that star in them. We watch a lot of documentaries, Heather and myself, and we see a lot of shows and movies that introduce us to worlds that are fascinating. Worlds that exist that we are just so not aware of. Once you dive into it, once you learn about it, you become just fascinated, fascinated about that. That's the beauty of documenting real life. That's what we're going to talk about today. We're here to talk about the film Pigeon Kings, and we are joined today by the director, Milena Pastreich, as well as Keith London, the Koby, I'm sorry, the Michael Jordan, as he has asked to be called today, the Michael Jordan of pigeon raising, pigeon rolling, I should say. We're very excited to have you guys on today, Milena and Keith. Welcome to the show. How are you guys doing today?

Milena Pastreich:
I'm doing well.

Keith London:
Me too. Great.

B.C. Wehman:
Excellent. That's great to hear. Milena, let's start with you. How do you get introduced to this? I've gone 45 years of my life, never even realized that pigeons were more than things that poop on my car. Yet, there's this world where we're training them and scoring them. This amazing scene that exists not only in Southern Los Angeles, where Pigeon Kings takes place, but across the world. How did you, Milena, how did you discover this whole world?

Milena Pastreich:
I was actually, it was total just by chance. I was making a short film, a scripted narrative, and the girl in the film had pigeons. I was location scouting pigeon coops in the LA area and showed up at this guy's backyard. He was flying pigeons that were doing backwards somersaults in the air in unison. I was like, "What is going on here? This is insane," and then he just was so friendly and handed me a flyer to a pigeon lawn show that was that day. A lawn show is like a pigeon auction. It was, they have them throughout the pigeon season. That was the first one of the season. I just drove straight there, showed up. There were hundreds of men wearing pigeon tee shirts and auctioning off pigeons. They all had this very specific breed of pigeon called a Birmingham Roller pigeon. That's how I stumbled upon, and Keith was in that backyard.

B.C. Wehman:
So Keith, you see Milena there and you're talking to her and you're trying to figure it out. Then it turns out, Keith, that you are extremely well-known and well-loved in the pigeon rolling community.

Speaker 3:
I would put Keith in the top five in the world. The top five in the world, in California, no if, ands, or buts about it. Number one. In the United States, from the people I've met and seen and heard about, no doubt about it. Number one, or no lower than number two.

B.C. Wehman:
Keith, how did you get then introduced into this world?

Keith London:
My uncle had pigeons, my uncle rest in peace, when I was real young, like real young, like five, maybe six. He used to go in the backyard and it was this box he had, it had to be no more than five or five foot square. So I said, "Why you got them birds in there?" He said, "These are my," he said tumbler, "My tumbler pigeons." I say, "Tumbler pigeons?" I was quite young, and he let one of them out, it was over. I seen that bird turn over, I was like, "What?" I was so amazed. I'd just go back there every day just go over there to stare at them. I didn't get my own until I was about 10.

Heather Grayson:
It was there that you fell in love with this really cool and wonderful hobby. I liked that you brought in, after you were going through some problems of your own, you decided that this is going to be where I turn now. I really liked that whole turning point. What is it that you wanted to, not only bring to the film, but maybe bring to kids in the neighborhood? I saw that you had some kids come to the backyard and you gave a pigeon to them.

Keith London:
The whole purpose of trying to get kids in, and trying to get kids away from, where I live gangs is rife. I mean, that's where most kids go. If they don't get into anything else at an early age, the gang's going to get them before, or get them. Once they get into that gang life it's kind of hard to get out. So you want to give him some kind of refuge. The teachers know how to be passionate, to get passionate about something that's their own. Everybody's not going to do the pigeons, but it teaches them a whole, teaching them how to be responsible. They caring for another animal. It keeps them at home in the backyard. So if they in the backyard, they can't be out in the street.

B.C. Wehman:
Milena, when you started to dig into this world, were you just, were you surprised to learn, I mean, I know you went to this auction, but then you began to incorporate and film this over the course of several years. Did it just, as it got bigger and more global, was it mind blowing to you how many people were involved in, what I guess essentially is pigeon rolling, is a sport?

Milena Pastreich:
Yeah. So basically when I first started, it was just seeing all these men in that backyard in South Central. Then the more I found out about it, then I started to realize that there's even a world cup for this, where there's guys all over the world who compete with their birds. I got really greedy. This is my first documentary. I was like, "Oh. My God, we got to make this, we've got to do worldwide documentary. I'm following somebody in South Africa. I'm going to follow somebody in Holland. Going to follow somebody in South Central," but that's a whole nother story. I just realized that I really wanted to have a little portrait of South Central within the film.

Speaker 6:
Basically, these are rollers. These are Birmingham Rollers that were brought to the United States by William Pensom. Pensom brought the original Rollers from the Birmingham, England. That's the name, the Birmingham Rollers.

Keith London:
Roller Pigeons are bred to perform. The average Birmingham Roller can do four to five revolutions in a split second. We just try to get them to perform together. Something like synchronized swimming.

B.C. Wehman:
Keith, you've been doing this a long time. You even mentioned that you started really getting your own pigeons when you were 10 and getting into it a little bit when you're older. When did you first learn that this is outside of your community? It's a global thing and it's on the, there's this world cup, how did you decide to say I'm going to get more competitive? What was that decision between a hobby, to let me see if I can compete. Then eventually, I mean, it was great thing because you turned out to be one of the best at it. How was that process like? How old were you? How mind blown were you when you realized in Holland and South Africa and in England, people are rolling pigeons?

Keith London:
Well, you know what? I knew that at a young age, because I've always read. So I used to go to the library and get books on pigeons, I used to read that people live in different places with pigeons. The competition part came in, I can tell you when it was, 1988. I met my late friend, the late Rayvon Hall. I met him and that's when the world of competition opened up and he told me I should get in it. Then, and from there I got in and I just never looked back. I just wanted to be better and better and better. I kept working and listening and working and reading and working.

B.C. Wehman:
I can imagine. It looks like a tremendous amount of work. Give our audience a quick, and I know there's a lot to it, but so I'd like a quick, just to help me too, this explanation of the scoring. So we have a, there's a kit and the birds go up and they have to stay together. They have so many that have to tumble. There's a whole scoring system with score sheets, which blew my mind. Then I got it after a while. Give us a quick, if you had to explain to it in two minutes, how it works between the kit and the scoring and how we compete, how people compete against each other.

Keith London:
Okay. So we got the basics, 15 to 20 birds. Okay. They have to fly together. You have a scoring time of 15 to 20 minutes. So that means that if you're flying 15, 20 birds, you got your number. Okay. Now you have to fly 15, 20 minutes. That means together. So if you're flying 15 birds, you're not allowed any birds out. If you're flying 16 to 20 birds, you're allowed one pigeon out. So one pigeon can be away from the kit. It can come down and nothing would happen. So, there's a two bird out rule, but only if you fly 16 to 20. Now, the scoring is like this, five or more birds have to roll together, a minimum of 10 feet at the same time.

Speaker 6:
So basically to score, you have to have a minimum of five pigeons rolling together. A lot of guys don't understand the word together. That means together. Not one starts and then three go and then the other goes, and then you have a five. They have to roll together.

Keith London:
They got to roll at a certain amount of speed, wing position, that's details. That's, you have to see that, but that's pretty much, it's not really that hard to look at it like that. If you're just trying to figure out, well, how do you know if this bird rolled 10 feet? I'm the first one to tell you there's no way I can watch 15 birds roll and tell you how deep each one rolled and the quality and style, it's almost impossible.

Speaker 6:
Here in South Central, if you score 100 points you're the man. Anything below 25, you ain't shit. Anything below that, that's considered a donut or a disqualification or DQ, you getting talked about.

Keith London:
Even I'm not that fast.

Heather Grayson:
We found out in the film that Chu-Chu said that it was seizures. Then when somebody questioned, well, that's bad. He said, well, it's genetic. It's more of a genetic response. This rolling.

Speaker 8:
Why do birds roll? Why do they flip?

Chu-Chu:
Why do they flip?

Speaker 8:
Yeah.

Chu-Chu:
They having a seizure.

Speaker 8:
Didn't I tell you that? I said something wrong with them.

Chu-Chu:
No, it's not something wrong with them-

Speaker 8:
It is something wrong with them, because you're not supposed to have a seizure.

Chu-Chu:
That's not true. It's a ...

Speaker 8:
A gene thing.

Chu-Chu:
Yeah, its genetics.

Speaker 8:
It's in their blood.

Heather Grayson:
This is really about lineage. The more you train them, this kind of goes on, is that correct?

Keith London:
Yes. It's absolutely correct. All we're doing is cultivating a fault, that's all we're really doing. If it was up to nature, it wouldn't happen. The birds wouldn't be rolling. You can let your birds out, do what they want to do every day, just put feed in the backyard, most of them will stop rolling. This bird right here. I call him Bill Clinton. This bird is my foundation cock bird. I call him Thug because he bullied everybody in the cage, and he's also the grandson to Bill Clinton.

B.C. Wehman:
When you first started filming you mentioned, I think it was one of your Kickstarter videos, where you wanted to kind of record this in the cinema verite, this observational cinema style versus what a lot of documentaries have today is what I call the talking heads, right? The sit down. The hear their side and intercut stock footage or older footage. You went with this observational. We follow Keith, we follow Chu-Chu, and a few of the other bird men through their life. Particularly Keith's life, from a lot of different avenues. Was that a conscious effort on your part? Was it after you just started filming, realizing that I want to focus on Keith, he's a really great person and a character that's interesting to follow? Or was it because you started filming it just turned out that way?

Milena Pastreich:
Everything I'd done before this documentary was scripted and narrative, which I feel like is much closer to a verite doc. That was just something that came much more naturally. To have actual scenes and characters going through changes in their life, was something that I would want to watch more. Then in terms of following Keith, that was really something that developed organically. I followed many more people than just Chu and Keith, I started, because I worked on it for so long, for nine years, I was following some other people at the beginning. Then I was, and it's sort of a balance between, first of all, who you have a good rapport with and who trusts you and who actually lets you into their lives. Then also, whose life has a story to tell? It was a sort of combination of those two things. Then also went Chu-Chu and Keith, when Chu started approaching Keith for advice and Keith sort of started mentoring him.

Keith London:
Say I breed you two sons, one in the air is phenomenal, the best bird you ever seen. Even better than his daddy. You got the other one who's just marginal. The one that's okay, got all the physical attributes you want to see. Everything, and you breed him. Guess which one's probably going to outproduce the other one? The marginal is probably going to outproduce the one that was the best one.

Chu-Chu:
Probably because-

Keith London:
Why? Because cocks carry more than one gene. You got to understand.

Chu-Chu:
So how do you make your family go in that direction?

Keith London:
It takes time. It's one step at a time. You can't just, boom, and next day, next year you right there. Nah, it's a gradual process.

B.C. Wehman:
So, Milena, you have, I would imagine, so much footage of pigeons flying in the air, that process of editing the footage, which seems to be kind of the bane of a lot of documentarians existence, is now I've recorded a ton, years and years and years. How do I make this into a movie?

Milena Pastreich:
Yes. The edit is so difficult. I could have gone on shooting forever and ever and ever, and just, still be shooting and never edit it together. Shooting is so fun. It was really about sitting down with my editor and watching all the footage and we started making assemblies of all the scenes. Then after we did that, we sat down and tried to map out the story. The whole time I was shooting. It was very clear to me that Keith was going to be part of the story. The question was who else was going to be part? The reason I knew Keith was going to be part of it is because the parallels between Keith and his birds and his family, him really letting me into his personal life and seeing him with his kids and raising his kids and with his ex-wife. All of that, to me, sort of became the heart of the story.

Heather Grayson:
I really enjoyed the way you transitioned into some of the scenes. For instance, Keith was talking about what he used to do, being a street pharmacist. He spoke about that, and then he spoke about what he sold.

Keith London:
I was a street pharmacist for a while. That stuff they go, (sniffs). No. Hey.

Heather Grayson:
Then all of a sudden, in the next scene is him making these pigeon vitamins with the credit card and in the white powder. I just thought that was pretty brilliant. I very much enjoyed that. As a filmmaker myself, I was like, "Oh. Wow, that's a great transition. That was amazing." So thank you for that. There was also some scenes just, Chu-Chu doing the little baby's hair and just family sitting down and talking at the kitchen table. Real life, and the guy coming in and trying to sell movies and CDs. Why did you want to keep those particular scenes in the movie?

Milena Pastreich:
That's what I fought for the whole time. Were those scenes. The little personal moments. I mean, I'm all about character and people. I'm all about the small little moments. I love that scene with Chu-Chu cutting the little kid's hair and him crying. I mean, that's one of my favorite moments. When I was filming Keith doing the fertility pills, I thought to myself as I was filming like, "Oh. My God, this has to go on the film. There's so many parallels." Also, it's just a testament, Keith is so creative. He's like an artist and his birds are his palette.

Keith London:
My commercial right now? If you having problems with birds going light, with no appetite. Getting sick, disease, salmonella, paramyxo. Miracle Plus. The plus stands for also does fertility. If you have a cock bird who's not hitting, or a female laying hard eggs. Bow. Right here. Miracle Plus tabs. Guess where you get them from? Keith London.

B.C. Wehman:
Keith, what's it like on your side? I know you're, I mean, you were already kind of well-known, I guess, in the smaller, more niche community of pigeon rolling, but now you're opening yourself up and she ends up following you for years. We learn a lot about you and you really pull back and reveal some vulnerable aspects. We see you raising your kids. We see you go through a divorce. We see you hunt for jobs. I mean, it's a really compelling tale. What was that like? Did you, were you hesitant to agree to all this? Did you get excited? Were you ever sick of her and be like, can you please turn the camera off? What was it like to have someone document your life for so many years?

Keith London:
At first, I was apprehensive. I was like, "People don't need to know all that." They don't need to know all that. She be like, "Come on. It'll be good. It'll be good. I'm telling you. Trust me. I'm telling you, it'll be good." I was at a real turning point in my life, a serious one, do I go back out there? I was kind of getting frustrated. When I get back to the pigeons, it's like, "I'm cool. I can start over again." A new day. I wouldn't mind being a big basketball coach for somebody. Or I want to do something in the creative writing field. I got to be creative. I've got to be doing something. I can be a professional pigeon flyer. That's funny. I used to think that when I was a kid. I actually am a professional pigeon raiser.

Speaker 9:
This is the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It's September 21st, 2006. This is the home of Keith London. It's a hawk trap in his backyard. Currently the trap is sprung and it appears to have a hawk in the upper part of it. It's really flapping around. I wonder if he just caught it just within the last hour or two. Crap, where is it? Come on. Shit, he just beaned it I think. You can see there's a pellet gun. He's got it in his hand.

Speaker 10:
He shot it didn't he?

Speaker 9:
Yeah, he shot it. I didn't seem him though because I-

Speaker 10:
He's pumping it right now.

Speaker 9:
He's pumping it.

Speaker 10:
I can see him pumping it. That there.

Speaker 9:
There he goes.

Speaker 10:
He shot it.

Heather Grayson:
I felt terrible when we saw kind of the villain of the film, and that's the falcons and the hawks. I was like, man, Id love seeing them, but I was really quite mad at them during this film. Is there any resolution that you guys have for hawks and falcons?

Keith London:
You know what's crazy about the whole thing is? About that is? At that time, they were on this list called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Now they've been removed or they're not protected by the federal government. They still protect it under the law, but not the federal government. Even if they come chase your birds and you try to scare them off. That was a violation. You're supposed to let them eat your birds. When I was going to court, that was one of my biggest arguments. I said, "So you think it's fair that I can raise these birds all year, liberate them, that you guys say by law I have to do, at least once a week." By law, [inaudible 00:22:22], we have to liberate our birds at least once a week.

Keith London:
Then a falcon can come and can eat them, but that don't apply to no other pet. If a mountain lion came and ate your dog, what they going to do? They're going to kill the mountain lion, or are they going to, they going to do something to a way they can remove it. A falcon can have free range to eat anything it want to eat. Falcons, [inaudible 00:22:44], all of them, they all birds of prey. She wasn't a judge, she was a magistrate, she said, "He does have a point, but sir, they are protected." Houston, we have a problem. They just split up right now. Something's got them spooked up there.

Speaker 6:
There's something up there.

Keith London:
There it is, right there. Falcons.

Milena Pastreich:
Keith told me that this had happened, that a guy from the Department of Fish and Wildlife infiltrated the bird scene for like a year and a half. He pretended to be a pigeon enthusiast and became friends with all of them. Then filmed a bunch of stuff, which this is part of the footage of what he filmed.

Keith London:
I can't believe they went to such great lengths just to do that. I knew it was a political and financial thing.

Heather Grayson:
That's terrible.

Milena Pastreich:
It really is terrible. Then I showed up, this is, what year was it again? 2007, right?

Keith London:
Yeah.

Milena Pastreich:
So I showed up, in 2011 we met. So not too long after. A lot of the bird guys thought I was an undercover agent.

Heather Grayson:
Oh. Yeah.

Milena Pastreich:
I mean, really throughout the whole filming. It's like, people at the premier, we had a premiere. I was like, "Oh. Finally, they realize I actually am a filmmaker."

Keith London:
When she told me she was making a documentary, I said, "So where's your camera?" The camera dude, guy had button cameras and cameras on his hat.

Heather Grayson:
Wow, that seems very intense for hawks and falcons and pigeons.

B.C. Wehman:
Milena, you had to work through, and you helped fund this film through Kickstarter, as well as I know you worked with a lot of different other organizations that kind of help that process. We talk a lot about on the show, we help young filmmakers out, especially documentarians, how to get started. Can you talk a little bit about the fundraising you did for this film? Then I know you made a lot of connections, whether it was the International Documentary Association, Film, Independent, and a bunch of other groups to help support it. What was that like? Do you have any suggestions or things you've learned? Things you failed on and then improved upon?

Milena Pastreich:
Advice about the Kickstarter. I mean, the Kickstarter really is a full-time thing for like a month that you do it. You're more or less hitting up every single person you've ever met for money. That's the thing you're like, wait, this is horrible. I'm just asking my friends and family for money. I think the key there is really making a video that, because you are going to be just asking people you know for money, you really need to prove yourself and show that the film is going to be something worth putting money into. The rest of the budget we got through grants, which came later. My advice there is wait as long as possible to apply for grants, if you're able to. Just because the more, as I said before, the more material you have, the closer it is to your vision I think the more likely they'll be to give you funds. I think it's good to wait. I, of course, applied to lots of them right away before I even knew anything, and then-

Keith London:
This is the big secret, the secret to this whole thing is selection. That's the real key. You have to select which family to work with. You got to select which birds to pair together. Select which birds are going to come here from the kit. Which ones are you going take out the kit? Selection. Everything is selection.

Milena Pastreich:
There was a scene that I was trying to get in the doc, which is so fascinating, that basically, even when the birds, Keith explained that when a hawk or falcon comes and chases them away, sometimes they can't find home anymore. The same happens with like a huge gust of wind. They get too far away from home. They can't find home anymore. I shot Keith, he has some Rollers that are half Homing pigeons and half Rollers. So they have a better sense of where home is and can be further away from home and find home. I have him walking down the street with this Homer Roller pigeon and throwing it up into the air.

Keith London:
It's called a Roamer.

Milena Pastreich:
A Roamer. Roamer. Throwing it up in the air to retrieve his Rollers that got lost. I think that's so incredible that they've figured out those little things to keep the birds safe at home.

B.C. Wehman:
Milena starts talking about the home and what it's like, I felt like that was a big part of it. It was about family. It was about home, whether it's South Central Los Angeles, whether it's your house or Chu-Chu's house and what you do with your homes and how they become your life. We talked about it a lot. Keith, what do you hope for the future of Pigeon Rolling? Do you hope, or what do you hope this film does as it gets more wide release and people learn about it? What do you think and want people to take away from watching Pigeon Kings?

Keith London:
I want people to see that what we go through just to have, do a simple hobby, just raising pigeons. Just something just so simple. I want people to understand that pigeons are fascinating. They really are. Realize what we go through on a daily basis. After we go through that, we still have life to deal with.

Chu-Chu:
Once you get around the birds, you're a different person. You're not angry anymore, but when I'm at home, I'm just angry. Once I get around the birds.

Keith London:
Guess what my refuge was? Pigeons. For as long as I have the pigeons, I'm all right.

Heather Grayson:
I think that's a beautiful sentiment. Absolutely. What I took away from it was just that. I'm very much less scared of pigeons. Also, to end that, the music in it was fabulous, by the way. I just wanted to slip that in. I loved the ending credits. I loved watching as your competition goes on, you have that kind of like rolling sort of manic music. I just, I really appreciated that. Thank you guys both so much for talking to us today and Pigeon King's is definitely something that I'm going to be watching a lot more.

Keith London:
Thank you.

Milena Pastreich:
Thank you so much.

Speaker 7:
We've chosen the pigeons over girlfriends and wives. Yeah. I mean, I've dated people and I let them know this is the deal. The birds were here before you, and the birds will be here after you're gone.

Speaker 8:
I go, "Hey. Whatever happened to that bird?" He goes, "It's in the freezer up in the front". I go, "Oh. Boy."

Speaker 6:
You know what? He's passed away like probably six or seven years ago. I want to mount him. I'll probably put him right on the shelf by grandma.

Speaker 3:
If today's hopes should vanish, like footprints in this shifting sand. I hope you get some inspiration from the story of the rolling man. A true lust for life was what he had. You could tell from the glow in his eyes. A pigeon fanatic, indeed he was. In this not a soul denies. Infinite patience to see his plans unfold and unswerving faith that wouldn't break. He could tell you the history of every bird from hatching time till now. Each strength, each fault from beak to tail, just when the roll came in and how. He had never found a bird he could truly say was ideal. Some were close. Most were not, but his love for each was real.

Heather Grayson:
Thanks for listening to this episode of Behind the Doc. If you liked us, because we all know you did, leave us a review in your Apple podcast app.

B.C. Wehman:
Behind the Doc is produced by Evergreen Podcasts in association with Gravitas Ventures.

Heather Grayson:
Special thanks to executive producers Nolan Gallagher and Michael DeAloia.

B.C. Wehman:
Produced by Sarah Willgrube.

Heather Grayson:
Audio engineer, Eric Koltnow.

B.C. Wehman:
You'll find us everywhere and anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.