There's plenty of strife around here. We argue about the bridge, a casino, the sales tax.

We look for relief in simple things: A backyard hammock. A cool drink. A plate of wings.

But now even our beloved chicken wing is being henpecked. It's a chicken-eat-chicken world. No place proves it better than Buffalo, home of the dueling wingfests.

The controversy was hatched last year with the first National Chicken Wing Festival, inspired by a fictional Buffalo wingfest in the Bill Murray movie "Osmosis Jones." About 40,000 people inhaled 20 tons of wings on Labor Day weekend at the downtown ballpark. The national media, including CNN and the "Today" show, spread the word.

The story should have ended with sated festivalgoers pulling the last shreds of meat off tiny bones while listening to the gentle sound of their arteries hardening. Except for one thing.

There was already a wingfest called Wing-
stock, a one-day event with local restaurants. Nice, but smaller in scale, scope and ambition than the national Wingfest. They weren't happy about their instantly bigger brother. Wing-
stock cried fowl: We were first.

National Wingfest organizer Drew Cerza countered that the local festival had years to spread its wings and hadn't done it. The coop door was open for his national festival.

Cluck, cluck.

Maybe you can't make a wing festival without breaking a few omelets. But we fight over everything else in this town. Do we have to fight over festivals, too?

The short answer, obviously, is yes. The last note has barely faded from the fuddy-duddy Allentown Village Society's failed attempt to bar music near its Allentown Art Festival. Now this.

There were more cracks in the egg this week. Cerza announced this year's national Wingfest kickoff news conference for Thursday at the downtown ballpark.

After he announced his news conference, the local Wingstockers announced their news conference - although they had never held one before. They were doing it Wednesday - the day before the national Wingfest's to-do.

Jumping ahead in the pecking order
plucked the national Wingfest's feathers and left the wing-eating public confused.

If that weren't enough to get Cerza choking on a chicken bone, the local Wingstock news release was a mock-up of The Buffalo News - even though The News sponsors Cerza's national Wingfest, not the local Wing-
stock.

Apparently, hell hath no fury like a local Wingstock scorned.

The promotion director of 97 Rock, which sponsors Wingstock, claimed it was a coincidence. Its news conference was timed to fit the schedule of the featured guest, the mayor.

The News-type press release? "It was a way of showing it was big news," claimed Jeff Surdej.

Cerza feels henpecked. But he wouldn't take a bite out of the local Wingstockers.

"My only goal," said Cerza, "is to make Wingfest (www.buffalowing.com) the best food festival in the country."

Gentlemen, please. Put down the carrot stick of confrontation before somebody calls for a Chicken Wing Control Board.

This town is big enough for both festivals. And they're both - despite the cockfight - good for this town.

The local Wingstock raised $50,000 the past six years for Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The national Wingfest last year donated $20,000 to charity.

Our plates are already full of controversy. If the wing war gets any hotter, it'd be suicidal.