November 25, 2009 | lists

Canadians celebrated their Thanksgiving last month and most of them will have almost fully digested their meals as their cutlery-wielding American neighbors now get ready to attack plates as part of their own traditional gorge-fest.

There is much to give thanks for on this aptly-named day. First, there is the rich history of the holiday, something pleasantly revisionist that kids can reenact in pageants about how the pilgrims and the natives got along famously.

What the founders of the country were actually giving thanks for back then does not go at all well with pumpkin pie, no matter how many dollops of ice cream are added. In 1634, John Winthrop, then governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote of settlers’ growing conflict with the Indians, but he did express gratitude – for the plague that appeared heaven sent to rid the Earth of them. “For the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.”

Most of us, of course, do not seek any depth greater than that offered by a deep dish pie on Thanksgiving, but even then there is much to be grateful for. The day offers a chance to bond with family members that doesn’t drag on for as long as Christmas, and for NFL fans, a group that comprises just about every American male who doesn’t want to live his life as a social pariah, there is a full slate of games for which they – and their bookies – can be grateful.

And of course at the center of it all – feasted on in the (so the story goes) colonial past and present and giving football gamblers something to choke on in the present – is the turkey (which, like the best stars of the NFL, is also pumped full of growth hormones and dies young).

While the bird, with its many sandwiches worth of juicy meat, gets all the attention, we’ve decided to explore other turkeys — and not in any rural coming-of-age way. These are our Top 10 Turkeys for turkey day:

10. Turducken:

Never has a foodstuff containing “turd”, those four letters at least, tasted so good. Turducken, which contains turkey, duck and chicken, featured in the last season of Top Chef, when the challenge was to create “a protein in a protein in a protein”. This unholy mix is seen here in a dish that looks like a) a decisive volley fired in the war against encroaching vegetarianism in which we’d gladly enlist and b) a cross section from a medical textbook.

9. Waylon Jennings as a Turkey Truck Driver in Sesame Street’s Follow that Bird:

Occupation rather than name for this one, but it’s bird-related, so it gets a pass.

In the movie, Big Bird is forced to move in to a foster home full of Dodos. Preferring the company of his ‘Street’ gang, he runs away and during the course of his adventures meets up with a turkey truck driver played by Waylon Jennings, who, in an unlikely turn of events, does not decide to butcher this giant freak of a bird and harvest him for the months’ of meat he could provide hungry children. He’s nice to Big Bird instead and takes him to a farm where kids befriend him, and also do not unsheathe axes at the site of such a fine-feathered specimen.

8. Turkey Lurkey

From The Sky is Falling fable, which is a false prediction of calamity without any justification (say, the tawdry debate over universal health-care currently going on), Turkey Lurkey is one of the characters encountered by Henny Penny (or Chicken Little, which sounds like a restaurant that uses the same deep fryer over and over). The fable’s moral changes depending on which of the countless variations are told but Turkey Lurkey always meets the fate of many of his brothers on Thanksgiving, when he’s Foxy-Woxy lunch.

7. Turkey (Bowling Term)

Three X’s connote not only websites that have put you on your IT administrator’s watch list but also feature in that other sport of kings (the one that doesn’t involve putting small men on horses and whipping them — the men, not the horses — until they run around a track): bowling.

A ‘turkey’ in bowling refers to three strikes in a row, while more than that (6 or 9) can be referred to as a Golden Turkey, which is not nearly as good a find as a golden goose, a term used to refer to a gullible person with deep pockets.

6. Turkey Baster

A google search for turkey basters these days will bring up more hits related to Melissa Etheridge’s decision to have rotund, elfen tenor David Crosby father her child than methods of food preparation.

5. Turkey, the country

The sole functioning Muslim democracy in the world — something for which we should all be thankful in in that  there’s at least one to model others on — Turkey has brought us not only one of the world’s most violent national anthems, but also NBA baller and Toronto Raptor Hedo Türkoğlu, a better than average player who is proving instrumental in getting the Raptors to the point where they’ll just miss the playoffs.

4. The Gobbledygooker

In the 90s, the WWE unveiled the worst gimmick in their history with the Gobbledygooker.

A giant egg was featured prominently on WWF television in the weeks leading up to the Survivor Series pay-per-view Thanksgiving pay-per-view wrestling show. On the day of the Survivor Series, the egg hatched and what emerged is to your left — possibly the single greatest wrestling-related disappointment in many a young fan’s life, next to being told by some wise-ass older kid that wrestling is fake.

3. American Home Brewers Turkey logo

The acronym of the American Homebrewers Association, or ‘AHA’ is just what you’d exclaim when you realize what you’re missing out on by not saving money and making superior suds at home. More logos should feature happy-looking turkeys enjoying a bottle of home brew.

2. Turkey phrases: Along with our guts, turkeys have also entered our lexicon, through phrases such as “jive turkey”, “talking turkey” and “cold turkey”. the first two are 70s idioms and refer to someone who is able to BS with aplomb, while the latter refers to the method of breaking free from addiction most likely to fail.

1. Wild Turkey

The Dirty Bird aka, Kickin’ chicken, be wary of buried hostilities coming to the fore if this bourbon is broken out during Thanksgiving celebrations. Pictured here, empty, the way it looks after many a psychologically-scarring family holiday, Wild Turkey is one of the best known of the Kentucky bourbons and is surprisingly nice to sip on a long-haul bus ride.

(For booze brands that weren’t as well named, click here)

November 23, 2009 | Sports

The Toronto Maple Leafs are easily among the worst franchises in professional sport along with the Detroit Lions, Arizona Cardinals, Minnesota Twins and LA Clippers.

Given the Leafs perennially occupy the NHL basement, we thought we’d do our part and contribute to the public debasement of the so-called Leaf Nation. If this actually was a Nation, we would vote to secede. Anyway, since neither of us is over the age of 42 and we don’t own a time machine, we can only fathom an era when the team either didn’t make the playoffs or if they miraculously did, were immediately ousted by a team with talent.

This is a bit of a departure for us as we don’t really pen jokes and like the Jay Leno show, don’t employ professional comedy writers, but anyway, here are a few yuks inspired by the L.E.A.F.S.— Losers Even After Forty Seasons.

Leaf Jokes:

• What does a recent high school dropout and the Leafs team have in common? They’re both young, have no goals and no good prospects.

• What’s the difference between an eight-ball of cocaine and a Leaf game? Someone suggests an intervention and you feel an incredible sense of guilt and shame when someone finds out you spent $150 bucks on a Leaf game.

• What’s the difference between a line of coke and a pair of Leaf tickets? People would pass up a pair of Leaf tickets.

• What do Rihanna and the Toronto Maple Leafs have in common? They’ve both never gone unbeaten.

• What do a criminal court judge and the coach of the Maple Leafs have in common? They both sit behind a bench, watch an endless parade of losers go by, and wonder if they are actually making a difference.

• What’s the difference between the German language and the Toronto Maple Leafs? The German language has lots of Ws.

• What do the universe and the Leafs payroll have in common? They’re both expanding rapidly and nobody knows why.

• What’s the difference between the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Maple Leafs? The Raptors shoot at a net.

• What’s the difference between a missionary and a Leafs goaltender? A missionary is in position and saves.

• What does a dive bar and the Leafs organization have in common? A draft selection that makes you feel sick.

• What’s the difference between the Air Canada Centre and a red light district? In a red light district, you pay $300 bucks and somebody scores.

• What do a rambling speech and the Toronto Maple Leafs have in common? They have no points, are difficult to follow and end up going nowhere.

• What do a TV sitcom and the Toronto Maple Leafs have in common? They’re full of jokes, last about 20 minutes and then go into reruns.

• What’s the difference between the Leafs and a Seurat painting? The Seurat painting has points.

• What’s the difference between Air Miles and the Toronto Maple Leafs? Air Miles earn points.

• What does the show Mad Men and the Toronto Maple Leafs have in common? They’re both obsessed with succeeding in the 1960s.

• What’s the difference between a manned mission to Mars and the prospect of the Leafs hoisting a Stanley Cup? A manned mission to Mars is attainable during our lifetime and will cost less.

• What’s the difference between a wind tunnel and the Leafs Organization? With a wind tunnel, you can select a draft, but at the end of the day, both of them still blow.

• What’s the difference between the Hells Angels and the Leafs? A Hells Angels prospect actually has a chance of joining his organization.

• What’s the difference between the Hells Angels and a Leafs Fans? The Hells Angels will generally leave you alone.

• Why do the Leafs suck at geometry? Because they never have any points.

• What do a fine wine and the Maple Leafs have in common? They both spend a lot of time in the cellar, cost too much and are only enjoyed on select occasions.

• What do the Leafs team and a pace car have in common? They both go around in circles, aren’t involved in the race and are passed by all the competitors.

• What do college students and the Maple Leafs have in common? They’ve both finished their year by April.

• Why are the Leafs owned by teachers? Because they both take summers off and are demoralized the rest of the year.

November 20, 2009 | music, reviews

by guest columnist Mike Sauve

More than anything else I am a Bob Dylan fan.  Nothing gets my blood boiling like an ignorant staff reviewer sent to the local Bob Dylan show.  They Google him.  They make shallow, obvious observations about his voice and his hat.  The hat is always mentioned by the third paragraph.  Last night I found myself in a similar position, sent on assignment by The Shark Guys to a sold-out Jimmy Buffett show at the Air Canada Centre [Editor's note: the conversation went something like this. MS: "I have free tickets to a Jimmy Buffet show". Shark Guys: "Oh my god, that sounds absolutely awful. Please write about it."]

What I knew about Buffett going in:  most of the lyrics to Margaritaville, he was friends with Hunter S. Thompson, and in a recent interview Bob Dylan [reviewed by the Shark Guys here] listed him among his favourite songwriters.  This generated some enthusiasm but then I listened to Cheeseburger in Paradise on Youtube and the tropical wind went out of my sails pretty quick.

On the subway ride I saw a lot of drunk senior citizens with low IQs in Hawaiian garb.  I’ve never been to a Weird Al Yankovic concert but I imagine in 20 years this is what his audience will look like.  Minus the beachwear.

I find my seats a few songs late and notice the teal-shirted, shoeless Buffett had easily filled the Air Canada Centre.  The crowd was more boisterous than the Neil Young show I’d seen here, and this is Young’s home turf.  Buffett is considerably richer.  It just doesn’t add up.  There were palm trees and unironic crashing waves on a video screen that must have been purchased from a stock footage sale in 1993.  The tour was called Summerzcool.  Is a joke even necessary here?

Many drove a long way to be there, like the 40-year old functional illiterates behind me.  (I’m speculating on their literacy)  The most offensive gentleman had consumed an estimated 38 beers in his van prior to the show and had the loud drunkenness only excessive beer-drinking can provide.  When Buffett crooned the relatively pleasant Captain Tony the drunk aggressively screamed this raspy demand:  “Everyone should get up and dance to this shit.”

I feared he was addressing me, cynically taking notes and not standing or swaying to the grating tropical drums.  But it was his companions he made this demand of, including the poor wife who was holding him up. “This could be the last time we see Jimmy.”

There was a desperate love for Jimmy in his voice.  Like most people at big-name concerts they required some kind of transformative experience.  However, their dancing and drunk screaming didn’t seem appropriate for the 100-level seats.

I have to say a couple of folkier numbers almost won me over.  A new song There’s Plenty To Drink About had plenty of topical references (Levi Johnston, Bernie Madoff) in true Weird Al fashion. Still, I started thinking, “This guy isn’t such a bad songwriter after all.”  But then he unleashed Surfing In a Hurricane, which consists of precious little more than the title refrain. I began to think of Buffett as the world’s greatest con man.

He also had the nerve to reference Leonard Cohen then proceeded to inflict some clownish spasms while massacring Cohen’s The Gypsy’s Wife. He was either trying to pantomime the exaggerated stage motions of Cohen or having a stroke.  Either way it left a bad taste in my mouth that could only be cleansed by a $12 beer and a one-hitter in the bathroom.

He also name-checked Gordon Lightfoot, and in a rare humble moment said it was his goal to be 1/10th the songwriter Lightfoot was.  Something is wrong with a society that elevates Jimmy Buffett to arena rock while Lightfoot wanders the country playing casinos.  Lightfoot was at Massey Hall last night, and I tried to astrally project myself there but the volatile alcoholic vibes in the Jimmy audience prevented the necessary peace of mind.

I finally stood when Margaritaville was played for the sole reason that two very attractive girls were dancing quite boisterously beside me.  They glanced in my direction a couple times and I tried to play it suave.  A couple brooding looks in their direction, an heir of sophistication.  I could not manifest an enthusiasm to match theirs so I thought an alternative to the madness might work.  It did not.  Moments later they were seen in a drunken embrace with the loud, drunken 40 year old monster’s two male friends.  This seemed completely unjust on an obvious level, but not surprising.  Then a song came on that involved the audience making shark fins by placing their arms in a steeple shape above their heads and rotating them from left to right as the song demanded.  The pretty girls did this with great zeal and I was glad not to have made their acquaintance.

This morning I listened to Jimmy’s greatest hits on Youtube and was surprised to hear a number of very pleasing ballads, many actually on par with lesser Gordon Lightfoot tunes.  But this was sacrificed to hurricane surfing and shark-finning in his live show, so I must turn my nose up not at Jimmy, but at the aged inebriates that reward a talented folk singer for turning into some marijuana-referencing Raffi for dull adults.

Mike Sauve is a Toronto freelancer who’s written for the National Post, the Toronto International Film Festival and Exclaim Magazine