A TERDUCKEN CHRISTMAS

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? It's probably a "turducken."

You may have heard of turducken, an unholy bastard mutation bred on the Island of Dr. Moreau and now gaining popularity as the centerpiece of the Christmas dinner. Setting aside tradition and Mother Nature, more and more harried cooks are turning toward animal husbandry and black magic to satisfy this unnatural craving and to save time in the kitchen this holiday season.

Paul Prudhomme: playing God?

Reports that Cajun-creole fusion chef Paul Prudhomme first created this mutant beast in a cellar in the Deep South are only partly true. Actually, his sous chef shot the creature as it lunged for his throat during a hike in the bayou. The sous chef died, but the creature was nursed back to health and fed table scraps in a cellar until it was strong enough to breed a legion of turducken. Since then, turducken have spread from the Deep South like nutria. Maybe one will cross your path this Christmas.

If so, here's the Dean of Southern Chefs, Paula Deen, tackling the unnatural beast:

SURVIVING THANKSGIVING

Wild Indians and the Guests Who Wouldn't Leave

Since the first Thanksgiving, Americans have celebrated with turkey and stuffing and goodhearted bickering. And booze. Traditionally, women and indentured servants prepared the bird while men drank like fish and watched football on television. Occasionally, a vegan was burned at the stake, usually after bringing a tofurkey, something that looks like a turkey and tastes like a football thereby combining both major elements of Thanksgiving.

Ideally, Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday--but as Plato told us wisely, the Ideal exists only in the mind. Expectations run high, and quarreling often bubbles just below the surface like the ptomaine in Aunt Anita's oyster stuffing that year everyone became so violently ill. When she slammed that terrified blancmange on the table, a long line of stomachs turned in unison. Just as you would avoid such poisonous stuffing, ignore the holiday boors who talk only of themselves and don't give a fig for others. Remember, some people may act strangely because they feel uncomfortable in a group, or because they lack basic social skills. Then again, they could simply hate you.



Surviving Thanksgiving, especially with the family, requires special skills. The pressure is on. You drive for hours in bumper to bumper traffic, and then--exhausted and irritable--you accidentally trip a half dozen landmines entering the parents' house. The dogs seethe with resentment. You drink to relax, and that helps up to a point, and then you flip on the game because it's Thanksgiving and you feel obligated to join the rest of your nation, but you quickly discover that football is just as boring as you remember it. You try. Giants on anabolic steroids collide in slow-mo, then again in instant replay, and you suddenly need another drink. Guests start arriving. Dogs are barking. Children are crying. The brothers-in-law are itching for trouble. Take a deep breath.


Perhaps you don't recognize yourself in these vignettes. Surely these are worst case scenarios. Then again, you may be in denial. Remember when all the relatives came over, the cousins and their significant others, who apparently hadn't eaten in weeks--how they ate you out of house and home, ransacked the liquor cabinet and the medicine chest, and then left with the pies? Remember when the kids gave each other black eyes, and their parents did the same? Remember when one brother-in-law said turkeys are the smartest animal on earth? When the other brother-in-law insisted you praise his new camera, and car, and selection of wine...that lyrical but not sarcastic Brunello di Montalcino? Remember when the drapes caught fire, and Dad ran off into the stormy night? Ah, Thanksgiving! It was like King Lear with leftovers.



Have a nice Thanksgiving! Good luck, too!

THANKSGIVING DINNER -- TO GO!

Thanksgiving leftovers from the past:


In the 1920s, Thanksgiving was spare for Charlie Chaplin in this classic scene from "The Gold Rush." The film was first released as a silent film in 1925, and re-released with sound in 1942. The narrator is Chaplin himself.


In the 1950s, Thanksgiving dinner was a tad more festive, especially if your guests included Dinah Shore, Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams and her husband George Montgomery. I always suspected Louis Prima was a left winger. Good for him.


In the 1940s, zany cartoonist Tex Avery brought us "Jerky Turkey" for Thanksgiving during WWII. Food rationing and a black market turkey (who looks an awful lot like Jimmy Durante) all played important roles in this wacky wartime cartoon. Buy war bonds.

THANKSGIVING PRAYERS

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and here are two old men as different as night and day saying their Thanksgiving prayers. Like good and evil, it might be hard to decide between the two, but you make up your own mind.


Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, sings a Thanksgiving prayer as warm as a bellyful of whiskey and a bowl of candied yams.



Williams S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, offers a frozen Thanksgiving prayer on the end of a cold fork.

IT'S PAYBACK TIME!

I really don't know what's happening here, but it seems to be the revolt of the Thanksgiving meal. There's something terrifying about a turkey and a pumpkin wielding cutlery.

A THANKSGIVING STORY

This is a classic hand turkey. Mat B. did an excellent job. As an artist, I appreciate his deft use of color and composition, the clean line, the work/play fusion of elements, the contrast of holiday happiness barely saved from cloying sentimentality by a sense of impending doom. The turkey will not last the week.
When I was a kid, I drew plenty of these. In fact, I actually won a "Draw a Turkey Contest." I appeared on a kiddie cartoon show, the "Ramblin' Rod Show." Nowadays, parents might be less willing to send their kids to a man with such a name, but back in the innocent early sixties it was all good, clean fun, and "Ramblin' Rod" was the perfect gentleman.

"Ramblin' Rod" told jokes, played the guitar, and introduced classic Popeye and Bugs Bunny cartoons. The show was wildly popular with my age group, and everyone I knew watched it religiously. Rod "interviewed" me between cartoons, shook my hand, and awarded me a gas-powered, Lotus racer. The massive television camera pulled in close, broadcasting live to the entire state. My parents beamed with pride in the studio audience. I think Dad wore a tie. More important, my friends and numerous cousins watched the show on actual TV! This was before everyone had video cameras, so this was highly unusual; there I was ON ACTUAL TV. My cousins were amazed. Even their parents stopped drinking and fighting long enough to watch! It was a little holiday magic, and I was on my way to becoming an artist.
The next day, there was photograph of me in the local newspaper holding the Lotus racer. "Little Bobby Rini," it said, "Draws Turkey, Wins Prize." No film footage of the moment exists, but I found these clips from "The Ramblin' Rod Show" so try and picture me in there, a nerdy little kid wearing glasses and holding an excellent drawing of a Thanksgiving turkey.

WILLIAM BURROUGHS' THANKSGIVING PRAYER

Before we eat, William Burroughs will lead us in prayer. Thanks, Bill.

THE THANKSGIVING STORY

Christopher Walken steals the show in this low-budget historical drama by the Celebrity Bric-a-Brac Theatre. These guys make Roger Corman look like Cecil B. DeMille.