Would You Just Rather Not Know This?

"When the truth is treason, the problem is the government." -- US Senator Ron Paul

It's been interesting to watch the Main Stream Media contort over the recent release of Wikileaks documents.

First they were all excited, the New York Times and the Guardian and others even staking out exclusive rights for various territories and titillating their readers with the promise of salacious details on what diplomats really say about one another.

There was an initial gush of coverage as they tried to cover everything being revealed.

Then, when the documents began to cast a negative light on some within the political spectrums that different media conglomerates either openly support or oppose, we got conflicting opinions on whether the man behind the dump of secret documents was a saint or a scoundrel.

Some pundits called for him to be assassinated. Others insisted he was the personification of freedom of speech.

That led to an ethical debate about whether the leaks put innocent people in danger or helped others gain wider public awareness of their situation.

And as each day brings new revelations about how our ruling classes behave, I detect a growing concern that the Media might no longer be able to control what news we see or read.

Am I the only one beginning to wonder how you can arrest a man and hold him without bail because a condom broke, but you can't demand a better product from the condom manufacturer sponsoring the newscast obsessed with that part of the Wikileaks story?

Or far more importantly, why the arrest of Wikileaks' Julian Assange is your lead story while there is no mention of new documents he just leaked which prove the American government helped purchase little boys for Afghan police officers to use as sex toys?

Is one story of greater importance than the other? Is the Main Stream Media protecting somebody by not running with that Afghan revelation?

Or has their market research told them that you don't care about that sort of unsettling stuff and would rather watch the "Jersey Shore" version of the news?

Yesterday, the Houston Press ran the following headline:

Texas Company Helped Pimp Little Boys To Stoned Afghan Cops

Kind of gets your attention, doesn't it?

So far not one word in any Canadian news source I can find.

The story details a Wikileaks released document from US diplomats confirming that American security contractor DynCorp, hired by the US Government at an annual cost of almost $2 Billion to train Afghan police officers, used some of that money to procure 8 - 15 year old boys as "gifts" for Afghan police officers who use them for anal sex.

Apparently DenCorp also uses some of their public funding to purchase drugs to get the same Afghan cops in a party mood.

Stunned?

Not even just a little?

You can read the full story here.

Now, this isn't the first time I've heard this tale. It's been a hot topic for months with Alex Jones, an American talk show host who also runs the Prisonplanet.com website.

Prison Planet is the kind of place that inspires people to marry the words "Batshit" and "crazy", being mostly concerned with dangers of Chemical Contrails and Flouride in your drinking water. Yet every now and then Jones ragdolls something that doesn't sound quite as outlandish.

However, the powers that be probably feel as much need to respond to his revelations as they do to "The Weekly World News" reports on President Obama's private meetings with Batboy.

But the story didn't stay within the confines of late night radio and conspiracy websites. Not long after Jones began calling out DynCorp, the PBS series "Frontline" ran a documentary on the practice (known locally as "Bacha Bazi") which is still available on their website.

Again, nobody in the Main Stream Media explored the story further, maybe because they already had their quota of child rape stories what with Roman Polanski and the Catholic Church.  In fact the Washington Post downplayed it as a "questionable management oversight" of those on the ground in Afghanistan.

The only official reaction from the US State Department referred to the Afghan sex slavery of children as a "widespread culturally accepted form of male rape" which also violated Sharia law and the Afghan civil code the cops they were training would soon stop.

Nobody said they were rewarding the Afghan cops they were training by purchasing them their own child sex slaves.

This particular Wikileak raises a huge number of issues.

First, this isn't the first time DynCorp has been involved in the world of child sex. In 1999, one of their own employees, Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop, who wouldn't keep quiet about the sex trade of girls as young as 12 in Bosnia. That story has just been turned into a film called "The Whistleblower".

DynCorp, which was also a major player after Hurricane Katrina, has also been criticized for not being able to account for $1.2 Billion in US Federal money paid to them to train police in Iraq.

Which makes you wonder how these guys keep getting hired in Washington.

Or maybe, if you're real good at your job, the government doesn't mind you buggering a couple of orphans.

Then you've got to wonder if some of the ongoing Afghan resistance to NATO forces might have something to do with people not wanting to have their kids ass-raped by the coalition's local partners.

They've already had to endure our troops turning a blind eye to officials ripping off tens of millions in aid money that was supposed to make their lives better, so maybe their corruption line in the sand is Junior's back door.

I've talked to a few Canadian soldiers who've returned from their tours of duty in Afghanistan. The prevailing sentiment was that they felt enormous compassion for the people they were over there to protect but didn't much care for the local officials and warlords they were also instructed to support.

And since Canadian troops will now be staying in Afghanistan to take over the training of the local police, will they have to get into the business of pimping out children in order to get their trainees to play along?

Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, you want some sound bites guaranteed to make some cabinet minister squirm on "Question Period", they're right in front of you.

Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President Barrack Obama have kids the same age as the boys being abused, raped and murdered in Afghanistan. Shouldn't somebody be asking them why their representatives in Kabul have not only been aware of the practice but enabling it?

But this particular Wikileak isn't in the Globe & Mail today or featured on CBC's Newsworld. Instead both are fixated on the hacking of MasterCard by Wikileaks supporters.

Is that because MasterCard is one of their most important sponsors -- or because they are confident you really don't want to know?

Along the Mink Mile With David, John and Mark

This has been a bad year for losing the friends and acquaintances who were around when I started my career. So far, the count is 13.

Somewhat to be expected when you edge past your 50's. But it's more than the number of soldiers we lost in Afghanistan this year. And yet I don't hear Michael Ignatief or Jack Layton calling for a withdrawl of Canadian artists from the Quagmire of Mainstream Media and negotiating a truce with the American TV and Film hegemony.

Already saddened by the weekend passing of playwright David French, I took another hit opening the newspaper to his obituary and finding another for film professor John Katz. And then, just a few hours later, the news that the voice of CITY-TV, Mark Dailey, had died was being posted online.

At best, only one of those names will register with any given group of Canadians, if they register at all.

If you're a fan of Canadian theatre, you might recall French as one of its early icons.

If you love movies, you might've read one of Katz's books on that medium or caught a film he programmed for some festival.

If you lived in Toronto you were likely aware Dailey anchored a newscast or made an effort to tune into a "Late, Great Movie" in time to catch his inimitable introductions.

Those who knew of all three might well think they didn't have much in common. But they did.

In a lot of ways, they were the same guy walking separate paths through the same point in space and time along a portion of Toronto that's come to be known as the Mink Mile -- and walking it with a purpose.

I don't know who coined the term, but "The Mink Mile" describes a section of Bloor Street in Toronto that stretches West from the city's official center at Yonge Street to a residential neighborhood known as the Annex.

The Mile's first blocks are filled with exclusive stores, the town's version of Rodeo Drive. Then comes the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto Campus before a stretch of funkier stores, beer joints and coffee hangouts that service the Annex's resident students, artists and downtown movers and shakers.

When the city birthed an explosion of Canadian theatre in the early 1970's, most of the theatres were in and around the Annex. It had a freer campus vibe. Beer was still 15 cents a glass at the Brunswick House and big old homes that would later be gentrified were cheap rooming houses and crash pads.

The summer I hit town, Bill Glassco's Taragon Theatre, which would become one of the our most respected, had its first hit with David French's "Leaving Home".

Better writers than I'll ever be have penned thousands of pages on what that show meant to Canada and Canadian theatre. It was basically our "Death of a Salesman" -- only more heart-rending. I had the good fortune of seeing it with the original cast, with bravura performances by Sean Sullivan and Frank Moore in the classic generational battle of father and son.

The play's emotionally shattering final scenes remain a testament to the power of theatre.

Back then, and really for most of the rest of his life, David was a fixture on the Western end of the Mink Mile. I never did one of his plays, but I worked a couple of shows at the Tarragon where he was writer in residence for a while. And he turned up at everything else that played in town, often by himself, always way in the back and usually leaving without saying much to anybody connected to the show.

But I lived in the Annex and would see him from time to time grabbing coffee in the morning or walking Bloor street late at night eternally lost in thought. We'd nod a "Hello". I'd compliment him on something else he'd written and he'd offer kind words about whatever I was doing.

Now and then we'd both have seen a show neither of us had anything to do with and discuss it over a cup of coffee. My reactions were those of an actor, his were the ones that writers have.

But he'd started out as an actor too and had written for TV long before he became a revered playwright with a play now included in the Oxford Dictionary's list of "Essential English Drama". Not bad for a guy who started out writing monologues for Howard the Turtle on "Razzle Dazzle".

What I recall most was how passionate he was about the theatre. Whether it was accurate or not, I got the sense he didn't think he was all that special, but the success of one show had put him in the spotlight and he wanted to make sure he didn't disappoint. He always gave me the feeling that if something he did wasn't dead, solid perfect it would let the whole Canadian Theatre scene down and he wouldn't allow that to happen.

John Katz hung at the other end of the Mink Mile, near ground zero of the Film Festivals he helped program and the offices of the fly-by-night producers who fed off the nearby bankers and lawyers and old money while fueling the break-through of a Canadian film industry.

John had a completely different personality from David French. He was outgoing and ebullient and effusive, always on the move and talking a mile a minute. He'd button hole complete strangers after a screening, not to get their opinion, but to make sure they'd loved it as much as he did. And he wouldn't let them go until they promised to tell their friends and make sure their friends told friends.

He never seemed to stop sparking people to do something to promote or further the film business. He wrote books about films, he taught filmmaking at York University and he scoured the world to find great films he could introduce to his homeland.

In 1979, he programmed Ira Wohl's documentary "Best Boy" for Toronto's "Festival of Festivals" and when it didn't find a distributor bought the Canadian rights himself. It went on to win the Academy Award.

Around the same time, he wrote the first of two books on documentary filmmaking, "Image Ethics" about the responsibilities of those in the film world when they make public the private lives of ordinary people.

It's the kind of book those making most of what passes for reality on Canadian TV completely ignore.

But others did not and many who took John's courses at York University would go on to win Academy Awards and other cinematic accolades of their own.

"Image Ethics" became a seminal work in establishing the Media Ethics Association and it led to required courses in most North American schools of media and journalism.

But John was also often found in the trendy eateries of the Mink Mile and his love of film and writing skills got him into a few script and story deals with the Canadian movie moguls who habituated the same locales. 

We'd often talked about movies. But one night he phoned because one of those moguls was "screwing him around" and he needed some advice. I helped him as much as I could. And I guess it worked out okay. Because a few months later, he sidled up to me at a screening in his trademark white suit, pastel shirt and loud tie to whisper a quiet "Thank you". It was the only time I ever heard him speak in a hushed tone.

A little over a decade ago, John's reputation as a teacher and the academic success of a couple of his other books landed him a job teaching at Penn State, where a new generation of film students were entertained and inspired by lectures that would continue until mere days before his death.

Like John Katz, Mark Dailey was a transplanted American. He'd started his professional career as a cop in Ohio, but gave that up to report on crime in Detroit and eventually brought his act to Toronto and a seat-of-its pants news department at CITY-TV.

Mark became a well known face up and down the Mink Mile and pretty much every other street in the city. While other reporters did their stand ups from crime scenes in a suit and tie, Mark showed up in a trench coat and fedora, like some ink stained wretch from an old Dan Duryea movie.

His voice soon became synonymous with CITY-TV, delivering breaks and bumpers and program introductions in a breezy, refusing to be impressed style that gave the impression the guy was on the street 24 hours a day. He was the reporter who never stopped dogging a story and didn't give a shit if you didn't like how he told it.

If you search Youtube, you'll find dozens of intro's Mark voiced for CITY-TV's "Late Great Movies", most of them pointing out that the film was far from great, starred people nobody had ever heard of and often included spoilers like "Tonight you'll see the guy who now signs my paycheck get shot".

I first met him when he came to do one of those five minute bits on a new play opening in town. That was normally the turf of some young pretty who worked at the station. But I guess she was sick that week because Mark drew the assignment.

Given the location of the theatre, he might have just been nearby because somebody had been murdered in the back alley.

Most entertainment beat reporters doing that kind of thing turn up wearing fashions no real actor can afford and work from a press release because the show hasn't opened yet. Their first question while the videographer sets up is always "So, what's this play about?".

But Mark had attended the previous night's preview performance and asked the tough questions that most entertainment reporters think will either flummox the interviewee or their audience. Like everything else he did, he was a breath of fresh air.

Years later, our paths crossed again when he was anchoring CITY newscasts and I was doing ride-alongs to help make a cop show more true to life. Ever the reporter, he'd caught a call on his police scanner and decided it was a story that needed his touch.

It took a couple of minutes for him to recognize me in this new career configuration. But once he did he went on at length about how much he liked what we were doing, giving me a list of stories and local cops I should look up while also mentioning some he remembered from the mean streets of Detroit. I dutifully followed up and one of those Detroit stories made it onto the show.

What all three of these men had in common was how passionately they cared about what they did and the city they called home. Not that many others didn't or don't. But with David, John and Mark, it seemed to be a calling, something they had to do for all the others they passed as they made their way along the Mink Mile.

Each in their own way gave rise to something that, at one time, defined Toronto; its indigenous theatre, its scrappy film industry, its roving reporter who really was "Everywhere".

Often, when people die, someone will say that their work here was done. And that's a feeling I can't shake about so many of those I've lost this year. For while I know there are men and women of equal talent and passion doing the things that they did, it still feels like those who have gone left because Toronto and the Canadian entertainment world didn't need them anymore.

Canadian theatres are struggling to survive these days, especially if their plays are written by a Canadian like David French.

Despite a sparkling new theatre for Festival films that would have made the heart of John Katz leap with joy -- more people will see "Black Swan" during its opening week in Toronto than will see every single Canadian film released there this year in total.

Meanwhile, the TV station that Mark Dailey symbolized falters in the hands of people who think reporters need to wear suits and be eternally deferential and respectful to owners who only know how to imitate rather than innovate.

The Mink Mile is firmly back in the grip of the bankers and the lawyers and the old money that first established it. Not that it ever truly belonged to anybody else. But for a time, people like David and John and Mark made it feel like it was a place for everyone.

But now their work is done and its time for somebody else to step up before what they accomplished disappears forever.

We Are Now Free To Move About Your Pants

It's not as much fun to catch a plane as it used to be. Time was you could just climb aboard without anybody wanting to see anything more than a boarding pass.

You'd stretch out in extra wide seats, drink as much as you wanted, wander around the aisles, smoke 'em if you had 'em and dig into a full course meal using a razor sharp steak knife and silverware you could've easily sharpened into a shiv before you went up to hang with the pilots and maybe even strap into the jumper seat to watch the landing from the cockpit.

Then around 1969 (the year with the most hijackings on record) out came the metal detection wands and then the carry-on baggage X-ray and departure lounges where your Mom wasn't allowed to come in and give you a final hug.

Since 9/11 and the shoe and underwear bombers, just getting to the plane has become an obstacle course. And once you're strapped in, you know you better be on your best behavior.

I'm sure a lot of that is warranted and it's certainly understandable. But more and more, I'm wondering if the claim that it's all "Security Theatre" isn't just as valid.

I caught a flight to the Caribbean a few weeks after 9/11 and was frankly both impressed and relieved at how much extra attention was paid to what I was carrying on the plane and how many people wanted to double check my ID.

It was probably unlikely that a crowd of drunken Canadian sun-seekers might include a suicidal terrorist muttering "Death to America", but since we were flying over a number of major US cities, you couldn't blame anybody for wanting to make sure.

But on the way home, we didn't even go through a metal detector and departed from an airport without so much as a picket fence around it. The phrase "soft target" came readily to mind and I began to wonder how much of the security concerns were for show rather than an actual defensive strategy.

When you fly from Canada to the States, you usually have to kick your shoes off. But you don't when you're flying domestically. Yet I've been on US bound flights when the Screeners told me they "weren't doing that today".

Maybe shoe bombers don't take advantage of Saturday discounts.

Like many people, I've also gotten aboard and discovered a Buck knife left over from my last camping trip that nobody found. Twice I've gone through three sets of security before the airline employee at the gate asked if I had my real boarding pass instead of the one I was waving around for a later connecting flight.

Either those security people who had sternly studied it couldn't read or they figured I wasn't getting on any plane with what I was carrying so I obviously posed no in-flight threat.

But the most obvious hint that the airport security check might be an elaborate form of performance art occurred one day while I was at the pre-security security check where the guy with a display of correct sized liquid containers checks to make sure you're not carrying any that aren't.

As his partner squinted at my "not actually for this flight" boarding pass, I watched him confiscate a couple of over-sized water bottles and Michael Jordan them into his trash recepticle. I remember thinking that if they'd contained Nitro Glycerin, he, me and about half the airport would've been instantly vaporized. 

Then as he went through my stuff, an airport maintenance guy came by to drop off a fresh trash barrel and pick up the one full of seized cans and bottles. For starters, he wasn't wearing a Hazmat suit.

In fact, he didn't even have a pair of rubber gloves. So like the security agent, he knew there really wasn't anything dangerous in what he was hauling away.

I asked if they got to keep any of the cans of soda or bottles of booze in the trash. He smiled and shook his head. "I wish. But it all has to go into the dumpster."

Me: "Where does the dumpster go?"

Him: (a shrug) "Into a garbage truck like all the other trash."

Meaning if somebody was carrying some airborne botulism, can of radioactive isotopes or whatever else evil genius terrorists concoct, it's now in your local landfill -- or already seeping into the groundwater -- or mutating rats and seagulls into giant, rabid killing machines.

When the latest traveler's indignity, "the pat down", became de rigueur South of the Border, I became convinced the process was more for show than actual terrorist interdiction.

And like all theatre, it's a little more expensive to produce than other forms of distraction.

Perhaps an argument can be made that knowing such a search option exists deters would-be evil-doers, but I still feel sorry for all those folks who have to be groped and re-groped just so they can go somewhere to see their grandchildren.

I also think a lot of the firestorm of protest came from people less upset by the intrusion on their privacy than the realization that their world is changing yet again, and that once respected and deeply held values are being pushed aside with no assurance that what's coming will make life better.

And nobody seems capable of explaining why the completely non-intrusive security screening at Israeli airports with its incredibly higher success rate at preventing terror attacks won't work just as well here.

Maybe, like every teenage girl, Americans are discovering its just far easier to come up with 50 guys who only want to grope you than to find one who can sense what's really on your mind.

Maybe, like so many things that become major media events, the "pat-down" will one day seem as normal as emptying all the change out of your pockets before going through a metal scanner.

Maybe it'll be just one more thing that mediocre stand-up comics endlessly riff about.

Or maybe it'll be one of those things that makes people want to hang onto the life they value a little tighter and fight to make those performing the theatre actually do something real for a change.

Lazy Sunday # 148: Hey, Let's Buy A Satellite!

Three weeks out from Christmas, two questions roll through many of our minds. "What do I get for that person in my life who has everything?" and "Where should I make a charitable donation for somebody who has nothing?".

Can't help you with question #1. But when it comes to #2, I think I've found the best idea anyone has ever conceived for solving the problems of untold millions -- perhaps even billions -- of our fellow human beings.

Let's buy them a satellite.

Gee, wouldn't they maybe like a donation of food if they're starving?

Medicine in they're sick?

A little something to help them get by until they can find a job, get an education or overthrow a corrupt or oppressive government?

How about you give them the ability to do all of those things -- and so unimaginably many more -- with one single small contribution.

Because if we buy a satellite, we can get people without any Internet access at all onto the World Wide Web.

It may be hard for those reading this post on their desktop computer, laptop, tablet or mobile phone to fathom, but 5 Billion people who share this planet with you have no Internet access. None. Nada. Zip.

That's 70% of Earth's current population.

70%…!

Almost 3/4 of us have never seen a Youtube video, whether it was telling us to leave Brittany alone or how to make a solar panel out of tinfoil.

Only one human being in four has the opportunity to post information on Wikipedia. Maybe one of the other three actually knows what they're talking about.

If about 2 Billion humans translates into getting cows through Kiva for some farmer in Borneo, or your film crowd source funded, or your band a gig in a town they've never heard of before or make your self published book finally get read -- how much difference could another Billion or two make to helping similar (or bigger) dreams come true?

This is a win-win situation for all of us.

But it must cost a fortune to buy a satellite, right?

How does $150,000 sound -- about the cost of a one bedroom condo in Toronto?

Right this minute, an NGO known as "A Human Right" is raising $150,000 to buy the world's highest capacity communications satellite from the current owners, who have just declared bankruptcy. Their plan is to reconfigure it to supply Internet access to many of the world's poorest people.

Once the satellite is operational, they will then build and supply their own dirt cheap satellite modems to whoever wants one.

And once their bird is up and running, its ongoing operations and upkeep will be covered by allowing established telecom services to purchase and re-sell high speed bandwidth.

As outlandish and astonishing as the whole project sounds, those involved with or backing "A Human Right" include Deutsche Telekom and NASA.

Remember that thing your 3rd  Grade teacher always said when she handed out the UNICEF collection boxes, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."…?

Internet access could teach a lot of men how to fish -- or -- how to spend all day drunk in a boat. The point is they'd finally have some options and some choice, instead of what most of them have got now, which is nothing -- and not even any Lolcats to make having "nothing" easier to bear.

As of Midnight Saturday, "A Human Right" had raised $25,000 toward their goal. If you give them a hand by going here, that satellite could be owned by people who could make a huge difference in Millions of lives by Christmas.

And think about this…

If this can be done -- how much more could be accomplished by purchasing 2 or 3 satellites?

Or maybe just a little one parked over North America so all those telecoms who want to strangle net neutrality or throttle bandwidth or charge you through the nose to download a movie for your bedridden grandmother -- all those guys -- might not have a virtual monopoly of the delivery system anymore and thus have far less impact on your own freedoms -- or your own opportunity to fish.

Help not the few but the many this Christmas. And -- Enjoy Your Sunday.

Less Class

A year ago, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen collapsed amid allegations of falsified research and a growing sense that policies like the Kyoto Accord had more to do with economic and political agendas than actually combating Global Warming.

This after more private jets than could be accommodated by every airport in Denmark and more limos than could be supplied by all of Western Europe had left hefty carbon footprints ferrying the concerned to attend. 

There was also a lot of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments in Canada (mostly on the CBC) over Canada being awarded the "Fossil of the Year" trophy for its inaction on environmental issues.

Well, it's a year later and this time the conference is in Cancun. Good thing since despite being the "hottest year on record", most of Europe and North America is already in the deepest throes of winter.

I know, I know, the planet getting hotter is manifested by its getting colder or wetter or dryer or...

And just because the Blue Jays played their first ever game and the one to mark the opening of their 30th season on the same date in a snow storm I shouldn't get the impression that weather patterns aren't shifting so rapidly that half the species on the planet will be wiped out by next Thursday and the Jays 60th season will be played in "Waterworld".

For some reason, those in the business of climate change have always resorted to doomsday scenarios and ridicule to sell their message, implying or maybe outright convinced that the rest of us are just too dumb or self-involved to understand their arguments.

So maybe it's time to take a look at what actually goes on at these conferences, to see how those who talk the talk walk the walk.

The second video will also give you a very clear idea of just how much intellectual effort and reasonable thinking goes into the "Fossil of the Year" award -- which apparently we've got a good chance of scoring again this year.

I'm not saying anybody has to behave like a Monk or a Nobel Laureate here. But maybe if you want the world to change, you could look like you take what you're saying seriously and/or practice what you preach.

 

Class

The first season of the best show on television concluded last night.

If you live in Canada, you might want to ask Canadian networks once again why they are programming reunion episodes of series that concluded just last week or scheduling the "Yule Log" for national broadcast on Christmas day when there is stuff people might actually get excited about still available.

Better yet, just find an anonymizer that gets you around the Hulu geo-lock and watch "Terriers" there.

Canadian networks have repeatedly proven they don't care about their audiences or even buying the best foreign made product available. They're just American network rebroadcasters and imitators who'll soon be out of a job.

Word on various financial pages today is that Hulu is about to go International. And once that happens, Rogers better have a hockey team to pay the bills and Bell might actually have to cut their mobile customers a few deals to keep their own doors open.

Wait. Better option is to buy the series on iTunes. It's actually well worth the money and the people who make the show have families to feed and Ferraris to buy so they can make all of the major network execs who turned them down look as inconsequential and unintelligent as they apparently are.

Nobody knows if FX will renew "Terriers" for another season yet. But if quality and originality count for anything, somebody will find a way.

This was a classy new series in every imaginable category. Everything about it reflected the care and commitment that goes into making superb television. And that sort of class was restated in the letter the show's creators released to their fans just prior to the Finale.

Dear "Terriers" watchers,

On the eve of our season finale -- and, as far as we know, it is a season finale -- we wanted to thank you for tuning in and supporting the show and, most of all, for embracing Hank and Britt with such enthusiasm and devotion. 

We're very proud of "Terriers" and are grateful/gratified it found an audience as intelligent, discerning and handsome as you.  So, on behalf of all the actors and writers and directors and crew members and everyone who worked on the show, thanks.  And we hope to do it again next year.

 
Ted Griffin & Shawn Ryan & Tim Minear

P.S. If you think of it, you might watch tomorrow's episode LIVE if you can; it's called (for no particular reason) "Hail Mary" and we hope you enjoy it.

Also, if you happen to know a Nielsen family, this could be a great opportunity to reconnect by inviting yourself over to watch it at their place.

Super too would be if when you got home after, you Hulu'd the show.  Then gifted it via iTunes to everyone you love/can barely stand.  Just a thought.  It's what our mothers are doing.

As one of those watchers, Mr. Griffin, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Minear, I gotta say thanks to you as well. You restored my faith that good television didn't have to come with a multi-million dollar per episode price tag.

And if FX does throw a little extra your way next season, feel free to keep it. You've earned it because hardly anybody has noticed all the corners you had to cut -- because you cut them with talent and imagination and by understanding that great stories, great characters, great dialogue and tight close-ups hide pretty much everything you couldn't afford.

And to all my Canadian readers -- we're heading into Christmas party season. Take an opportunity to corner one of those network execs who frequently jets South to purchase programming and ask -- nay demand -- that they buy you something worthwhile next time.

If FX makes a little money, "Terriers" lives and watching TV becomes the pleasure it's supposed to be.

Of Wikileaks and A Serbian Film

READER ALERT!!!

"A Serbian Film" by Srdjan Spasojevic is a powerful and challenging motion picture I could probably write about without giving away any salient plot points. But it's one I can't write about without putting some very disturbing images into your head.

If you've got a low cringe factor or score high on the empathy scale, it might be a good idea to skip what follows.

The rest of you may still wish to proceed with caution…

One of my neighbors is a refugee from the Balkan wars of the 1990's. Which side he was on doesn't matter. It was an ugly conflict with shitty behavior from everyone involved. Maybe one group committed more atrocities than another. Maybe one group is more deserving of blame than another.

Wherever you reside on the scale of unspeakable deeds matters little to those who were tortured, raped and made to witness indescribable inhumanity. Just because you weren't as bad as the next guy doesn't really matter to your victims.

Whether my neighbor's side was more cruel or less doesn't change the scars he lives with. He just says it should never have been allowed to happen -- and must never be allowed to happen again.

But we all know it will.

Maybe next time it'll be in Iran or North Korea or someplace most of us have never heard of or can't find on a map. But we all know it will happen again.

And maybe next time what happens will be even more twisted and perverse.

Maybe that's the only way a war can get anybody's attention anymore and attract enough participants to make it worthwhile.

And coincidentally, those terms -- Twisted and Perverse -- are usually reserved for two specific genres of film, the horror movie and the porn movie. The same two genres which apparently have to keep getting even more of both to keep attracting an audience.

Gone are the days when teenagers could be spooked by a vampire or atomic mutant. From "Friday the 13th", "Halloween" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" onward, the bulk of horror films have exhibited a steady march from Scarlet Cinema to Splatter Movie to Torture Porn.

To be sure, there are gifted directors working in the genre who use the advances in CGI, latex construction and animatronics to probe the hidden recesses of our psyches. But many more just want to see a Rottweiler rip off some guy's nuts.

People who work in porn will tell you the same evolution is at work in their industry. Time was, the punters paid to see a good story mixed in with the sex scenes, sometimes there was even an element of romance. But now there's little time for the niceties and a lot more emphasis on pain, degradation and humiliation.

Therefore in both genres, if you want to break in, make your mark or maybe just turn a profit, you know your best shot is to top what the last guys got away with.

When I first heard about "A Serbian Film" it had been banned from some European horror festival because of scenes described as too shocking or depraved even for those who line up for festivals of that sort of stuff.

There were dark murmurings of scenes taken way over the line. A scene of a newborn child being raped. Another of a woman decapitated during a sex act, with the sex act continuing with her corpse.

Now…

Most people would hear about images like those and make a mental note to avoid "A Serbian Film" should it ever turn up at the local multiplex. Which it probably won't because those kind of scenes generally scare off distributors and theatre owners who don't want their names in the papers quite that badly.

And…

Even though I'm the kind of guy who understands horror and not only deeply regrets seeing "Hostel" but is still trying to erase the trailer for "The Human Centipede" from his memory banks, I have no time for torture porn and even less for real porn that includes pain and degradation.

So when I heard "A Serbian Film" was also pushing the boundaries of how much real sex you could fit into a mainstream movie, I figured it was definitely off my list.

And then my refugee neighbor brought over a DVD somebody had sent from his former homeland and said I really needed to see it.  

The plot of "A Serbian Film" is relatively straightforward. It's what is known in the trade as a "Rabbit Hole" story, in which our hero is dropped into a completely unfamiliar world where the normal rules of life and society do not apply.

Milos, a retired porn star now married with a young son, is struggling to get by in modern day Serbia.  A porn actress friend introduces him to Vukmir, a charismatic director who offers Milos complete financial security if he will make one more film.

But there is no script for this film. And the actor's contract stipulates that he must remain unaware of what's happening in the scenes he isn't in. He must simply turn up and roll with whatever happens on the day.

Comedian Bill Hicks used to have a routine where he and his high school buddies would call up the local porn theatre and ask the guy at the box office for the title of the movie that was showing. They'd have a giggle and then they'd ask, "What's it about?"

The height of absurdity, right? I mean everybody KNOWS what a porn film is about.

Or do they…?

Anyway, Milos goes along with the artistic integrity pitch he gets from his silver tongued director and is drawn into a nightmare of depravity and cruelty, suddenly caught in the grip of an unspeakable evil.

Unlike the bulk of torture porn and degradation porn, "A Serbian Film" is exquisitely shot and beautifully designed. The script is intelligent and finely crafted. The actors are remarkable and the direction is concise and bent on delivering much more than cheap thrills.

There is no explicit sex and many of the worst horrors are clearly fake. This is not a film that panders to fans of horror or porn, but it definitely is about exploitation.

The worst kind of exploitation imaginable. The kind entire nations get drawn into with frightening regularity.

Because ten minutes in you realize what you are really watching is a recreation of the Serbian experience of the Balkan wars as well as a chilling indictment of the malevolent sections of humanity who convince people to go to war and commit the ultimate perversities and depravities.

The horrific scenes described above and others that I found far more unsettling are clearly the atrocities of the Balkan conflict molded into horrific set pieces within the metaphor of a porn film gone horribly wrong.

This is a revelation of how those in a completely civilized society can be driven to acts of appalling inhumanity.

You quickly understand how easily people can be convinced that doing something evil is actually an act of courage or individual empowerment. And then you witness how easily you become a part of something you cannot ever justify but at the same time can never escape.

Milos struggles to maintain his sanity, to find some way of saving himself and his family as the sickness of those who now control him gets more warped by the minute.

The final few seconds of "A Serbian Film" literally took my breath away and leave the clear understanding that what happened in Serbia will keep happening because the corruption of those who would run our lives has no limit and never reaches a point of satiation.

This is not a film for anyone who believes they live in a country that has the nice politicians, the leaders who would never act in such a deranged manner.

Or maybe -- that's exactly who needs to see it most.

It was a revelation watching this movie within the context of the recent Wikileaks dump of secret diplomatic cables. Saudi princes who fund terrorists while urging Western nations to attack rival terrorist states. An Italian head of state with an unquenchable appetite for underage girls. American presidents demanding DNA samples and credit card pin numbers of foreign adversaries. Canadian leaders who feel handcuffed by their own court systems.

The entire Global ruling class game of playing one group off against another, of stirring up political, racial, ethnic and national rivalries in order to further personal peccadilloes is illustrated to perfection not only in those leaked documents but in an inspired film where all of those people are embodied in the character of a single deranged porn director; while the rest of us mere pawns become those who are used and raped and tortured at their whim and solely for their enjoyment.

And I have a feeling that clear association has a lot to do with why "A Serbian Film" has garnered the media reaction it has and will not get the mass exposure it deserves. This is a film version of Picasso's "Guernica" and just as deserving of the "Masterpiece" label.

Yes, it is very hard to watch. But coming to grips with being part of acts of genocide and war crimes and sheer mindless violence is likely just as hard. Better to do it now, then when you've become Post-war Germany, post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, post-tribal Rwanda or former-Yugoslavian Serbia.

How could anyone be driven to filling mass graves, systematic rape and institutionalized torture, if they had experienced equating the words designed to lure them down those paths with speeches from a cheesy porn director in a supposed horror movie?

"A Serbian Film" could never have been made in Canada nor anywhere else where the culture is controlled or financed by the state. It has a passion and power of message that would have been as decapitated or raped at birth in the same way as the unfortunate characters it features.

It isn't the gore and rough sex that somebody doesn't want you to see in this movie, it's the workings of the process of dehumanization that gets you there.

If there is anything the Wikileaks dump has taught us, it is that our leaders are far from the fine, compassionate and caring people they would like us to believe they are. And "A Serbian Film" shows us what can happen when they completely convince us they are other than what most of them have always been.

This is a must see film. Find an uncut copy any way that you can.

You may not enjoy the experience. But you will not regret it.

Lazy Sunday # 147: Define Sexy

During my teen years, my dad had a friend who'd drop by from time to time. He was funny and confident and handsome, apparently smart and quite good at what he did.

He also had a wife he complained about endlessly. She was difficult and didn't like to do any of the things he liked to do. She made his life miserable in all sorts of inventive ways.

She never accompanied him on any of his visits so I never met her and after a while I just figured he had his own Rodney Dangerfield routine going on, his way of blowing off steam or disguising his true affections or whatever.

A few years later, I came back home for Christmas and he and his wife dropped over for a drink. She was everything he had said she was. Really one of the most dislikeable people I'd ever met. I couldn't understand how they had ever gotten involved in the first place, let alone stayed together for so long.

After a few drinks and not knowing how to assuage my curiosity without committing some social faux pas, I asked what had made him ask her out for the first time. He gave me one of those safe, "needed a date for the Prom" kind of answers.

So I asked what made him ask her out the second time. He paused, swirled the ice cubes in his drink and answered quietly, as if I wasn't even in the room.

"She's got this thing she can do with her tongue."

What defines attractive -- what constitutes Sexy is unfathomably subjective. Even those who are nobody's idea of "Happily Ever After" turn out to be everything to somebody.

But when you work in movies and television, you frequently have to find somebody with traits or attributes that everybody will either find attractive or completely understand why others would. Some might call it being "hot" or "cool". I've always referred to them as having "it".

Back in my thespian days, I was asked to audition opposite some Playmate of the Year candidate. She was stunningly beautiful and the film didn't require much more than that from her. Our scene consisted of a couple of lines followed by my character launching into a complicated monologue.

We trooped in to a standard studio casting session with the director and a half dozen producer types sitting at a long table. There was some sociable chit-chat and then we began the scene. I had a line. She had a line. I had a line. She had a line. I launched into the big speech.

Halfway through, I glanced at the head table. The director was watching me. Everybody else was staring at Miss November, who wasn't doing a damn thing but being Miss November. The director and I locked eyes. He smiled and shrugged, "What're you gonna do?"

I could've been Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks all rolled together that afternoon and nobody would have noticed, let alone remembered.

This week, one of the websites I frequent tossed up a video of a young lady I had never heard of named Alizee. She's a French pop singer in her mid-20's, mostly unknown in North America but it seems quite popular elsewhere.

Most of her Youtube videos number views of 8 million or more.

It took me about 30 seconds watching the video below to realize that whatever was going on, she had a lot of "it".

Don't ask me to define what that means, I couldn't even if we were to spend hours studying the film frame by frame -- not an entirely unpleasant thought.

My French isn't great, but I think she's singing about being in a bubble bath. And while there are those who might become aroused at the thought of anybody from France actually taking a bath, I don't think that's the main attraction.

Yeah she's cute and the tune's catchy and the choreography might strike some as suggestive but it isn't any of those things either.

Maybe she was just a refreshing change after a week of writing about football.

But whatever "it" is, Alizee has cornered the market.

If you figure it out, let me know. Hit the replay button as often as you need to. Like I've been.

And -- Enjoy Your Sunday.

Respect Your Opponent

GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART SIX

"You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends." - Joseph Conrad

Although I've mostly talked about my Saskatchewan Roughriders this week, there is another team competing for the Grey Cup tomorrow night, a damn good one…

Led Anthony Calvillo, undeniably the best quarterback in the league and a brilliant head coach in Marc Trestman, this season's Montreal Alouettes feature explosive slot back Ben Cahoon, two-time Best CFL Lineman Scott Flory and an unparalleled offense killer in linebacker Chip Cox.

Any one of these guys could be a game changer. But they're only some of the 9 Alouettes in the starting line-up who have been selected to the 2010 CFL All Star team. This is a force to be reckoned with…

The way the world works these days, people are often dismissed out of hand as Left or Right, Hot or Not, worthy or un of consideration. We've become conditioned to judge based on our own ideologies, our biases and what is valued within our own realms of work and society.

Too often we end up thinking that the rest of the world operates (or ought to operate) the way the flowers who inhabit our own little hothouse do. We forget to give the Devil his due --  and inevitably he comes to collect -- upsetting all the beliefs we thought were immutable in the process.

There were no undefeated teams this CFL season. The football Gods did not relentlessly side with star players over less talented rivals. In this game of perfect timing and well-oiled machines, there were still opponents aplenty who bested those who didn't give them their full measure of respect.

Every single team in the league boasted players who were nameless before moments of spectacular athleticism, guys who suddenly had to be considered by next week's opposites, whose newfound respect changed the plays on the chalkboard, altered strategy and made the game even more interesting and unpredictable.

It's been that way for more than 100 years in Canadian football. There isn't a single team in the league who hasn't hoisted the Grey Cup, known dynasties or created stars out of players everybody else had given up on. Players who fans everywhere remember generations later.

It takes two great teams to play a championship game and those teams owe much of who they now are to the men they faced in the battles that got them to this final battle. Your enemies make you as much who you are as those who stand beside you. They deserve the same appreciation you accord your friends.

So let's close this week of football celebration with a tribute to all the teams who built the Grey Cup into the special Canadian tradition it has become.

Have a great Grey Cup. May the best team win. And may the one that loses earn your undying respect.

Rider Fans: There's an APP for that. But no cure.

GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART FIVE

When you become a fan of the Saskatchewan Roughriders you become a fan for life. Win or lose, come what may in your own life, you stick with them.

Nothing they or you will ever do breaks the bond of loyalty and affection. Like the place they come from, every heartbreak is immediately healed by the knowledge that next year, next time, things will turn out better.

Last year, in the dying seconds of one of the greatest Grey Cups ever played, on what should have been the final play, the Riders snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by having too many men on the field.

Their legendary secret weapon, "the 13th man", the term that has always been used to describe the passionate power of their fans was suddenly made flesh in Calgary's McMahon Stadium and the coveted Cup was lost.

In other places there would have been cries for retribution and the portioning out of blame. Not in Saskatchewan.

Nobody named the player who screwed up. And nobody cared. Because there was always next year.

This year.

The year everything will be made right.

And if it isn't…

There is next year and the year after that. The sunrise in Saskatchewan comes at the end of a long fuse. Light is in the sky for hours before any ball of fire actually appears. But it always gets there eventually.

You can count on it.

Rumor has it that the team has concocted a secret ritual to make sure that they are never again penalized for having too many men on the field. They will carry a single 12 pack of Pilsner into each huddle. Any player leaving the huddle without a beer in his hand then knows he must immediately get off the field.

See, we're already able to laugh at the whole thing. "Team Redeem"? Please. The boys have nothing to apologize for. What's past is past. We're looking to the future.

And the Saskatchewan Roughriders stepped into a different form of the future before anybody else this season by becoming the first CFL team to develop their own iPhone App, available for free from the iTunes store.

It was another way to reward fans for their loyalty and dedication, by making everything Roughrider as close as their finger tips.

Turn on your mobile device, tap the screen a couple of times, you've got the roster, injury reports, the weather at game time, heck you can even access the team's twitter feed.

Information is updated almost instantly on game day. You can find out who was in on the last sack and link to photos, video and audio. It's like having the broadcast booth color commentator in your pocket or the ultimate arbitrator for bar bets.

 

When I first moved from Saskatchewan to Toronto, the allegiance the Riders had fostered in me for the CFL made me feel obligated to go see a Toronto Argonaut game. The stadium was twice the size of the Regina's Taylor Field. The football was just as exciting.

But at one point, the fans began to Boo the home team. I was shocked. The thought that any fan could do that to his own astonished me.

Years later, I had the good fortune to cadge a seat for a Toronto Maple Leafs game in the row behind the Air Canada Centre's legendary Platinum seats which only the rich and connected who run the city can afford. The gentleman in front of me spent the entire game talking to the players on the ice (who could easily hear him from that distance) as if they were nine year olds still learning the game.

His voice dripped with arrogance and condescension and petulant dissatisfaction. It's little wonder that an atmosphere like that has never spawned a champion.

In Saskatchewan, the fans expect that the guys on the field know what they're doing and they roll with the occasional (or sometimes frequent) brain fart. They know they're there because of the players and the players are what they are because of them.

Feel free to download the Saskatchewan App and become a Rider fan this weekend. Just understand it's going to become a lifetime commitment and there's no going back.

But you'll also be part of something unique in sport and special in life. And that's a good thing.

HALFTIME

GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART FOUR

Glitchy day at World Headquarters. My apologies to those who barely got started on what was supposed to be today's installment before it evaporated. Maintenance got underway and then I realized it's probably better to take the Halftime break and re-group.

Something my team probably won't have to do on Sunday, but as of today the Vegas Line has them at 4 point favorites. What's up with that? We're always the underdogs, the Cinderella team, the little engines that could!!!

Is this some nefarious plan to jinx us?

Nevermind. Being from God's country, there's already a direct line from the locker room to the Man upstairs.

Herewith "The Rider Prayer":

Our quarterback,who art in Edmonton..
Darian be thy name..
Thy game be done,
Thy will be WON in Commonwealth as it was in Mosiac ...
Give us this day the Grey Cup
and forget about Calgary's whiners, As we forgive all others who can't measure up.
Lead us not into interception and deliver us from Calvillo.
For thine are the Riders with Power and Glory.
Forever and ever
Amen.

Oh…and forgive us our 13th man
as we forgive those who couldn't count last year.

(H/T Kate at SDA and Noel)

And for those who still don't understand the mentality of the Roughrider fan, a beautiful piece by the Globe & Mail's Stephen Brunt can be found here.

Back tomorrow for the second half.

(And don't forget that the real Grey Cup halftime show will feature the following)

There Are No Sideshows

GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART THREE

I believe it was the great Hollywood writer/director Billy Wilder who once said of audiences, "Individually, they're idiots. Collectively, they're a genius.". Truer words may have never been spoke -- and they apply to sports fans as much as those who spend their time watching movies and television.

Toronto sports emporium "The Skydome" sports a sculpture that has always bothered me. It depicts a bunch of fans heckling, cat-calling and blowing raspberries, implying that those who inhabit and paid for the place are basically boorish, brain-dead boneheads.

Likewise, sometime just before Sunday night's Grey Cup kickoff, some sportscaster will inevitably utter words to the effect that all the unimportant stuff is over and now it's time to play football.

But sideshows didn't get that moniker because they were less important than what happened under the Big Top.

They were simply set up next to or be"side" it. More often than not the money that came in from those gawking at the freaks and the menagerie subsidized the other acts or even made them possible in the first place.

From childhood we've all been aware that the lion tamer might be awesome, but there's also cotton candy and a guy who's the missing link.

Never underestimate what the audience really wants.

There was a time when the Grey Cup was just a football game -- and nobody cared.

Then, in 1948, a bunch of Calgary Stampeder fans showed up in staid, old "Toronto the Good" for the big game, bringing chuckwagons and square dancing. They partied in the streets til all hours, served pancake breakfasts to complete strangers and rode their horses through hotel lobbies and up the elevators.

From that day on, the game became the dessert after a week long party with every dish the Canadian fun buffet can offer.

Fans and fan festivities have turned a mere sporting event into a cultural phenomenon.

A few days ago, I perused the full page event schedule of Edmonton's "Hot to Huddle" Grey Cup Week. It included everything from black tie awards and gala dinners and CFL Hall of Fame exhibits to "Bif Naked" and "Trooper" performing at the outdoor tailgate party.

Since it's Edmonton, there's also an "indoor" tailgate party -- as well as a pre-tailgate party, an after party and let's not forget the cheerleader extravaganza.

Each CFL team also hosts its own shindig that's open to all comers. Most are free, although a few charge $10 - $20 at the door to cover their damage deposits.

And to a great extent, the entertainment presented reflects the team culture. For example, the Edmonton Eskimos, this season's worst club indicates "live entertainment planned" -- plans many fans probably hoped might reach fruition during the season.

Traditional chokers, the Calgary Stampeders, are offering "cover bands" reflecting how their real stars never show up.

Still trying to raise enough money for a new stadium, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are handing out promotional Manitoba lapel pins. Now there's a real conversation starter for the office Christmas party.

Also hoping to hold onto their fan base until their new home is completed, the BC Lions are promising a "free gift" to anyone who shows up. Anyone. Rumor has it that coach Wally Buono is finally giving away his offensive line. 

The Eastern Champion Montreal Alouettes already know how to keep their fans happy, so they're promising "a party with a Montreal flavor hosted by Alouette cheerleaders". Expect pole dancing and meeting somebody named Chantelle.

The Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger Cats are both featuring a band called "Two for the Show" implying that their perennial talent searches are still turning up the same guys, but at least the ones they trade back and forth all season don't have to find new apartments.

Oh yeah, and Toronto is the only team that apparently needed a corporate sponsor to cover their tab. While every other city found a team related title for their celebration, the Argo party is called the "Wiser's Double Blue Bash".

But the party that truly caught my eye was the one the Saskatchewan Roughriders are hosting entitled "Riderville", because it features Kenny Shields. I read that name and wondered out loud, "My God, how is he even still alive!"

During my teenage Rock 'n Roll days, Kenny was the singer for a band out of Saskatoon called "The Witness", which became "Kenny Shields and Witness" and after several combinations and permutations plus a move to Winnipeg evolved into a rockin' little outfit known as "Streetheart" -- maybe one of Canada's greatest and certainly one of its most under-appreciated bands.

They had hits with "Action", "Look at Me" and "What Kind of Love is This" as well as releasing a version of "Under My Thumb" which was so good the Rolling Stones altered their own arrangement for live performances to replicate the one birthed on the Canadian prairies.

"Streetheart" songs also contain some of the best lyrics ever written by a Canadian band. Take "Snow White", a song about teenage lust:

"School uniform looks so charming,
But underneath, you're quite alarming.

Snow White, the teacher's pet,
Straight "A"'s ain't all she gets."

or the terrific and insightful "Hollywood":

"Hollywood why you lookin' at me?

I don't wanna be part of your mystery."

When I knew Kenny, he was a skinny 16 year old kid with one of the most amazing rock 'n roll voices I'd ever heard. The lead singers in other local bands were either good or bad. But Kenny opened his mouth and you heard what you heard on the radio.

Back then, we used to kid him because he gushed his S's. He didn't slur them. He just turned every "S" into a "Shhh" as in, "I'm from Shhhashhhkatoon, Shhhashhcatchewan".

We never knew if it was unconscious or a practiced affectation but it worked. Because when Kenny did his between song patter, you could see all the girls just melt. And while the music was important, that segment of our audience was really the whole point of most of us being there.

I also didn't know anybody who worked or partied harder. Kenny led the kind of life that Keith Richards wishes he could write about.

And yet, despite multiple bypass surgery and being well into his 60's and who knows what all else, Kenny's still with us. And that voice is as strong and as pure as it ever was.

What follows is something from a recent "Streetheart" reunion show. If you're in Edmonton tomorrow through Saturday you can hear the same thing live.

And that's part of what makes Grey Cup week so special. Randy Bachman and Fred Turner may be headlining the halftime show. Tom Cochrane, Wide Mouth Mason and Andrew Cole have sewn up the big beer tent gigs. But there's still plenty of room for Kenny Shields and one of rock's greatest voices.

Give an audience what they want. Make them part of the fun. And they'll even turn up for a football game nobody thought mattered. For without the audience, there ain't no show, mainstage or sidewise.

That's something guys like Kenny Shields never forget.

Dinner in Three Downs

GREY CUP WEEK AT THE LEGION: PART TWO

I feed my dog what's called a BARF diet. That doesn't mean I'm hoping to get her on the next Twitter feed to become a CBS series -- "$#*! My Dog $#*!s".

It stands for Biological Appropriate Raw Food. It's what she'd eat if she didn't have a human buying her kibble and cans of dog food. And that means eating what she was designed to consume.

Similarly there is Food Appropriate for a Grey Cup Party.

Munchies for football games used to mean dumping a big bag of chips in a bowl, peeling the top off a container of onion dip, tossing burgers on the grill or brewing up a pot of chili. And there's nothing wrong with any of that good stuff.

But the Grey Cup is not only the always exciting football game the Superbowl wishes it could be; it's a game that crowns champions, so you might want to think about stepping up the menu a little.

Now, I'm what's known in polite company as a "damn good cook", so take my word for what follows…

There's a butcher near my home who combines and packages the BARF my dog eats. And coincidentally, he's one of a large and growing number of butchers who can also supply the perfect main course for your Grey Cup Party. It's known as Turducken.

Okay, any dish which includes "Turd" and "Uck" in its name may not sound appetizing. But I guarantee that once you have savored Turducken, you will not only have achieved gourmet Nirvana but nobody will ever turn down an invitation to one of your Grey Cup parties again.

Turducken is a boneless chicken coated in dressing and inserted into a boneless duck coated in a different dressing before both are then inserted into a boneless Turkey coated in its own special dressing.

It's incredibly simple to cook. But unless you're Julia Child or you just want to have all of your fingers for game day, I'd recommend leaving the prep to a professional.

Which means, because of the work involved, you'll need to order one from a butcher by tomorrow to ensure it's on hand for your guests. Market prices prevail, but on average 20-25 pounds of meat and the trimmings will set you back about $100. And. Well. Worth. Every. Dollar.

If that breaks the bank, ask you guests to chip in a few bucks for something special. They'll think it's Pizza or a half-time stripper. But they won't be disappointed when they see what you really got for them.

25 pounds will feed about 30 people so scale back or expand accordingly.

Once you've collected your bird(s) you can go all Redneck Christmas and deep fry it in the backyard.

But the traditional oven at 350 and 20 minutes a pound will ensure you also have your eyebrows come kick-off. Allow another hour to cool before serving. So time it to come out of the oven just before the game starts for service during the half-time show.

For those who want to start from scratch or get creative, the best Turducken recipe I know can be found here.

Another feature of Turducken is you don't have to buy any special beverages to augment the dish. The multiple flavors mean it goes with anything, the twelve year old scotch you've been hoarding for the big day or the six pack of light beer one of your buddies brought.

And if your butcher has never heard of Turducken, educate him with the clip below and then get on with a Grey Cup party that will be as memorable as the Roughrider win -- or make you still feel satisfied if -- you know -- the other guys -- happen to -- well…