Turkeys of the Year 2011

We realize you have arms, cavalry and even helicopters, but our understanding is the helicopters are chiefly used to give City Hall employees exciting tours of the city. They will be no match for our sophisticated heat-seeking missiles and nuclear weapons.

The indignities heaped upon our great people began last year, when HPD officers chased a Chinese diplomat into the consulate in Montrose (Which, by the way, is written in Mandarin by four characters meaning "Was Hip, Now Townhomes") and injuring him.

AP Photo/David J. Phillip

Rick Perry: There could be no other.

Marco Torres

Even on his way out, Drayton McLane found one last way to screw Astro fans.

Details

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Blog posts:
• Turkeys Of The Year: The Invasion Begins
• Turkeys Of The Year: A History, In Chart Form

Previous Turkeys:
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003

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Your Mayor Parker wrote an open letter saying, "We cherish our international residents," so we took no action.

Our forbearance was "rewarded" with an attempt by HPD to assassinate a highly trained team of Chinese law-enforcement officers.

These officers came to your city in the spirit of peace and cooperation, even pretending that your inept American agency could teach them something.

Perhaps they were naive, but, suspecting nothing, they accepted your invitation to sit in one of your HPD cars as you demonstrated how one should drive in a high-speed chase.

Only by luck did they survive the ensuing "accident" with another HPD cruiser.

You have been warned, Houston Police Department. Your pitiful attempts to foment war, which we can only assume are part of some nefarious plot to have Texas secede from the U.S. by defeating a rising superpower, are doomed to failure. You will find we are not Santa Anna, and will not be sleeping with some Mexican whore while you attack.

Signed,
China

P.S. Our sources have informed us of yet another incident, where an HPD officer tossed tear gas into a competitor's tent during some sort of apparently religious ceremony called the "Bar-B-Q Cook-Off" at the annual "Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo," which we assume is some sort of mass gathering to worship large belt buckles.

There is speculation here in Beijing that the tear-gassed competitor was a Mongolian Barbecue team. For now we are choosing to disbelieve that, but investigation continues.
_____________________

Turkey Music Impresario:
Mike Kelley

From savior to pariah in less than a year: Promoter Mike Kelley is the Rick Perry of the local music scene.

When legendary Montrose favorite Numbers looked to be in trouble, Kelley and his OnStage Events stepped in, to general hosannas. They replaced the club's aging sound system and brought in some acts that drew big crowds.

Things then went south.

Our Rocks Off music blog had been among those applauding Kelley, but by last month it was already time to do a postmortem:

Kelley and the club seemed to be on the rise, but just as soon as it started, the good news coming out of OnStage slowed to a drip, then a full stop, and rumors about bookings at Numbers began to swirl.

"Mike Kelley has left a trail of failed shows and broken contracts with acts and instead of helping Houston has created more issues for this already struggling city," said a patron of Numbers who wished to remain anonymous. "A lot of people did not realize it was not Numbers fault as to what happened. The club was just the host venue for Mike Kelley and Onstage, not the actual booking agent or promoter."

How bad did things get? Kelley had to cancel shows by Flock of Seagulls and Three Six Mafia.

That's not something you want on your résumé. But the news at least did inform us all that Flock of Seagulls and Three Six Mafia were still available for work, in case anyone was doing any wedding planning or bah mitzvah organizing.

Kelley has gotten out of the music business, and Numbers survives. Luckily.
_____________________

Turkey Apologists:
State Rep Larry Taylor & HISD Trustee Manuel Rodriguez

As is typical in Texas politics, there were some apologies delivered this year for inartful remarks.

And as is typical in Texas politics, the apologies were as inartful as the original offending statements.

Our Turkey Apologists award is shared by two upstanding Texas pols, one from each party, who both managed to exhibit stunning tone-deafness not only in what they did to create the need for an apology — after all, anyone can accidentally make some bigoted remarks, right? Right? — but also in the apology itself, which really takes some doing.

First, Taylor. The co-chair of an important legislative committee on windstorm insurance, he spoke authoritatively to insurers on how they should deal with customers.

"Your job is to pay claims," he said. "Don't nitpick. Don't try to Jew 'em down."

Displaying the nimble political instincts that have made him the pride of League City, Taylor quickly added "That's probably a bad term." (We assume he wasn't referring to possibly disparaging people who pick nits.)

The Colbert Report devoted an entire segment to how Taylor's brain operated in that one brief, shining moment, and as we noted at the time, that's not a good thing.

Taylor issued an apology, saying, "I inadvertently used a phrase that many people find offensive."

Which invariably leads to the conclusion, of course, that Larry Taylor thinks a sizable part of the population does not find the phrase offensive. Come on, Larry, you couldn't even bring yourself to say most people?