2013 Turkeys of the Year — Looking Back at the Best of the Worst

We all say things we immediately regret; usually it's garbage that has slipped through our mental filter in a moment of emotional weakness. But it's the rare person who's afforded the luxury of watching an offensive remark literally crystallize letter by letter before his eyes. We wonder if there was any form of risk analysis, some thinking along the lines of, "Okay, this is sure to be a hit with wife-beaters — who are known the world over for being staunch vegetarians — but could this somehow backfire and negatively affect our bottom line?"

After suffering the backlash of those wet blankets who don't unleash a hearty guffaw every time a woman dons sunglasses to hide blackened eyes, the restaurant fought back, this time posting "Seriously, focus your energy on equal rights." Sadly, management capitulated to the PC-police and followed that up a few days later with an actual apology.

In an entirely unrelated event, the restaurant closed for business two months later.

Daniel Kramer

TURKEY OF THE YEAR I do not like Obamacare, Ted I am.

Aaron M. Sprecher

Sports Turkey of the Year Gary Kubiak

Details

Find out more about our Turkeys of the Year:

Ted Cruz: Sen. Ted Cruz Will Stop Being Canadian, ASAP
Gary Kubiak: Finally, Gary Kubiak Is Right. It's on Him.
Armed Citizens Project: Purportedly Nonpartisan Houston Nonprofit Seeks to Arm Neighborhoods, Observe Effects
Roots Bistro: Roots Bistro Makes Tasteless Domestic Violence Joke on Marquee to Sell Beer
Kanye West: The Kanye/Rothko Chapel "New Slaves" Fiasco
Hunter Todd: W[t]F? WorldFest Founder/CEO Hunter Todd Searches Fest Attendee's Bag "Because She Is a Muslim."

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• Hunting and Fishing

EDUCATION

TURKEY OF THE YEAR:

Dave Wilson, Houston
Community College Trustee-elect

This jive turkey triggered a domino effect of dickery so jaw-droppingly insane that we still aren't convinced it's not all a giant piece of performance art.

Wilson, a hate-spewing, homophobic candidate for Houston Community College trustee — who happens to be white — insinuated in campaign literature to a predominantly black voting base that he was African-American. He accomplished this masterful feat of duplicity by — as KHOU reported — ripping photos of black people from Web sites and slapping them on mailers, underscoring the purloined pics with slogans like "Vote for Our Friend and Neighbor." One especially misleading flyer carried an endorsement by "Ron Wilson," a name shared by both a black former state representative and Wilson's cousin in Iowa. So, see, it's not really a lie.

Ever the classy gent, Wilson went out of his way to point out that two candidates running in another district were gay and said that, as childless gay dudes, they "have no concept of the cost of raising a family." (When he ran for mayor in 2011, his Web site stated, "Dave Wilson believes that one should choose a candidate based on their capability, not on their sexual preference.")

Incredibly, most voters in his district fell for Wilson's ruse, ousting an actual, real-life black person for a hate-spewing white guy.

The Houston Chronicle denounced Wilson's actions in an editorial, opining that "Wilson's gleeful misrepresentation of himself and his positions was a pathetic low." Meanwhile, a columnist for the paper, Lisa Falkenberg, decided to approach Wilson with cautious optimism, offering up this mind-melting assessment: "Trickery aside, there's something honest about him."

However, we did agree with Falkenberg's concern over how voters can be so easily duped. Did supporters of fake-black-HCC-trustee-candidate Wilson not know that he was also real-white-bigoted-mayoral-candidate Wilson, or did they not care?

This isn't the first time Wilson has set out to hoodwink voters. In 2002, after a political action committee called the Conservative Republicans of Harris County mailed its list of recommended run-off candidates to registered Republicans, Wilson created a bizarro-world entity called the Conservative Republicans in Harris County. He then sent nearly identical slate cards to the same voters, recommending the candidates the "real" Conservative Republicans did not endorse.

That would be akin to us saying that Dave Wilson is an outspoken African-American homosexual who was among seven same-sex couples who were plaintiffs in a landmark marriage equality case. It's technically a true statement. Dave Wilson is a proud, married gay man, has served on the board of gay rights groups and is an influential voice in the black queer community. (It's just that it's not the same Dave Wilson; the Dave Wilson we're talking about lives in Boston and was part of a Massachussetts gay rights group called MassEquality.)

Wait — did saying, "Dave Wilson is gay" make you think of the other Dave Wilson? Oops. But hey, nothing we wrote about that was a lie.

ENTERTAINMENT

TURKEY OF THE YEAR:

Kanye West,
Kardashian boyfriend

To promote the release of his album Yeezus, Kanye launched a series of public screenings of a video for a track called "New Slaves" — it was to be projected on 66 landmark buildings around the world. The Houston venues were to be the central Houston library, the George Bush monument on Buffalo Bayou and, for some reason, Rothko Chapel.

Unfortunately, the fates were not on the fans' side, as a combination of technical difficulties and police intervention nixed all three screenings.

The Rothko's executive director subsequently issued a statement saying that chapel representatives "had no prior knowledge of Mr. Kanye West's event and had not authorized the gathering." She explained that the meditative space "does not function as a public venue for outside organizations or individuals to use without permission."

This was made abundantly clear to the eager folks who showed up for a much-needed Kanye fix that night, only to watch three HPD cars roll onto the grass with their lights flashing. Officers told Yeezus's disciples to move along unless they wanted to be busted for trespassing.

It was a tremendous letdown, and something that could have been avoided had he hired people who actually knew what they were doing. It's almost as if Kanye didn't really care about his Houston fans as much as he did about creating buzz — but that couldn't possibly be. Could it?