02/25/2010: "Some more Top Bets (Week of Feb 19)"

Hi All,

Here's another batch. It's too bad I can't post them with their illustrations; our graphic designer lays these all out really nice on the last page of each issue, with a bunch of correspondingly goofy pics.

Oh, and you all should keep an eye out for Much Music's Video On Trial, where my brother Graham is currently raking cheesy videos over the coals. Check your local listings, fo shizzle.

All best, Craig.

Top Ten Bets 19 - 21

1. FREDERICTON. I threw one of those 'Murder Mystery' parties, once. But I gave it an authentic feel. What I did was, I went to the local undertaker and borrowed a corpse. Now the book on mortuary attendants is that they're pretty hidebound and humourless - nothing could be further from the truth! They'll loan you a corpse for a laugh, sure, so long as it's returned in shopworthy condition. So I cock a tophat at a jaunty angle atop the corpse's head and stash it under a table, with just a little bit of a shoe poking out underneath the tablecloth. Well, the party's in full gear when this flighty old bird notices that shoe peeking out, she lifts the tablecloth with a sly little smile on her face ... then all the colour drains out of her cheeks and she's shrieking to shame a banshee. I hollered: "The mystery begins NOW!" but my voice couldn't be heard above the pandemonium that broke out. Some old gaffer fainted headfirst in the punchbowl and nearly drowned. They revoked my party planning license after that one. The 4th Annual Murder Mystery Theatre presents: 'Sing it To Death.' Feb 20 at the Fredericton Delta. $60. (506) 453-4400.

2. SAINT JOHN. Me and my neuropathologist Shifty Tubman went on a winery tour. We usually prefer to drink our liquor out of paper bags, but hell, why not class things up for once? We roll in to the winery and get shown around by some fellow with a pencil-thin mustache. He's going on about varietals and the angel's share and, not to be insincere, it was all about as interesting as chalk dust. Shifty had a flask of rocket fuel in his sock and I had a tubesock full of metal-flake spray paint - tangerine dream! - so Shifty's nipping at the flask and I'm taking deep invigorating breaths and next I know we're on a tractor, Shifty’s bellowing behind the wheel and we're racing hellbent-for-leather through the grape fields, the tour guide's screaming bloody blue murder and there's a pitchfork stuck in my leg! We learned a lot about wine that afternoon, and a lot else about life besides. Saint John Wine Fair, Feb 20. 7:30 - 9:30pm. Saint John Trade & Convention Centre, 1 Market Sq. (506) 674-6195

3. SAINT JOHN. Ever seen 'The Tempest'? Not for nothing, but it is one harrowing experience. It starts when the hero falls out of a plane with a life raft, which he inflates as he falls to land on a snow-covered hill, slip-sliding on down until he meets an odd little elf named Short Round; they have some twisted adventures involving monkey brains and a creepy bald priest who can tear your heart right out of your chest ... wait, wait, my editor's telling me that's 'The Temple of Doom.' I don't know anything about 'The Tempest.' Sounds like the work of a third-rate hack, you ask me. The Rothesay-Netherwood seniors present The Tempest. Feb 20, 7:30 - 9:30pm. Rothesay-Netherwood School, Rothesay. (506) 847-8224

4. MONCTON. Spring is the time of year when a young man's fancy turns to love. But it was bitterest winter when I proposed to the ever-ripe apple of my eye, Handsome Maggie. She had a laugh to warm the cockles of your heart and a smile that could melt it straight through ... which ended up being a real problem, seeing as I had a bum ticker; after seven or eight angioplasties my sawbones, Dr. Corky Tompkins, told me I really ought to lay off Maggie altogether. But my heart still palpitates when I think of her - which is why I bought a defibrillator at the Shop N Save. Gala Expo, the Wedding and Prom Showcase. Feb 21 at the Moncton Coliseum. $13. 10am - 5pm. 866-386-3889.

5. MONCTON. Now sure, my gambling excesses have been well documented. Do I need to rehash the time I lost a bundle on a greyhound named ‘Sassafras Kiss’ at a racetrack in Tupelo, Mississippi? Still, I’m always looking out for the main chance and sniffing the wind for an easy score. I’m riding a streak of bad luck, is all. My friend Rusty Culligan, a professional witch hunter, he says: “Hey, you been riding that streak since the day you first sucked wind.” That got my bristles up. I bet him my luck would soon turn and we shook on it - Rusty could use a leg up, seeing as witch hunting doesn’t bring in the bucks it used to. The next day I step out my front door smack into a bear trap someone left lying about. Boy, didn’t that sting! I rubbed some dirt on it and was okay for a few weeks but then my leg went green and began to smell funny; Corky Tompkins tells me it’s sepsis and it’s looking like I might lose the danged thing. Guess I owe ole Rusty a birch beer! Texas Hold Em Poker at Mooser’s Pub. Feb 20, starting at 8. 760 Rue Champlain. (506) 857-3738

6. FREDERICTON. One day, oh, ten maybe 20 years ago, I was a custodian at a school for wayward nuns. After the school day was through me and my fellow custodians used to ride the floor polisher. We’d fire up that big ole hoss and straddle the handles and hold on for dear life. This one day Pontoon Billy - he thought we called him Pontoon on account of the size-16 gunboats he wore, but really we called him so seeing as his head was well-suited for water landings - well, that floor polisher bucked Pontoon off, then ran over his head for good measure and killed him dead. The head nun was fit to be tied when she found out; when we tried to play it off as tomfoolery, she said: “Don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining!” Next we claimed the floor polisher was possessed by evil spirits - which it was, coincidentally - and she ordered it be ceremonially burnt in the school dumpster. All of which is to say: there’s not a damn thing funny about being a janitor. Come see the hilarious hinjinx of Lucien and Jimmy the Janitor. Feb 20 at the Playhouse. $37. Starts at 8.

7. MONCTON. I know a thing or two about music. Who do you think cranked the gramophone while Elma Snodgrass danced the Charleston atop a flagpole at the 1922 Chicago World’s Fair? So when I heard about the Red Bull Thre3 Style competition, a hunt for Canada’s best DJ, I limbered up my gramophone-cranking arm. I turn up at the bar and it’s nothing but a phantasmagoria of tattooed flesh and multi-colored hair. I put a record on the turntable and start cranking away. The little wretches start booing! “This is the peerless troubadour Artie Shaw!” I holler at the ingrates. “With Dick ‘Fleet Fingers’ Todd on clarinet!” They’re hissing and throwing orange peels. Some gal with a ring poked through her nose says: “Go sink back into a tar pit, you ridiculous old dinosaur.” Lord love a duck! Afterwards me and the bartender smoked a fattie (for my glaucoma) out by the dumpster and I felt a little better. Red Bull The3 Style at Oxygen. Feb. 20, at 9pm. Free.

8. SAINT JOHN. Kennebecasis Annual Ducks Unlimited Dinner and Auction. You should consider attending this, I guess, although to be brutally honest the idea of an unlimited number of ducks is not something I can fully get behind. Think of all the duck turds, for starters. Who wants an unlimited number of any creature? Toads Unlimited. Rattlesnakes Unlimited. Hell, even Puppies Unlimited is a chilling thought. Has the Star Trek episode ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’ taught us nothing at all? Island View Lions Club. $40/person or $60/couple. 506-849-2689.

9. FREDERICTON. My close associate Samoan Pete, an itinerant orthodontist from Humbolt Saskatchewan, asked me to burn down his dental practice for the insurance money. “Alright, Pete,” I said, “I’ll do this filthy bit of business for you - for a crate of orange sody.” And so a deal was struck. Next night I donned my skulking clothes, filled a few Snapple bottles with turpentine and stuck a rag down their necks. Damn fool me, I was smoking my corncob pipe to steady my jangled nerves; an ember touched one a them rags and next I’ve got a flaming bottle in my hands, which naturally I drop, then flames are licking up like a hatchway to hell itself had opened under my feet. Ye gods, I thought, What fresh hell is this? What I wouldn’t have done for a cooling balm. FestivalL’Hiver. Gigantic ice slides, a ‘SnowMazing’ labyrinth, and snowsculptures. Feb 20 & 21. Sat 10 to 9pm; Sun 10 to 5pm. 819 Royal Road.

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