Hawksley Workman: Canadian “Striptease”; ‘(Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves’ (2001)
Thomas Edison was still dicking with his wire while a couple of Canadians were busy inventing the lightbulb.
On July 24, 1874, Henry (or James, but probably Henry) Woodward filed for a patent on “The Woodward and Evan’s Light” — Mathew Evan was Woodward’s business partner and a bar owner… which makes a lot of sense considering they were Canadian.
In 1875 Edison purchased half of the patent, then in 1879 bought the rest of the patent and the prototypes from Woodward and several Canadian investors. Over the next five years Edison and a Brit named Joseph Swan worked together and fiddled with their filaments until they found one which could last over 1200 hours.
But it wasn’t until 1910, four years after the General Electric Company invented the long-lasting tungsten filament, that a GE employee named William Coolidge discovered a means of making low-cost tungsten filaments which allowed lightbulbs to become widely used.
James v. Henry: while researching this piece (and I use “research” fairly loosely) I encountered references to both James and Henry as first names to Mr. Woodward. Sometimes both names were found in the same article, sometimes even in the same paragraph. Except for his work on the light bulb, and the original patent letter, I can find very little information on Mr. Woodward. If there’s more information out there — other than what’s available on the immediate web, please feel free to leave a note.
The First Five News Stories On CBC, 10pm 02/02/07:
01) Climate Change Report: The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change released their report today. Apparently nothing good will ever happen ever again. Rising sea levels, environmental refugees, the Arctic is melting… and apparently it’s all the fault of Canada’s Conservative government. Canada was one of the original brokers of The Kyoto Accord. Then, after signing, our Liberal Party of Canada did what every other government did: they ignored it for fifteen years. Since signing Kyoto, Canada’s carbon emissions went up aboot twice as fast as the Americans, who didn’t sign on. Now, with the Liberals dethroned, there seems to be an expectation among the more left in Canada, that the Conservatives must meet the Kyoto protocols which, at this point, would pretty much mean shutting Canada off for sixteen hours a day and all day on Thursday.
02) Floridian Storms: Tornadoes and severe storms tore across Florida from Tampa Bay to cape Canaveral leaving nineteen people dead and a lot of homes torn apart. This kind of story always gets mentioned in Canadian news, any kind of weather, traffic or event causing deaths in the United States gets a slot in Canadian newscasts. Outside of general interest, there are a lot of Americans living and working here. Tonight, however, the reporter tied it to the Climate Change story. “Living in Florida is always a gamble and people have again paid with their lives” — Neil MacDonald, CBC’s most pessimistic reporter.
03) Highway 401 Accident Cleanup: There was a fairly dramatic accident on Canada’s busiest highway yesterday, just north of Toronto. The highway basically connects Quebec City to Windsor to Detroit. In terms of dollars moved and industry relliance it’s one of the busiest highways in the world. Two people were killed and 100 trucks were lined up overnight as the highway had to be resurfaced.
04) Gaza Battles: The ongoing power struggle between Fatah and Hamas “ripped apart over factional lines” leaving seventeen dead and 254 injured. This was during a ceasefire. Canada’s never really had much of a role to play in Palestinian politics. Until recently we did supply a significant amount of cash to the Palestinian Authority/Government, but most of that has been cut off since Hamas was elected. Canada’s official position, if anyone’s really interested, is a ‘two-state’ solution. If you want to see how Canada’s (and America’s and Australia’s) voting record on the sbuject: [here].
05) Soccer Riots In Italy: A week after a man was killed in a soccer riot, a police officer was killed in another riot after an explosive device blew up in his face. All of the weekends games have been cancelled. That’ll show them. Remember a few years ago when a drunk, shirtless father and son jumped onto the field and attacked an umpire at an MLB baseball game? I think it was in Boston. Then there was the 2004 “riot” between the NBA Pacers and Pistons that looked like a bunch of classic science nerds flailing away at each other. Then there was a fan at an NHL game who broke through a barrier and fell into the penalty box with Toronto Maple Leaf cement-head Tie Domi. Those are normal. Even as unique incidents which will never happen ever again, they are within the boundaries of normal. Bringing flares, tear gas, molotov cocktails and/or explosive devices to a sporting match is not normal. Maybe, maybe, after a championship game you might turn over a car or give a cop the finger, but blowing a cops face off before the game’s even started? It’s. Soccer. It’s. Not. Even. A. Real. Sport. Maybe it’s a good thing hockey hasn’t taken off in Italy or Great Britain.
Bonus Track: Shakespeare In Afghanistan — The CBC ran a thirty minute feature on Afghan actors and actresses putting on Shakespearian plays in Kabul and in the Northern Provinces. It’s something put together by a Canadian actor and director named Corinne Jaber. The play they were practicing was “Love’s Labours Lost”. According to one of the actresses “traditionally in Afghanistan actresses are considered to be prostitutes.” And even a single man and woman clasping hands is a taboo. But in the play not only do single men and women hold hands, the women also go bare-headed and with their hair down. The reporter made a point of showing how the director was having to teach the women actors, who had taken off their hijabs, how to walk while men were staring at them. In the plays the men, also going against tradition, walk around with their shirts off (but only when it’s essential to the script). The audience for the first show had aboot 200 men, six women and there was a lot of laughter and applause. The reporter didn’t make this connection, but to me it looked like a Roman era cultural exchange from The City to the rural Provinces. It was pretty remarkable.
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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
The Problem: When you’re a country of 33,000,000 people living beside a country ten times larger who also happens to be the world’s unparalleled cultural powerhouse, your culture has a tendancy to get misplaced. Historically, in terms of technology adoption, Canada was generally three years behind the US. They had The TV before we did, they had The Colour TV before we did, they had the Internet twenty years before we did… which is fine, because in 1985 we were the second country to have an Internet hookup. In terms of adoption rates of American culture we’re a lot faster (re: closer) than the rest of the world. We have American network and cable television as part of our cable packages, as soon as American books or movies are released, we get them. “Little Miss Sunshine”, for example, had been and gone in Canada before Great Britain got to see a suicidal Steve Carell.
So. Canadians get exposed to American culture as soon as it’s on paper, but between 1940 and the mid-1970’s we ignored the technology they were using to create that culture. At least until they proved it worked and was worth having. So by the mid-70’s the communications technologies available to Canadian broadcasters were slightly behind those in America, but modern American television and radio were being beamed directly into Canadian homes because 80% of us live within a hundred miles of the border. So basically, by the time Americans and Canadians were watching a remake of Great Britain’s “All In The Family” on CBS, Canadian stations were still using sock puppets to describe the weather. The result, basically, was Their Culture was becoming Our Culture and Our Culture was becoming somewhat confused.
The Solution: So in the 1980’s musicians and other artists demanded and received two laws. One: A radio-play content law which forced conventional AM & FM radio stations to schedule and play a minimum of 35% Canadian music, while talk format radio had to broadcast a minimum of 50% Canadian content in their schedule. Two: A percentage of all sales of any recordable media — audio cassettes, records… I think digital storage devices as well, like CD-R’s and DVD-R/RW’s — go to a fund to assist Canadian artists with their projects. Now… for the most part the laws have worked. Canadian bands finally get some government support, and they finally get some airtime. Previous to the law the only Canadian music played on our radio’s came from so-called “Classic Rock” or the occasional Canadian artist to hit Top40 in the US, so except for Anne Murray and Steppenwolf our music didn’t actually exist. The laws operated like an umbrella and allowed new bands to come up… the weirdest part of the law is the criteria bands must meet to be considered “Canadian enough” to be eligable for the government handouts. On the back of every Canadian CD is a four-slice pie chart. Each slice a band fills — Management, Artist, Label, Production — the more ‘Canadian’ they are. I think it was Bryan Adams who, at one point, wasn’t Canadian enough.
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Essential Canadian Music
Back When: Blood Sweat & Tears, The Guess Who, Oscar Peterson, Glenn Gould, Steppenwolf, Leonard Cohen, The Band, Gordon Lightfoot, 5 Man Electrical Band, Niel Young, Bruce Cockburn, Anne Murray, Chilliwack, Paul Anka, Ronnie Hawkins, Rough Trade, Rush, DOA, Forgotten Rebels, Joni Mitchell.
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Back Then: Bif Naked, Big Sugar, The Headstones, Platinum Blonde, Sons Of Freedom, Bryan Adams, The Box, Niel Young, Colin James, Jeff Healy, Celine Dion, 54-50, Cowboy Junkies, Barenaked Ladies, kd lang, Bootsauce, Blue Rodeo, Maestro Fresh Wes, Payola$, Daniel Lanois, David Foster, Alanis Morrisette.
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Since Then: Kittie, Jann Arden, Avril Lavigne, Neil Young, Danko Jones, Billy Talent, Sum 41, Manu Militari, Le Volume Etait Au Maximum, Trip The Off, Vulgaires Machins, Kardinal Offishall, The Arcade Fire, Saukrates, Golden Dogs, Rheostatics, Les Dales Hawerchuk, Rufus Wainwright, Pierre Lapointe, Andre, Hawksley Workman, Constable Brennan, Peaches, Swollen Members, K-OS, Nickleback.
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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
Big Sugar: Canadian “Ride Like Hell”; ‘500 Pounds‘ (1993)
Five Essential Facts Aboot The Canadian Movie Industry:
1) Was That A Boom Mike In The Shot?: The Canadian movie industry mostly sucks. How bad? Australia’s industry is actually superior to Canada’s and, for crying out loud, they’re Australians. Why have Canadian movies sucked in the past? Two reasons:
1a) Time & Distance: In order to get into Hollywood, Australians must be named “Heath Ledger”, “Mel Gibson”, “Nicole Kidman”, “Hugh Jackman” or “Crocodile”, and so far each of those have only happened once. All Canadians have to do is: 1) buy a ticket and get off the bus at the appropriate stop, and; 2) make an “x” on the contract and taaa daaa, another Canadian Hollywood star is born — because there are two types of people waiting at a Hollywood bus terminal: pimps looking for girls who look like Jodie Foster in “Taxi”, and the pimps agents looking for Canadians.
There are 1000’s of miles of water protecting Aussie, United Kingdom, Indian and Zimbabwean talent from US casting agents, which means the writers, directors and actors of the rest of The Commonwealth had decades to create independent Film Industries at home. Meanwhile, thanks to a 3500 mile undefended land border with America, Canada has managed to hold on to the stars and writers of “Air Farce” (I’m not explaining Air Farce to anyone).
1b) The Dollar Bill: Taxes. We used to give out incentives (ie: bags of money) for people to make movies here, and they did. And then they took the money and spent it in America. The movies they left behind were then burned as a service to good taste. ‘Bad taste’ often thanked us as well. Basically there was no quality oversight, and as long as the American movie people kept hiring its extras from the Canadian Acting Guild, which made them happy, no one was going to change things. So, for too long we had no talent willing to stay in Canada and no government support. But then the law got changed (Tax Credits) and it was easier for the money from Outside Productions to cycle faster into Canadian productions and the result has been… Canadian movies still sucking, but with less intensity.
Basically, because of the Talent Drain, Canada’s Film & Television Industry is ten years behind England and America. Which puts us five years behind India, but on par with Australia and ahead of New Zealand and Zimbabwe.
Oh yeah… Canada supplies more directors, screenwriters, producers and actors to the American (ie: World) Film & Television Industry than any other country (other that the US). Stuff that in your top hat you Limey bastards.
2) Come To Canada To See The America You Remember: If you’ve ever finished watching a movie set in America and thought “the plot was puerile at best, but New York looks so clean and inviting” or “those American mid-west vista’s were so dramatic and unspoiled” you’ve actually been watching Canada for two hours. If there were tallish buildings and the extras spoke English it was probably Toronto or Vancouver. If they had French accents, it was Montreal or Quebec City. If there were cowboys or “traditional” Natives, it was Alberta or Saskatchewan. Forests? Northern Ontario. Rainforest or Jungle? British Columbia. So come to Canada and we’d be glad to take you on a tour and show you the “America” you remember from your favourite movie aboot America.
3) American-Style Garbage In Every Production: American film productions have to throw garbage in our streets, and put ‘makeup’ and graffiti on buildings in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto to make them look more like ‘American cities’. Staff cutbacks by the City of Toronto have allowed American producers to save some ‘garbage money’ recently, but “realistic American-style garbage” is still in the budgets of American movies filming in Canada.
4) Coming Into Its Own: From aboot the late 1960’s to the mid 1980’s we’d get American production companies coming up here because of the exchange rate ($0.75CND = $1US) and the tax shelter thing. They’d bring their Assistant Directors, their Clappers, their coke, their Gaffers, their Best Boys and their own Drivers to Canada, drop a couple of US Dollars and go home with new Beaver Hats, an airline and maybe a nickle mine or two.
But then “Jaws” and “Star Wars” came out and Hollywood realized movies could be used for more reasons than simply getting a young women to take her clothes off, and they remembered that favourable exchange rate. Then they remembered that Canadian English was a little more comprehensible than that spoken in Great Britain or Australia or India or… America, and suddenly Canada was the background for American blockbuster movies and television shows. So, again, a lot of the money being spent here by the Americans, British and now even Indian movie company’s is being pushed back into the Canadian movie industry.
Our Movie Industry is a spinoff of the American Industry (so is yours), but those spinoffs didn’t start creating actual Canadian Spinoffs until aboot thirty years ago. Now those Canadian spinoffs are 30-years old grandparents which now create a lot of the background stuff you find in American movies, like special effects, digital effects, animation studios and all that cool stuff. And now our industry has fourth and fifth generation spinoffs and now Canadian filmmakers are actually living and working inside Canada.
5) The French Connection: Quebec’s film industry is waaaay more successful than the Rest Of Canada’s (ROC). Since being “taken over” by the British 200-years ago Quebec had been a closed, super-strict Roman Catholic society until the 1950’s (religious fascism remarkably similar to Ireland). Officially the French-Quebecois couldn’t read books unless the local Bishop signed off on them, and movies in French were impossible to find.
But then in the 50’s and 60’s, mostly thanks to a newly literate society of teenagers and young adults (baby Baby Boomers), Quebec kicked the Church out of their beds, and out of their living rooms — and mostly right back to Rome. And then they, the young Quebecois, started doing things that had never been available to their parents. Like read books. And see movies. And have sex. Then film movies aboot books. Then aboot sex. And the movies were in French so the millions of Quebecois who had never had sex without the blessing of a Priest could now watch new positions, and new courting techniques (like fellatio and inviting the girl next door to join in a three-way). Then, after they had filmed all the positions they could think of, the Quebecois turned their camera’s to the politics of Quebec and Canada and the Roman Catholic Church. Today’s Scottish Film Industry is very similar to Quebec’s of aboot a decade ago.
Today Quebec has actual “blockbusters”, whereas a movie made in the ROC, by ROCians, is considered a success if it doesn’t completely bankrupt the parents of the director. Until last year the most successful Canadian movie ever created was “Porky’s”. In 2006 the record was broken by “Bon Cop, Bad Cop” a fully bilingual (French-English) cop-buddy movie. Aboot 90% of the business was done in Quebec. Why? Because in the ROC there’s no distribution network for ROC movies. There are aboot 300 movie screens in each major ROC city. Maybe two of those screens might have an ROC movie once a year. In Quebec, every theatre would have at least one screen available for a Quebec movie as soon as it was released. For the ROC Film Industry to become as successful as Quebec’s, let alone England’s, we’ve got to get the distribution into place.
Some Of The Canadians In The Movie Industry:
Actors Keifer Sutherland “The Phone Booth”, “24” (TV); Donald Sutherland “Animal House”, “MASH”; Mike Myers “Wayne’s World”, “Austin Powers”; Sandra Oh “Hard Candy”, “Sideways”, “Grey’s Anatomy” (TV) ; Christopher Plummer: Shakesphere legend, “The New World”, “Syriania”; Catherine O’Hara “A Mightly Wind”, “For Your Consideration”; Graham Greene, “Dances With Wolves”, “Phil The Alien”; William Shatner “if you don’t know Captain Kirk you need serious help that I cannot offer”; Megan Follows “Anne Of Green Gables” (TV); Martin Short “Steve Martin’s sidekick”; Fay Wrey “King Kong”; Mary Pickford, 248 movies and co-founded United Artists Studios; Anna Paquin “The Piano”, “25th Hour”; Carrie Anne Moss “The Matrix Trilogy”; Keanu Reeves “The Matrix Trilogy”; Elisha Cuthbert “Nothing But Crap So Far”, “24” (TV); Ryan Gosling “Half Nelson”, “The Notebook”, Phil Hartman “The Simpsons” (TV), “Newsradio” (TV); Pam Anderson “Her Right Breast”, “Her Left Breast”, “Sometimes Her Ass”; Rachel McAdams “Red Eye”, “The Family Stone”; Gary Farmer “Smoke Signals”; Sook-Yin Lee “Shortbus”; Jim Carrey “The Mask”, “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”; Michael J. Fox “Back To The Future Trilogy”.
Directors & Writers Arthur Hiller (wow) “The Americanization Of Emily”; Norman Jewison “In The Heat Of The Night”, “Jesus Christ Superstar”; Lorne Michaels (producer, co-creator) “Saturday Night Live”; Denys Arcand “Love & Human Remains”, “The Barbarian Invasions”, “Jésus de Montréal” (amazing French-Canadian films); Paul Haggis (screenwriter) “Million Dollar Baby”, “Crash”, “Flags Of Our Fathers”, “Letters From Iwo Jima”; James Cameron “Titanic”, “The Terminator”; Jack Warner (wow) founded Warner Brothers Studio; Guy Maddin “The Saddest Music in the World”; Atom Egoyan “Ararat”, “The Sweet Hereafter”; David Cronenberg “Naked Lunch”, “The Fly”; Louis B. Mayer (holy shit) founded MGM Studios; Bruce McDonald “Hard Core Logo”, “Dance Me Outside”, “Highway 61”, “Roadkill” (four awesome Canadian movies), Don McKellar “The Red Violin”, “Last Night” (two awesome Canadian films); Mary Pickford, co-founded United Artists Studios.
Bonus Track — Talking Beavers: The funniest movie ever made is called “Phil The Alien”, it is Canadian. It’s basically a riff on Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel “The Man Who Fell To Earth”, later made into a movie starring David Bowie. It’s aboot an alien who crashes into the Northern Ontario wilderness. He then gets liquored up by a kid, makes friends with a super-intelligent talking beaver, joins a band as a frontman who can hover, gets arrested, becomes a Jailhouse Evangelical, sobers up, starts a religious movement and goes on tour so he can find a way home — all while being hunted by a super-secret American agency which may have an alien vessel stored under Niagara Falls. The beaver (“Beaver”) could also be a world-class assassin. You have to find this movie. It. Has. A. Talking. Beaver.
01) Hockey, Religion & State: The biggest difference between Canadian and American politics is Canada does not have a cheerleader culture. There’s a clear separation between Hockey, Religion and State in Canada whereas in America, Football, Baseball, Christianity and State are all wrapped up into one hyperbolic message which is then shouted out in short rhythmic bursts by dynamic pyramids of young, hyper-enthusiastic, impossibly healthy, ridiculously optimistic übercitizens.
The biggest difference between Canadian and European politics is Canada doesn’t do shit which requires hundreds of thousands of European soldiers to die stopping potentially World Ending Wars.
02) Canada — We Put The ‘Social’ Back Into Socialism: We’re a Constitutional Democracy with heavy Socialist tendencies that pays respectful lip-service to its Monarchist past.
We have ten provinces, not states, which control their own education and health care spending. A provincial leader is called “Premier”, and we have a “Prime Minister” (PM) as federal leader. We also have a “Governor General” who is still, albeit nominally, the (British) Monarch’s representative in Canada.
In our system we don’t vote to decide our federal Leader, we vote in our local ridings for a local Federal Party representative. Then the leader of whichever Federal Party gets the most representatives (Seats) elected, becomes the PM, but it’s the Federal Party who decided on their leader.
We have an unelected Senate, our Senators are appointed by the PM as patronage. Basically, if you do a lot of favours for someone and that someone gets somebody elected you become a Senator. It’s literally a lifetime achievement award for services rendered. It’s rare for the Senate to matter in Canadian politics, but it can happen.
We have a Supreme Court which is doing a pretty good job. Supreme Court Justice’s are also picked by the PM with no confirmation process, and the PM is under no obligation to explain his decision. We also have “Crown Corporations” like Canada Post, VIA Rail and the CBC, our public TV and Radio broadcaster. The heads of which are all selected by our PM with no confirmation process.
We also have a national police force called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). They’re responsible for diplomatic protection, protecting the PM, and they also operate as the local police force in most provinces (most cities have their own police, and Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial forces). The head of the RCMP is chosen solely by the PM. The PM also decides who’s going to be the head of Canada’s military… also with no confirmation or debate.
Canada also has a spy force called the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) which has no obligation to report what it does to Parliament, only to the PM and his hand-picked council. The head of CSIS is chosen by the PM.
Canada’s super-secret special forces unit is called ‘Joint Task Force 2′, or JTF-2. It is illegal to report on the whereabouts of JTF-2.
And we have a super-secret intelligence gathering agency, called the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE), which operates kind of like the American NSA, and is our contribution to the ECHELON project.
03) Pot, Dipps & The Eternal Race To The Political Middle:Canada has a federal political party called ‘The Marijuana Party’. They haven’t elected anyone to Parliament yet mostly because most of it’s membership think it’s actually an invitation to a 420 event.
Most of our political parties have pretty self-evident names: the Conservative Party are currently in charge, the Liberal Party has been in charge for most of Canada’s existence; the Bloq Quebecois are a Quebec-only ‘federalist’ party whose mandate is to take Quebec out of Federation (btw: Canada’s a federation) and then there’s the perennially last-place federal choice, the New Democratic Party (NDP).
…Election 2011 Update: the Conservatives have a majority government, the NDP are the Loyal Opposition, the Bloq were annihilated and the Liberals are in third place.
If Conservatives are Reese Witherspoon in “Election” then the NDP are basically a bunch of extras in “The Valley of the Wolves” slouched around tables in a Turkish cafe waving (unlit) cigarettes around while saying things like “those fucking Ameree-cans” and “lets get out of Afghanistan and then negotiate with the Taliban, they’ll take us seriously” and “lets send troops into Sudan… but without their guns” and “why don’t Americans take us seriously”.
04) Quebecanistan: A (not really that) large number of people living in Quebec make a lot of money trying to convince the rest of the people living in Quebec that they — the people of Quebec… well, the French speaking people of Quebec who can trace their ancestry back to the 1700’s — have become so subjugated by Canada that they must break away and form their own country: Quebecanistan. Canada, they say, is divisible. They shouted this at various decibel levels for forty or so years. Then someone said “Hey, Buddy. If Canada is divisible, so is Quebec. And if you really want your own country we could give you a slice of Quebec aboot eight inches wide and three miles long.” They called it the “Clarity Act”, and it seems to have calmed things down.
05) Term Limits For Leaders: There are none. And our former Liberal Minister of Justice actually said “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn’t guarantee any rights or freedoms” in a post-911 world.
Bonus Political Fact: At no time in our 350-year / 140-year history have Canadian politicians ever been responsible for starting a war, exploiting a colony or testing nuclear weapons under the ocean or on land.
But… there was that one time we did sort of, you know, starve the Natives into submission… then we kind of forced them to live on reserves where they couldn’t own property, then sent them to ‘Residential Schools’ where we tried to “save the child by killing the Indian”. And today most of those reserves are lucky to have running water that’s a lighter shade of brown. But I’m sure someone’s working that out.
01) Our Origins Are Cloaked In Mystery Confusion: The Dominion Of Canada was created in 1867, Newfoundland joined up in 1949. We got our own flag in 1967 1965 (oops), and our own Constitution and Charter Of Rights And Freedoms in 1982. The Canadian Province of Quebec, with a population of 7 million, has yet to sign the constitution. It’s all very weird.
But not as weird as this… follow along if you can:
Canada was founded 350 years ago by the French and their Native allies; who were then defeated 200 years later by the British and their Native allies; who were then joined by British-American refugees who had just lost the American Revolution to a bunch of… well, Americans and their French allies; the British-American refugees then allied with the British-Canadians and their Native allies who in turn joined up with the French-Canadians and their Native allies and together they beat the shit out of the Newly Armed & Famous Americans during the War Of 1812. Or, as we sometimes refer to it, “That Week We Burned The White House To The Ground” or “TWWBTWHTTG Day”.
After that was done all of the territories in Canada thought it’d be a good idea to permanently team up, and so Canada was borne. See? Easy.
02) It’s Not The Length… It’s The Width: Canada is bigger than your country… unless you’re Russian. Jeezus Keerighst Russia is huge. Canada: 9.97 million sq km; European Union: 3.97 million sq km; America: 5.69 million sq km. Canada’s seventh largest province, Newfoundland, is almost twice the size of the United Kingdom. The UK’s population is around 66 million… Newfoundland’s population is aboot 500 thousand… each one of whom will adopt you as soon as your plane touches down. Canada’s population is 33 million. We’ve got a lot of room here.
03) Got Oil?: We have nearly as much oil as Saudi Arabia, and we supply the United States with the majority of their imported oil. Really. Fuck Chavez and his OPEC buddies. Just don’t tell anyone.
04) Canadians Invent Stuff: Among other stuff, Canadians are responsible for Hollywood (seriously, thatHollywood was created by Canadians), the pacemaker, basketball, the Wonderbra (you are so welcome), Pablum, radio (yes, radio was invented by a Canadian) and insulin as a treatment for diabetes.
05) Hockey — Part One: We play Hockey. When we’re not playing Hockey it’s summer, that’s when we watch the Canadian Football League (CFL). The CFL is different from the American NFL in that the CFL is fast, end zone celebrations are encouraged, a 3000 yard season will make you a backup QB, the only 300lb men are in the stands, there are three downs to make 10 yards, the field is 10 yards longer and 10 yards wider, and it’s just so much more fun to watch. The CFL’s trophy is the Grey Cup and it has been around since 1909. It’s not Hockey, but it’s close.
06) Beavertails, Toques, Pot, Health Care & Greenpeace: We wear toques; we eat BeaverTails; in the Spring we eat liquid sugar that comes from trees and live on the buzz until next year; our winters are usually insanely cold, but thanks to Europe and America… and us, they’re getting warmer — we started this whole Climate Change Conference Stuff, but now we’re unofficially out of Kyoto… which is okay because so is everyone else; our weed is plentiful and basically legal in small amounts… like less than a pound (I’m surprised more NBA and NFL players don’t live here in the off season); gay marriage and gay divorce? Check and check; the largest Gay Pride Parade in the whole entire world; abortion is so freaking legal here it’s retroactive — don’t like the way your teenage kid turned out? Zzzzaap; free and full health care coverage: Heart Transplant? Free. Lung Cancer? Free. Brain Surgery? Free. Your Friend Smacked A Shovel Upside Your Head? Free. Sea Shepherds and Greenpeace? Canadian. What else… oh yeah, the best fucking weed on the planet. My friend grows it next to his potatoes in his backyard. He smokes aboot three grams a fucking day… the guy cannot remember where he parked his house.
07) We Like To Lend A Hand: After the Hurricane Katrina Disaster the first Search & Rescue team into Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish was Canadian. The ‘Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue Team’ from Vancouver, British Columbia got there two days after Katrina hit.
08) Hockey — Part Two: We play a lot ofHockey. The highest achievement in Hockey is winning the Stanley Cup (since 1893). A team must win four of seven games in four seven game series played over five weeks. Then they fill the Stanley Cup with beer and drink from The Stanley Cup. Both major Canadian trophies are giant steel Cups. This is no coincidence.
09) Hockey — Part Three: Everything you’ve ever heard aboot Canada and Hockey is not even close to how much we play and watch Hockey. Really. This is from 1997. The Detroit Red Wings vs. Colorado Avalanche. It’s the first time beloved Red Wing Hero, Kris Draper — who was devastatingly wounded the previous year by The Dastardly Avalanche Bastard, Claude Lemiuex — will face the person who nearly crippled his career. It was an ugly and bloody grudge match, and one of the most exciting Hockey games I’ve ever seen.
10) We’ve Saved Europe Twice: Canada sent a lot of soldiers to defend The Motherlands of France and England in both WWOne, where Canadian General Arthur Currie basically won the whole thing by himself, and WWTwo, and were in both from the beginning. We were also in the Korean War, we skipped Vietnam but close to 30,000 Canadians went South and joined up with the American military. In return we got a shit load of American hippies. We skipped out on Granada and The Falklands as well… we were busy those months.
…and none of those fucking 9-11 hijackers had anything to do with Canada… so do everyone a favour and please kill the urban myth bullshit.
Canadians also invented Peacekeeping and wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the UN. NATO… yeah, we were a founding nation. We have a couple thousand soldiers doing something good right now in Afghanistan. We were there in Gulf War One, but politely declined for the Sequel… oh yeah, we did some crazy-heroic shit in Bosnia as well. We were in Somalia, but that was a fucking disaster… Special Forces are not traffic cops.
I think that’s aboot it… oh yeah, my pater-grandfather served on The Hood, my mater-grandfather was a fighter pilot, his youngest brother flew bombers over Germany, and his oldest brother was a full-on beginning-to-end member of The Devils Brigade. Fuck yeah.
Bonus Thing — 1972, Canada vs. Soviet Union: This is one of Canada’s non-military defining moments and it was all abootHockey. Game 8. 1972. Canada v. The Soviet Union: Henderson Scores Baby. Today the boys move up to 20mph, the vulcanized rubber puck is aboot the size of a fist and can move up to 100mph… honest-to-your-higher-being, how can anyone sit and watch soccer or baseball… and what the fuck is Cricket all aboot? A game where nothing happens over several days and the fans are a mile away from… what do they call that? Home plate? The Sticks Area? There’s got to be some kind of connection between Europe’s love of non-contact, prancing sports and their inclination for starting global warfare… I’m sure of it.
Ashley MacIssac: Canadian “Sleepy Maggie“; ‘Hi, How Are You Today?’ (1996)
0_o
cultural sn:afu 