middleofnowhere

Here we are on the eve one of the most constructed and commercialized days of the year. Chocolates, cards and flowers are flying off the shelves at a startling pace, recession be damned! It’s easy to go with the old standbys, but just in case some of you out there really need a return to the basics, here are ten gifts you should avoid giving your loved one this year.

10. An Actual Human Heart

While some people may find it touching, there are several things wrong with this idea. If it’s your own heart - well, you’re dead. Or the undead. And that makes you a pretty lousy valentine. If it’s someone else, you’re either a murderer or in the very least, a grave robber/organ thief. Also not such a great boyfriend/girlfriend by most standards.

9. A Sexually Transmitted Disease

The above picture is the least nauseating I could find. “Oh sweetie, you really shouldn’t have.”

8. Membership in a white-supremacist group

I’m really not sure there’s any possible good message you’re sending with this gift. It’s either “I want to share my backwater, racist ways with you, valentine” or, “I think you would enjoy this, you raging bigot”. Probably not a message that will keep the relationship going strong.

7. Killer Bees

I actually am referring to the deadly “Africanized Honey Bee”, but on further review, giving your loved one Jumpin’ Jim Brunzell or B. Brian Blair would also likely end the relationship.

6. A Blind Date With the Octo-Mom

“Listen man, I know the perfect girl for you. She’s young, kinda looks like Angelina Jolie and really wants to go back to school, just like you. Uh, you like kids, right?”

5. A Gift Certificate for Plastic Surgery

I love you just the way you are. Except your face. And your boobs. And maybe the cottage cheese on your thighs.

4.  A Concubine

Oh sure, it seems practical at first. Convenient, affordable, subservient. But then comes the catch. There’s always a catch.

3. Movies About Infidelity

Unfaithful? Guy ends up dead and rolled up in a carpet. Fatal Attraction? She boils the bunny! The bunny I tells ya!!

2. A  Double Date with Chris Brown and Rihanna

oooh.  Too soon?

1. Richard Simmons

Bathroom scales, gym memberships, exercise equipment, etc are all gifts that might be a bit offsides for Valentine’s Day. But I think having Richard Simmons actually show up to surprise your loved one beats them all.

Seeing corporate big wigs roll around in their piles of money is hard enough for the front line grunts to handle at the best of times. Throw in the huge bonuses these people give themselves for running companies into the ground also makes most of us want to throw up all over their 500 dollar shoes.

Where things go seriously wrong is when the powers that be coerce those people whose salaries are fractions of their own to publically say how great they are.

Recently in my province of NB there has been a lot of questioning and criticism of NB Power and their head honcho David Hay. Suddenly, a form letter appeared, supposedly written by the front line grunts telling the media to back off and how wonderful Mr. Hay was and how he was being victimized by the media. Only this letter wasn’t, in fact, written by staff. It was written by execs, who then took it to staff and asked them to sign it. Of course, they didn’t have to sign it. Why feel pressure to sign the letter while sitting in a small room with your boss who has asked you to do it?

Brutal.

Governments on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are like busy little beavers, hammering out the fine print on stimulus packages that are supposed to rescue our respective economies. I put the chances of success as about the same as George W. Bush and Michae Moore making out. How’s that for a disturbing image?

If I were in charge of the stimulus package and could make everyone agree with me, here are eight things that I would put in it to get things started again.

1 - When a politician lies or breaks a promise, the the first person to point it out with proof  gets 1000 dollars.

The best part is that the money doesn’t come from taxpayers, it comes straight off of the politicians salary. The second lie costs two thousand, the third costs three thousand and so on.

2 - We might bail out your company, but first we take out the trash.

If you were so damn stupid that you ran your company into the ground once, why would I give you a bunch of money to do it again? The chances are whoever is making the decisions is still going to piss away the money and the economy will still suck, but we don’t have to be complete idiots. If I showed myself to be a complete boob at my job, is someone going to rush in with a bunch of money and tell me to try again?

3 - If you want help, you show us everything.

Creative accounting and cooking the books is an absolute scourge on our society and somehow we’ve come to accept it as common practice. Governments sell us on bullshit numbers all of the time and we simply accept their lame explanations over and over and over. If the government is giving our money to poorly run businesses, and if they blow it this time or try and get funny with the numbers, every single person who wants to can personally slap the CEO. And come back for seconds.

4 - If your company gets a bailout, your salries come back to earth and bonuses and perks disappear.

Nothing makes me sicker than seeing a company laying off hundreds or thousands of employees, reporting record losses and then rewarding executives with cash bonuses or other incredible perks. If it was my business and someone did that, you know what they’d get? Fired.

5 - If you’re a first time home buyer you don’t pay income tax this year.

I know that this would be used and abused ’til the cows came home, but in a perfect world just think what a leg up this could give young couples and families.

6 - Never again

This is it. Your last chance. If you screw up this time, we absolutely have to let you fail. It’s basic Darwinism - survival of the fittest. If we keep coming to the rescue, you and your dumbass buddies will never learn.

7 - Cars are BOGO for one year.

Everyone loves BOGO sales. Think of the time saved with haggling alone! Why try and get 1000 or two knocked off the price when you know that you’re getting two for the price of one!

8 - Educate the masses

Spend oodles and oodles on teaching people how to be financially more responsible. Offer it everywhere, offer it often and offer it free. There’s no doubt in my mind that this would end up saving money in the long run. And more money as time goes on. Remember how recycling and environmental concerns used to be thought of as pie in the sky? Not anymore and finance is the new environment.

Although some of the controversial wording in the stimulus package has been changed, some Canadians are still worried about what the new administration will do in regards to our relationship. Will we be a booty call? Only called every now and then when you need to get off on our hydro or water? Will it be a return to the “big brother” way of thinking, where we just meekly stand behind you, agreeing with whatever you say while coming out on occasion to hurl an insult before running and hiding behind you again? Maybe we’ll be like the sycophantic hanger- on who tell anyone who will listen what great pals we are but when anyone asks you, you say you have no idea who we are.

Here are some suggestions on how to make us feel better. Our self-esteem could use the boost.

1. During every Presidential address, when it’s over Obama can wave a little Canadian flag and say “Goodnight, Canada”.

Hey, if Tony Kornheiser doing it on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption makes all us Canadian’s giggle, imagine what a boost we’d get from Obama doing that? It would take mere seconds, but the good feelings would last for generations.

2. Boost the security and defence along our border by 5000 percent.

Then, when asked if this is because you’re worried that our lax immigration laws concern you, answer, “No. They’re just a scary bunch of mother f*@&ers up there.” Having you pretend we’re tough might make us look tough to other countries.

3. Sometimes when we compete against each other in international sports other than hockey, let us win.

Don’t let it be a blowout, because no one would buy that. Make it close, but believable. If that’s possible. If you can only do this once, let it be in next year’s Olympics. We’re the only host country that’s failed to win a gold medal. And we’ve done that twice.

4. On one of your tv shows, make the super smart villain Canadian.

It’s always some super suave euro-type, or some brutal South American drug lord or some crazed, power hungry American. How about showing the darker side of Canadians for once? We could totally pull it off too. I can hear the villain now. “Ok, so like, pay us the 100 million, eh? And we want it all in loonies and toonies.”

5. Keep Celine Dion.

We totally appreciate you taking her in.

6. Allow us on Survivor and The Amazing Race

Considering that something like 94 percent of us already watch these shows, you really have no reason to do this. And I’m sure there are lots of actual laws that make it completely not worth your while to make this happen. But…come on!!! The shows are so popular here that no one has even thought there was any point in doing a Canadian version of either show. Damn.

7. Teach your kids at least ONE thing about Canada.

We’re not picky. Teach them it’s the place ABOVE the United States, not below. Use an accurate map or globe to show them we are actually bigger. Teach them to correctly pronounce “Canada”. Anything! Thanks to cable and satellite tv, most Canadian kids learn far more about the U.S. than Canada. I can’t imagine kids in the U.S. bugging their parents to “please, please, please let me watch the CBC!!”

8. Have more infomercials featuring that Sham-wow guy.

He’s creepy as all get out, but also totally awesome. In fact, just have him do a little something where he talks about Canada for half an hour. Frig, that’d be sweet.

9.Straight swap us Maine for Quebec.

This doesn’t have to be permanent, but I think everyone involved here would appreciate the way things are now a lot more if they had a look at the other side. The States could have a nice little distraction dealing with the separatists, Quebec would see we really do give them a lot of respect and Maine? Well, they know that they did…

10. Start using the metric system.

It really is pretty simple to use and understand. Of course, we still do height in inches and feet generally. And weight in pounds. But trust us - by 215 after 30, on the 40^th of Jungust (Metric time), it’ll seem like old hat.

A small school in small town New Brunswick recently made big news when it decided to cease playing O Canada at the start of each school day at the request of a small number of parents. Citing privacy reasons the school would not give the reasons behind the request.

In the days that have followed, critics and supporters of the decision have come out in full force and most recently, the school board themselves have stepped in and reinstituted the playing of O Canada.

The whole argument is very reminiscent of the debate of whether or not prayers in school should be allowed or whether they were discriminatory or exclusionary. Even having gone to a Catholic school for my entire K-12 education, I never really saw the purpose of saying the prayers as often as we did (4 times - at the start of school, before lunch, after lunch and at the end of the day). There were actually some students in the school who were not Catholic or even Christian, but they were there by choice and while not required to say the prayers, were at least expected to stand.

As far as anthems go, O Canada seems fairly innocuous, but I’m guessing the line “God keep our land/glorious and free” is the one that puts some people off. Presumably, people who live here are living so by choice. I’m not one of the hopping mad people who say “love it or leave it”, but I do believe that there is a place in school for the national anthem. Learn about it, dissect it, debate it - but respect it.

Continuing from yesterday, here are the songs that were excellent choices to represent Canada to the new president.

The Hockey Song - Stompin’ Tom Connors

It’s nice to have a rep from Canada’s smallest province (PEI) on the list and hockey is one of our national sports, the other being lacrosse.

“Oh the good ole hockey game is the best game you can name
And the best game you can name is the good ole hockey game”

Most Canadians, due to head injuries suffered whilst playing hockey, can in fact only name one sport - hockey. Interesting factoid.

La Complainte du Phoque en Alaska - Beau Dommage

This song is an excellent representation of the differences between what Quebec and the rest of Canada see as art and culture. The gist of this song is that there is a sad seal in Alaska whose girlfriend left to join a circus in the United States.

Here’s the chorus;

“Ça vaut pas la peine
De laisser ceux qu’on aime
Pour aller faire tourner
Des ballons sur son nez
Ça fait rire les enfants
Ça dure jamais longtemps
Ça fait plus rire personne
Quand les enfants sont grands”

Which translates as

“It’s not worth it, to leave those you love
To go and bounce a ball on your nose
It makes children laugh, but that doesn’t last long
No one will laugh when the children have grown.”

See what we have to put up with, Obama?

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot

Lightfoot is an incredible artist and this song about the sinking of an American Freighter on Lake Superior in the 1970’s is one of his best known pieces. No joke to be made here - great choice about a tragedy shared between our countries, literally and figuratively.

Rise Up - Parachute Club

A campy, positive pop song that was a huge hit for the Parachute Club back in the 1980’s the song is described as a call for peace, celebration and freedom - all very Canadian. It won a Juno for song of the year in 1984 beating out such music giants as Bryan Adams, Corey Hart and Men Without Hats. Ok….Bryan Adams you’ve probably heard of, right? Thanks to the lyrics “freedom to love who we please”, the song was also pretty much immediately adopted as a gay anthem. Also very Canadian.

Canada is Really Big - The Arrogant Worms

This song is described by the band as “Canada’s national anthem, which we wrote”. This song can be quite educational for our neighbours to the south as studies have shown how little Americans know about us and our geography. Here’s a sample;

“Most people
Will tell you
That France is pretty large
But you can put
Fourteen Frances
Into this land of ours”

Leading up to the inauguration date, CBC spent many a tax payers dollar compiling a list of 49 Canadian songs for Obama so that he could better “get” Canada and our culture. Why 49? Well, duh - the 49th parallel of course, you silly goose! Of course, two thirds of Canada’s population actually lives BELOW the 49th parallel. Shhhhhh.

Of course, with any poll you leave open to public and internet voting, you’re going to get the results skewed towards those people who a)care and b) have nothing better to do than stuff the ballot boxes.

Someday, cyber-geeks will make all of our decisions!

Tomorrow, I’ll give props to the songs that I think belonged on the list, but today, I’d rather mock the choices that blow. See? Balance.

American Woman - The Guess Who

There’s an inherent problem with including this song on a list to educate someone about us. For one, this is a very well known song, a big hit for the Guess Who back in the 70’s. Here’ Mr. President - an anti-American anthem for you! Here’s a taste of the lyrics;

“American Woman, stay away from me

American Woman, mama let me be

Don’t come a hangin’ around my door

I don’t wanna see your face no more”

Randy Bachman said it really wasn’t meant to be anti-American and that the “woman” is the Statue of Liberty. Yes, much better….

Bobcaygeon - The Tragically Hip

The Tragically Hip are my absolute favourite band and deserve a place on this list. And Bobcaygeon is a great tune, very haunting and melodic. As far as I can tell though, the main reason this particular tune was included was to show the potency of Canada’s pot.

“as i’m pulling down the blinds i saw the sky was dull and hypothetical and falling one cloud at a time that night in toronto with it’s checkerboard floors riding on horseback”

A second theory is that Obama is intelligent enough to understand what the hell these lyrics mean.

I’m sticking with the pot hypothesis.

If I Had A Million Dollars - The Barenaked Ladies

Another great Canadian band that has had a lot of success south of the border, the Barenaked Ladies have any number of songs that could have made this list.

This is what Obama will learn from this song. 1) A million dollars is apparently a lot of money in Canada. 2)If Canadians have excess money, they become retarded (more so) and purchase things like Kraft Dinner and green dresses. 3) Canada has lax prostitution laws - “If I had a million dollars, I’d buy your love”. How Pretty Woman!

Suzanne - Leonard Cohen

“You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she’s half crazy

But that’s why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from china And just when you mean to tell her That you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer” Come on, internet nerds!! WTF are we exactly telling Obama here? Sigh….

While sitting here watching the Superbowl, it dawned on me how the differences between the NFL and CFL really reflect some of the differences between Canada and the States. Here’s what I noticed;

1. Canada is bigger/The CFL has a bigger field

While it’s true that size doesn’t matter, it’s still an interesting parallel.

2. Density

The average NFL player is much, much bigger than the average CFL player. More body(ies) in a smaller space, just like the States. Us Canadians love our elbow room, even on the gridiron.

3. Ooh, so close!

In the CFL, if you miss a field goal you can still get a single point. We call it the “Good try, eh?” point. Or a rouge. Either way, it’s totally Canadian.

4. Sizzle!

Your championship is Super!!! Ours? Grey. Plus, you call your winner “World Champion”. Us? Not.