Wednesday, May 8

Canada, Just a Little Bit Different

By Dave Finger
EXPN.com

Canada. Hmmm let's see, where do I start? First of all Vancouver, BC is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to and it makes me wonder why people make fun of Canada. I mean the first time I encountered the act of Canada bashing, or any reference to Canada for that matter, was when I saw this one TV skit. Do you remember Rick Moranis the "Keymaster" from Ghostbusters? Well he did this thing on a show called "Second City TV" where he was a Canadian and had this Canadian brother and they would sit around and call each other "hoser" and say "eh" a lot. And then they would talk about beer and make some joke about how it was cold all year round and then laugh and say "take off" like they meant to say f*ck off in a friendly way and then sit there with these stupid looks on their faces. Now do you remember? Well you should because these brothers grew into the franchise that we know today as Strange Brew. So I don't know if I was too young to appreciate what I now think is actually pretty entertaining, and I am a fan of SCTV even though it only airs in Canadia now, funny how that works. But I pretty much forgot about Canada all together until South Park came along and started just unleashing on our fair northern neighbours.

Canada... where the night is young and the Tylenol is codeine.

I remember thinking to myself, what the hell is this big deal about Canada and why are all these cut-out cartoon kids from Colorado constantly ripping the hell out of it? I still don't know what caused the creators of South Park to think it's so funny (maybe it's the McKenzies), but I do find myself singing "Blame Canada" by default in a lot of different situations. Regardless of who's to blame, a few years ago when I moved up to Seattle this whole making fun of Canada thing just sort of fell into place in a weird way. Living so close to the border forces the residents of the northwestern US to mix it up with the residents of southwestern Canada and human nature inevitably takes over. Nationalism and pride encourages this sort of friendly jabbing between the merits of each nation when the culturally similar populations of both regions interact. So even if I might throw my cigarette butts into the "Rubbish Bin" or "Queue Up" to use the "Cash Counter" or buy a "Two-Four" (a case of beer), I gotta say that I absolutely love Canada because I have the best time ever when I'm there.

It's not because you can buy codeine Tylenol at the grocery store or because Vancouver is choc-full of Canada's finest export - their women. It's more because of something like when John Travolta talks about Europe in Pulp Fiction, everything is the same but just a little bit different. Like when I went to the bar on Friday night of the contest for the big Dwindle Party. Instead of feeling at home with a bunch of people my age ordering 2 Kokanees at a time because they were all free, there was this crazy fun element of "high school party gone wrong" because you can go drinking in Canada, legally, when you're 19. Imagine a bunch of kids who can't hold their liquor ordering more and more drinks and getting more and more wasted until they finally get the courage up to hit the dance floor with their version of the white boy running man or cabbage patch. Pure comedy.

High School Party Gone Bad - Stuart was toasting Jocelyn but got all surly and broke the top off her bottle gashing open her hand with the shattered glass. Then Allison started laughing real hard and gave her a big hug when she saw the blood.

And for me nothing is more entertaining then watching a bunch of 19-year-old skateboarders trying to get their mack on with random chicks in tight jeans with cut-off waists and pierced bellies between visits to the "Washroom" to puke. It's not like I was keeping tabs on who was puking and who wasn't, but it was so bad in this one bathroom that I seriously did have a freshman year flashback. This one toilet was all clogged up with this huge swamp of drunk chunks and air bubbles kept floating to the top and making this "bloop" noise, kind of like an attraction at Yellowstone Park or something. I almost puked when I went in there to "take a slash."

Anyways the little differences go beyond just that… You have people living in igloos and riding dog driven sleds to work. And who can forget the Zamboni dealership in the middle of downtown? Then the few people that are actually in cars (and not some sort of animal driven "modern machine") are all speeding down the wrong side of the road avoiding the double-decker buses. And how there's no paper money. Or that you have to boil the water before you drink it. Perhaps it's the great "Olde Inns" you can room in for the night. And how everyone's a backpacker and they all have wolves as pets. All jokes aside we cannot forget one very important cultural treasure, Canadian Whiskey. This was my PowerBar each night, fueling my mind and body and helping to make these little observations possible.

Things are just a bit different here.

I guess that I'm just rambling now about how much fun I have while I'm there and how much I like Canada. But basically what it comes down to is when I'm in Canada I feel like I'm playing with these sort of out-of-towner rules, which makes being publicly drunk and obnoxious as easy as cashing a certified cheque or chugging down a schooner at the local pub. So my advice to whoever is reading this would be - get to Canadia and use your American dollars to get some cheap living done and experience the fine culture found in The Great White North. But watch out for the falling trees and people yelling "timber!"

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