Boo Canada

oh and at the next home game, every Torontonian standing at attention, buttcheeks clenched, silently mouthing "the starspangled banner" is burning the stars and stripes in his mind. That's how we boo up heah, massa.

Agree completely. The 'praise' is double-edged. Canadians are in a unique position to explore a concept of the individual with the least possible cultural hangover baggage and while some individuals manage to reach great heights (due PRECISELY to this lack of psychic moorings, anchors, albatrosses) but by some sort of centrifugal force the majority seems to sink to that lowest common denominator of behaviour, passive-aggressiveness - bragging about LACK of influence and initiative - being proud of being boring! Jesus wept! What do you expect from a wasteland twice the size of Antartica that was founded as A)the first de facto police state, and B) in EXPLICIT opposition to the American revolution? So, we like authority, hate change, like to criticise other people for doing ANYTHING but feel we're entitled to live off their largesse, brag about how excellent we are (all those stupid superlatives, "biggest earwax sculpture north of Chibougameau" etc) then brag about how little we brag. (I remember my parents telling me "You should be glad to not be American, they hav all these racial problems." Well you know why we don't have any? Because we killed all the fucking Indians with typhoid and methylated spirits, that's why.)

Canada is a big test. If you are a weak individual who needs a culture to belong to as a crutch then you will end up like the 99% of Canadians who are the most useless, sponging, lethargic, complacent, passive, ignorant, and yes DULL wastes of space (poetic justice in what must be the WORLD'S biggest waste of space - let someody else have the water fo fuck's sake, what are we going to do with it, melt it to make more ice rinks? Donate it to Molson Breweries? That way we'd end up recycling it!) in the world.
There's always a however though, and the fact is, th lack of moorings is also a form of propulsion. A lack of atachments = lack of emotions that get in the way of tearing up shit = sociopathy! Work on this. If we just ditched any pretence of having a culture etc and got to work on fucking up the rest of the world - it's like Andrew Dice Clay on why 'men can cheat and women can't - NO GUILT!' Come on, the revenge of the overprivileged is always the most pitiless and terrible. Fuck you England with your monolithic dead hand of deadness and as for the USA, ha ha ha! Oops, I just got in a car accident, what's the bill? FREE? Cool, thanks! Being a Canadian I have no external values, and since I don't give a fuck about anything, you're all in trouble. From the land of ice and snow, Valhalla I am coming...

BTW is CTV still going? I remember they had 'Movie Matinee' at 2PM followed by 'Six Million Dollar Man' at 4 which made a day off sick from school a real treat! Best 'MM' I ever caught was 'Frogs', a 1972 cheapo horror where polluting businessman Ray Milland is brought to a grisly end by radioactively-enhanced swamp things - check it out!

Why do so many beloved comedians in the US come from Canada. Or just some.

Oh yeah, despite the car accident comment I HATE boosters who parrot that same three-word mantra over and over - "Free health care! Free health care!" Like, perhaps the sense of passivity and entitlement that guarantees the worthlessness of Canadians has something to do with the separation of the concepts of 'cause' and 'effect' which is the main propaganda/social-engineering thrust of that wonderful paradox, a socialist country that doesn't have any of it's own fucking money? Seriously, if Canadians actually lived within their means the country would rank somewhere below Honduras and there'd be no more of this "Well, we invented the electric can-opener! O Canada!" shit

Pete - illustrates exactly what I said! See, comedy requires the gift of PERSPECTIVE, being able to see the ridiculous in EVERYTHING. People from 'real' cultures take everything WAAAAYYYY too seriously. "You cain't say thet, muh daddy would git mad!" "That's right out of order, mate" etc

...and it's easier to see things in perspective the less abstract attachments you have cataracting your comedic cornea

OK serious lather workup!!! The one thing I remember through my mud- colored nostalgia glasses is the utter pettiness, small-mindedness, and peasant cunning - the most despicable, contemptible form of picayune fuckery there is. Neighbours who would sneak out at 3 AM to surreptiously move property markers. "I sold him a truck - with an empty gas tank! Heh heh heh!" "I saved $2.37 on my income tax by cheating, no way those fuckers in Ottawa are going to get that $2.37!" (TRUE STORY: Guy buys lottery ticket, it's a winner - so he MUTILATES THE CARD, leaves it somewhere where it's sure to be found, cackling all the while, "Some poor sucker will pick it up and think he's won!" Uhhhh....) Times infinity. People whose entire lives are so circumscribed that pointless, trivial acts of hostility and revenge are their life highlights. In light of this behaviour the national motto should be that Nick Cave lyric, "I'll climb over twenty good pussies to get to a fat boy asshole". Hey, it's OK for me to say this, as I already predicted us taking over the world due to being a nation of psychopaths, starting with me, which soon you FAT STUPID BIBLE-THUMPING YANKS and TOOTHLESS UGLY BRITS (btw why the fuck does this country resemble Angola? All those missing limbs!) will learn soon enough - it REALLY REALLY hurts at first but then it starts to feel better and strangely addictive. Come over to the dark side. It's got FREE HEALTH CARE

Blimey Dave, calm down. I can see the vein popping out on your forehead from here.

Wow, I'm tripping on Ray Milland now. 'The Man With X-Ray Eyes'. I relate to him, I guess. But ONLY with that apocryphal 'missing final line' restored. Ready?

"I CAN STILL SEE!!!!!!!"

I just realised, I referred to 'melting water' instead of the more correct 'freezing'. Oh let's just say I meant 'melting glaciers', or whatevah

So Dave, how do you feel about Canada?

"Why do so many beloved comedians in the US come from Canada. Or just some."

Because Canadian television gets BBC/Channel 4 shows a few years before America, and nick and repackage everything?

But what about Kraft dinner? And Gretzky?

Good lord, I want more, dave. What about the pride Canadians take of their more 'internationalist' stance towards, ah, other nations, at the expense of Americans who largely act like they live in some jerkwater Indiana town of 1920s KKKers and Know-Nothings? Is there a downside to that? I find the obsession with United Nations plaques charming, in comparison to the USA-- it's a sore spot that we're so worried at protecting our present and future war criminals, isn't it?

brilliant.

as Dave (and I) have demonstrated, the canadian national identity exists and it's called self-loathing.

which explains all the fucking comedians.

I don't think most Canadians are mad that Americans are booing at basketball games - rather they are more sad at the fact four young men died unnecessarily. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive. I can't finish half of the stories I read in the newspaper. Oh well, let's talk about Canadian comedians, hockey and beer anyways then! I do agree with the general sentiment that if it had been Canadian friendly fire killing 4 American soliders it would have been a much bigger story. Some actor I've never heard of is in the news though. That is not my Canadian inferiority complex going into overdrive, just the nature of CNN/Fox and everything I guess. I think Toronto is basically another American city (and it soo desperately wants to be and doesn't try to hide that fact!) but most Canadians dislike Toronto anyways. There are still a few differences I find quite noticeable between the two countries despite the obvious shared pop culture. But Japan is also very in love with the US, aren't they like the number one trading partners? I still remember the time I went to florida and all these old white Americans were like 'ha ha, canadian girl, bet you never seen so many black people before!' it was like, um, what the hell? Do they think there is like 50 white kids that make up the whole of Canada or something? I know, I know, they don't care about Canada or any annoying little facts, but still! It was bizarre.

Not to burst anyones bubble but hockey crowds have always booed the Canadian Nation anthem. Specially in Detriot during the playofss during the Gilmour/Anderchuk revival or even the Clark/Iafrate dark days.
There is a very strong Canadian national identity, its simply that we are not Americans. I dont know what Dave's problem is but someones got to relax and its not me.

There are *bigger* earwax sculptures south of Chibougameau? Now that is news.

Oh now see, the rest of Canada only hates Toronto because it has the biggest identity boosting 'big things' (witness the giant tower and it's massive scrotal dome base). And no B.C., mountains DO NOT COUNT!

Mr Noodles sez: There is a very strong Canadian national identity, its simply that we are not Americans.

By that logic, every nation in the world but one has a very strong Canadian national identity. Saying "We are one of the hundreds of nations that is not America" tells you nothing about Canada.

Still, I think the clicheed "Our identity is defined by what we are not" argument is actually shorthand for "When it comes to nationality and identity we have a completely different conception of what these things mean than Americans do, and trying to define these ideas in American terms demeans them." Then you can go into some pseudo-McLuhanist global village stuff if anybody's still awake.

A Canuck friend of mine once compared Canada to Belgium, in that neither country has any real history, their borders being a fairly recent invention.

n.'s friend is a traitor. why do long-established borders = history? time doesn't begin when people make lines in the sand. these preconceptions are all part of the old outdated tribalism that belgian-canadian freewheeling good-times globalism will replace.

Hey, wait a minute. I didn't say he was saying it was necessarily a bad thing.

By N.'s friend's logic, Italy wouldn't qualify as real country either, and Germany is little more than a decade old in its present form

Yeah, well take it up with him. The German people still have a long tradition of feeling one nation though, even if the borders have changed. Italy's a country in the same way that maybe Britain was 100 years after the Act of Union. Canada's just a delicious accident of history, he said not really knowing what he's talking about.

as long as we're delicious, I'm happy.

...and just which naughty nation is getting felt up by these Germans hmm?

Also you must all keep in mind that Detroit Pistons fans are complete and utter brain-dead cockfarmers. Most of them them got there only because they weren't nabbed by the police for their DUI.