Centerspread: Crazy Canucks

So, you think Canadians are polite, well-mannered, friendly people, eh? Our favourite colour is beige? Our favourite room is the hall? You think nothing makes us angry; nothing grinds our gears and sets a screw loose. You think we’re pushovers, don’t ya, punk? We’d never do anything to rebel against the status quo? Well, I’ll have you know the other day I cut away fifteen minutes early from my Youth Group in order meet my Best Buddy at the soup kitchen. BAM. Didn’t see that comin’ did ya?

#fiddlesticktheestablishment

Anyways, I’m a bit of an outlaw here in the Great White North, but I think the idea that Canadians are boring is starting to break faster than Mike Duffy on thin ice.

Justin BeieberDear Biebs

Okay J-Biebs, we get it. You smoke pot like the cool kids, but how does it feel knowing Rob Ford has more street-cred than you?

We’ve all heard about your DUI while drag racing and I don’t want to joke about the dangers of drinking and driving or recklessness for that matter. But what I do want to talk about is how forced this all feels. I understand that you want to rid yourself of your teen-pop image, but in a Lamborghini? Little cliché, isn’t it Biebs? You know how many people thought of James Dean? Nobody. Absolutely nobody. And I wouldn’t advise driving too fast to the place your going anyways.

Soon you’ll be everybody’s Boyfriend.

You need to slow down or the next thing you know you’ll be rubbing your ass against Robin Thicke’s crotch at the Grammys and licking another man’s sledgehammer.

Speaking of Thicke, he’s another Canadian citizen who makes me question the sanity of this country. His hit song walks that faint blurred line between sexist and rapey.

Even Drake, the perfect boyfriend, the idle of boys and girls at his bar-mitzvah with ya sista, is in the news because he’s mad Rolling Stone gave his cover to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Talk about Worst Behaviour.

The issue seems to be that these celebrities never really got a taste of the real world: Biebs was discovered at the young age of 13, Drake was only 15 when he jumped into Degrassi and Thicke‘s dad is a famous sit-com star. Life’s hard when you find out it doesn’t actually have a laughtrack.

We can’t really complain, I guess. At least our Canadian stars don’t get into dumb fights with paparazzi like Kanye West.

Just limo drivers. What? Did he card you Biebs? Did he mistake you for Miley? Was he playing Nickelback?

Baby, Baby, Oh my fuck.

Taking Care of Business

What happened to the age where Canadian prime ministers won the Nobel Peace Prize? The only thing Stephen Harper has won was his high school yearbook’s “Most Likely To Have his Hair Outlive the Rest of Canada.”

OK, that doesn’t exactly equate to crazy. He’s polite as fuck and boring as curling – as Canadians are supposed to be – but something just bothers me about that look. If he weren’t in politics, he’d be that creepy guy who takes your photograph at Wal-Mart. The guy with the puppet. A bit of a “Stepford Politician” if you ask me.

Still, Canadian politics has* been getting a little crazy on the whole. Whether it’s the Senate scandals or Rob Ford bragging he has “enough to eat at home.” Well Mr. Stocked-Pantry, if you have so much to eat, why don’t you share with the rest of us, huh? We may not be crack addicts but that doesn’t mean we don’t have appetites. Where’s your civic duty?

Puff, puff, pass, motherfucker.

It’s not just mayors and prime ministers who look like they smoked the wrong drugs during Electoral College, it’s the whole goddamn system. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird doesn’t just look like your typical ’80s teen movie bully, he acts like it too. He wants that Keystone pipeline more than Biff wanted Marty McFly’s mom. I bet he wields a pretty mean wet towel in the parliamentary shower room. And you would have thought Pamela Wallin could have spiced up her wardrobe with something other than pantsuits with the $138,970 she stole. And I’m sick and tired of hearing about Mike Duffy getting angry every time a kid wakes him up with the Pokéflute.

I think all this madness roots back to when Michaëlle Jean ate that seal heart in ’09. You do one crazy cool act of solidarity and the next thing you know the Toronto Mayor declares Bob Marley Day.

You think I can’t draw comparison between two things that are clearly unrelated?

Just watch me.

*Note from Bev Oda: ‘Not’

Rock’em Sock’em

Okay, I’ll admit it. The Sochi Olympics has been filled with Canadians doing touching gestures: From the speed skater who withdrew from his race to give his fellow Canadian his spot and a medal, to the Canadian coach who gave the Russian skier an extra ski to finish the race to the mogul skier who celebrated his gold medal with his mentally challenged brother. Cute stuff. It’s like a highlight reel on Upworthy. Give us the Noble Priest Prize for shitsake.

But it’s not hockey. If that had been hockey, that Canadian coach would have put that ski somewhere else besides the Russian’s foot.

I think I speak for the majority when I say hockey is the Make it or Break it Winter Olympic sport. It’s the only time Canadians can say they’ve vanquished the two Great Powers of the world in battle and dictated the motherfucking peace. It’s also fun to try to pronounce the Russian names.

“Bitemycockoff over to Sukmydickoff…”

I can’t get enough.

Unfortunately, after hockey is over it’s also the season when Canadians turn ugliest on Facebook. It’s like all of Canada gets out its sexual and political frustrations all at once by writing a big, “Fuck you, America.”

Apparently, America lost the game in Vancouver because of their involvement in the Middle East or because of the Tea Party or because Martha Washington was a whore. If Facebook said it, it must be true.

And if we lose, well, let’s get drunk and burn some cars and break some windows to show our disgust at those gun-toting, war-mongering Yankees. And if Putin’s pucksters win? Well, we’ll pout in our poutine.

It’s not like NHL hockey is any different, though.

When I was little, I loved the shit out of Don Cherry. I probably couldn’t name you a single player off the current Toronto Maple Leaf team, but when I was eight I wrote that motherfucker letters and he wrote back (I’m kind of a big deal). But let’s face it, he knows hockey and Canadians – all our worst instincts.

The only real difference between NHL hockey and the Olympics, as Cherry understands, is that in Sochi we get to watch our good ol’ boys beat the shit out of those visor-wearing, chateau-living, croissant-eating, bicycle-riding Europeans.

A word of advice for all: just pass the puck to Crosby and chill.

(Or, if you prefer, pass the chilled Smirnoff to Taketheschooldayoff)