American Torontoid

Important Follow-Up to Prior Posts

I took a few pictures to support my prior posts. I took a couple of pictures of Canadian goose protection in action and I also took a photo at the grocery store that exemplifies the consiracy to keep Canadians from buying milk in cartons. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong about what they put on their cartons of milk, but it is clearly ambiguous. I’ve never even heard of anyone using an abbreviated form of the word they are employing on the milk carton. I looked around, and I could not find this same stuff on bags of milk. That, my friends, is why it’s called a conspiracy. Lastly, to show the obsession Canadians have for milk pitchers, I have a photo that shows milk CARTONS but they still have special pitchers they use to hold milk cartons. I think this is a sign of successful brainwashing.

Exploring the Culture of Toronto

Being new to Canada and Toronto, I don’t have much experience with the social or cultural scene. Upon moving here a couple of months ago, my only observation was that I could watch hockey or curling at any time of day on at least three stations. There are minor league hockey games here. There are NHL games on at all times. Some broadcasts are in French, others are in English. There is also an abundance of curling on television. I expected when I watched the first of five matches that the competition would all be like the Olympics and pitting nation against nation in an effort to revive Cold War animosity. Then I remembered that I was in Canada and there was never a Cold War here, just Cold without the War part. Heck, Canadians can come and go between here and Havana. I guess Canadians love Communists. Personally, I have no problem with Communists. If it weren’t for the Commies, my great grandparents wouldn’t have fled Poland. Thanks, Marx, Lenin and Stalin! Keep up the good work, Fidel!

I digress… Curling is a huge sport here. I’m not sure how the television ratings are, but there are lots of corporate sponsors plastered all over. Monsanto was sponsoring one team, Ford sponsoring another. (Sidenote: glad to see that Ford has saved up enough money to spend a little on curling sponsorships. I hope the executives get good seats to the matches.) Four of the five matches I have seen were CLUB teams in Canada playing for the national championship or something. A couple of the matches were women’s teams. I don’t know why they don’t desegregate the sport. I think that with all those years of domestic service, women should be able to sweep their way to a championship in the men’s league. **I’M JUST KIDDING** But seriously, this is a game like shuffleboard–there isn’t a big test of strength, except for your ability to slide down the ice in bowling shoes while using a scrub brush to polish the ice in front of a stone and get it to strategically stop on a target. Why CAN’T women beat up on the men? If there is one thing I can accomplish in Canada, I am going to work towards integrating the men’s and women’s curling factions. It is important to the future of curling to bring equality to the masses. Even Capital One is onboard with this–see http://www.rocksandrings.com/, a kids program that promotes curling. I guess it helps keep kids off the mean streets of Halifax and out of the thug life while also teaching the skills necessary to keep a tidy kitchen, home, and city. No wonder Canada is so clean.

Another thought on curling: I have only seen white people play on television. I have not seen any immigrants or Inuits. Something to think about.

In addition to curling and hockey on television, Esra and I got out for a couple of live cultural experiences. We went to a theater production and we went to a comedy club.

The first weekend we decided to get out was when we went to the theater. Esra has been looking into arts organizations to network and locate a possible job opportunity. She stumbled upon http://blackandbluegala.eventbrite.com/. I was only informed that this was a modern dance company and it would be a unique performance. I had some high expectations because the producer sounded like a Russian immigrant and it was a touring company–not a bunch of locals that were going to be breakdancing on cardboard. Also, tickets to the event were $100 (Canadian) per person–we got ours comped, thank god. Normally, I would not drop a C-note on a dance performance and certainly not for a modern dance performance. I did NOT read the full description of the performance prior to arrival. During the day leading up to the performance, I was a little nervous about what to wear. The theater was next door to the Royal Ballet Academy and there was a reception planned there after the performance. It was my first time at something cultural in Canada, so I didn’t want to look like a slob, like when I would see stuff in the US. In Iowa, in 1991, I went to Cats in Cedar Rapids in a 10,000 seat stadium where I wore jeans and a tee shirt while eating a box of popcorn. I was hoping Toronto would be an upgrade over that.

I was sort of out of place. It turns out that the performance was being done sans costumes. No costumes? Were the dancers wearing their street clothes? Borrowing clothes from the audience? No, they were completely naked. This was a bit of a shock at first, but it’s modern dance, so I figured that kind of nutty, shockingness is par for the course. There were three dancers: one female (the Russian) and two males. All nude. The performance started and I made several other new discoveries about the performance: no dialogue and no music. The entire performance was these three dancers modern-dancing all over a blank stage (no set), in dead silence with a single spotlight following them around. Modern dance is not ballet. It is not Dancing with the Stars. It is more like Shark Week. There is a lot of sprinting, running, jumping, spinning, and arm motions that look like a baseball pitcher (with no clothes or a baseball) or perhaps muscle spasms. The performance lasted an hour.

As soon as the show started, I knew I was in trouble. I calmed myself down and didn’t laugh when the dancers took their marks in the nude. My first thought upon seeing the dancers was “I need to lose weight”–several people at the reception made the same remark when we started comparing notes. As soon as they started “dancing”, I was biting my lip and tongue and pinching my leg to keep myself from laughing. Perhaps this was a bit too much culture for me and I am  more of a Will Ferrell afficianado than a modern dance fanatic. There were running back and forth, chasing each other, and jumping in unison. I had no idea what was going on. I’ve seen my niece and nephew put on a similar performance when it is close to their bath times. There was no discernible story, just naked people getting some exercise. After the first five minutes, I had nearly chewed through my lip, so I decided it would be best if I closed my eyes. I couldn’t laugh because the whole theater was silent during the performance. Everyone would have heard me. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t really help. All you could heard was the pitter-patter of naked dancer’s feet as they modern-danced their way to fitness. I opened my eyes after 10 minutes and the dancing had calmed down. I think there was a story. I think it was about being monkeys in a love triangle, but then one monkey moves to the big city and has to take the subway to work and just doesn’t have time for the other monkeys. Instead, the monkey gets caught up in the corporate grind and lives life in the fast lane, like Michael J Fox (Canadian) in the award winning “Secret of My Success”. At the end, they all fell asleep, which was quite a plot twist. I thought they would just continue to exercise. I clapped at the end, even though I was perplexed. I think they set up the ending for a sequel. I expect that all Canadian culture must be similar to this experience. Surely Esra and I can’t be in town and on the internet for a DAY and find the only naked dance performance in town. Statistically, there must be at least thirty others going on at any given time. I think that’s a reasonable statistical assumption.

The next weekend, Esra and I hit the comedy club. Not much to tell about it. It was not all that funny. I had not heard of the headliner and he was an old timer. During his performance, it was obvious that he was having a tough time relating to a younger (younger than 60) crowd. The only funny bit of his had to do with his prostate cancer, which either really speaks to how much time he devoted to that bit or to how bad the rest of his act was so that cancer seemed funny. I felt slightly guilty. ANYWAY, there were like four opening acts and everyone made fun of the US. According to Canadians, Americans are all fat an lazy. It is kind of like the way Americans used to talk about Mexico in the 1980’s. According to Canadians, Americans are all fat and eat too much fast food. Everyone in the club laughed and laughed at the American jokes. I laughed too, because I didn’t want to be outed as an American because I was too fat to run away if they decided to mob me. The comics also talked a lot about pot and drugs and stuff–sort of standard fare for comedians these days. Except for the abundance of jokes about American and the distinct LACK of jokes about Canadians, it was just like going to a comedy club in the US without a good headliner.

I am trying to make my way to a Canadian sporting event, but I can’t read Canadian calendars very well. I thought there was a baseball game in town this weekend, but the home game I was targeting is NEXT weekend. You see, the time in Toronto is ahead by one week. Either that or I can’t use calendars. Isn’t this Canadian leap year? That might have something to do with it, too. Anyway, I’m going to try to get to a game. Apparently, I’ll be the only one in Canada trying to go to a baseball game intentionally. Cheapest seats are $14 (Canadian) and you can buy tickets in an alcohol-free section. (Why?) I’m also going to try out the subway for the first time when I go to a game. But that is a topic for another blog.

Vigilance.

Canadian Goose Stepping

Outside of my office, there is a Canadian goose. Actually, there are two. I think they are married. According to Canadian law, a couple is considered to be in a common law marriage after only six months. I’m not sure how long these geese were a-courting, but they have a nest and have laid eggs next to a tree about 30 feet from the main entrance to my office building.

The Canadian goose is the national bird of Canada. I did not know this. In America, they land in parks and at my old office and poop on everything and they even chase people from time to time. They are very hostile–even militant birds. I heard that Canada was going to send a flock (actually a gaggle) to Libya. In America, the bald eagle is the national bird. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird? That notion was rejected. Apparently, the forefathers of the United States decided they didn’t want two delicious animals to represent bordering countries. It is okay for Americans to eat Canada’s national bird, but the Canadian goose is a protected animal within Canada. This means that the birds that laid eggs outside my office can’t be touched. The area 15 feet around the birds has been roped off and nobody is allowed near the nest. Officials from the government have to get a permit to come out and relocate the birds and the nest. We are not allowed to eat the eggs. I guess Canadian eggs are also protected, even though they aren’t geese yet. Heck, for all we know, there could be alligators inside those eggs until they hatch. Why take that chance? Canadians are THAT trusting.

Until the birds are relocated, the male continues to guard the nest and drop green poop everywhere. He watches all us suckers walk into work in the morning and leave at night while he just lives off Jaques Q. Taxpayer’s nickle.

Speaking of nickles… it is taking me a while to get used to Canadian money. I suppose if you lived here long enough, you would know how much change to carry around with you to avoid getting more change. The big adjustment is that there are no one dollar bills. If you buy something that costs $0.25 (and then pay the 14% sales tax), you get a couple of quarters, some pennies, and two $2 coins. Yes, they have $1 and $2 coins in Canada instead of paper money. The lowest denomination of paper money is $5. The money is all very colorful, which is great unless you are colorblind. $5 = blue, $10 = purple, $20 = green, $50 is pink (even though they call it red), and $100 is the majestic color of brown. I would like to have been there when they decided which colors to make the different denominations. How did PURPLE wind up on such a common denomination? Personally, I would have gone with blue, green and red first. Since red is on the national flag, I’d probably start with that on the $5. The only other color on the Canadian flag is white, so you can’t really have a white-on-white paper money unless you also give all citizens access to portable/pocket-size blacklights so they can make sure they have the white-on-white money and not just a blank piece of paper. Maybe that is why they got rid of the $1 bill. I think the real reason they got rid of the $1 bill is because of the strong lobbying efforts of strippers. Think about it–the smallest paper bill that can be used to tip is $5. If I was a US stripper, I’d immediately apply for my Canadian work permit. I’m sure they also lobbied to make sure it is an offense to have drunk old men to throw $1 and $2 coins at you in any combination.

Also, I’ve heard there are still $500 bills in circulation, but my diligent research says that the latest printing only issued notes up to $100. The 6th Prime Minister of Canada appears on that note. Oddly, the $20 features a foreigner–the Queen of England. I think that Canadians sometimes forget that they celebrate Canada Day (or Pre-American Independence Day) on July 1, commemorating the establishment of Canada as a country of its own, which was achieved in 1867. Maybe the Brits have hypnotized everyone except the Quebecardashians into thinking they are still a snowy part of the UK.

Speaking of holidays…Canadians are doing a poor job of marketing their advantage over US holidays. I think Canadians intentionally tried to pre-empt US holidays in order to attract more immigrants. In Canada, Family Day is celebrated about the time of Presidents Day; Victoria is celebrated a week before Memorial Day; Canada is 3 days before US Independence Day; Canadian Thanksgiving is nearly a month before US Thanksgiving. I have frequently inquired as to when I should celebrate Canadian New Year, but apparently it is the same in both countries. That certainly saves on the cost of printing calendars.

The more I am here, the more subtle differences I am finding between US and Canadian culture. I must remember my roots and avoid being completely assimilated.

Vigilance.