jackassworld

If I wasn’t familiar—perhaps too familiar—with the Whiskey snowboard videos and a certain contingent of skateboarders from the Great White North, I would probably never understand the fascination harbored by Canadians for jackass. Seriously, how many Canadians are in the house here? Because the last few days all I’ve seen are massive erections of Canadian pride. Come to Saskatchewan! Come to Toronto! Come to Montreal! Although no one is stepping up to claim Nova Scotia, I see, which leads me to believe that might just be the Kansas of Canada. Anyway, no offense meant to the Scotians or Kansans, there are far worse things that could be said about many other territories of the world that are neither here nor there and wouldn’t be missed if they one day went and pulled an Atlantis, but … where was I? Oh yeah, Canadians. Your enthusiasm is duly noted and we sincerely appreciate your online patronage. Also, your good-natured ability to excuse Jeff Tremaine for those dreadfully disparaging remarks he once made about your Great Northern kind. But hey, it’s not your fault. We all have shitty cards that were dealt in our uncontrollable past. Take Australia for instance. That place started out as a penal colony for criminals shipped the fuck out of the United Kingdom. So the prison blood runs deep in heritages there and probably has affected more than several million strands of DNA throughout the centuries. Likewise, Canada was pioneered by hardy fur-trapping fuckers with an insatiable appetite for alcohol and whores. God knows they needed something to warm themselves. (Although, to be honest, I’m still not sure how the French managed to prance into Quebec and call it a French-Canadian day.) But that was the past, of course, so let’s let these generational prejudices and stereotypes go to take a more irie stance on the matter. You know, one world, one heart, let’s get together and feel alright and shit, because people are people and there’s really no reason we should get along so awfully. Especially now when the fate of the entire world rests in the Mayan balance.

(photo by Sean Cliver; West Chester, PA; 2000)