Maxed Out

This weekend, Canadians from coast to coast to coast—with the notable exception of Quebec—will celebrate ... well, let's just leave it at that. They'll celebrate. Canadians aren't really very good at celebrating. It makes us uneasy.

They may still not smoke marijuana in Muskogee—no doubt preferring opioids—but if so, it must be about the last place on Earth.

I am not a violent man. Ornery, crabby, opinionated and cynical, but not violent. I religiously believe in turning the other cheek. If the other cheek doesn't work, I'm usually quick to drop my trou and give 'em the full moon. But I am not violent.

A number of years ago I returned to Ontario to spend a couple of weeks paddling in Killarney Provincial Park. Killarney occupies a small swath of the coast of Georgian Bay.

Oh, Canada! The angst. The agony. The complete and utter dissatisfaction. The revulsion. From coast to coast to coast, Canadians are frustrated, overwhelmed, and, well, simply pissed off at pretty much everything.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" – C. Little And so it was. Notwithstanding the sky didn't actually fall on Chicken Little's head, soon after the fable was finished the axe did fall on her head.

In 1959, Hollywood, which is to say the centre of the English film universe, produced films that made people wonder about the condition of said universe.

What is the useful life of a greeting card? A birthday card? Christmas card? How long do we have to hang on to any of them before we can toss 'em in recycling without guilt or a sense of loss or betrayal? I'll spare you the suspense.

It's hard to believe —I hardly believe it myself—that I've been writing this column for almost 24 years. More than 1,200 times I've sat down and stared at a blank computer screen and had it stare back at me, expectantly.

"We're on a road to nowhere Come on inside Takin' that ride to nowhere We'll take that ride" — David Byrne, Talking Heads Compared to the train wreck that started this whole business, the announcement this week that the JWR-JP Ri