Hosers & flags

Hosers
At this writing,  the 1st of  July – Canada Day 2013 – is over for much of Canada.

There's about 50 minutes of it left in Vancouver; my Toronto pals are long-passed out (hopefully, not in a ditch ... again).

I will wager anyone I know in and around BC is also 9 sheets to the wind, or already tucked up in an equally cozy drainage pipe.

Here in New Zealand, it's almost the 3rd of July (living in the future has its benefits – I like to say we get 48 hours to celebrate everything, from holidays like this, to Xmas, and birthdays).

Like every holiday weekend, no matter what the 'cause celebre' or actual reason for it, most of us head out with escalated glee in anticipation of having an extra day off – and another reason to drink. Often, heavily. And as many would vouch, this is a LOT of fun.

Canadians around the world (expats) have really taken up the cause lately, as well.

We have a "Canadians in Wellington" club here in Wellington (a handy thing, considering the name of the club). There is a bunch of like-minded Canucks in Aussie who organise shindigs around these Canadian-specific events too. For a brief, shining, long-weekend moment, we Canadians shout our proud heritage to ... well, to whoever will listen. But does it stop here, with Canada Day?

Indeed, this is the question of the day. The rumpus, if you will.

I get bemused looks from NZers I know, when they find out it's Canada Day. Unlike the USA's Independence Day, it's not as well known, or trumpted on TV or in newspaper ads for the private bottle shops and bars here. And I don't dash around yelling about it.

Of course when my Kiwi mates find out, they ask: "What sorts of things do you do to celebrate?"

I tell 'em – "Pretty much what every Kiwi does with a day off, whether it's a city's Anniversary Day here, or Waitangi Day, or ANZAC Day."

They nod. They get it. We in the 1st-World parts of the planet love to focus our time off with as much fun as we can cram into the time/space continuum. We all do it ... look for a party, gather en-masse, go camping ... and drink.

I loved the long weekends when I lived in Canada, and of course, I love 'em here too. When there's a Canadian holiday – but not one here to coincide –  I love watching the merry shenanigans from afar, thanks to things like FacePlant and Twitter and Google+. And email. And drunken 4 am phone calls, to please come get me out of this gutter! It's COLD and WET.

One odd thing I notice, though.

Thinking back to when I was a kid, we did pretty much everything we do now ... used the holiday as an excuse to have as much fun as humanly possible ... except now, there's an almost psychotic urgency, a half-mad fervour, a genuine unbridled NEED to be SURE to shout out the whole "I AM CANADIAN" thing.

Almost (dare I say it) ... to an American level.

And that brings me to the other thing I notice that's heaps different now, from when I was a kid.

Flags.

Yep, the mighty Maple Leaf. It's being waved about and draped over shoulders and flown from just about anything you can nail or tie a flag to. A lot.

Not just during this weekend, but just about any time of the year.

When I was a kid, you didn't see many Canadian flags around at all. I was born in an army camp (CFB Petawawa, represent!) so you saw a few flags on military buildings (that makes sense). But you saw more military regiment flashes and badges and arm-bands.

When I was 12, I moved to the 1,000 Islands area (it was a family decision – I wasn't off to join the circus on my own). It's my mom's hometown, Gananoque. It was a tourist town in summer, and the tourists intended to be lured in were, of course, Americans. They were just across the river. So aim your evil marketing scheme at those close by, I guess ... make it a short and easy trip for them.

There WERE a lot of flags around in those summer touristy days when I was a kid – American ones. Usually the Stars 'n Bars were tied/flown from the backs of the monstrous yachts that holidaying Americans would stuff their bulks into, and sail (motor) into our marinas.

Sure, a few Canadians had flags on their boats. But they were much smaller banners, understated ... usually no bigger than an envelope, on the back light-pole of a (much smaller then the USA ones) boat.

No one had a massive Maple Leaf flying off their front porch. People didn't run around with them draped over their shoulders like superhero capes, or drive around flapping them out the car/van/truck window, hooting and waving.

And as Gan wasn't a military town, nor did it have any government offices, no buildings flew the Maple Leaf either. I recall being amazed to see one absolutely HUGE one flying near the Ivy Lea bridge (the bridge crossed the St Lawrence River into upstate New York).

And that was it.

One.

Likely the property of Canada Customs.

Fast-forward to now. And it's a flag-fest. The Maple Leaf is brandished everywhere.

And I'm trying to remember when the change happened.

I'm sure it was when I was in Vancouver. So it had to be the mid to late '90s.

Something happened ... maybe internationally? ... to spark this ... over-abundance of national pride. But for the life of me, I can't think what.

In the early '80s, our ambassador Ken Taylor (at the Canadian Embassy in Iran) was a key player (and a true hero) in rescuing a bunch of American Embassy people, who found themselves trapped in Iran due to ... well, the usual political misunderstandings that lead to people in other countries suddenly becoming convinced every American on their turf is a rat-bastard spy. And of course out come the guns, and the shouting ...

But it wasn't that. The phenomenon I'm talking about was in the 90s.

Canadians have always fronted up well at the Winter Olympics, and we get quite excited during the Summer Games when a Canuck athlete snags some precious metal. But it wasn't an Olympics that triggered it ...

It had been a notable amount of time since a "Canadian" NHL team had won the cup (The Habs in the early '90s I believe) ... so it wasn't that. Canada DOES regularly own the USA in every other hockey championship they meet in besides than the NHL, so maybe that was part it ...

... Bob & Doug McKenzie had something to do with it, with their coining of the term "hoser", and their portrayal of a hilarious pair of doofus-nitwits that started out as a skit on Second City TV. But they weren't the lynch-pin, or the cosmic lever ...

I will ponder this and see if I can pick the notable "blip" in our history in the 90s that started this trend. I likely won't be able to think of it before I really need to post this (timeliness and all that) ... so if you think you might know, and feel compelled to care enough, post up and let me know.

I do know what poured gasoline ON the initial spark though.

There was that now-famous Molson TV ad with the "Hoser-ly dressed down-to-earth Canadian", with his straight-shootin' "I AM CANADIAN" rant. And it was funny!

Prior to this ad, Molson had some clever ad people who clearly noticed the sudden upswing in Canadian pride ... where Canadians were doing something very unusual and UN-Canadian ... they were making loud, boisterous, boorish  nuisances of themselves, in a (gasp!) obviously American fashion!

Suddenly we as a nation weren't politely sitting on our hands, being quiet and reserved and understated, and ironically whispering clever observances to each other, usually about the overt and loutish carryings-on of our boorish neighbours to the south.

(And I say this with tongue-in-toque-covered-cheek – I've always said it's the USA's government that is the main cause of how the world sees Americans. It's something I'm sure is true of just about every nation on earth ... regular folks are regular folks, no matter where. And they just want to make a living and have some fun, and do stuff they like. It's the frickin' politicians and people with zero sense of fun who cause all the trouble. Often, they are one in the same).

Hey, some of my best friends are American. No, really! Well there's that one guy. And the nine or ten American girls I dated. So, yeah.

Where was I ... oh yes,  Molson stepped up and very cleverly created that "I AM CANADIAN" ad to counter the 7 zillion things that ceaselessly, regularly, ENDLESSLY spewed forth from the USA's marketing-machine weasels  – everything from McDonald's ads, to car commercials, to political campaigns, to ... you name it.

If you were an American and were setting off to do ANYTHING outside your house, if you didn't have SOMETHING flag-like (or an eagle pin would do in a pinch) on your house, car, or person ... if you weren't 'supporting the vets' and polishing up your NRA card ... "Well, sonny-Jim, what ARE ya? Some kinda ... COMMIE!?

In just about every American TV ad, there was "old glory" flapping away, some deep-voiced older, wise-sounding man narrating deep, meaningful thoughts, spewing forth words and concepts that boiled down to (every time) ... "Ain't it great to be 'Mur-can!"

The Molson ad didn't start the Canadian Pride fire (apologies to Billy Joel here) ... but they saw the spark, and fanned the flames, and threw a bunch of something vaguely resembling beer on the pile. And *foom* away it went.

Since being here in New Zealand, I've been guilty of having alarming amounts of booze (that's a gimme), and occasionally draping a Canadian flag over my shoulder (that someone else brought!), usually at a rugby game of Sevens, where many countries are there (including Canada!) vying for bragging rights on the field.

But still I wonder.

Exactly how, when, where and WHY did this all start?

At least the folks I've met from other countries still think we're (Canadians) are the quieter, politer, less-heavily-armed people from North America.

Not sure how much longer we can pull that off though. We can't keep running around like a bunch of tossers yelling about how great we are. We KNOW that wears pretty thin.

It's a good thing we lack the knuckle-headed nonsensical spurts of insanity that cause us to blunder about the planet invading and attacking people. Like some folks we know ...

Seems we Canadians don't have the money, weapons, transportation, or inclination to do that. So far.

Maybe that has something to do with us having a bunch of our own oil?

Oh! P.S. .... Two "Must-reads"!
My two mates Glenn and Don write great Blogs too!
Catch Glenn's 'Shwa Stories here, and Don's Brew-Ha-Ha over there!

Absurdly,