Tomorrow, Sunday July 1st., Canada officially celebrates it's one-hundred and fourtieth birthday.

Yes, Tomorrow is Canada day; a day of patriotic chest thumping, massive street parades, fireworks, and hoards of  teens aimlessly staggering around, sloshed on the beer that they've 'liberated' from their drunken fathers.

Mmmmmmmmm………… stolen beer!

Each year, the newspapers print articles about 'What it means to be a Canadian,' or explanations of 'How we are different from our neighbors down south.' We need to be reminded. We're confused. Hell, the Queen's portrait still graces our money…..

We are reminded of our tenacity as reflected in our national sport hockey, (sorry lacrosse, your fifteen minutes of fame are long over) unless of course it's a strike year.

We revel in the fact that our social policies, particularly our health care system, is one of the best in the world -just try not to get sick on a weekend, or let anything happen to your teeth. Apparently severe toothaches, swollen gums, and exposed nerves aren't un-healthy! We're not covered for such trivialities.

We pat each other on the back, taking pride that Canada is a shining, multicultural example for the world to marvel at, conveniently overlooking the aboriginal people. (Who, by the way, in an informal census conducted by yours truly, prefer to be called 'Indians')

So….. having said all that, here's a list of things that are unique to us Canadians. See if you make the grade:

Canadian Tire money.  

The two-four.  

'Zed', NOT 'zee'.   

Blind compliance coupled with dilligent politeness (Q: How do you get five Canadian guys out of your swimming pool? A: Ask them!)    

Tim Hortons (Fittingly, now  owned by Americans) 

Don Cherry, AND Ricky from The Trailer Park Boys. Need I say more?      

Kraft Dinner at least twice a week. (We eat more of this shit per-capita, than any other nation on earth)        

Ketchup chips.    

Poutine.    

A bold, yet futile attempt to use the metric system. Anyone know how much 50cl of beer is? What the fuck is a decimeter?   

'Eh?' as a noun; 'Eh?' as an interjection; 'Eh?' as a question; 'Eh?' used in the retorical sense; 'Eh!!!' used as an adjective (only when used in conjunction with the 'two thumbs up' hand sign, al la The Fonz) And last, but certainly not least, the beloved 'Eh' when used after 'fucking', to signify that everything is right with the world, as in "I gotta two-four uv Ex, and a full deck uh smokes. I'm gettin' fucked up tonight! FUCKIN' EH!!!"

Oh yeah….. I'll let you non Canadians in on a little secret that may or may not cause me to have my citizenship revoked, forcing me to annoy you from the island of St. Pierre or Miquelon:

Us tête carrées (Q: How many aspirins does it take for an anglophone to cure a headache? A: four. One for each point) don't really hate the frogs, nor do they hate us. Our feigned animosity is just something we digress to when we're bored.

Which is most of the time.

I'm a bartender. Along with the various alcoholic libations that we sell, we also dispense juices, pops, and water.

Tonight, for the first time ever, someone asked me "What kind of water do you sell?"

At first, I thought they were just fucking with me. Then I thought that they might be wondering if the water we sold was 'Perrier,' carbonated, or otherwise But when they asked to see the bottle, to check out the brand, I just about leaned over the bar and served up a back-hander.

What the fuck?

Are people really developing a preference for certain brands of water? Or was this just an isolated case of one retard who has convinced himself that there's an actual difference?

Do people really check the ingredients, and source points of bottled water?

Here, I'm reminded of a brilliant piece of observational comedy by Lewis Black:

Something like  …….The other day as I was shopping for groceries, I happened to notice that bottled water now comes with a 'Nutrition Facts' notice on it. You know, Ingredients; 'Percentage of Daily Values for Sodium, Carbohydrates, Protein, etc., etc.,

Then I see that it says 'Total Fat 0%'. Hmmmmm…….. this makes me think that somewhere out there, there's bottled water with big chunks of fat floating around in it. THAT'S THE WATER THAT I WANT!!!!!

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Now, I understand that sometimes it's just more practical to drink bottled water. You've got a nice little resealable plastic container that you can carry around with you wherever you go.

However, if it's the right brand of water, you've also got yourself a nice little fasion accessory……..

There you go, mincing down the street, feeling VERY European, with a bottle of imported Evian water that actually matches your French designer jeans.

Let me fill you in on a little secret:

MANY EUROPEAN COUNTRIES DRINK BOTTLED WATER BECAUSE THE STUFF THAT COMES OUT OF THE TAPS OVER THERE IS SHIT, OR NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION!!!!!

Canada has the largets supply of fresh drinking water in the world -at least until the Americans decide to declare war and take it away from us.

So……. the next time you need fresh water that you can take with you, do what I do:

Use an empty vodka bottle to carry your water around in. Keep one of those plastic ones, after you've drained the booze out of it, for transporting your tap water.

Makes a great conversation piece when you walk in to book stores, churches, or even if you're only just picking up the neighbors kids after school.

Had a lot of fun at the show yesterday. We played one set on the main stage and two on the 'workshop' stage throughout the day. It was great to play with a fiddle and mandolin player during our first 'workshop' set -almost felt as if we were a real bluegrass band!

We had a four hour gap between our first and second sets, so alec and I repaired to the beer garden for a little r&r….. 

I think the sign behind him was referring to taking beer out of the garden, ….NOT reaching the point of the above pictured condition…….. Alec 'warmed himself up' so well, that he decided to become our featured trumpeter, and took a full 48 bar solo on Jerome's 'Jerry Stone'!!!

Or Maybe it's just Jeff Healey's cornet rubbing off on him after all these years…….

Tomorrow afternoon we'll be playing at the Brampton Folk Festival. We'll be doing workshops throughout the day, (first one starts at noon!) with a featured set at 4:45.

The weather's supposed to be nice, and YES, they do have a beer tent!

I've seen so many cowboy/western movies lately, that I think that I might have to see a shrink.

(No, I still haven't seen Brokeback Mountain yet. But don't worry, when I die and go to hell, that's what I'll be forced to watch over and over again for all of eternity)

This obsession with cowboy movies is kinda strange, -considering I can't recall ever being on a horse in my life. Hovever, I seem to recall riding a cow once when I was a wee little kid.

So, without further adieu, I give to you: Joe's (Don't bother arguing with me, you are wrong!) Absolutely,  Non-debatable, Air-tight list of All-time Greatest Western Movies Ever Made©

1-  C'era una Volta il West  (Once Upon A Time In The West.) 1968

Sergio Leone's masterpiece. How can you not love a movie that casts Henry Fonda (Mr. Nice Guy) as an evil sociopath? Known to fans as 'an opera of violence', 'Volta' is a three hour feast of explosive intensity punctuated with long scenes of brooding introspection. 

Favorite lines: Cheyenne (slowly dying from a gunshot wound in his belly): Hey, Harmonica - when they do you in, pray it's somebody who knows *where* to shoot… Go away… go away… go away, I don't want you to see me die.

2- 3:10 To Yuma (1957)

A real sleeper. Another classic that should be given WAY more respect. Directed by a man (Delmer Daves) who should be remembered as one of the greatest! Daves cinematography easily gives John Ford a run for his money.

Favorite lines: Ben Wade: Hey, you know you look kind of skinny.
Emmy: I feel skinny.
Ben Wade: That's all right. I don't mind a skinny girl - just so long as she has blue eyes to make up for it. You got blue eyes?
Emmy: Brown.
Ben Wade: That's all right. They don't have to be blue.

3- Open Range (2003)

One of the first things I thought of while watching this one a few years back is 'I hope Kevin Costner doesn't wreck this movie' He didn't. Looks like he finally figured out how to make a good flick.

Favorite quote: Boss Spearman: 'I aim to kill Baxter and those that done this, and if that marshal gets in the way, I'm gonna kill him too. So you best get your mind right about what's got to be done, Charlie.'
Charley Waite: 'I got no problem with killing, Boss. Never have.'

4- Tie. Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956)

Both are John Ford/John Wayne collaborations. Stagecoach gets the nod for being one of the first true Hollywood westerns. It's the mold that hundreds of others were cast from.

The searchers has to be one of John Wayne's greatest performances. He's sometimes good, sometimes downright nasty. Anyone who tells you that John Wayne can't act, hasn't seen this picture. If you've seen Dances With Wolves, you owe it to yourself to see The Searchers -then you'll know why DWW isn't in my top 5, or even top 10 for that matter.

Best Quotes: STAGECOACH: Dr. Josiah Boone (the drunken doctor): I'm not only a philosopher, sir, I'm a fatalist. Somewhere, sometime, there may be the right bullet or the wrong bottle waiting for Josiah Boone. Why worry when or where?

THE SEARCHERS: (Ethan Edwards -John Wayne- has just shot out the eyes of a dead Comanche)

Reverend Clayton: What good did that do ya?
Ethan: By what you preach, none. But what that Comanche believes, ain't got no eyes, he can't enter the spirit-land. Has to wander forever between the winds.

5- The Unforgiven (1992)

Nothing like seeing a former bad guy turned good, reverting back to his old ways! The epitome of the evil that lurks in the hearts of ALL men!

Best Quote: (Clint Eastwood as Bill Munny) 'I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned.'

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Honorable mention:

Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo (The Good the Bad and the Ugly) 1966

Not as darkly violent as 'Once Upon A Time….' But  Morricone's soundtrack is one of the greatest movie scores ever.

High Noon (1952)

I'm not a big Gary Cooper fan, so this one loses points for that. I'll always see Cooper as Lou Gehrig in 'The Lou Gehrig Story', no matter what roll he plays.

The song at the beginning of the movie (High Noon, as sung by Tex Ritter) Is one of the greatest songs ever in a western.

High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider, etc.

Eastwood was just finding his feet here. Great movies, but compared to Unforgiven? Nolo contendre!

The Wild Bunch/The Outlaw Josey Wales

I never considered these to be 'westerns.' Both Awesome movies in their own right, but TWB seemed more of a 'heist' pic; and TOJW seemed more of a Civil War period piece.

Tombstone (1993)

Just Because. I always liked this version better than John Ford's  version of the O.K. corral: 'My Darling Clemantine." Besides, Doc Holliday did NOT die at the O.K. corral shootout. He died in bed from the t.b. that slowly ate away at him.

Spring is here, and for many, that means hauling out the bike to get a little exercise, -and maybe save a couple of bucks by not driving or taking the public transit.

I always enjoy getting the bike out in the spring, and going for that first 'pedal.'

I used to ride my bike year round, but now that I'm a little older, (lazier) I usually don't pull it out until most of the snow is gone.

I've ridden a bike my whole life -I've never owned a car- and hope to continue to do so, so you would think that I'm firmly on the side of cyclists when it comes to the cars/bikes debate

No.

Although there's a lot of lousy drivers out there in cars, lately it seems to me, that there's a growing number of cyclists that are just asking for it. Maybe it's because people are trying to stay in shape, or to avoid polluting the air, that I'm seeing more cyclists on the road.

Unfortunately, I'm also seeing a lot more dumb cyclists.

Anyone at all, even those with something that only remotely resembles a bike can hop on it and pull out into busy rush hour traffic, and expect (hope) to be respected by automobile traffic. Cyclists do have rights and are alotted a portion of the roadway to drive on. 

Unfortunately, it seems to me that a growing number of them (us) don't know what these rights are, or just out and out disregard them.

People that have either little or no knowledge of traffic laws are free to just hop on to their shit-can of a bike and dive right into busy traffic.

I'm reminded of that old saw that goes something like this:

You've gotta get a license to drive, but any fool can have a baby.

Modify the last half to 'any fool can ride a bike in traffic', and you'll see what I'm getting at.

I've seen cyclists driving down the middle of the road, and then get pissed off when cars start honking at them.

I've seen cyclists get 'car doored', when they could have saved themselves the pain if they had only checked to see if someone was about to exit the vehicle.

I've seen parents riding with their kids, going down busy streets the wrong way! "Good thing you got those helmets for the family, Dad, you're gonna need 'em!"

A few years back, I actually witnessed a cyclist die right before my very eyes because he had jumped the curb into moving traffic, and didn't think to check if there was anything coming…….. (I'll never forget that)

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Here in Toronto, as with many other big cities, we've got dedicated bike lanes. That's a GOOD thing. Bikes should have a piece of the road, and should be able to drive safely without having to worry about getting schwacked by a car or truck.

However, a lot of bikers don't think to do other things that could save them lots of grief, or, quite possibly, their lives.

A simple shoulder check when pulling out into moving traffic. A little body language when making turns. A basic understanding of what a 'stop' sign or a traffic light means……..

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Alright, alright……. I give up. I just went back and read what I had written above, and decided that I'm wasting my time here. Fuck it. Who am I trying to kid? I'm not gonna change anything.

Idiots on bikes are always gonna fuck themselves up, or get killed, just as idiots in cars are gonna do the same.

I don't want to seem like I'm only picking on cyclists here -there's a lot of morons driving cars out there -hello cabbies!

It seems that for many, that when the key goes into the ignition, the brain automatically shuts off.

Unfortunately, in the battle of cars and bikes, cars always win.

Let's see……… The Ducks won the cup last nite; The G8 Summit meeting is wrapping up in Germany; Those silly North Koreans are up to their shenanigans again by test firing missiles; Paris Hilton's out of jail early……..

WAIT A MINUTE! …………PARIS HILTON'S OUT OF JAIL?!?!

That's right folks. She's made the cover of The New York Times; The Toronto Star (video, no less); The Washington Post (obviously) The London Daily Mail; The Australian Daily News (blaring headlines); and probably just about every daily you care to read.

Jesus, even the supposedly respectable Guardian Unlimited has an article on the front page.

I suspect the only reason why she isn't staring back at you from the cover of Japan's Asahi Shimbun, or The China Daily News, is because they're just crawling out of bed, and have yet to get the 'exciting' news over there! Boy, are they in for a shock!

There's no news like no news.

We're suckers.

We forget that news agencies are in business to make a buck first, and then maybe, provide a public service. Obviously, Paris Hilton sells news papers.

I personally don't know shit about her, other than hearing about that time a few years ago when some home movie was released on the net showing her giving a blowjob to her then boyfriend. I have yet to see it.

Honestly.

Well….. thanks to the world press, we can all get our own little (simulated) blowjobs from her.

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I used to really, really, hate record company people. I thought they were all scumbags just trying to leech money out of hapless musicians, -maybe I was right.

I'd get pissed drunk when I heard that there was 'record company people' in the audience -just to fuck everything up.

In short, I was my own worst enemy. (Not sure if I've changed much)

Then one day, it occurred to me: Record company people  are really just business people, trying to make a buck off of something they -hopefully- like, wheras, musicians were doing something they liked, and trying to make a living off of it.

TA-DAAA! the light-bulb came on, sort of.

Of course, by then I had pretty much fucked things up to the point where most 'industry' people thought we were impossible to deal with.

I guess, what I'm trying to say here -through lame personal experiences- is Never Underestimate The Power Of The Almighty Dollar.

It's the driving force behind everything.

We see news mastheads like 'Canada's most trusted name in news'; 'All the news that's fit to print'; and 'The worlds leader in reliabile news,' when actually what they should probably be using are slogans like:

"The Toronto Sun. -We hardly ever use words with more than five letters in them."

"The L.A. Times. -Occasionally we get it right!"

"La Republique. -The cheque's in the mail!"

"The Hanoi Star Register. -We promise not to come in your……….. "(o.k. enough already. Even I think I'm going just a little too far….)

………….Then again, they wouldn't be writing so much about such garbage if we didn't keep asking for it.

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This post has been brought to you by the '-' (dash symbol) and the almighty ( ) (brackets!)

As I've stated a couple of times here before, I like to go out and take pictures of freight trains. I find it relaxing –it's a lot like fishing. Well, at least I think so.

There are others like me as well. They are strange. Stranger than me, even!

I hate to paint with such a broad brush, but they're ALL strange. I have yet to meet a single railfan that wasn't prone to some bizarre quirk or idiosyncrasy. It's endemic.

I'm sure that there are plenty of 'normal' railfans out there, but I've yet to meet one.

I'll sometimes see a bunch of them standing around by the side of the tracks talking about trains, (what else?) and believe me, when you get a group of these fellows together, it's an experience to behold. A few of these guys (a disproportionate amount than what I think you'd normally see in society) are the type that will talk to you, but don't really look at you. They seem to focus on something just off to the side, and behind you. It's like they're talking PAST you.

Other guys will talk to you, but will always be facing the opposite direction. You wind up conversing with the back of their head………

Then there are the fellows who are happy to talk to you, but once you start a conversation, you realize that they've got the I.Q. of the current weather temperature (I'm talking celsius here)

Other guys won't talk, or even look at you. They must be thinking "You are not a train. You do not exist." I'm sometimes tempted to walk into their line of sight and ask them "how's it going?" However, I'm almost certain that they'd close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and while shaking their heads from side to side, make train whistle sounds to completely block me out!

I swear, sometimes I feel as though it's a bug-house field trip. I expect to see the short bus parked somewhere nearby……..

What I really wonder, though, is if I'm just like these guys, only blissfully unaware? Or, are they giving me an insight to my own future?

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POSTSCRIPT: A day later, I was standing by the tracks talking to a guy that I had been conversing with the day before. (when I had written this post) After about five minutes of blather about trains, he stopped me in mid-sentence and said "Have I ever met you before?"