#canada week

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♫ Angel Eyes ♫ Rawgod was the one who originally suggested a Canada Week, and I'm ever so glad he did, for I'm having fun with it! ...

♫ Angel Eyes ♫

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♫ If You Could Read My Mind ♫ (Redux) Of all the Canadian artists rawgod listed when we first talked about doing a "Canada Week", I think Gordon Lightfoot stands out as being my favourite, although there are several others who run a close second. ...

♫ If You Could Read My Mind ♫ (Redux)

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♫ Please Forgive Me ♫ One of the artists most frequently mentioned when speaking of Canadian musicians is Bryan Adams.  Only natural, then, that he be noted in Canada Week, right? ...

♫ Please Forgive Me ♫

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♫ OHIO ♫ One of the artists rawgod mentioned in his request for a Canada Week was Neil Young.  Today's choice is quite possibly my favourite song by him, although there are so many I love that it's really hard to choose! ...

♫ OHIO ♫

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♫ Born To Be Wild ♫ A while back, our friend rawgod, responding to one of my weeklong music series, mentioned that he'd like me to do a week of music by Canadian artists. ...

♫ Born To Be Wild ♫

[seat-safety-switch]

Ever since I was a little kid, defrosting windshields has been my bane. For months of the year I would take a scraper to glass, trying carefully not to nick the precious butyl seals and trim surrounding the soon-to-be-cracked-anyways sight glass. But there had to be a better solution, I thought, even as luxobarge manufacturers messed with various computer-controlled settings that just could not deliver the immediate fix that I so craved in my bones.

All at once, it seemed, the universe gave me a shot at it. A favourite uncle died and left me his collection of abandoned parking lots, a strange fixation that he claimed would one day turn into money as the industrial yards they backed onto would spring back into life. Manufacturing would return to us, he screamed even as the doctors administered the final LD50 of morphine.

But what do you do with a collection of abandoned parking lots in Canada? The answer, like so many other things, laid in drifting. The kids called it drift racing, but Canadians called it October through April. Flush with cash from visiting Americans experiencing the vicarious thrill of sliding a cheap Japanese car on ice, I returned to my childhood task with the necessary funding.

I can see it in my mind’s eye, even now: a base model Kia Rio, its hood crudely chopped to allow for a three inch exhaust pipe, the flapper going nuts as blue exhaust flames defrost my windshield. Sure, it wasn’t easy or cheap to build a windshield that could survive turbocharger EGTs, but it was all worth it never to have to scrape again.

Climbing into the frosty Rio, I kicked my boots together. The added moisture of the snow dropping into the footwell immediately fogged up the inside of the windshield, and I cursed my existence.

[seat-safety-switch]

WHAT IS THE QUINTESSENTIAL CANADIAN MOTORING EXPERIENCE, I ASKED, MY VOICE MUFFLED BY THE TIM HORTONS DRIVE THROUGH LOUDSPEAKER

THE FILIPINO MOTHER OF THREE RESPONDED, SHE HAD HER ANSWER DOWN PAT AS IF PRACTICED FROM A CORPORATE TRAINING BINDER: “YOU ARE DRUGS?”

I NOTICED THE NOTE OF CONCERN FOR DEPORTATION IN HER VOICE AND PULLED UP TO THE NEXT WINDOW. INSIDE MY BELOVED ICED CAPPUCCINO MUST BE HELD. IN THE BACKGROUND, A BEAVER HOWLS.

THE DRIVE-THRU WINDOW IS TOO HIGH FOR MY CRAZED AND DENTED BRICKLIN. FAR ABOVE MY HAIL-RAVAGED ROOF A CONFUSED TEENAGER WAVES A CHILLED DRINK INTO EMPTY SPACE.

[seat-safety-switch]

When they told me that I could have a little rewards card at Canadian Tire, maybe get some of that sweet corporate fiat currency in exchange for handing over my purchasing habits, I jumped at the chance. Why wouldn’t I let you guys see what kind of a freak I was? The thing is, there is always a catch.

My phone buzzed, and I punched it, my knuckles presumably giving the screen enough contact to interpret it as “yes, I will take this call.” A man’s voice emerged from its tinny speaker. It seemed he worked for Canadian Tire, and he wanted to award me a little prize for being the “most unique customer.”

I drove to their offices, a nondescript complex on the outskirts of some anonymous industrial park. With some effort, I hoisted myself above the door bar of the Topaz. On warm summer days like today, I liked to catch a glimpse of it as I left the parking lot, soaking in its gold-spraypainted carbon fiber flanks and race-ready Lexan windows. One yellowed original plastic headlight featured a crudely holesawed inlet pipe leading to the furious maw of a turbocharger the size of a Molson mini-keg.

The man who called me was sat behind an enormous oak desk that seemed to dominate the room. I noted on the way in that nobody else appeared to work in the entire building, let alone this particular floor. “For Lease” signs dotted the windows. Everything reeked of your classic trap gambit, and I knew that I was a lamb being led to the slaughter.

“Ah, Mr. Switch,” said my host, pushing a cherrywood crate of imported Maximum-brand cigars to the edge of his desk and tapping the woodwork impatiently. It would be rude to refuse his offer, I thought, but I still waited until he had taken the first puff of his cigar.

“You are a very interesting man,” he intoned, and began to look out of the window behind him, facing onto the bustling 401. “When we first became.. aware.. of you, we thought it was a corporate purchasing account. No one man, we thought, could buy three hundred cans of Fluid Film per year.”

He turned now, and fixed me with his gaze. I let out an involuntary squeak.

“But we can’t allow you to keep going the way you are going. Our financial department has shown that your purchases obscenely distort our view of the world. We are losing track of Joe Timbit in a dangerous quest to pursue you.”

What he said made sense. The last time I was at Crappy Tire, I had thought the shelves were oddly well stocked with high-quality goods that were easy to find. I had even mentioned it on the back-of-the-receipt survey in the hope of getting a $50 gift card. That’s how they found me, I realized with a start. I had been so stupid.

The man behind the desk reached into his drawer. I knew it was the time to act.

“DeWalt, motherfucker!” I screamed, bolting him in the head with a concealed 3/8″ impact gun. He crumpled to the ground and grew cold, a $50 Canadian Tire gift card clutched in his lifeless fingers.

Somehow I always knew it would come to this. I reached into the wheel well of the Topaz and retrieved a new Canadian Tire loyalty card. I practiced my new identity as I sped away from the building. It was necessary to become Switch Sanchez, an Oakville auto body tech with a taste for rust removal.