Podcast: Santa Claus is Canadian

In today’s entry, Sage finds out why Santa Claus is Canadian and is featured on the Canadian Podcast Buffet. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 11.32

Santa Claus is Canadian

Two teenagers overheard on the bus Christmas day:

Erica I feel so bad. My mom got me the DVD 7 Years in Tibet for Christmas.

Sam Oh, that’s a good book.

Erica She doesn’t know but two weeks ago I got really mad and smashed my DVD player. It only cost $30 at Wal-Mart and I was gonna take the gift card I got today and get a new one, but I got a video game instead. But I have $10 still on the card and some money left over, so I can get one on Tuesday before she finds out.

First of all, the most destructive thing I did at fourteen was throw a pillow across the room, and then I froze, in case my dad heard and came up to yell at me. I don’t know - are children so different today, or were all my friends destroying their VCRs, and I just didn’t know about it? Also: how stupid is she? You want to do something destructive, you don’t shoot yourself in the foot. You rip your geometry notebook to pieces, and then you tell your mum the cat did it.

What’s the most destructive thing you did at fourteen?

“Santa Claus is Canadian, a taste of Christmas in Canada” was an unsuccessful audio sideline in 1981 for the publishing company Canadian Inventions that brought you “The Electric Light Bulb is Canadian”, “Instant Mashed Potatoes Are Canadian” and “The Agrifoam Crop Cold Protector is Canadian”. Despite an eclectic song list, including the hits “Lacrosse is our official national sport, not hockey, eh?” and “Get Out the Zamboni, We’re Going Skating”, American record stores refused to carry the album, saying, “Look, we don’t care if Canada says they own some piece of drifting ice up north that Santa Claus supposedly lives on - our concern is keeping our stores filles with dazed, unhappy shoppers for the month of December, and part that is keeping Santa as American as apple pie.” As a result, the LP failed to sell even five hundred copies and, unable to recover, Canadian Inventions declared bankruptcy in 1983.

(Okay, not really. Though Canada does own the North Pole - which isn’t as exciting as it sounds, since it’s really just a giant iceberg that drifts around up there. It did give the Canadian government the opportunity to fine a pilot for littering, when his plane malfunctioned at the North Pole and he had to leave it there.)

Last week I went out to buy Paul a Solstice gift and came home empty handed and grumpy. Although Paul hadn’t asked for a gift, we’d given him one last year and felt like we should keep up the tradition. But the more I looked, the grumpier I felt. I’ve been perfectly happy not celebrating Christmas for the past sixteen years. I mean, I can get behind celebrating winter solstice because I love winter. It deserves a celebration, in my opinion.

But as I trudged through the miserable Christmas crowds I started to wonder what I was doing there. Why was I giving a gift? That’s not part of the Solstice tradition, it’s part of the Christmas tradition. When I got home I talked to Todd about how crabby I felt, and how I didn’t know what to do. He said, “Well, listen, he spends every free moment he has right now working on crafts. So what if we gave him a gift certificate to the art store, and he could just go in there and get anything he wanted?”

I thought that was a wonderful idea. I printed out a little pretend certificate since I was too lazy to go to the art store, put it in an envelope, and on Solstice morning Todd put together an entire treasure hunt, complete with coded messages and secret hiding places. When Paul woke up we gave him the first clue and he began to search for the treasure. When he found it, he opened the envelope, and read what was inside. His face fell and a tear rolled down his cheek.

I said, “It’s okay to be disappointed,” and Todd rubbed his back.

He said, “What about a certificate to the bookstore? Or the toy store?”

I initially said yes to the books, but when he went off to change his clothes Todd and I talked about it and we both felt like, well, if we change it to the bookstore - which would be easy since we’d never bought the certificate in the first place, no skin off our nose - that would give Paul the impression that if someone gives you a gift and you don’t like it, you just ask them to change it to something else. Which is a terrible precedent.

When he came back in, I said, “I know I said yes initially to the books, but I’m going to hold firm on the art store. That’s what we talked about, that’s what we thought you’d like, that’s what we gave you, and that’s what you can have.” He cried a little bit more, and then went off to play with Granny in excellent spirits.

Todd asked him later on in the day if he wanted to head to the art store. Paul said, “Nope. I get all the craft stuff I need from the recycling room.”

And he was okay with it, he was at peace with the entire thing. So really what we gave him for Solstice was the ability to get through a disappointment and come out happy on the end other end. Which is better than a box of Legos any day.

Podcast: Wonky Finger

In today’s audio only entry, Kite (my mom) talks about what happens when an opossum moves into your house while you’re away. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 6.19

Podcast: Morning at Granny’s

In today’s audio only entry, Kite (my mom) transports everyone to a summer morning at her granny’s house. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 4.19

Fuck Christmas

Today’s podcast is explicit. NOT work or family safe, and likely to offend anyone who loves Christmas.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 11.55

Podcast: Green Hotdogs

In today’s audio only entry, Kite talks about her childhood. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 9.29

Is this a scary movie?

Kathy and I went to see Rent. I overheard three teenage girls overheard while waiting for the movie to begin.

Amber Is this a scary movie?

Catherine What?

Amber Do they have any guns in this movie?

Catherine No. God.

Amber Do they actually show them…shooting up drugs?

Nicole Well, I won’t spoil it.

Amber GASP. But - what kind of drugs?

Nicole Um, heroin.

Amber Okay. I’ll close my eyes for that part. Do they actually, like, have to do that?

Catherine Well, OBVIOUSLY NOT.

Amber Well, obviously not, but do they have to pretend -

Nicole I saw a fake cigarette thing in the movies, I’ve seen how it works. They wrapped something in a piece of paper and they lighted it.

Amber What makes the smoke, then?

Nicole Well, um, they light it and then they put it out, and you know how smoke comes out?

Catherine Yeah.

Nicole That’s pretty cool.

I kind of liked Amber. I thought the last naive teenager went extinct around 1988.

Rent spoilers below

I know it’s the height of uncool to like the musical Rent these days, that it’s been called pablum for the masses that soft-sells the horrific reality of AIDS in the late ’80s. I don’t care. I like it anyway. I like the melodrama and the harmonies, I like that the story follows not only the opera La Boheme but the writer’s real life. I like the way the movie costume designers managed to turn Adam Pascal into Jon Bon Jovi circa 1986, to the extent that I thought it WAS Jon Bon Jovi for the first ten minutes until I realized that the guy is 43 now and can’t pull off that look anymore.

And when I was in my mid-twenties, I liked to play it on the stereo. Pretty much exclusively. For two years. (Todd knows much of the music, not because he likes it but in the same way you know the latest Hillary Duff song, because it plays constantly in the background at the dentist, the grocery store, and in the too-loud headphones of the obnoxious kid sitting next to you on the subway.)

When I was 25, I found the Angel/Tom storyline boring and the Mimi/Roger ending hand-clutchingly romaaaantic. At 33, I was crying so loudly during Angel’s funeral that Kathy started looking for somewhere else to sit while throwing kleenex at me. The scene was beautiful. On the other hand, when Roger leans over the dying Mimi to sing her the song he wrote I felt like standing up and yelling, “Yo! Roger! Pick her up and BRING HER DOWNSTAIRS SO SHE CAN GET IN THE AMBULANCE FASTER, YOU FUCKING ATTENTIONWHORE!”

Rent spoilers end

In other movie news, I recently saw Robin Williams live and in person walking down the street. I knew that lots of Hollywood celebrities are in town filming various things, and I’d made a mental note to head down to Yorkville to see if I could spot any of them. Instead, Paul and I happened upon the filming of “Man of the Year”. The Canadians were extremely dignified about the entire process. They drove or walked by, looked at Robin Williams in the same way you’d look if you happened to spot your next-door neighbour in the produce section, and kept on their way. I gawked like a thirteen year old. Paul and his friends had figured out that there was a famous person in the offing, and - having no idea which one was the star - ended up deciding on a woman wearing a green scarf, waving frantically and saying breathlessly, “She looked at us - did you see? She looked at us!” I wanted to go over there and say, “Listen, you may think that you’re just a lowly extra, but in the eyes of a bunch of seven year olds today, you were a movie star.”

Boy at the Science Centre. Seriously, are you allowed to have a Batman symbol on your yarmulka? (”No! None of the other kids have to wear them, I won’t either!” “Listen, honey. Here’s a lovely Batman patch. How about we sew it on? Hmm? How about that?”)

Podcast: Is this a scary movie?

In today’s entry, Sage spots a real celebrity. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 6.26

Podcast: Move outta my way.

In today’s entry, an old man puts a smile on everyone’s face. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 4.52

Move outta my way.

I was heading up the steep stairs at the subway station when an old man came pushing through the crowd, talking a mile a minute.

“Move now, move on outta my way. I’m an old man, and I’m gettin’ up the stairs faster’n you.”

We crowded onto the subway car. I stood next to him and he sat down next to a woman in her early twenties, who turned, amused, and said, “Hello!”

“Well, hi there, now. You be careful what you say. If you say hi in Toronto something’s wrong with you. You better move to Vancouver where everyone says hi. If you wanna be unhappy move to Toronto. In Vancouver, people are relaxed. I’m headin’ out right now to get two beers to wake me up.”

The entire subway car exploded in laughter and continued being an appreciative audience for the rest of the ride.

“Naw, my doctor told me to do it. That’s a medicine. If you take too much medicine you’ll get sick. You know? So you only take what you’re supposed to take. See, that’s what happened to Elvis Presley. Ya see? The doctor gave him medicine and he overdid it. So he died young. Forty years old. I’m seventy, you see? He shoulda lived to a hundred and ten, Elvis Presley, with all that money. A whap-baba-looba-and whap-bam-boom.”

Big laugh. The train lurched and I started to fall, and - this has never happened before - the guy in his twenties behind me reached out lightning fast and caught the hood of my sweatshirt and steadied me.

“You’re all laughin’ but I’m givin it away for free. You want a big show, you gotta pay. It costs ya $150 to see me. It’s very expensive. Just trust me. I’m - look on tv, you’ll see me, ya’ll will know who I am. This is not my real face.”

The young woman, smiling, exited the train calling, “Have a nice day!”

“Okay, now, bye bye.”

“Bye!”

“Now which stop - oh, this is College. I don’t go to college anymore. I graduated. I’m a professor now. That’s right. But I don’t teach. I prophesize. I prophesize. Oh, what is that? I ain’t never used that word myself. It’s new to me. That’s a big word, prophesize. I’m gonna hit the road. I’m goin’ to Kansas City. Kansas City, here I come…they got some pretty ladies there I’m gonna get me one…I want more than one. I’m not satisfied with one lady. I gotta have more than one. I got an old lady and a young lady. How you like that? That’s not bad.”

The woman across the aisle coughed.

“Careful, you got your flu shot?” (Huge laugh.) “That sounds pretty rough there. I hope you don’t sleep with the window open. If you do, cover up good. Okay, bye bye. I’ll miss ya.”

Lots of people on the subway car said goodbye, and he sang, “Enjoy yourself…it’s later than you think! Bye bye folks, I’ll miss ya. Put an egg in your shoe and beat it!”

After the doors had closed, one woman said, “That just put a smile on everyone’s face.” And when I got off the subway it felt like that smile had stretched somehow to cover the entire city, so that the normally taciturn commuters were suddenly talking to each other, laughing and grinning for no reason at all.