Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant (November 27, 2014)

Our borders are so porous that they have become nearly impossible to police. Thousands of aliens sneak into this country every day and head for border towns where they can blend in with people of similar color who speak a similar language, making it impossible to detect who is and who is not a documented citizen.

The border is so long that no fence short of the Wall of China could even begin to stop the migrating hordes that seek sanctuary in the USA. They have infiltrated every major city, and many illegals have had children here so that they can automatically become American citizens. These are the “anchor babies” you’ve heard so much about. There are so many aliens already here that you could never round up and deport them all. And the number of good jobs that they take away from able-bodied Americans is scandalous. They have begun to dominate entire business sectors and have affected popular culture so much that our children are exposed. The lure of cheap drugs has caused Americans in border towns to flock to pharmacies across the border in order to smuggle drugs back into this country.

They talk differently. Their food is different. Their national sports are different. Let’s face it, these people are different than we are. I strongly believe, and many other like-minded patriots agree, that it’s about damn time that we crack down on this endless stampede of Canadians invading our land.

They come across in border towns like Detroit, Buffalo, and Rochester, but those who really want to enter undetected use the wide swaths of land that are too remote to patrol. They enter in places like Duluth, Minnesota, and Grand Forks, North Dakota, and I understand that the farther west you go, the more hardcore the trafficking is in illegal drugs, particularly marijuana. Demand has fallen totally off in Washington state, but I’ve heard about Canucks with calves the size of saskatoons from smuggling backpacks full of dangerously potent cannabis from Vancouver across the border. The Canadians call it “B.C. Bud,” or at least that’s what I was told. And not only are their legal drugs cheaper, I get at least 15 emails per week enticing me to buy them. You can even order them through the mail, flouting the law. And what is this Vicodin they keep wanting me to take?

Canadians don’t care about our laws. They were all bootleggers during prohibition, and some of the most prominent families made their fortunes supplying illegal hooch to Al Capone. Every time our country enters into one of our periodic righteous wars with somebody we don’t like, it’s always Canada that openly welcomes our cowardly draft-dodgers into their midst, especially during that pesky Vietnam business.

Over the past 40 years, there has been a stealth campaign among Canadians to infiltrate and take over the entertainment industry, beginning with the Toronto immigrant Lorne Michaels. In the mid-1970s, he invented a subversive television program called Saturday Night Live, and ever since, he’s relied on Canadians to spread his irreverent message – people like Dan Aykroyd, Martin Short, Norm McDonald, and Mike Meyers. This opened the floodgates for Canadian comedy with imported shows like SCTV, featuring perverted comics like John Candy, Rick Moranis, Catherine O’Hara, and Eugene Levy. Following their migrant trail came Jim Carrey, Howie Mandel, and Tommy Chong who began to take over our movie industry.

If our government had been vigilant enough to keep these freeloaders out, we would never have had to suffer through Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Wayne’s World, or Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Canadians spend half their lives listening to Gordon Lightfoot and the other half watching hockey. They drink beers called Moosehead and Labatt and live on a diet of bacon and maple syrup, which they pour over everything. They refuse to speak American. Instead of “out and about,” they say, “Oot and aboot.” They swear allegiance to the British crown, and even have a state that wants to secede, where they force everyone to speak French. And now they want this XL Keystone Pipeline to transport Canadian oil across our great country into the Gulf of Mexico so they can sell it to the Russians and Chinese. Of course, there’s absolutely no danger of an oil spill in the Gulf, right?

It’s past time to round up all your Avril Lavignes, your Ryan Goslings, and your Anna Paquins and begin arranging their transport home. It’s shocking how deeply they have burrowed into our society. William Shatner is Canadian. I mean, Captain Kirk is an alien, for God’s sake. Even the hip-hop artist Drake comes from the mean streets of Toronto.

We refer to Mexicans as “illegal aliens,” but Canadians are always, “our friends up north.” I think it’s time to send these toque-wearing, cheese-eating, Celine Dion-listening ice skaters back into their own wretched country. Especially this Seth Rogan fellow, whose “nerd gets the girl” movies have caused young men to resort to gun violence. It’s time this invasion came to an end and relocations are in order.

I only have one request. When the government starts deporting Canadians, please deport Justin Bieber first, aye?

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Thanksgiving Pix

Two things are certain about Thanksgiving: We’ll all eat too much, and at some point we’ll all find ourselves in front of a TV for an extended period of time. But what happens when you just can’t take another second of millionaires giving each other concussions on national television, as exciting as that is? Here are some things you can watch when you finally give up on football and switch over to the Roku.

MST3K Turkey Day

A television tradition from the 1990s returns online as Shout! Factory is streaming classic episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) all day on YouTube. Joining Joel, Mike, Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Crow on the Satellite of Love is like watching crappy movies with the witty old friends you never had, but in a good way. If it’s been a while since you visited the world of Torgo, Manos, Side Hackers, and Gamera, you’ll be surprised at how well the humor holds up. And with a Joel Hodgson-helmed revival on the way, it’s a good time to get back into the groove. Rowsdower save us!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Halloween and Christmas get all of the movie love because of their flashy acoutrements, but there are a few films set during Thanksgiving. John Hughes ventured outside the high-school setting and into the hellish world of Thanksgiving travel with the fifth movie he directed in the 1980s. Steve Martin stars as a neurotic executive trying to make his way home to his family in Chicago while being beset by cancellations, overbooking, bad weather, and the attention of a shower curtain ring salesman played by John Candy. In a textbook case of slow escalation, the frustration builds as the two are forced to work together to get home. Martin and Candy are both at their best here, and you’ll wish they had worked together more often as you dread the drive back home from grandma’s.

Los Angeles Plays Itself

If you’re completely sick of all things Thanksgiving and looking for something completely different, this legendary documentary by Thom Andersen will take you away to the West Coast. A film professor and Los Angelino, Andersen put together this retrospective of how his city has been portrayed (and, he would say, betrayed) by the film industry that put it on the map. Since it used clips from more than 200 movies, the 2003 film was long thought to be unreleasable, even though it was a huge hit when it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and has enjoyed a cult following from sold-out holiday screenings in L.A. But after 10 years of legal wrangling and a recent digital remastering, Los Angeles Plays Itself has finally found its way onto Netflix. It’s a fascinating journey connecting images you know by heart to their real-life counterparts, revealing vanished landscapes, and making strange observations along the way, such as the way directors tend to give their villains architecturally interesting Mid-Century Modern homes. If any almost-three-hour personal essay about the filmmakers’ hometown can be called an editing tour de force, this is it.