Kiss me, I'm multi-ethnic

Let's start off this entry with a little culture quiz. I'll name a few things, and see if you can guess the cultural strand that unites them.

• Jamaican steel drums
• Vaughan, Ontario's Philippine Marching Band
• A small motorized outhouse

Give up? So would I.

Apparently, they're all Irish. I wouldn't have thought so either, but there they were in Toronto's St. Patrick's Day parade, a culturally schizophrenic horrorshow that would have the IRA attacking this town if they had any self-respect.

Since I moved to this city, I've found it's not only the provincial capital and, to some degree, a cultural hub, it's far and away the nation's capital for navel-gazing and bellyaching about whether Toronto is a "world-class city" and if it isn't, why not?

Well, who knows what the hell "world-class" actually means, but I have a feeling there's got to be some degree of cultural sense in that sort of city. Awareness of other cultures as well as your own. Canadians are hamstrung by not knowing what the hell their own culture is but we're also retarded when it comes to other cultures as well. If today's parade was any proof, Toronto sums up Irish culture in three facets: Guinness, Lucky Charms and U2.

Now, lest you take issue with me as an obnoxious know-it-all, let me say two things: first, you're right, but shut up. Second, I don't pretend to understand much about Irish culture. I have been to Ireland, but I won't claim any degree of expertise on the culture, but I'm pretty sure it's not defined my motorized outhouses and double-decker buses. And I do have a sneaking suspicion that, over this weekend, many Irish folk lost sleep thanks to the national earth tremor caused by St. Patrick rolling over in his grave.

Now, the parade organizers would no doubt argue that multicultural as Toronto should celebrate its diversity, not limit this parade to stuff that's exclusively Irish.

Well, that's crap. And you know why? Because I say so, and that's it.

Seriously,

Well no.

The problem with that is that by inviting over-diversity, you're eliminating the uniqueness. It's becoming increasingly taboo to say "Merry Christmas" because it's too exclusionary to non-celebrants. But then you start inviting culturally irrelevant groups into an event, you're losing sight of what it is. Most people in Canada have no idea what St. Patrick's Day is about anyway, they just know you're supposed to get hammered for some reason. The day has almost lost its meaning anyway, and we're only encouraging the history and significance of it to abate even further.

And hell, if you're going to use the diversity excuse, why not go full-on? Why don't we celebrate the Fourth of July? Let's have Ramadan Parades! Bring out Santa Claus on Remembrance Day!

Today's parade already had Zanta, that moron publicity whore who, shamefully, still hasn't been euthanised by the city. While he probably wasn't officially invited, his presence discredits anything. If he'd been at Juno Beach on D-Day, I'd tend to believe the Second World War never happened. But that idiot is a blog for another day. Especially when today had so much other pointless and stupid things to take issue with, like a fire truck full of 50-year-olds doing the Twist, something with all the dignity and class of drowning in your own urine.

Couple that holiday schizophrenia with a newer phenomenon: the idiotic tendency to create "International ______ Day!" Some day last week was Hiccup Day. Some other moron created "Talk Like a Pirate Day." We have to start getting more discriminatory. Either we'll have stupid "holidays" every single day of the year, no one will work anymore and the economy will collapse, or we only embrace days that actually mean something.

I'm starting to envision a future where holidays have lost all meaning. As we get more anal retentive and politically correct, it will eventually be totally forbidden to refer to a holiday by name. Saying "Merry Christmas" will probably be a hate crime. Holidays can only be referred to by the date and nothing else. It'll happen, mark my words. But in the meantime, get hammered. If you get sick and need to puke, maybe the city can loan you that motorized outhouse they were using today.