I love living in Canada mainly due to government healthcare and our disrespect for pretty much everything. I was watching the news this morning and they had a live feed announcing the Juno nominees. This was both the lamest and the funniest thing I have watched and was definitely the highlight of my morning.
First of all it looked and sounded like someone set up the backdrop and a sound system in their garage. Then some lady, I think she was the head of CTV, got up to introduce the host for this years Junos. She must have had about seven cue cards for about 4 lines, stumbled through what she wanted to say and mispronounced one of the performer's names so badly she had to appologize. So, I'm thinking why didn't CTV put on someone who is used to public speaking?
The host for this year is a comedian who tells mostly racial jokes. In his comments he mentioned that he was the first non-white Juno host and proceeded to overpronounce and make fun of all of the French names of nominees. THEN as if he wasn't enough on the edge, he said that he would never watch the Junos and made fun of one of the corporate sponsors! He was proceeded by a couple of bands who were reading off nominees but looked as though they had never read the cue cards before (which by the way, had the same 6 names on them each time so they should have been paying attention and they would have picked it up). Measha Brueggergosman was the funniest and the only one who actually spoke as though she had prepared.
I thought this was so funny! As I listened to this I thought, "only in Canada, eh?" In Canada we are not impressed by fame or money. It is almost appauling to our senses. We make fun of the famous and the rich. We make fun of ourselves, our politicians, our neighbours to the south, everyone. If you are in the public eye, you will be made fun of. This makes me glad to be Canadian. I am glad that we do not bow down and worship those with a lot of cash. Comedy seems to be how Canadian peasants take their power back in a weird kind of way.
Here's how I think the Junos started. Two people from CTV were sitting at Tim Hortons one day when one guy said, "So, I was watching the Grammy's last night eh, and I was thinkin' that we could make a lot of money if we made a Canadian version of the show." His friend said, "Yeah, we have some good talent in Canada. My neighbour has a band called "Ice Fishin'" that plays at the bar down the street there, he might like to be in it."
