Moving To Canada!

There are a lot of Americans saying they will move to Canada if Doctor Trump becomes Doctor of the Free World. A lot of Americans are going to get up, FINALLY get their passport, drive to Canada and lay claim. This is great news. Canada has been waiting for this day!

'You want to come over here SOLELY because you don't like who's running things? Well hell yeah! Come on in and grab a seat!'

Before Americans do move to Canada (which I believe will NEVER happen. Not even one American) there are a few things they should know about Canada if they REALLY do want to move there. 

1. You Can't Just DO That

Canada, much like America, is a country. Canada, much like America, is a country that has rules and regulations and such. You cannot simply get to the border and go 'I'm American, which means I'll stay here as long as I want.' Nope. Not how it works. You have to fill out forms. You have to pay money. You have to have a reason that you are immigrating to another country. And how long are you going to live there? For four years until the owner of Chipotle or whatever runs for President and beats the owner of Golf Courses? Canada isn't a couch.

'Is it cool if I crash here until my landlord leaves the building?'

'Yeah, sure. Couple weeks?'

'Was thinking four years.'

'.... Step into my office, sir.' 

2. We Use Kilometres And It's Better

When I was young and I heard the song 'I can't drive 55', I thought '55 isn't even fast!' I like the song, but what the hell? Was Sammy Hagar going through a school zone? Was he on a road with speed bumps? Pick it up, Sammy! Found out later it was 55 miles an hour, which IS fast, but doesn't SOUND fast. In Canada kilometres are used, not miles. On a highway, you can drive 110 km an hour. Now, what sounds like you're going faster? 110 or 55? 110! That is the answer! Every time! Get used to REALLY GOING FAST. And not buying gallons of gas, buying litres. This will be one of the many greats reasons to be in Canada. No you can't buy a handgun to stash in your glove box incase their are people listening to loud music at the gas station, but you can DRIVE 110 ON A HIGHWAY. I mean, COME ON. 

3. Fahrenheit is toast. Get ready for Celsius. 

ZERO MEANS FREEZING! ZERO! IN WHAT REALM DOES IT MAKES SENSE TO HAVE 32 BE FREEZING?! STOP THE MADNESS! And we have. Canada stopped the madness years ago. And if Americans DO move to Canada (which is not going to happen), they can stop the madness as well. 

4. It's 'Moose' no matter how many there are

Moose's, Moosey's, Moose-i-. NONE of those make sense. If you see one more, or a hundred moose, it's moose. That's it. And you WILL see moose. Everywhere. In your backyard, in the trees in the park, in the library, on the highway, in cars beside you on the highway. Moose are EVERYWHERE.

5. Canadian News Isn't Scary

If you are leaving America for Canada, be prepared for the news to get a little different. America's news is constantly 'Look out for this! Look out for that! Your food is bad! Terrorists are everywhere! Don't travel! Don't stay in your city! Don't drink your water! Don't drink other people's water! Don't look people in the eye! Don't avoid eye contact with crazy people because they take it as a sign of aggression!' Canadian news is a little bit different. You might see a top story about hockey nets on city streets, or another replay of Bautista's bat flip. There could also be some stories about some real crime, but it but it won't be run on a loop with four people continuously talking about this crime means the end of the country and world as we know it. 

6. Canada Also Speaks English

I know a lot of Americans think it's just a french party in  Canada. They think when they get there they are going to have to bring 'that english language with 'em' but we have it. English has been in Canada since it began. We also have some french speaking places, and fun fact, if you speak to ANYONE in French in Canada, they have to hand you ten dollars. So learn some of that language you hate and start a new career!

7. Not Every Single Thing In Canada Is About Race

And NO, THAT IS NOT BECAUSE CANADA DOES NOT HAVE BLACK PEOPLE.

'Ahahha, very funny. There are black people in Canada. Yeah right.'

THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN CANADA.

'... Really? Okay. So how does every conversation not turn into a conversation about race then?'

IT JUST DOESN'T. NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT RACE. 

'Okay.... So if someone at a restaurant asks my white friend if he wants the bbq chicken special, and he says no, I can't say something like 'You don't like chicken huh? Racist.' Or if he's black and he turns down the chicken special, I can't do 'WOA, a black man turning down chicken?! That's gotta be a first!'

... PLEASE STOP. THESE JOKES ARE STUPID. YOUR FRIEND JUST DOESN'T WANT THE BBQ CHICKEN SPECIAL. PLEASE STOP THIS. 

'.... I don't think I want to move to Canada.'

I DON'T THINK YOU DO EITHER.

Wishing Death On Rob Ford

Rob Ford passed away today after a fight with cancer. Regardless of what you thought of him, that is an awful way to go that no one should have to go through. Man wasn't even fifty. 

There were people at points in Rob Ford's being Mayor of Toronto that wished death on him. So many tweets about how the man should be killed or die some terrible death or whatever. You'd at least hope that these same people don't find some sort of joy in the news today. Wishing death on someone on twitter is bad and odd enough, let alone being actually happy when it happens. 

And what did people want him to die for? For not being a great Mayor. For smoking crack. For saying that he didn't eat a woman because he had enough to eat at home. For charging at someone during a city council meeting. For putting Toronto on the map for not the best of reasons. For saying that cyclists shouldn't have their own lanes, and that if they get hit by a car it's their own fault (or some sentence like that. Believe it actually had the term 'they are swimming with sharks' in it.) For not going to the gay pride parade. For not knowing that This Hour Has 22 Minutes is a joke news show and thinking they were real reporters coming to attack him. For SO many reasons. But are ANY of these worthy of death? 

Once the man admitted to smoking crack on TV, which is just an unbelievable thing that actually happened, all of his mayoral power was taken away from him. Rob Ford couldn't even have had a stop sign taken down if he wanted to at that point, and people STILL hated him. People STILL wanted the man to die. 

People were mad at Rob Ford as if he casted some kind of spell and magically became Mayor Of Toronto. As if he waved his hand and said, 'It shall be done! I will be Mayor number one!' and floated onto the top of the CN Tower while lightning struck all around him. That's not what happened. People VOTED for Rob Ford. I know, because I voted against him. There was a voting process, and Rob Ford won the majority of the votes. Now, why, WHY be mad at that man who was voted in, and NOT mad at ALL at the people who voted for him? Shouldn't SOME of your anger be directed at them? Rob Ford wasn't the greatest Mayor. We can all agree on that. But SOME of the blame should lie with the people who thought he would be great, not SOLELY on the man who didn't end up being great. 

The people who voted against him and didn't think he'd be a good mayor were proved right. The man embarrassed himself so many times. Just an incredible amount. But did that make the people who voted against him happy? Not all. Some STILL wished him DEATH. Death! For being on camera drunk in a Jamaican restaurant. For COMPLETELY falling on his ass when he tried to throw a football. For walking directly into a camera when he came out of an office. For making Toronto a joke for a good couple of months. And again, I say, Rob Ford didn't do this alone. Rob Ford was aided by people that voted for him.

Rob Ford clearly was a man who had some issues. No denying that. The man was caught on camera drunk and maybe high, screaming that he was going to kill someone. Cool for a Mayor of even a coffee table to do? Absolutely not. But the way that PEOPLE attacked him, tweeted that he should be hit by cars are thrown off of cliffs, act as if THEY have never done anything bad. As if they don't know anyone who has some problems. As if EVERYone in their family is without a drinking problem who might turn a family gathering into a small intervention.  The air of superiority these people had was incredible. Should Rob Ford have been Mayor? Probably not. Were many of the things he did justified in terms of SMOKING CRACK and RUSHING WOMEN IN CITY COUNCIL? Of course not. But does that mean that people should have wished death on him? No. 

Rob Ford wasn't a great mayor, wasn't a great face for Toronto and shouldn't have held any real power. But he was also clearly a man with some problems, clearly a man who needed some help and clearly a flawed.  In society, for other people, we pretend that we all have it all together and that there is no attachment to us and problems. The only people that would truly no about alcoholics in your family say would be the closest of friends and the like. Which makes sense, you can't just go around OPENING conversations with the fact that your dad drinks too much, but we shouldn't also condemn others for such things as if we couldn't fathom at all how something like substance abuse could happen. 

Regardless of what you thought of Rob Ford, death wasn't something that he deserved. Deserved not to have power over a city? Of course. But think about his last little while. Do you think the man wanted to pass away at 46, after making himself a world wide laughing stock for his actions? I doubt it.

I wasn't a Rob Ford guy, I voted against the man. But it's sad at points when you see the lack of compassion from strangers with computers. 

Thinking

I've been really trying over the last little while to think positively. More so, trying to control a bit more where my thoughts go. What I focus on and where my mind wanders. For long periods of time over the last few years, I've been stuck in negative thinking patterns. For long periods of time, my own brain was attacking me, telling me that I was useless and untalented and any other number of things. The more of those thoughts I had, the more they became real. 

'I'm stupid.'

'I'm your brain, and fine, you are.'

'Wait, I don't want to be stupid.'

'Well, are you stupid?'

'... Yes?'

'Okay. Fine. We'll go with that.'

There have been points in my life where all I did was think positively, believe in myself and do my best. What did that get me? Honestly, everything. I felt great, people wanted to be around me, and I didn't look at life as this huge struggle that needs to be battled everyday. I just walked the earth. Even when I had nothing! At one point in time I was sleeping in a closet, but I still was killing it. I was still having a great time, liking my life. I started doing stand up while I was sleeping in that closet, and was having a lot of fun with everything. 

I've gotten into very negative points of thinking at certain times, not believing in myself and not thinking that anything I did was any good. What did that get me? ALL of those things. I don't do as well on stage when I think that way. I don't write as much because I think 'what is the point?' People don't want to be around me. Not even me! I can't get out of hanging out with myself but in that mind state I'd like to. I'd stay in bed way too long. I'd sit and and zone out, and worry about every single thing that's every happened.

'Nathan, what the hell are you doing?'

'I'm thinking that at 45 I'm gonna be living on the street.'

'While we're eating ice cream? Are you crazy?'

When I'm thinking negatively, I'm not really anywhere. I'm stuck in my head. I'll go on stage, stand at the back of rooms, hang with friends, but I'm not REALLY there. I'm in my head, thinking about how terrible I am, about how everything I'm doing is wrong and how NONE of it is good, entertaining, funny or whatever. I'll be around people but in my head I'm just tearing myself down. 

I sort of wandered around the last few years, in and out of feeling great for stretches and feeling awful, not really realizing why either was happening. I would think, 'Why can't I always feel the way that I did when I was sleeping in that closet? Why can't I feel the way that I did my last year of high school and my first year of college?' I'd fall in and out of that feeling, and think that if I had this or that, killed on this show or that show, I'd feel better. 

Then, I did a show a couple of weeks ago in front of ten people. That happens all the time, not crazy, but this one was in front of ten people, three hour drive from my house, and I was headlining. Doing forty five minutes to ten people in a big room. I was excited for some reason to do this show. I couldn't wait to get on stage. Had I been in a negative mind space, I would have DREADED doing this show. I would have torn myself apart for performing to ten people, that nobody cares about what I'm doing. That I have no business doing this and that it's all going to suck. These ten people were amazing and it was so much fun. Talked to them after and they were great, and one person from this show had actually seen me before and forced his friend to come check me out. 

After the show, I'm driving back to the hotel, and something just sort of clicked. I started to think about all of the time I've wasted talking myself down and not having fun living my own life. How much time I've wasted being on stage and not really having a good time. Not having a good time ON STAGE. The ONE thing I've always wanted to do. I drove back the next day and I couldn't stop thinking about this. Thinking about how much of my own way I've gotten in over the years. How many times I've talked myself into having a bad show. How many times I've stood on a stage, telling jokes that I wrote and liked, hating them and hating how I was telling them. 

I decided from that weekend to really make an effort to not go back to negative thinking. Not just saying, 'I'm not going to think negative', REALLY trying to keep my mind in check. Really trying to control what I say about myself and how I feel from day to day. I don't want to continue to do what I do if every single day of it is a struggle. I don't want to keep pulling myself to shows and to writing jokes or whatever. I want to STAY in the mind space of loving what I do, wanting to do what I do, and having so much fun with. I want to STAY in the place of wanting to get up everyday and walk this earth. Want to STAY in the place of having fun with my life. 

I'm not saying that I'm not going to be negative again, or feel bad about what I'm doing sometimes. I'm just going to try not live there for a long time. 

twitter @nathanmacintosh

Instagram @nathanmacintosh