Vice-March 99 Article
Let’s face it, Canadians are the original indie-snobs. Just slap a lumberjack jacket on the comic store guy from The Simpsons and that’s Canada. We
have such an inferiority complex about the States that as a nationm we’ve decided that nobody is allowed to any more “special” than anyone else. At least not on this side of the border
BRUSH WITH CELEBRITY
AREN’T YOU THAT GUY
FROM DEGRASSI HIGH
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AMERICAN ACTORS ALWAYS
mention how great it is to be able to walk around in Canada without being hassled. Basically, they’re treated like walking farts — either with polite embarrassment or Veiled disgust. Oh sure there’s the odd kid who wants to shake the fart’s hand, but what are you gonna do? You’re a BIG AMERICAN STAR.
If you’re a Canadian television “star” forget
it. You are still a fart, but either a silent, odor less toot that passes unnoticed through the crowd or a gross, sloppy, wet one that every one laughs at behind your back.
In America Gary Coleman beat the crap out of some lady for mentioning his failed career.
Up here, it doesn’t
or not. By appeari matter if your
Canadreer is Over
show, you are in a television
I’d like to matically deemed a loser. I love our little ho end to all this Personally
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absolutely es,
hero and I y,
rnega-heroes go
Whether it’s Elvis ck in their Cockb presence
doing his Stojko in HMV, Bruce orderinary in his third groceries or Moe Berg
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of bee
heart goes Pitterpat r, my little Out all the e in my little
watcher’s ntries ae celebrity
star5 my favorites re the for mer s of the Oegra
ssi series. Fr
~99O, th three om 1980
Degrassi, J24, (The Kids of Degrassi
Street HI~h & Degrassi, High)
rocked the socks off pre-to-mid teens in over 40 countries. This was a piece of Canadian bacon that even the Yanks could swallow. Along with many of my peers, I watched the show religiously, and loved it. Not so much because it helped us deal with the issues of those trying teenage years, but because the people in it were our age. Heck, if they could make it as big TV stars then 50 could we.
I encourage everyone to join me in the excit ing world of Degrassi Watching, but please, be kind. All of us, at one time or another, have had those days where you “wake up in the morning, feeling shy and lonely.”
STEPHANIE
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All the way, with Stephanie have!” Sh ewas the gisal Degrassi slut, before Tessa set the new stan am oy snowing some tit n the tinal episode. This jean-skirten, make-up wearing popular” girl sent many a young ad off to us room to no his “home whore after mis weekly Degrassi tie. Another esample of television’s power evetyone on the show says how ‘not the chatecter is, ann all the viewers eventually stsit ovilvung it. Then they come out and tell us that too much make-up will give you a Oad reputation, and tv wnas’s on the ineide that really counts. Yean right. to that’s woy you had a big old ass shot on the open- rig creoits tot Degrassi High.
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These nays, ‘Stephanie” is sporting a much earth icr look; I’ve seen her several times at my school. shere I believe she’s studying film. I saw her on the Ous once, wearing as aviator-style hat anti big, horn- rimmed ‘I’m studying film’ glasses. She could have oven incognito were it sot for that tell-tale chin dim ple of hers. My friend Jimmy wanten to chat her up, but we were botn too nervous. I think she sensen nut helm vibes, because vhe kept one hand almost in her purse, as .t to grab for mace it she had to. Sorry for tresising you out, Steph. My buddy lust has a crush on non, that’s all
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MAYA
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Remember the girl in the wheelonair who was always torcen to slow nancy with tfie large yearoook committee girl at the school dances? Remember that girl who smoked a joint at a slumber party and it did nt affect her, except she was “so tired” she needed Caitlin so nelp her out of her chair and onto the touch? Well, that’s Maya I saw her on the subway a little while ago, and guess what? No wheelchair I couidnt Ovlleve it.
Now. I know there’s protably some ‘struggling against incredible odds” story involved here, but imagine if there wasn’t, Imagine if they lust vtuck her character in a wheelchair to fulfill some sort of quota. What it Playing With Time Productions was playing witn our hearts and minds? What’s next? OLT not black? Yick not a nruggie? Spike not a punk goddess? Anyway, I heard through the grapevine that “Maya” nay a band called Psycho Key. Rawk on kiddol
JOEY
My friend’s brother Todd was at a party once ann she guy who played Jocy Jeremiah showed up. He was n’t ‘searing the hat or the Hawaiian shirt, lout he was sporting quite the “look at me. I’m the kid on TV” atti tune.
Nithin a few moments of “Joey’s” entrance, he was confronting Todd, angrily accusing him of having stoles his seat, despite the tact that he had just walked in the door. ‘Joey” escalated the situation throughout the evening by demanding that Todd fetch him beer and continually harping about the seating arrangement. Eventually, he said something to the effect of “Don’t you know who I am? Do you want to taKe this outside, motherfucker?” Todd took him up on tne otter, and kicked his ass on the front lawn.
My personal theory here is that ‘Jovy” was suffer ing from the “new kid in prison doesn’t want to be nobody’s bitch” syndrome. Bringing Joey Jeremiah to a house party is like throwing the guy to the tucking lions
WHEELS
I was at a Shane MacGowan concert recently, when I spotted a burly, mulleted young lad who was a dean ringer for Wheels This guy had it all —the hockey hair, the snockingly Iarge-Iertsed glasses, the vacant
“nobody u nderstanos me” rocket pout. He’d put on some Molson Muscle, but I was so convinced tb’s guy was everyones favorite Degrassi Liberhoser, that I had to approach him.
“Naw man, ni from Whitby,” he said. ‘I had school with a buddy from the Mahoney. Theyte open ing tonight, right?”
Convinced that he wasn’t telling the truth, I per sisted. He stuck by his story, cleverly attempting to throw me off the scent by claiming to have never even seen Degrassi. He did manage to talk my ear ott about his lob at tne gas station and his pregnant wife and every other agonizing detail of his Whitby, Ontario esistence. After decliniirg his third offer to noy me “a Orewski” I told him 10 “drive sate” and vii,-,nnn
SNAKE
Did you ever see the Kids in the Hall sketch where Bruce McCulloch does an ode to a drunk girl from Winnipeg”, while a really sloshed rocker chick sways by a speaker in a nightclub? I saw that guy who played Snake pull one of those at a college-crowd dive in Toronto. Just swaying away, drunk as can be, happy as a lark. He seemed to be moving, not to the music from the speakerr, but to his own private memories of Zit Remedy’s hit tune “Everybody Wants Something”. It looked like he’d hit the gym a bit since his Degrassi days, but his boyish good looks were still keepin’ it real. Some girls were standing nearby; kind of giggling and pointing. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I caught the hint of a naive, “those chicks dig me” grin, much like his beloved character might have worn at a Degrassi High dance.
STEVE THE BEAVE
MARCH 1999-VICE, PAGE 29
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