Canadia Copper

I had a great time this week amongst the Mormon-like people of Calgary,
and the even more beautiful sites of the Canadian Rockies. The Rockies,
by the way, are primarily populated by elk, beaver, grizzly, goats,
mosquitos, 15 year old hitchhiking French Canadians looking for
adventure with 20 loonies and a napsack, and half the population of
Japan and Taiwan in tour busses.

My experience of customs took me days to get over. First the experience
of Canada3000 insisting that they could NOT let me on the flight w/o a
passport – BULLSHIT – since NAFTA Americans and Canadians can cross
each other’s borders with drivers license and second ID, same with
Mexico my friends – but the lovely people at Canada3000 said they would
not let me on the flight unless I paid THEM (and their notary) $40 for
an affadavit guaranteeing I was an American citizen. For the record, on
my departure from Canada, I asked the friendly US customs officer about
this and he told me that Canada is pulling a total sham on unsuspecting
US citizens – charging for notaries, etc. at the border when absolutely
no visa, passport or birth certificate is required. I should have
insisted and not paid and sued them. Lord knows, if Canadians had a few
more lawyers, their parochial third reich of an immigration and customs
department would not treat them the way they do. But I get ahead of
myself.

This awful airline (Canada3000) has made a point of studying every
disgusting trait of US airlines and amalgamating them all into one
hideous, rule-oriented, tight assed charter. Get this – they MEASURE
each carry-on with a tape measure and then reject it if it is just
slightly larger than a toaster! This in spite of the fact that the
single file line to check into the flight snaked around the airport
like a bread line in the former Soviet Union. People celebrated their
birthdays, graduated from college and drew Da Vinci like doodlings on
the back of napkins while the check in clerk argued inches vs. meters,
diameter vs. height and all other manners of calculus over what were
essentially ladies purses and cosmetic cases. The MD-80 was huge and
half full in the end, and there was nothing in the overhead bins where
one could easily have stashed the body of a well proportioned but high
maintenance check in clerk, had one been so inclined.

Not only that, if you already have checked your 2 generous allowed
pieces of luggage (American airlines allow 3), then they CHARGE you for
checking the one they confiscate – at $70 per bag. They are in the
moneymaking business before you even get on the plane. Very bad image
for Canada, this airline…and needless to say, everyone was in a
baaaaad mood once they all got to their seats.

At customs, the officer asked me my name, my destination and it was all
simple and straighforward, or so I thought – but in Canada profiling is
legal (not in California, by the way, you cannot pre-judge a person
because he is black, asian, single male or any other reason, you must
have a legally justifiable reason to suspect or search someone). I
thought I was done, but when I handed my card to the customs officer
she said, “sir – into the side room please”. And this is where Canada
and Canadians get distinctly MUCH less friendly than their happy
surface reputations.

I found myself in a room exclusively with blacks and Asians being
verbally harassed and meticulously searched. I gulped. One Cambodian
couple was literally being set upon by drug sniffing dogs and quite
abused by a fat and ugly Canadian customs officer who looked like he
masterbated every twenty minutes in a side room and, anyway, was
covered in pimples.

I got one portly female officer, who immediately asked me for my
wallet, and took out every single card, business card, credit card,
calling card, etc. She asked me what I did for a living. I told her I
was the president of an “imaging and licensing company”. She said
“what’s that?” I said “I shoot films and video clips and license them
to productions that need them”. She sniffed at me, and said “yeah
right”.

She looked at me and said “you’re no president of anything. Look at
this!” she thrust my wallet in my face. “No president of a company has
a wallet like this!” (I don’t know, I bought it Robinsons! It’s a nice
black wallet, leather and it cost about $50) I asked her what was wrong
with it. She said the plastic liners were tattered. No president of a
company would keep it like that, she said.

She took out my Super-8 motel advantage card (how embarrassing!). She
said “you stay in hotels like these?” I said, “sometimes”. She said,
“see, these are cheap hotels! You’re no president of a company – now
you’re going to tell me the truth – who are you and what do you do?”

I thought about this for awhile. Who am I really? Good question. What a
time for an epiphany!

I told her “well really, I’m an artist, I suppose. I mean, I love to
make films and I’m kind of tired of working in the office. That’s why
I’m coming to the Canadian Rockies, to get away from it for awhile…”
I said, hating these words as they came out of my mouth as they sounded
so trite and inherently suspicious.

She wasn’t impressed either. “Canada doesn’t admit ARTISTS without work
permits”, she said, “do you have permission to work as an artist in
Canada???”

Now, I have gone through customs in Syria, Burma, Lebanon, Cambodia and
Borneo – to name just a few – and never had I been told that any
country in the known world that I’m not allowed in because I’m an
artist! Imagine Bali not allowing artists without a permit!! The new
Canadian slogan “We cannot allow artists into this country. They are
primarily responsible for, well, art! And you know, art is not a good
way to make money. You should always have something to fall back on.
Like hockey. Hockey is wonderful, art is the root of all evil. Art
decays children’s brains. Artists make lousy tourists, they are cheap
and make cynical comments about our artificial moose display in
Toronto. Artists are ruining everything, the ozone layer, mad cow
disease, cheyrnoble, tooth decay — all caused by ARTISTS!

“No”, I told her. “I am not here to work. I am on vacation, not on
assignment. I carry my film camera with me because I enjoy filming. But
I only have 6 rolls of film, and they run for 3 minutes each, so
clearly I’m not here to make a long documentary”. I liked that sentence
much better. She didn’t.

“Number one.” she said, “I DO THE LECTURING around here.”

“Okay”

“I TELL YOU when to answer questions, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes ma’am”

“Don’t go telling me you are president of a company one minute, and an
artist the next. Don’t lecture me about films. These rolls of film
could run 10 hours as far as I know….now, prove to me you are NOT
here to make a film”

Wow. This was getting more and more like the Ethiopian police station I
was detained in, or the Syrian Fundamentalist Muslim Interrogation
room. Guilty until proven innocent in Canada apparently. And what if I
actually (gasp) TOOK SOME FILMS OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES and sold them?
Would this presage the end of Canada? Start a nuclear incident? Would
this be the last secret signal for the French to declare independence?
Would Nova Scotia suddenly wake up one morning with every man dressed
in a tunic carrying a hockey stick and muttering “fuck dem
mounties….Rick Ray took some shots of dose mountains, eh?”

“You married?” she asked

“Yes and I have two smart and beautiful kids”, I said

She smiled a wan smile. “Why aren’t they with you?”

“They have camp, and a girl scout meeting this weekend, plus it is
expensive to bring the wife and kids along you know…”

“I thought you were the president of a company”…she said “You should
be able to afford to bring your whole family along, especially with the
favorable exchange rate….”

She squinted at me and tried to fix me with a stare. “Go ahead”, she
said, slightly intimately, “tell me who you really are…”

And with that I started to crack. First just a hairline fracture, which
for me is considerable open real estate. Then I could feel the pieces
falling away. “You’re right”, I said, “I don’t know who I am. I really
don’t. I’m a FRAUD. I’m not who I say I am, that’s for sure. I’m not a
president of a company really, not an artist really, not a real good
dad, not a real good man…(I could feel the tears welling)…I should
not be let into this country where everyone apparently knows exactly
who they are..and is capable of being so WHITE and so goddam
friendly…I’m a cynic….I’m a loser….a drunk….a liar…the truth
is…..

,,,,I’ve simply always wanted to be a writer……” I said, sobbing and
collapsed in her arms, weeping heartily upon her military style
shoulder patch.

The above section is merely paraphrased, and the wording may not be
exactly correct, in fact it might not have happened this way at all,
but I assure you that in my mind at that moment and in the long days of
self doubt amongst the tour busses in the Rockies, I had many a thought
like this.

She had moved on. Curious Georgina, meter maid. She found my sinus
pills. “What are these?” “Sine-offs” I said, “I suffer headaches”.

Well she must have been prepared for this. She immediately called the
dogs. The dogs proceeded to sniff all my “Sine offs” as well as a
bottle of Tylenol, leaving lovely scented drobs of drool all over them.
While the officer managed the dog, the customs woman prepared to
fingerprint me.

She took my fingerprint and then leaned over to me and said, “Now, stop
lying to us and tell us the truth….have you ever been convicted of a
felony? I’m going to find out in just a second, and when I do…if
you’ve been lying to me, the penalties are going to be MUCH MUCH
worse…”

I just kind of scoffed as respectfully as possible. “I have never even
been convicted of j-walking or speeding” I said, thinking “Oh my God,
should I admit to my earlier escapade in Winnipeg (those of you who
don’t know this story, trust me it is a doozy, best not told here, but
again involved me doing very little wrong and the Candian customs
completely overreacting to it)???”

She disappeared telling me touch nothing and not to move as I was on
hidden camera, and anything I said or did could and would be used
against me in a court of law…..Jesus! Have you ever heard of such a
thing? I tried to stay perfectly still and just swivel my head around
to watch the activity around me.

I got to watch the customs officer next to me REALLY abusing a poor
west African man for having “too much cutlery” in his luggage. Perhaps
I should explain, he opened a big black duffel bag and it was virtually
FULL of restaurant-style spoons, forks and blunt knives. The customs
officer smiled like he had just found the mother lode of smack and
crack and heroin all rolled into one big hallucinogenic opium ball.
“Now…..” he said with a most evil grin,, “what EXACTLY are you doing
with all these forks and knives??????…..”

A question which had occurred to me, and I was glad he asked first. The
poor man was so nervous, he could barely speak. “Our Canadian cutlery
not good enough for you???” the customs officer snarled. “Do you know
about the Canadian laws governing the import of restaurant
products????” he barked. “Jeez” I thought, these people have nothing
better to do in life than specifying how many utensils one can bring
into Canada? Give these people some REAL CRIME to worry about! Oh to
whip out an automatic weapon and pull a “Falling Down” scene on them.
Thank God these people weren’t put in charge of canonical law, it would
be 700,000 pages instead of just 70,000 and who knows, ownership of a
soup ladle or twenty might just get you excommunicated.

I never did get to find out why this man had all of this in his luggage
because my interrogator had returned.

“I’m going to search every inch of your luggage”, she said, “and I want
you to tell me right now….” she leaned in to me so I could smell the
Tim Hortons faux cappucino triple latte and cigarettes on her
breath…… “have you ever smoked marijuana???”

WHAT??? I couldn’t believe this!!!!

It was like a scene from the McCarthy hearings or worse….I felt a
little bit Jewish in a big world of Germans. A stoner amongst the born
agains. Now, what to do? Take the presidential oath? I never inhaled??

“No! Of course not”, I lied, thinking, “what if I said, ‘hasn’t
everyone?’” I suppose admitting that you have smoked the dreaded weed
would get me instantly kicked out of the country. I resented this woman
for making me lie, for knowing I was lying, for caring whether or not I
had ever smoked pot, and further for delaying my entry into Canada – my
connecting flight to Calgary was a half hour away.

The interview went on and on – I won’t bore you with the intimidating
and humiliating details. Finally, it had been a full hour of abuse. She
began into digging through my luggage, opening every single toiletry. I
asked her “Do you really think that I am some kind of danger to the
sanctity of Canada?”

“Do you want more questions from me?”, she snarled, “I ask the
questions, you answer. Don’t make me tell you again, or you are going
right back across the border”, she said, digging through my silk
boxers, I suspected with a secret relish.

Now I don’t want you, dearest trusted reader, to think for a moment
that everything about this experience was unpleasant. Quite the
contrary. Compared to such everyday activities as root canal, rabies
treatment or showing up in Brooklyn dressed as John Rocker, this little
interrogation had been mighty pleasant.

“Ok” the woman said suddenly, “we’re done”.

HUH! WHAT?

I looked at my undies, my credit cards, my shoes and ruffled clothing,
my lens caps and light meter, my Sine oFFs spread and scattered across
the search table.

DONE? I said.

YUP. she said, “NEXT???” she yelled to a terrified tiny group of
elderly Asian refugees in the corner (what exactly are you doing with
these Mah Jong tablets – you’re no president of a comapny!!)

“Could you help me re-pack all this”, I asked a little brusquely.

“Don’t do cleanup. Not my job.” she said, rolled off her rubber gloves
and walked away to have a smoke, making the refugees wait in great
visible fear.

Now, forgive me for speculating, but perhaps if the tourist board of
Canada took a good look at the numbers (which are down) and correlated
them to the friendly politburo they have posited at the end of their
“whites only” ethnic profiling greeting line in Vancouver, they might
come away from it having learned that increasing tourism does not
necessarily mean making more pamphlets and smiling more, if you have
Pol Pots daughter running things down there at the airport. There’s
nothing like fresh mountain air and friendly people who let you in in
traffic to cure that feeling of having been recently raped and butt
humped by a uniformed cretin. Just a thought, for what it’s worth, and
as usual, no one asked me for it.

The American customs officer sat there and listened to my story. “Hard
assed, and they are getting worse”, he confided. “Welcome home” he
said.

I really did have a great time in the Rockies. Really, I did. Really!
Lots of beer is a good cure for anything.

But I think, as far as customs and immigration are concerned, I’ll be
heading for Iran next, just for a little r+r.

I remain, your savvy traveler,

r+r