What can you say about the USA? Born in Montreal, unlike most my friends, I grew up fantasizing about New York City. Not becuase I thought it was an ultra-rich place at all or even the center of the universe, as many Americans like to think the world thinks. In fact, the stereotype in Canada is that America is generally a crass society filled with simple people who are for lack of a better word, 'unsophisticated'. New York is considered cool but in a sort of 'backwards' kind of way. Neverthess, I thought NY was going to be "it". More becuase I thought all the cool graffiti, hip-hop, writers and directors were from NY, so naturally, I went to live there for a while. And NY was somewhat cool but also ghastly overrated. The place was so race-obsessed, ("black" and "white" anything is debated) and very blindly-pro-capitalist. But I appreciated NY becuase it taught me to love Canada. I realized we had even cooler underground scenes in Toronto/Montreal and NY maybe only garnered a rep, mostly becuase they had more money to funnel through, maybe some more business-savvy, a bigger population, all the incredible creative power of black America and a group of journalists/audiences unwilling to respect anyone, unless they pretended they were from NY. So, the crowd there was cool, laidback and freindly, but also seemed somewhat arrogant. They were walking around like they were famous but 99.99% of them were just walking 'around' famous people. San Fransisco was also a cool city, but without all the hype. Everywhere else (accept a few exceptions) seemed sort of boring and monotonous - Walmarts, Home Depots, Best Buys etc and of course, the regular 'bragging' everyday Americans. Y'know, Americans are sort of likable people but unfortunately, so many Americans (i'd say 50%) are so disgustingly conforming, ignorant, proud and bigoted people. There is no respect for anything but their own country, their own achievements. They take credit for every other country's achievement too, saying that 'indirectly' it was them too. There is also just an overall 'trashiness' to America and American culture which is simply hard to describe, but any visitor knows what I mean. And when you criticize USA? We all know what they say, almost un unison. "You are jealous". Well, as an American green-card holder, I will tell you, I'm not. Even more, as a Canadian, well, there is nothing more priceless than having some 400-pound American woman, living in what might be described as a fancy aluminum-siding trailer-park, tell you that "Everyone in Canada is jealous and America is the richest country in the world etc." Hey, if it helps, keep holding on to that theory, honey. Just please do not move up here.