Rocco de Giacomo

1. December 2000: North American premier of Guy Ritchy’s black comedy Snatch . Guns, criminals named Boris the Blade (or Boris the Bullet Dodger), Bullet Tooth Tony, Franky “Four Fingers”, and the unforgettable Brick Top.

2. January 2002 – Canadian mocumentary FUBAR is premiered. The film follows the days in the lives of two rockers living in Calgary. Spawns the famously manly expression : Just give’r.

3. August, 2003 – Penthouse files for bankruptcy protection, marking the dominance of the internet as the medium for pornography. According to Top Ten Reviews: Every second – $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography. Every second – 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography. Every second – 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States.

4. March, 2003 – Cluster bombs, napalm, and bunker busters. A US-led military coalition invades Iraq.

5. May, 2005 – The release of John Vaillant’s Golden Spruce, the nonfiction recount of a slightly deluded logger who is so tough, that although he disappears while kayaking the most dangerous waters in the world, the Hecate Strait, and even after his gear washes up on shore, the RCMP refuse to write him off as deceased. As a former supervisor explains, “You’re dealing with a person who, with few resources, could be dropped anywhere on earth and come up smelling like a rose.” A tough book about a tough, slightly crazy man.

6. February, 2006 – While hunting, Vice President Dick Cheney shoots a friend in the face with a shotgun.

7. June, 2006 – The release of District 13, and the mainstreamization of the Parkour, the sport of running, jumping, vaulting, climbing over whatever urban obstacles get in your way.

8. July, 2006 – Zinedine Zidane headbutts Marco Materazzi in World Cup Final. At first, it was thought that Marco had insulted Zinedine’s mother, but as it turns out, when Zinedine offered Marco his shirt – the Italian player had grabbed it – Marco responded: Preferisco la puttana di tua sorella, or to put it nicely, I would prefer your whore of a sister. The headbutt was lampooned on the internet and even spawned an online video game.

9. September, 2006 – Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic, father and son tale The Road, is released. It’s a straight-forward concise story of a man, a boy, a shopping cart and a thousand miles of cannibal-ridden wasteland America to get through.

10. February, 2009 – 70 people charged in a bust of a cockfighting ring in East Gwillimbury, Ontario.

11. December 2009 – Pirates! And we a talking the read deal here, not the scrawny cyber kind, nor the Boy-Chicks of the Caribbean. 2009 marked a record year for the grizzled, armed buccaneers operating across the Gulf of Aden and along the coast of Somalia. They attacked 214 vessels this year, resulting in 47 hijackings. Twelve of those ships, with a total of 263 crew members, now are being held for ransom by the pirates. In comparison, only 111 ships were attached in 2008.

Note to Family: the title above applies to you. The fact is, I am driving around with two antique rapiers in the trunk of my car because I have nowhere to put them in my apartment. I also have a brand-new toaster oven in my shed; I received it as a wedding gift three years ago, and it will remain in its package on the shelf in my shed until I can find the counter space to use it. As for my wife Lisa, she is renting a studio space in Kensington Market so that she can have her own room to create her crafts and a place to put some of her extra rolls and spools of fabric which until now have been part of an unsteady mountain of material dominating the south eastern corner of our computer room. In other words, we are fine for stuff: we don’t need anything. And I can safely assume that you, dear family members, are in a similar situation. And rather than go through the usual Christmas ritual of waiting in endless line-ups to buy things we don’t need and exchanging them for things you don’t need, what about get something for someone who is actually, honestly, in need?

This is where the chickens come in. Through Plan Canada, a mere $40 will buy farming tools and seed for a family in Sudan. $40.00 will buy a pig, $35 will buy six rabbits, and $25 will buy someone a home birthing kit. Now, when your life situation makes things like live pigs and rabbits and hygienic pregnancy kits incredibly useful and possibly life-saving, I would say that you are definitely in need. The choice between spending $30 on yet another Gap tee-shirt and medical kits which could help potentially 10 women deliver healthy babies should be pretty apparent; as obvious of giving a Big Mac either to a man with a tableful of food behind him or a man who is completely emaciated. But year after year, most of us are making the wrong choice. Not only that, we make ourselves believe that the act of giving to people who aren’t in need is actually a genuine “act of giving” – something to feel good about – and not simply a complete, fraudulent waste. The question is why do we do this, year after year?

The answer, I believe, lies in my Note to Everyone Else: please don’t get me anything, because I am not going to return the gesture. Firstly, my savings rate is under the current 4.8 % percent national average. So the small amount of money I do have – I’m sorry to say – is not going towards buying you “The Dark Knight” DVD. Before you write me off as a cheap prick, I’m only halfway through the argument. Now, since the national personal savings rate is only 3 percent, I can safety assume that you also don’t have much money either, and I don’t want a copy of “District Nine” badly enough to put you in debt. I think now is a good time to remind you and myself what the banks are trying to make us forget: when you have to charge something to your credit card, or run an overdraft to make a purchase, you are putting yourself in debt and you should not be spending that money.

But we do spend. And why? I believe it’s all about social pressure and about keeping up appearances. I often catch myself thinking: c’mon, someone my age should be able to afford that. And often enough I make the purchase against my better judgment. During Christmastime this mantra of keeping up with the Joneses becomes the marketing-fed zeitgeist for most of the Western world. Last Christmas, hundreds of Christmas shoppers rushed the doors and stampeded into a Walmart in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York. The calamity has since been labelled as a Black Friday incident. Chances are, everyone involved in that stampede are dealing with enormous credit card bills, including a pregnant mother who miscarried and the Walmart attendant who was trampled to death. In an environment of mass job loss and housing foreclosures, people are literally dying to keep up an outward appearance of success and to reassure themselves they are in control of their lives. How? By buying stuff.

This is an extreme example of what Christmas has become: a blatant, obviously fraudulent way of making ourselves feel good. I don’t know about you, but I no longer care about my appearance, and I am actually taking control. This year I refuse to surrender to guilt-ridden social pressures and the self destructive zeitgeist of consumption. I’m sure, the first time, it will hurt, but I know I can get through it. Label me a poor cheap prick if you want. And if you really insist on spending the money on me, make sure it goes on chickens. To do so, please visit www.plancanada.ca.