Here is The Hidden Cameras, “Awoo” – the video looks suitably Canadian for this post:

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Canada Day was superb – a blistering hot day filled with the expected – rainbow flags and smiling people and face paint (and breast paint!) and the always surprising flashes of wrinkly, naked bums around every street corner. The Pride Parade was everything I’d hoped it would be.

Mink, Aliza, Kuba and I got to watch most of the parade while having tons of free stuff thrown at us – pins, rainbow pencils, rainbow flags, candy, Mardi Gras beads, and a bandanna.

There were towering drag queens in full makeup, pristine boys with perfect be-glittered abs and cute underpants gyrating atop floats, and people from all backgrounds waving signs to show that they can express themselves in Canada, and be supported for it (and it saddens me to have to add the caveat that this is not always the case, and not country-wide. Not yet, anyway).

One brave parade-goer was wearing a lumpy papier maché head and holding a sign that said, “I’d rather be at the cottage” – a clear reference to our ever-beloved mayor, Rob Ford, declining to attend Pride events in favour of heading into the woods for the holiday weekend. Strangely enough, it wasn’t much of a stretch to associate that awkward, bulbous pink mass with both the mayor’s general appearance and presence on the political scene. (I kid.)

I had the privilege of watching a man wipe away tears from the face of the man whom he had married just minutes before, to the rising sound of cheers from the crowd as they rounded the corner on an all-white float.

Canada is not perfect by any means – and the direction in which we are headed disturbs me more every day, with every story I read about the Harper Government – but on Sunday, I was happy to be a Canadian.

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Later on, Peter and I went to the Harbourfront to drink sangria and watch The Hidden Cameras play a free show. I hadn’t seen them play since December 2007 (or something) at the ever-illustrious George’s Fabulous Roadhouse in Sackville. Back then, we danced up a storm as nine band members threatened to demolish the foot-high stage. This experience was a lot less intimate, as both the middle-aged and tiny humans in the audience were more into sitting than dancing their faces off. But The Hidden Cameras still rocked it.

Basically, this band is adorable:

Add to that image a six-person choir wearing all white (and the boys in their underwear) and providing choreographed dance moves, a bunch of instruments, and a random guy from Bavaria (the band’s been living in Berlin for the past few years) and you have a real show. The only thing lacking was the fireworks, but I can be consoled with the other awesome happenings of the day.

Also: Happy America Day to my friends to the south – I miss and love you all!