News

So I guess you've heard the news: McDonald's, that glorious bastion of all things disgusting and bad for you, has come out with an Angus burger. This is not to be confused with a burger named after a Scotsman, but one made from "one-third pound of juicy 100 per cent Angus beef," according to the sandwich's official website.

My beef-inhaling sources tell me that the sandwich is "actually pretty good," which is, in my view, a great disappointment.

While the commercial for the Angus burger features two hungry male thirtysomething roomies, news of the launch put me in mind of the cranky old lady from the famed Burger King ad. In my mind's eye, I lifted the bun, scrunched up my nose and hollered, "Where's the crap?!"

I miss the days when bad things could just simply be bad. Why is it these days we must dress everything up as new, improved, upgraded or purified? I'm all for fresh white asparagus and imported Italian bathroom faucets, but sometimes you just want a crappy burger from a low-end burger joint. What ever happened to shameless crummy convenience?

When I was a kid growing up in small-town Ontario, everything was crap. It was the eighties, decade of designer shoulder pads, Gucci loafers and home espresso makers, but the style memo never made its way to my hometown. In Cobourg, everyone I knew spent those years eating Cheez Whiz, wearing jelly shoes, watching their parents get divorced and rocking out to Debbie Gibson and the MiniPops.

By the time I hit puberty, moved to the city with my (newly single) mother and encountered anything qualitatively good, I was accustomed to a diet - both figurative and literal - of such pure, unfiltered crap, I wouldn't have recognized a free-range organic Cornish hen if it landed on my face.

Eventually, of course, I felt the need to eradicate all traces of McCain curly fries and The Love Boat from my life. I became a snob. First a music snob. Then a book snob. Eventually a food, wine, shoe, car, garden, architecture, holiday-destination and houseware snob. I subscribed to the Utne Reader. I brought my own milk fluffer to brunch. I was insufferable! But that's what your 20s are for. How was I to know my own taste revelation would coincide with the turn of the century and the decrappification of the English-speaking world? First came Starbucks, then came H&M and the next thing I knew real-estate agents in Ajax, Ont., were sipping green-tea lattes in Stella McCartney frocks.

I did the only thing any self-respecting born-again contrarian aesthetic yuppie snob would do: I returned to my roots and learned to love crap all over again.

I went to Wal-Mart and bought plastic patio furniture. I served KD and frozen peas to dinner guests. I filled my iPod with Kylie, Britney and late Elton John.

All of these choices are hard to defend, especially if you happen to move in fashionable circles - and I'd like to make it extremely clear: I DO.

Just last week, for instance, I was at a cocktail party when I happened to find myself caught in the verbal crossfire in an exchange between a well-heeled vegetarian and an even weller-heeled omnivore.

After being gently chided for chowing down on bite-sized beef carpaccio, the omnivore declared that she was not so much a meat eater as a "goodetarian," meaning, in her words, "I only eat things that are good quality, good-tasting and good for me."

I felt a stabbing pang of envy, for I immediately wanted to become a goodetarian too. And no wonder. We live in an era where, more than ever before, our consumer choices are not just a reflection of, but actually seem to determine, who and what we are. Good stuff equals good character. Hence the Angus burger: Even the meat-eating masses long to be goodetarians.

But I will not be swayed by such consumer temptations. Thank god we are entering cottage season, a.k.a. the annual festival of crap. While many people like their summer getaways right out of the pages of Dwell, I prefer a distinctly more down-market approach to Canadian holiday-making. Give me a wagon-wheel coffee table, a can of Wild Cat and a radio tuned to the local headbanger station and my inner small-town hick kicks up her jelly shoes with joy.

Because here's the thing: Without the bad, there is no good. Cast the KD out of your life and pretty soon the beef carpaccio tastes about as special as Happy Meal. McDonald's might be trying to sell me an Angus burger, but that doesn't mean I have to buy one.

Let other people have their fancy white slipcovers and $50 chardonnays this summer. I'm quite happy as a born-again crap-lover.