Burned on the 4th of July

With the holiday approaching I realized how unimportant this day is to me. Our country’s birthday? Is that really worth celebrating? Next thing you know we’ll be celebrating the birthday of some guy people think was god. Point is, I really like holidays but for a number of reasons the 4th just doesn’t do it for me, hear are just a few in random order.

Reason #37- Worst holiday movies
Christmas has It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and so on and so on. Easter has The Ten Commandments. Memorial Day has more war movies then you can shake a stick at. Halloween has…well…Halloween. What does the 4th have? Born on the 4th of July…bad Cruise acting and Stone’s weakest Vietnam film. Yankee Doodle Dandy…with all due respect to my girlfriend who loves it, the film is pretty lousy as far as old musicals go. Independence Day…ummm…please don’t even get me started on how a movie that starts so strongly finishes by uploading a computer virus to beat the bad guys. If you’ve got one I’ve missed let me know.

Reason #81- Moving day of the week
While I’m no uber-patriot and I don’t belong to any union, I do love me some Memorial and Labor days. Why? Because they are guaranteed 3 day weekends. The 4th floats around and sometimes that can have horrible results like say this week where it lands on a Wednesday and offices around the country loose millions of work hours as employees stretch their weekend to 5 days if not longer. Let’s just have a set day like say the 1st Monday of July and let it be.

Reason #21- Personal fireworks
I love a big fireworks show. I love the synched up music, the vast array of explosions and the oooooh-ing and ahhhh-ing of the crowd. I hate however the weak little fireworks that people pick up from the road side stands. Now part of this could go back to when I was 12 or 13 and my fellow Boy Scouts shot me with Roman Candles from about 6 feet away while they yelled, “Run fatty!”, but I choose to believe its more the annoyance and the noise. Since normal folk can’t buy anything that blows up real good (especially in my home state of Minnesota) the best you can buy are the loudest ones. Also its not as if people just buy them over the 4th…no I think I heard my first one in April this year and I’m sure they’ll be a nightly occurrence until Halloween…or are those gunshots.

Reason #42- Lack of signature food
Thanksgiving equals turkey. Halloween equals candy. Easter equals ham. Arbor Day equals ants on a log. The 4th equals…grilling. Again like fireworks I love grilling but grilling is not a specific food. On a 4th BBQ you could be having hot dogs, burgers, ribs, chicken, corn, potatoes, fish…the list goes on. Grilling is not a food it’s a style of preparation so let’s come up with a staple food for the 4th. My vote is for a burger stuffed with hot dogs and pork shoulder, served on a bun made of funnel cakes. Too much?

Reason #1- Patriotism
I love the US really I do. I like our food, our TV, our movies. I’ve had a very good life that only seems to get better and a great deal of that is probably owed to the country to which I was born in. However there is nothing I hate more about the 4th then the act of wrapping one’s self in the flag and pretty much shouting to the world, “We’re #1! We’re #1!” Actually as a country we do that almost everyday but on the 4th it’s a lot louder. We’re an imperfect state that is currently involved in two unwinnable wars and has neglected its own citizens for so long that a state of apathy and defeat has settled in our great land. For some people the 4th is a chance to escape that reality by talking in grand terms about the founding fathers and Uncle Sam but for me the 4th just reminds me how much better we should be as a country and as a people. Speaking as someone who has both burned a flag and raised a flag, we need more days that celebrate the change we can make in the country and fewer days patting ourselves on the back.

Whew…with all that said, I’m hoping you all have a great 4th. I’m kicking the holiday off in excellent style as tomorrow night I’m off to gorge myself on various fatty foods while enjoying fireworks and the funky sounds of Morris Day and the Time. For you youth out there who aren’t familiar please to enjoy Morris pimping the hell out of Leno’s stage many moons ago.