Some Meditations on the 4th of July, 2021

How do I loath thee, 4^th of July? Let me list the ways:

The noise, the smoke, the chaos, the stupidity. The dogs frightened and running away or hiding under beds. The birds disrupted and confused and killed. The fingers of children blown off. The limp rockets red glare in suburbia. The Pentecostal churches still selling fireworks as a fundraiser despite the record heat wave and imminent fire danger. Maybe they want the real fire and brimstone to lay waste to their state. The hot dogs and their maggots. Baseball and its utter boredom from start to finish. The apple pie made from apples from Chile. The jingoism and the dangerous American exceptionalism. The Statue of Bigotry (thank you Lou Reed for that line.) Dull Americans wrapping themselves in Chinese-made flags who don’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. One, ideals never lived up to. Second, Articles and Amendments routinely violated. The Star Spangled Banner, a national anthem inspired by a losing battle! The unvaccinated Americans who will contract covid during 4^th of July celebrations and quite possibly die exercising their “freedom” to be a dumbshit and quite possibly kill someone else, mostly likely someone they know and love.

It’s a damn funny or tragic or righteously right-on thing to see an American flag waving over a homeless encampment. But they’ll be flying. And it probably won’t be in irony. How could it with so many veterans among the homeless.

Remember that time the Secretary of the Interior James Watt didn’t want the Beach Boys to play the Mall on 4^th of July because of their undesirable rock and roll nature and the undesirables who liked rock and roll? I don’t know why I remember that 4^th of July from almost 40 years ago. It was probably the last one where something went right and the Beach Boys played anyway.

Remember that one 4^th of July one of our naval vessels shot down a commercial airliner somewhere in the Middle East by mistake and killed something like 200 civilians? I heard the news on a date with my future wife while watching fireworks. That was the last time I ever watched a fireworks show.

I remember my band Gravy debuting in a Portland basement on a 4^th of July. It rained that day. It used to rain every 4^th of July in Oregon! That was the whole point!

In protest of all the things I loathe about 4^th of July, I will make a potato salad with hippie pickles, fresh mint, oregano and mustard from a Communist country—or what used to be a Communist country!