{"id":9469,"date":"2025-07-07T06:50:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T13:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=9469"},"modified":"2025-07-07T07:17:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:17:01","slug":"fourth-of-july-in-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/fourth-of-july-in-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth of July in Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- wp:themify-builder\/canvas \/-->\n\n\n<p><em>Pop! Pop! Pop!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mayhem had commenced on my street and dusk had not yet settled over Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier in the day, President Trump had signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I went to my front window to investigate the mayhem and observed two, obese, approximately 12-year-old white boys wearing tight shorts and tight t-shirts throwing snap dragons on the pavement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the boys assumed a squatting position reminiscent of taking a dump in the woods. He raised his arms and clenched his fists in the manner of President Trump on stage at a rally. The friend tossed snap dragons his direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Pop! Pop! Pop!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I heard them laughing. Then I heard the squatter yell, \u201cI&#8217;m going to fart!\u201d I couldn&#8217;t see his face. Did I want to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The boy&#8217;s body contorted as he ripped his fart. Then he abruptly stood up and shook his ass awkwardly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI shit my pants!\u201d he yelled. \u201cI shit my pants!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believed him. Boys do not lie about such things. Other things, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His friend howled and tossed more dragon snaps at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Pop! Pop! Pop!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The boy who shit his pants began to dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was witnessing an American boy shit his pants on the Fourth of July accompanied by the cacophony of dragon snaps (and other fireworks) and dance in the aftermath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He did not go inside to change. He kept dancing and his friend kept tossing snap dragons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And thus I was gifted an indelible new metaphor for the current state of American life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gifted?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pop! Pop! Pop! The mayhem had commenced on my street and dusk had not yet settled over Empire. Earlier in the day, President Trump had signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law. I went to my front window to investigate the mayhem and observed two, obese, approximately 12-year-old white boys wearing tight shorts and tight [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coos-bay","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9469"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9474,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469\/revisions\/9474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}