I dig the July 4 holiday weekend, not because I love my country more than anybody else - I’d rather be here than in Lower Slovenia, clearly, but I don’t feel the need to pump out my chest about it - but because I’m a total mouth-breathing glutton. Naps! Beer! Naps in a puddle of beer! Etc.
Today I will eat and lounge. Tomorrow I will eat and lounge. Monday morning, I will require some kind of electro-convulsive therapy to return me to my mission.
I’ll probably pass on the fireworks, though, both as an active participant and as an observer. Short of catching one of the displays from our rooftop, I’d prefer to avoid the aggressively/ironically patriotic masses during one of the few multiday stretches my roommate reason to breathe and I have to ourselves. As for a star-fuckin’-spangled fireworks exhibition of my own, I’d just assume not part with any of my ten pesky digits. I do rely on my fingers to type stuff, after all. It’d be hard to peck out one of these increasingly rare and decreasingly readable FReedy FRiday opuses with my elbows.
So God bless this great country of ours and the fire-grilled cheeseburgers that are as much a cornerstone of democracy as free speech and possessing AK-47s. To the best of my knowledge, Freedy Johnston hasn’t written a single song that features the words “freedom,” “liberty” or “apple pie,” so let’s just run with his appealingly airy cover of the ’70s staple Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes). Buy it here.
