Independence day

I’m convinced we named a horrible holiday after a horrible movie. Sorry, Tea Party-ers, I know you all can school me about the revolution in constitution lore, but honestly, please show me the part where we shoot off explosives in honor of killing English people to celebrate our freedom. Doesn’t China make all of our explosive bullshit? (yes.) And wouldn’t it be more appropriate to celebrate some other aspect of freedom other than the conflict element of the bomb?

Fireworks are dangerous, yet somewhere in our historical lexicon we decided that danger equals cool (Matt Danger?). Homeruns and big victories are celebrated by huge popping explosives because in modern society, it’s the only truly cathartic way to express jubilation. One of the oldest (read: lamest) jokes was to ask a random person if they have the “fourth of July in England” (any country will do), only to yell at them because the U.S. has INDEPENDENCE DAY and all countries have a 4th of July. Collectively, as a people, we have become elitist about our country, in that Lewis Black (comedian) way of being the “greatest country in the world”, so we feel obliged to celebrate our pride in the most pretensions way possible (fake explosions resembling our military battle against our occupiers). Since 9/11 we feel inclined to be more patriotic or more pro military, but really it’s become just a giant P.R. campaign. The new Bud Light and Miller Light advertisements have turned me into a Coors man, because I don’t need to be guilt tripped into drinking shitty beer. Yeah, I feel bad that some guy has no legs because he went to Afghanistan, but that’s not going to get me to happy hour!

Also, for the Communism-fearing fan base out there, what’s with the firework celebration? Nearly all fireworks are made in Communist RED CHINA, full of little crafty, plotting, yellow men, that work all day to take our rights to eat Burger King and have drive-in movies (do we still have those?). Our ideals of China seem to be based on our James Bond image of the Russians in the 1960s, but we forget that all those slants actually read our web pages and buy our LeBron jerseys, so quit being racist jerk-offs. Those slopes actually keep our economy running, you redneck!

As for the lack of firework displays occurring in the states this year, here’s my response: Get over it! If you really like seeing colored explosions in the sky…drive to a big city (or terrorist-filled one)! Holidays keeping getting dumber and dumber in the U. S. of A. as time seems to pass, but we get more and more nostalgic. Is Thanksgiving important to you? It’s when the Indians (native people, who exterminated by invaders) had a lousy meal with the clueless conquistadores! WE STILL CELEBRATE THAT LIKE ASSHOLES! So maybe the hotdogs and burgers should have a day off in the dog days because defeating a lassiez faire army that didn’t actually give a fuck shouldn’t be reason enough to shoot dummy rockets that traumatize our dogs for the next 4 years.

Then again, fireworks are pretty cool. So nevermind.

-Matt Danger