The Fourth Of July has always been all about Bouffants.
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In 1775 the Atlantic Colonies of the British Empire rebelled against the rule of George III. Battles against the Crown had been fought around Boston in Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. While failing to Capture Quebec in the winter of 1776, the Continental Army under Washington had forced the English out of Boston on March 17 emboldening the Continental Congress to convene in free Philadelphia that summer.
Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Samuel Adams set to writing the Declaration of Independence, highlighted by the famous words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The reign of a distant sovereign ended forever, however the phrase 'all men are created equal' had not applied to everyone.
Only people of property possessed the right to vote and liberated Africans in four states and women in New Jersey were initially allowed to exercise this freedom as long as they satisfied the property requirements, but over the years the right of blacks was stripped by every state are they are in the modern age.
The racist reactionaries were defeated with the passage of the Civil Rights Act on 1965.
They regrouped to regain power against the people.
Make America Great Again.
The GOP are the legal arm of the KKK.
Trump is their messiah.
We will never all be equal, but one day we will come close.
"As MLK said, "I have a dream." and so do all of us.
Happy Fourth of July.
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Today the USA celebrates the Declaration of Independence freedom.
24 hours of traffic jams, bbq, flag-waving, chest-thumping, nascar, bad beer, fighting, and fixing a crapped out car on the highway causing a miles-long traffic jam.
As well as American ingenuity.
Belly flops.
Flip flops
A house in the country.
And the right to be a man.
We so rule.
I was born in the USA. Bruce Springsteen sings the line in his hit BORN IN THE USA about fifty times. The Thai go-go girls at Tahitian Queen 1 dance to that song every day. None of them join in the chorus, but the ex-pats on the bar stools chant every word of the refrain to their teary compatriots so far from the Land of the Free.
“Born in the USA.”
While there is a lot I like about the USA, this song is not one of them. I mean Bruce keeps going on and on like he has an early case of Alzheimer’s Disease or that people are so stupid that he had to sing that line 400 times so they got what he was saying.
Anyway here are the five things I love about the USA.
1.) Road trips.
Several years back a friend and I were discussing why he liked his Ferrari. He said it was for the freedom. At the time we were sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the Verrazano Bridge. The open road is for fast cars and just cruising.
Route 100 in Vermont. Route 25 to 113 in Maine.
Route 1 beyond Ellsworth Maine and south of Homestead FLA.
The PCH anyway there isn’t a city.
Las Vegas-Grand Canyon-Monument Valley-Arches-Capitol Reef-Bryce Canyon-Zion Canyon-Vegas.
The Jones Beach Parkway.
Anyplace in Montana, where the speed limit used to be ‘WHATEVER IS REASONABLE AND PROPER’.
I was zooming on Interstate 90 outside of Billings at 110mph. I passed a semi-trailer and spotted a state trooper. I was left with two choices; step on the brakes or else keep up to speed. I chose the latter, because the former was an admission of guilt.
Montana changed that speed limit due to a class action suit by motorists with shitty cars who said the speed limit was prejudiced against them.
Freedom of expression challenged by those too slow to care.
It’s unAmerican, but then what isn’t these days?
Not #2
2.) Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
I was once asked for my philosophy of life.
The question stumped me.
Zen, Nihilism, Materialism?
Not a chance.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Especially the latter.
Fun fun fun.
3.) Baseball.
Baseball has been the great American pastime since before the Civil War. The game is played all around the world no matter what the teabags (Brits) think about it. Baseball isn’t half as boring as Cricket although I appreciate the bravery of the infielders’ barehanding the hard-hit ball.
Ouch.
Unfortunately baseball doesn’t get played as much as before. Americans are too fat to round the bases, parents are too scared of weirdos to let their kids out of the house, not that they aren’t a lot of weirdoes in the house too, and lastly people work too much to take off two hours when they could be watching TV.
Not baseball on TV.
Just TV.
I had a baseball glove in Pattaya.
I threw the ball against the garage wall.
I broke every window within 15 feet of the strike zone.
My arm got stronger and I thought about heading to the States and challenging anyone to play.
Batter up and wear your helmet.
4.) Speaking freely.
The First Amendment protects the freedom of speech.
You can say whatever you want in America and this goes against the grain of Fox News who consider the 1st Amendment to mean that you are free to say whatever you want as long as it’s doesn’t mean anything. To do otherwise is treason.
Impeach the president.
“Weakens the troops’ resolve.”
Pull out of Iraq.
“Cut and run.”
Free Sex.
“What about the children?”
The Freedom of Speech deserves to be practiced even if the speaker is talking shit.
So what?
In Germany you can be arrested for flipping the bird.
Not in America.
It’s the national highway salute to bad drivers.
5.) Amnesia.
Americans forget their mistakes faster than any other nation.
Most don’t think we’re in Iraq anymore.
Of course a die-hard group will carry a grudge forever, but most Americans will move on. Life’s too short to worry about bad things.
Let’s have a BBQ.
So enjoy the fireworks and have a real beer.
Not Budweiser.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. abandoned the proud maker of panther piss.
Hopefully it’s be replaced by Stella Artois.
It ain’t American and neither is Heineken, but it don’t matter, because you’re American as long as you’re in America. You might be illegal. You might be foreign born. You might be a 10 generation Yankee like me.
But it’s star and stripes forever no matter what # 45 says.
Even for anarchists like me.
"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius"
These words were sung by the cast of HAIR in 1969, a year marked by Altamont and the inauguration of Richard M Nixon.
Aquarius swiftly became an unattainable dream state for the hippies, unless you were high of LSD and millions of us dropped acid to touch the sky.
On the Fourth of July 1971 my friends John Gilmour, Tommy Jordan, Mark McLaughin and I celebrated psychedelic holiday in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We were driving down from Montreal after scoring LSD from a French-Canadian hash dealer. The backroads were safer and I drove my VW Beetle through the Green Mountains to cross the Connecticut River into New Hampshire.
We were 18 and the Rolling Stones' BROWN SUGAR was #1 on the radio, but we were listening to the Jefferson Airplane's AFTER BATHING AT BAXTER'S.
It was good for our heads, for the four of us dropped the acid in Berlin and the Orange Sunshine peaked on the road up to Mount Washington. Tuckerman's Ravine gleamed with the snow under the peerless blue sky.
I parked the Bug by the Saco River. We wandered in a daze and heard the mountain stream rushing over glacial rocks to speak a primordial language. Our teenage ears listened to its teachings and we obeyed the command to submerge our bodies in the torrent's lecture. Our communion with LSD immuned our flesh from the frigid winter melt. Time melted faster than butter in the sun.
"Speak, river, speak." John was all ears.
John Gilmour elbowed me.
The boy looked harmless.
“What you want, kid?” John was a stickler for keeping crowds small while on LSD.
" Why are you were sitting in the water?
"To hear it speak." Tommie answered without hesitation. He was the most spiritual of us. Tommie was a high school hockey star. On ice his skating was almost holy.
The eleven year-old stuck a finger in the river.
"I don't near nothing but the water."
We cocked our ears to the current.
The boy in the shorts was right. It was only water.
"And it's cold."
"Yes, it is cold."
We stood up with goose-bumped skin. The release from the river was a rush.
“Come out of the river.” The young boy motioned for us to come to him.
"Whatever you say.” Tommie Jordan chattered through this teeth.
Mark’s skin was death white and I shivered like I had been pulled from the Atlantic after the sinking of the Titanic. The four of us looked at each other. This boy had saved us from hypothermia. His coming here was no accident.
"It's Jesus." John whispered with his retinae gapping open to 11.
"Jesus." I might have been a non-believer, but I flashed on the 12 year-old Messiah in the Temple. The boy was about his age.
Before we could pose the right questions, a teenage girl in a tube top hurried from the underbrush. Her hot pants hung off her skinny ass.
"Jay Jay, get over here."
"I wasn't doing nothing."
"What I tell you about speaking to strangers." She grabbed out for her brother.
“I wanted to know why they were sitting in the river.” Our prophet attempted to escape her clutches.
“Why? Because they’re stupid hippies.”
"Stupid hippies." I felt enlgihtened.
"Fucked up on LSD too." She seized Jay Jay by the ear and our ‘Jesus’ squealed in defeat, as she dragged her brother back to the main road.
"Don't take him away." John scrambled over the glacial rocks.
"Let him go." Mark sat in the water.
"But he's____"
"He's just a kid we thought was Jesus. Listen."
The river had resumed its music. Its song were never played on the radio. We sang its lyrics until our throats were parched dry as the summer grass. Drinking the river was a sacrament and we came down under the pine trees. The moon floated a universe of nova stars. It was a good trip.
LSD fell out of favor in the 70s. The drug was too heavy for the times and the police hunted down the dealers. The lack of quality guaranteed bad trips, which was exactly what the Law wanted to suppress such a powerful medicine, although most recently the psychedelic and 'shrooms' has been reborn to combat depression and addiction as well as opening the doors of perception.
Experimenters are intrigued by the hallucinogen's effects on the human brain to experience revelations, especially with the long-term influence on the taker's sense of well-being. Federal officials have approved further research into psychedelics, but are very careful to skirt the outrage of the Right, for they feel the only real epiphanies come from contact with god and even an atheist like myself know how that on LSD>
Especially while listening to the Jefferson Airplane's AFTER BATHING AT BAXTER'S.
HAVE A GREAT 4TH OF JULY
To hear that LP please go to the following URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25RAkXpQwnA
Most American radio stations run down the Top 1000 songs of all time during the July 4th Weekend. The playlist pleasantly passes the time on the beach. Sunbathers never notice the burn until their skin is the color of an Easter Ham. Once back in the SUV., they invitably crank up the AC and turn on the radio.
#1 will be either HEY JUDE or STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, which have nothing to do with the summer, so Billboard came out with its Top 30 Summer Songs of All-time. They all good.
30 Surfin' Safari / The Beach Boys 1962
29 Summertime / Billy Stewart 1966
28 Wipeout / Fat Boys and the Beach Boys 1987
27 Cruel Summer / Bananarama 1983
26 Summertime Blues / Eddie Cochran 1958
25 A Summer Song / Chad & Jeremy 1964
24 Suddenly Last Summer / The Motels 1983
23 Surfer Girl / The Beach Boys 1963
22 Summer Breeze / Seals & Crofts 1972
21 School's Out / Alice Cooper 1972
20 Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days Of Summer / Nat King Cole 1963
19 Summer Love Justin Timberlake 2007
18 California Gurls / Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg 2010
17 Saturday In The Park / Chicago 1972
16 Summer Girls / LFO 1999
15 California Girls / The Beach Boys 1965
14 Summer / War 1976
13 Under The Boardwalk / The Drifters 1964
12 Summer Of '69 / Bryan Adams 1985
11 In The Summertime / Mungo Jerry
1970
10 The Boys Of Summer / Don Henley 1984
9 Summer Nights / John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John 1978
8 Surfin' U.S.A. / The Beach Boys 1963
7 Hot Fun In The Summertime / Sly & The Family Stone 1969
6 Summertime / DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
1991
5 Endless Summer Nights / Richard Marx 1988
4 Surf City / Jan & Dean 1963
3 Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini - Bryan Hyland 1960
2 Wipe Out - The Surfaris 1962
1 Summer In The City / The Lovin' Spoonful 1966
Two July 4ths ago I had bicycled to the Rockaways for a swim. On the way backI stopped for BBQ at Frank's Bar on Fulton. No Hamptons for me. T was cooking smoked ribs from a steel can and cold Stellas were served by the lovely Rosa. No Natucket for me either. Paco was admiralling the tunes. The 72 year-old public worker has a hankering for Stevie Wonder. I rivaled with Billy Stewart's SUMMERTIME. I love the big man's stutter.
"S-s-s-s-ss-s-s-s-s-ummertime."
Homer dropped a dollar on LONG SUMMER NIGHT. Hendrix remained god for the father of a 10-strong crew from the Delta. Rosa snatched a dollar from my tip pile and modernized the music with Chic's A WARM SUMMER NIGHT. We were on a roll. Shaggy's IN THE SUMMERTIME. Rayvon buried the rap. Homer surprised everyone with the Pogues SUMMER IN SIAM. I cued up the Ramones ROCKAWAY BEACH.
"I was expecting that," Homer mumbled as he had been taught in Philadelphia, Miss some far away time in the last century.
"Love that song. Makes me feel back in my 20s." I saw the Ramones at CBGBs in 1976 and they covered a song by the Rivieras. Homer nodded upon hearing CALIFORNIA SUN. "Ain't really summer in LA. They always have summer there. But this song's a a good-un." And the Man from the Delta knows good-uns.
