Let me try to get my head around this thing: Nike yanked a special-edition Fourth of July shoe because Colin Kaepernick was offended by the Betsy Ross flag "because of its connection to an era of slavery."
2. The Constitution of the United States has an even more intimate connection to the "era of slavery." Perhaps we need to just rip up the whole fucking thing and call a merciful end to a country that seems to have attained -- and blown past -- its sell-by date.
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn't it a pity Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head
But at night it's a different world Go out and find a girl Come-on come-on and dance all night Despite the heat it'll be alright And babe, don't you know it's a pity That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city . . . In the summer, in the city . . . .
It's the weekend before the Fourth of July, and this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is a blast, too. Only it won't attract cops like cow patties attract flies. Unless, of course, good music is illegal where you live.
In that case, you're hosed.
The Big Show compromises on music for no jurisdiction.
NOW, y'all go on and enjoy the program. I'm gonna see how much I can blow up good without attracting the long arm of the law. Then again, maybe I can blowoff the long arm of the law.
Because that's how we celebrate America's birthday. We always have been a violent, rebellious lot.
Go on. Get! Go listen to the Big Show! It's extra-special good for the Fourth. Go on now! I got my fireworks to tend to.
Hey, y'all! Watch THIS!
IT'S3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Alo . . . BOOM!
Hi. Mrs. Favog here. I'm posting this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth because my husband is a bit indisposed right now. Don't worry, it's nothing too serious.
The doctors say he should be fine once he gets out of the ICU. Just so long as we don't startle him. ANYWAY, last I heard, the show was going along swimmingly. And Favog was so proud of how this special July Fourth episode was coming. There was some rock, a good bit of jazz and some really cool alt and New Wave stuff.
He was so happy. And he wanted to show off what he was doing.
As a matter of fact, the last thing he said to me was "Hey, Honey! Watch this!"
That's the last thing I remember before waking up in the back of an EMS squad on the way to the hospital. The nice firefighters said they thought they could save most of the house.
FORTUNATELY, I was just dazed. But please think a good thought for my husband. Perhaps he can get back to doing the Big Show sooner than the surgeon thinks.
Once upon a time, Walt Whitman could write this -- I Hear America Singing:
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
I THINK, when you distill all that besets up on this Independence Day of 2010, it comes down to this one thing.
We're having trouble remembering the tune.
The tune that America was singing. Anyway, that's what's on my mind for this holiday edition of the Big Show. Your mileage may vary.
There's some other stuff -- amazing stuff -- in there as well this week, so you really don't want to miss what we're up to as you go about whatever it is you're up to for the Fourth.
COLLEEN DESCRIBES how she and her festive crew -- in a city where everybody else already was engaging in a little celebratory "shock and awe" -- were trying to be considerate by shooting off their illegal (wink wink, nudge nudge) pyrotechnics on the wide-open expanse of the athletic field at Baton Rouge High.
Everything was fine, everybody was having a good time . . . but then something happened. Enter Barney Fife: Philosopher Cop.
The cop asked us our ages and where we were from. "You're too old for this," he said, looking about half as amused as we were. Miraculously none of us laughed when he said, "Maybe they do stupid things in Brooklyn, but here in Baton Rouge, we don't do stupid things." In addition, he informed us this wasn't a rural area where you can shoot off fireworks anywhere, and that was a historic school right over there that we were endangering.
MISS KANE and her cohorts have more self-control than I do. I would have asked the cop -- amid gales of doubled-over, gasping-for-breath, gut-busting laughter -- how the hell, then, did he explain the Metropolitan Council and the School Board. And I would have been arrested.
"Maybe they do stupid things in Brooklyn, but here in Baton Rouge, we don't do stupid things."
No, cops just say stupid things in an attempt to get the rest of us to adopt a new Unifying Theory of Louisiana.
It is on this day we celebrate the Continental Congress' adoption of the Declaration of Independence and the birth in 1776 of our independent American nation, which actually occurred on July 2 but forget that, we're on a roll.
AND WHEN Lord Cornwallis surrendered his British army to George Washington's American forces and their French allies, it was pretty much all over. The infant nation grew and prospered and, by the 1940s, had become the most powerful the world had ever known. It presided as hegemon of much of the earth, and its people -- through the dual blessings of freedom and prosperity -- dedicated themselves to the pursuit of license and excess.
Secure in our attainment of what we needed, we therefore relentlessly pursued what we wanted. And what we want is stuff. More and more stuff. And bigger places to keep all our stuff.
And governmental policies to help us accumulate that stuff.
Our money says "In God we trust" but that's only constitutional if we don't really mean it. Which we don't, thank God. (And, to be safe. we don't mean that either.)
No, this July 4, we give lip service to self-evident truths and "nature's God" and "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," but we all know what's important, don't we?
Stuff.
The pursuit of stuff is what makes us happy. Until we decide we still don't have enough stuff.
Or a big enough McMansion way out in the 'burbs to keep our stuff. Or enough gas-guzzling horseless carriages to haul our fat asses and our stuff from place to place.
Which requires us to invade hapless Middle Eastern despot states like Iraq under the pretense of self-evident truth and letting freedom ring -- and Mom, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet -- to keep is in enough oil and gas to sate our need for speed.
And stuff.
So, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the birth of our nation than by exercising the God-given right to spit in the eye of America's modern mountebanks who sell us snake oil in the name of "freedom."
And in that spirit, I give you the late, great George Carlin, who really had our number.
NOTE: Video contains some profanity. Funny profanity, but blue nevertheless.
