A Waste of Gunpowder and Sky

(Title from Aimee Mann, Fourth of July)

Don't get me wrong, I love the 4th of July as much as the next guy. You don't believe me, have a look at these pictures I just took at a celebration at Warner Ranch Park. Or listen to my Dark Meat show this week, all about the best goddamned country in the world.

What I don't like is fireworks.

I'm not afraid of them, like most dogs and a handful of children. I don't object to them as a war metaphor, like the hippies of my youth. Both fireworks AND football are fine with me if you want to enjoy 'em. Knock yourself out. It's just that, well, fireworks are boring.

Probably the thing is I think of a fireworks show as a show, a thing with a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end. And some time just before I hit puberty, I realized that it's always the same story. A firework goes off, another one does, pause, then another, then one that's louder but less visual, then a couple, then one, then after about twenty minutes they all go off at once. Then you all spend the next hour and a half trying to get to your car, and trying to leave the parking lot.

So I'm blogging alone in my apartment right now, listening to fireworks going off outside and trading quips on Facebook. This, to me, is where the action is.