Trivialities: Fourth of July

Independence Day tend to be one of my least favorite holidays. However, I still managed to get a lot done this past weekend - some of it fun, and some of it... well, read on.

1 - Friday

I've still been hanging on to my old car after a recent dating mishap prompted me to buy a new one. Well, I had the day off on Friday, so I decided to take the car in to get inspected and cleaned up a bit. The mechanics that worked on the car checked all the systems, including the headlights... which they forgot to turn off.

I then drove to the library, went in and browsed for a while, and came out to a drained battery. I went back in to the library to ask for some help, only to find that all librarians are hippies and don't actually HAVE cars to provide jumps with.

Above: Not owned by hippy librarians.

So I wound up walking home from the library to pick up my other car, driving myself back to the library, giving MYSELF a jumpstart, driving back home in my old car, walking BACK to the library, and then driving my other car home.

Friday was a bit of a waste.

2 - Saturday

I spent most of Saturday morning in Bountiful, helping my grandmother paint her garage. In the afternoon, I felt like kicking back and watching a movie, just to relax, so I picked... Batman.

Na na na na na na na na...

Despit my deep and abiding love for all things Batman, I haven't actually seen the old "Biff! Kapow!" Batman show since I was a little kid, so I went in to this movie with some pretty low expectations. And, I have to say, the movie was a LOT more fun than I anticipated. Shark repellant bat spray, self-sacrificing porpoises, and, of course, a bad day to get rid of a bomb... it was all good.

Also, Frank Gorshin's Riddler is beyond awesome.

3 - Monday

The Jesters Royale have a traditional Fourth of July show that's free to the public. Last night's show was pretty darn spectacular - one of the best in recent memory.


We had death tacos, CPR that fogged up a fellow's glasses, beat-boxing British types, a treehouse that somehow transformed into the Tower of Babel.

Oh, and lots and lots of ambush kissing.

Why I'm Still Single #8

This actually happened.

Proud(ish) To Be An American

So we’re coming up on the Fourth of July weekend – fireworks, hot dogs, grass-stains… all in all, a good time to be alive, right? Well, other than the one day off from work I get, I gotta say there’s not a whole lot about this weekend I’ve been looking forward to. I’ve kinda been surprised at the enthusiasm with which most others seem to approach the holiday, and I’ve wondered why I don’t have the same excitement.

Well, as it turns out, I don’t actually LIKE Independence Day very much.

This shouldn’t really be a surprise – as y’all may have noticed, I “don’t like” a lot of things. Still, I actually feel kinda bad about not liking the Fourth of July. Ever since elementary school, my educators (and peers) have tried to impress on me the almost religious significance of Independence Day. Not liking Independence Day somehow feels like a bit of treachery, like I’m some kind of unpatriotic Benedict Arnold that deserves to be drawn and feathered… or tarred and quartered… torn and fettered… fawn and… heck, maybe just shot.

Here’s the weird part – I can’t even tell you WHY I don’t like Independence Day. I mean, I can point out aspects of the celebration I don’t like – hot dogs and fireworks, for example (grass stains, on the other hand, I’m totally down with). So, I guess, my distaste for the holiday makes me some kind of heathen, right?

The best explanation I can come up with is that I dislike most forms of extreme fanaticism (with the possible exception of Batman fanaticism), and, sometimes, American patriotism strikes me that way. I actually wrote a while back (on Facebook) about a young woman I heard sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a rodeo:

“I don’t mean to disparage the singer too harshly. I’ve sung the national anthem before, and I can tell you one thing: it’s a HARD song. For this girl to get up and sing without the benefit of musical accompaniment must have taken a lot of courage, and I respect her for that. However, she added so many runs and other embellishments that almost every phrase wound up in a different key than the one that preceded it. If the anthem is meant to be a song of respect for a nation, then it should be performed in a dignified manner. Generally speaking, the anthem should not be sung as a showcase number.”

Allow me to turn my old observation into a tortured metaphor (more tortured, perhaps, because of my awkward use of the word “disparage”): Just as the young singer tried to sing the heck out of the National Anthem and ultimately put on a tortured performance, so does our devotion to God and country goes a bit overboard, and we wind up causing a bit of damage to the reputation of the very thing we try to honor.

I guess that’s as close as I can get to an explanation. Anyway, happy Independence Day. Don’t have too much fun, or Samara will crawl out of your television and kill you.