About the weekend.

First of all, nothing says fun like half-drunken bumper cars. And nothing says good ole America like a White Trash 4th of July, complete with a family of probable meth-heads with a potato gun shooting potatoes into the atmosphere and smashing truck windows. Not to mention their neighbors of probable meth dealers with a direct line of illegal Mexican fireworks shooting them off into the street. All to the strains of the wanna-be metal band jamming out in the meth-head families 2nd floor.

It was awesome.

Anyhoo, at the house friends rented, they had an actual real, live American flag. Naturally, this meant bringing it out onto the stoop and hanging. With said flag came the instruction manual for the flag rules and regulations on it’s care. Things like if you wear it as a lapel, it has to be on the left-side as close to the heart as possible. Or like it has to be above all other subordinate flags (subordinate, of course, being any flag that’s not America, Fuck Yeah!) or cannot be flown upside down or it can only be folded in a certain way. Even more hilariously, the flag, according to the flag rules manual, cannot be used for advertising purposes or to be worn as part of an outfit. Good to see all the adherence to all those rules as we debate once again a Constitutional Amendmant against flag desecration.

So I wondered who the hell came up with those rules? Somewhere along the lines, the Government set a bunch of people together, probably a bunch of reactionry John Birchers, who came up with them. Probably while listening to "Ballad of the Green Berets" and whacking off to John Wayne movies. Cause not to get all Grad School on you, but one could say that there is a bit fetishization going there with a piece of red, white and blue cloth that never, ever runs.

Later that night, as the fireworks were flying and the metal band was jamming, somebody joked about burning it, what with flag burning in the news so much these days. So somebody who was there decided what the hey and brought the flag with us to the beach to burn along with all our fireworks that were purchased.

I have to say that even for me, burning the flag is a bit too much. Yeah, it’s kind of fun in a rebellious, bite me super-patriots kind of way, but considering how people get all crazy over it, it’s just too stupid. I mean, if we burned the flag, the terrorists would win. Luckily, thanks to the cops chasing off the beach, we never get a chance to burn, baby, burn the flag. Probably for the best too. As we speculated later, if we got caught, it would be on Fox News within minutes. Something along the lines of "San Francisco Liberals Burn American Flag in Santa Cruz. Why do they Hate America?." Or considering both the religion and orientation of the two people looking to burn the flag the most, "Gay, Liberal Jews Burn American Flag on Nation’s Birthday. Stay tuned as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity will publicly flog them!"

By the way, bumper cars is totally wasted on the young. When your a kid, you have no agression or angst to need to get rid of. Your all happy all the time so the ability to run into things isn't something you savor as much. And as an adult, you get to drive and just the mere thought of being able to slam into somebody who cuts you off is enough to make it worthwhile.