The thing about the fourth is you can't just be patriotic, you have to be more patriotic than everybody else.  You can't just enjoy a hot dog or two, you have to shove enough of them down your gullet to make the Guinness Book of World Records.  And all the country music.  Rascal Flats at the Hatch Shell?  The United States of America is also the home of the blues, rock-n-roll, and gangsta rap.  I think we're ready for a Snoop-Dogg at The Pops Night at Symphony Hall, don't you?

Something about seeing Obama butching it up in Butte, Montana, made me wonder if Independence Day, as I think of it — the Andy Griffith Show of national holidays, with its sort of melancholic evocation of an idyllic past of small towns, little pink houses, and white picket fences — wasn't in fact a little too white for post-racial America.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm all for the fourth.  I love hot dogs and potato salad and slaw.  I'm even on-board with the white picket fences.  I'm not immune to the allure of an idyllic past, although there's much that I like about the present: wikipedia, Johnathan Rice, free internet porn, bigger and better natural catastrophes televised live, and other things. 

If I found myself magically transported to Mayberry, North Carolina, circa 1960, I guess I could enjoy an afternoon of mint juleps on the porch with Aunt Bee, Andy and Opie.  Barney'd probably drop by.  I might even mosey on down to the garage for a little lube job on the DL from Goober.  But about sundown I'd probably be clicking my ruby red pumps to get back to the future.  The past is a nice place to visit, but, honestly: wouldn't want to live there.

Patriotism seems to always involve nostalgia, and at the core of this nostalgia always seems to be a complaint about some element or another that has poisoned what could have been perfect.  I'm not saying this is what's in the front of everybody's minds on the fourth — that's hot dogs, beer, and blowing things up — but I'm not the only one wondering why no one ever thinks to ask Lil Wayne or R. Kelly to perform with the Pops.

When I saw Obama out there in Butte — and this may sound naive or cynical, depending on where you're at with it — but I realized that I didn't really know what black people do on the fourth.  White people gather and listen to country music.  I can't imagine that that's what black people do.  Unless they're running for President.

Actually, John McCain spent it at home.  I don't know if he was listening to country music or not.  But Obama was.  After frantically touring the heartland all week, giving a major speech on patriotism in Missouri, and floating the idea of "refining" his Iraq stance.


Do you need any more proof that Obama's jumped the shark?   JFK my ass.  Try Arthur Fonzarelli.

As for me.  I practiced my patriotism all week by staying inside, doors locked and curtains drawn, watching TV and sleeping mostly, which I think is really what America's all about. 

Aside from Monsterquest and Modern Marvels ' Bathroom Tech special, I mostly watched stand-up on Comedy Central.  You ever notice how a lot of straight male twenty-something stand-ups tell the same sort of jokes?  A string of them about how babies are like the drunkest person you've ever known, and if adults did what toddlers do they'd be arrested.  And all of the males spent at least half of their routines talking about their penises, which were also compared to the drunkest person you've ever known.

I did get some work in.  I have a unique opportunity at the moment collaborating with some very interesting and accomplished folks on an exciting project.  I won't get too explicit.  It's kind of on the DL at present.  But working on my end of it gave me a good excuse to stay holed-up over the holidays.  And I didn't feel the customary pressure to plan some patriotic activity for myself, like stuffing sixty-four hot dogs down my gullet in ten minutes, although I had the time.

Which reminds me, this morning I looked at a story in the New York Times online and saw my old high school sweetheart again.  She pops up unexpectedly in the media occasionally, as some of you will recall.  This time she was totally gratuitously featured in a slideshow about 36 hours in Pittsburgh.  Who did you blow at the Times, Weedman?  I want names!  I hate to admit it, but she gives better head than me.  She has other talents, as well, as you'll see if you check out her OFFICIAL site (whatever you do, don't get sucked into any of those UNOFFICIAL Lauren Weedman sites).

Speaking of head, I was on the bus the other day and saw an old trick from my days in Dot passing by on the sidewalk.  I've written about him before here somewhere.  He's the one who was twenty-three, or something, when we hooked up, kept saying things in all seriousness like, "my friends are sometimes shocked and dismayed at my genius," and "maybe someday you'll understand the profound insight of what I'm telling you, too," and making these weird bleep-blooping TV robot noises.  Cute kid, but couldn't take him anywhere.  

Well, in the couple of years since I'd seen him, he'd gone from a skinny little cub to a beefy bear.  When I saw him on the street, I swear he'd gained at least forty pounds.  It was like George Clooney in Syriana.  And the kid actually  looked a lot sexier with the pounds packed on.  I almost regretted our little falling out (hey, he was using all my best lines — I couldn't stand for that). 

I comforted myself with the certainty that in another couple of years he will have gained another forty pounds, which'll take him over the edge for good, I'm afraid.  I don't mind if he's cuter now than when we hooked, so long as it doesn't last.  And it won't.  It never does.  (Now that, my young friend, is schadenfreude, which George Will once called "the National Pastime," in keeping with our patriotic theme.)

Not to worry, my old hook-up can always find a home among the bears.  Not me.  I'm telling you, if I were hairier —  even just a little hairier — I'd have it made in the shade.  I'd have my niche.  God knows you need one.  Especially gay guys.  I should consider myself lucky, though, I guess.  I sometimes think of how much more difficult a life I'd have had if my folks had never invested in orthodontia.  You know how much meaner people can be when you've got fecked-up teeth?  There's no niche for people with fecked-up teeth.  Freddy Mercury had big, fecked-up teeth, but he was hairy, too, and wore spandex, so he had a very specific niche.

Find a niche.  That's the lesson.  And then lock the doors, draw the curtains, and watch lots of TV.  In the meantime, I'm off to down some dogs.