FIREWORKS

Watching video of footage of fireworks at The Garage yesterday, I was reminded of footage I've seen of combat in Iraq, both Persian Gulf and Enduring Freedom campaigns. Then the reason why Americans light fireworks for the Fourth of July hit me in a way that I haven't felt since I was 19 and discovered that people watch fireworks on their lawns if they live close to where they can be seen from the sky.

I always thought every family let off their own fireworks at home. And every year our Fourth was the same: barbecue, Twilight Zone marathon, mild arson, and morning-after clean-up duties. 1993 was the first year I celebrated the Fourth away from the homestead, and it shocked me when me and my friends were driving to Saugus to watch the display out there, and I looked at all these families out on their front lawns, staring at the sky, watching symbolic re-enactments of the battles that won our independence from the Brits.

It was one family after another, entire blocks standing around, looking like extras in an alien visitation movie. It was like a party, and you could see that people were making the rounds and saying "hi" to their neighbors and sharing drinks and letting their minds get swept away by the seductive squiggles of blazing powder, the punctuated pops, the fizzling embers dissipating into barely-visible cloud layers...

I realized, then, how insular my life was. 19 years had passed, and I didn't know that these things happened annually. I mean, I'm not that dense-- I've always known that no other countries celebrate our Fourth, for example... and let's face it, there are plenty of Americans who are shocked to learn this information. But my solipsistic way of thinking has often led me to moments like this, when I am faced with my own ignorance and shortness of scope.

I'd like to think that I am open-minded, and for the most part I am. But I know the truth, that I am petty and angry and sometimes hypercritical, and I do it all without raising my body temperature one Kelvin. I can be a cold-blooded sonofabitch, and that kind of gets in the way of personal enlightenment.

I sat there watching the footage, making the connection. "The Star-Spangled Banner", all that jazz about rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air, the whole nine... I imagined for a stoned moment that I was a Jamestown colonist watching from afar as muskets discharged and fires blazed into the night and cannons erupted, sending sparkling death-lanterns soaring across the air...

I then imagined that I was an embedded reporter, gathering images to be broadcast on the news, transmitting the aurora lights of battle carnage in such a way as to elicit not gasps and horror but "oohs" and "ahhhs".

I don't know why these images entered my mind, but I was so compelled to describe them in my blog later on that I scribbled the word FIREWORKS across my knuckles as a mnemonic device, to remind me lest I forget.

**

Here's some random silliness.

Despite my recent rants aganst nostalgia, I have been remembering some odd things I used to do when I was a kid.

Before I go further, let me say that the thing about nostalgia that bugs me is the schmaltz that so often goes into it. I have no qualm with revisiting the past to see how much (if any) progress I've made. I just don't like looking back on it like it was a much better time... because, really-- it wasn't.

Anyway, let me tell you about Butt-Rhymes.

My cousin Bobby invented it. Bobby and I were like best friends, because he was less than a year younger than me. Bobby grew up to be a tatooed gangster, but he will always be seen, in my mind, as the cousin with the girly laugh and a stranger sense of humor than I could ever imagine. People who don't know him are afraid of him, but all I see is a goofy kid who never really grew up.

One day, for no fucking apparent reason, he started ending all of his sentences with the word "butt" followed by a word or phrase that rhymed with the last word of the original sentence. So, for example, if he said "I'm going to the bathroom", he'd tack on a Butt-Rhyme (my eventual name for such a bizarre word game) in the manner of "butt-vacuum".

It's very addicting, especially if you were or are as immature as I was or am.

One of these days, I'm going to do an entire post filled with butt-rhymes, a sort of experiment that only I care about... butt-lout.

But until that day, I'm content to only use it once in a while... butt-style.

I never got around to asking Bobby where he got this fool notion, but after a while I found myself thinking of Butt-Rhymes obsessively, during class lectures and elsewhere. I told some friends about it, and at first they all thought it was pretty stupid... and then, weeks later, they couldn't stop doing it... butt-ruin it. Butt-pursuin' it. Butt-intuitive.

Oh yeah, I forgot some of the corollaries: you can riff on multiple Butt-Rhymes, if the moment strikes you and you're on a roll... butt-hole. Butt-rigamarole. Butt-mink stole. Butt-climb a pole.

Also: the object is to be clever, but sometimes Butt-Rhymes can be competitive. If two or more Butt-Rhymers are in a cipher, trading Butt-Rhymes back in forth, a sort-of duel can arise, where two Rhymers try to top each other. This is similar to going on a roll, except the two Rhymers take turns... butt-burns.

Ultimately, cleverness wins out. If one Butt-Rhymer feels that they cannot outdo a fellow Butt-Rhymer in "battle", then deference is gracefully given... butt-Jeremy Piven.

Here's an imaginary Butt-Rhyme duel, in case you're still lost:

BR#1: "Hey, what's up, dude? Butt-rude."

BR#2: "Butt-feud."

BR#1: "Butt-lewd."

BR#2: "Butt-in the nude."

BR#1: "Butt-Quaalude."

BR#2: "Butt-interlude."

BR#1: "Butt-snood."

BR#2: "Butt-'Hey Jude.'"

BR#1: "Butt-I'm not really in the mood."

BR#2: "Butt-screwed blued and tattooed."

BR#1: "Butt-it's pronounced 'Froyd' and not 'Frood.'"

BR#2: "Aww, man, I can't top that!"

BR#1: "Butt-bat."

BR#2: "Butt-scat."

And so it goes.

Don't bother telling me how asinine it is-- it's not like I have made a hobby out of this. However, when I was younger, I spent a lot of free time toying with this weird...game. And every time I introduce it, people get caught up in it... butt-minute.

I suggest you try it with a loved one. They're the only people who will put up with this kind of nonsense from you, so don't try it with strangers.