A song for Liberty.

This is a solemn sort of day.

Certainly, you’ll see people about partaking in acts of exuberance, watching trails of smoke zip up into the sky, only to terminate into a hollow pop of sparkling lights; you’ll see people walking around a host of similarly themed backyards, not feeling the sun scorch their reddened necks as the pads of beef atop the flames before them sizzle and sweat delicious, delicious blood; you’ll see people drape themselves in a certain set of colors, marching around and singing songs, laughing gaily; you’ll see, amidst all of this, the way the old-timers on the side of the road sit quietly. Their eyes turning moist and red. Their minds turning back to other times, “Something passed by,” the times where things where hard and dark, like an ancient turtles shell; the times when they held their heads high, looked outward and smiled a special sort of smile.

You’ll see revelry, this day.
But really…you should be feeling something else.

Independence Day is a real sort of holiday, the kind that Vonnegut would keep, instead of throwing it over his shoulder like so much bad meat. The kind of day that’s sacred. The kind of day that is meant to mean something. Beyond popping air and meat of the beefs and sweaty sex in parking lots and sand on your feet, beyond sweaty foreheads and stinking beers and drum rolls in the streets. It’s a day to look down at our weathered hands. To see them illuminated by the greens and reds of the sky-flowers booming overhead, casting shadows across the lines of our palms.

It’s a day to close those hands into fists.
Not out of rage, or spite, or anything else. It’s just something that has be done. Something that we must do, while we close our eyes as well, and listen to the sounds of summer days and nights. To close are hands and our eyes, so that we might remember the days gone by. To remember the days of Liberty. To remember the things that we’ve done, both the good, and the bad. Because that’s why we’re here, right now.

We’re here to remember.
Just like those old men with faces carved out of stone, quiet and still on the sides of our expansive roads.

We’re here to remember.
We’re here to remember.
We’re here to remember our Liberty.

Our fiercely independent days, our moments of pure, unadulterated ROCK & ROLL that grabbed us by the whatever-we-gots and shook, shook, shook, shook, shook, shook, shook until we coughed up blood and spit out teeth and smiled a fucked up smile.

Living our lives like that one, solemn, perfect, beautiful moment where a man stood on a stage with his perfectly out-of-tune guitar, and wailed out his troubles with the national anthem while the sun set him ablaze. That -- that was free. And undoubtedly sacred.

I could try and tell you more. I could prattle on and on (as I am known to do) about whatever it is that I’m thinking, perhaps about the rivulets of sweat that run down my person as I’ve put myself (once again) into a spectacularly sweltering room. It’d take up the blank page, and make me stop feeling so bloody guilty about the missed opportunities for words that this site has felt in the recent months.
Yet something like that, on this day -- that would feel wrong. That would be wrong.
In our fucked up world, in our fuggered lives, in our days where we lose ourselves to hungry thoughts of something more…

That’s just not right for such a holiday.
It’s not right for the memories. It’s not right for the raging spirit of our Rock & Roll.
So that’s my advice to you, right now. Remember what you’ve got, and what you lost to get it. Remember what you’re worth, and what your family lost to give it to you. Remember the people who laughed in your face. Try and remember what was worth it.

And most of all…as you open your eyes and unclench your fists, remember that our Liberty is something that we should never, ever lose. Not for anything. Not for anyone. Not at home, nor abroad. Not here. Not anywhere.
Not ever.

Remember that.