Thursday, July 4, 2024

Happy Fourth of July! It May Be Our Last!

I just went to Target to buy a new fitted sheet, walking through TriBeCa to their Greenwich Street store. Everyone who can afford to has left town. Even the few “affordable” options have jacked up their prices for the holiday so that only the most wealthy can be spared. The only people I see are tourists and the poor people (like me) who couldn’t afford to get the hell out of Dodge. There are hustlers selling counterfeit goods on Canal Street. Walking down West Broadway, all the restaurants and high-end clothing and furniture stores are closed. Even they don’t want to deal with the tourists. Walking back home, the entire West Side along the Hudson River is closed off for the Fourth of July fireworks. I cut through SoHo and there are throngs of tourists clogging the sidewalks amidst a few hardy restaurants sporting American flags. Someone has blocked off the western end of Spring Street and is cooking on a barbecue grill in the middle of the street while a fire hydrant sprays away.

If I had to pick a movie to describe my mood right now, it would be either Nashville or Taxi Driver, those two great films from the ’70s that predicted the apocalypse because they thought that we’d never seen (or would see) anything as bad as Nixon and Watergate.

Little did they know.

I’ve been in a bad mood since the presidential debate (well, actually, since Gay Pride Day, which I completely ignored this year, its forced pressure to be happy being second only to New Year’s Eve). If you saw, or even heard of, the debate, you what I’m talking about. Watching Biden struggle through the first ten minutes (not to mention the remaining 80) was painful, like a punch to the stomach, especially considering who he was up against.

You know who I’m talking about.

What can I say about Donald Trump that hasn’t been said, except to say that I hate this man with a passion. He’s a liar and a bully, a pathological narcissist, and his lies during the debate went unchecked by the moderators. It wasn't until days after the debate that I was reminded that Biden had just flown across nine time zones to attend a fundraiser in Los Angeles and then three time zones back to Washington before the debate. No wonder he was out of it!

Even so, I would vote for Biden’s dead corpse before I voted for that sleazy opportunist and grifter, Trump.

It’s hard not to feel like this country is in full meltdown, what with Project 2025 and what Trump has already told us he would do if re-elected. (Hint: it rhymes with “retribution.”) And then the pièce de résistance came on Monday, when the Supreme Court (on the last day of their term, of course) basically upended the Constitution and told Trump (OK, any president, but let’s be real: Trump) that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted as long as it was within his “official duties” as president.

Remember when Trump said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it? Well now, thanks to the Supreme Court, he can!

So forgive me if I won’t be attending the fireworks (not that I ever gave a shit about them). But the overwhelming hypocrisy of celebrating how great we are seems especially hypocritical this year.

Happy fucking Fourth!

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