Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!
Blog Tools
Edit your Blog
Build a Blog
RSS Feed
View Profile
« July 2005 »
S M T W T F S
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31
Entries by Topic
All topics  «
You are not logged in. Log in
Washtenaw Flaneurade
3 July 2005
Every Star Is A Setting Sun
I don't write about politics very often in this blog, mainly because other people do it so much better. Whenever the Fourth of July rolls around, though, I get to thinking about what it means to be an American, like my mind holds second-grade essay contests every year.

Over the past five years, the gap between rich and poor has grown considerably, and we've had a walking human embarrassment in the White House who's manipulated our good intentions and lied us into a war that's made the war on terror more difficult to win. Closer to home, in Washtenaw County, self-styled "liberals" are trying to keep the poor, the working poor, and working people from having affordable housing and available jobs in the county's urban center simply so they can preserve some faded, failed-hippie dream of domesticity.

And yet I'm still proud of being American. I'm proud of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the fact that this country fought wars to end slavery (well, eventually, anyway) and fascism (after isolationist conservatives had done their best to keep us out for two years, but better late than never), and, among many other things, the music. I'm sorry to sound like Jack Lessenberry in the Metro Times right now, but it can't be helped. Not today.

I watched I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (2003) last night, and am still glowing to a certain extent. Filmed by Sam Jones (not to be confused with the actor who played the title role in Flash Gordon or the one-term Louisiana reform governor during the late 1940s), it looks at Wilco (vying for a number of years with Sleater-Kinney to be my favorite American rock band) and their struggle to put together Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002), a album of glory and magic that I place alongside Pet Sounds, White Light/White Heat, and Born to Run as being close to perfect as possible. Watching Jeff Tweedy, Jay Bennett (despite his occasionally cringe-inducing arguments with the former and his eventual departure from the band), and the rest struggle with themselves and their idiotic record company to produce a masterpiece made me feel as patriotic as if I'd just voted. Truly awesome. The alternate version of the movie title song (the first song on the album) playing during the opening credits gave me goosebumps of a sort I hadn't felt in ages.

With that, I hope everyone, American or no, has a great Fourth of July tomorrow.

Posted by Charles J. Microphone at 12:21 PM EDT
Updated: 9 July 2005 2:07 PM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

View Latest Entries