Mr. Hendrix, cue the only music American enough for the July 4th weekend edition of Free Form Friday:
It's Friday. It's July. There's no college football. There's fireworks, and charred meats and distilled spirits of varying potencies and fishing and more fireworks (followed by more charred meats). And all of these are awesome. But, they're not college football. However even in the absence of college football we have to talk about something, so I present Free Form Friday, which is usually a disheveled conga line of musings on college sports, life its own self, wine, women and song. But today it's a celebration of America.
And there's nothing quite as American as appropriating others' things and making them our own. Take the humble hamburger for example. It's been called "America's food." In reality, cooks had been grilling pressed together meat trimmings of all varieties for centuries before the Constitutional Convention got under way. You could get something like a hamburger in Hamburg, Germany long before there was an America. Hence the name. But only in America can you eat a 4 pound hamburger big enough to break a window while watching a minor league baseball game.* That's America, son. God bless it. Give us your stuff and we'll improve it a gajillion times over. As a nation whose identity is largely based upon the fact that people from other nations can come here bringing their own ideas and identities without being imprisoned, beheaded or consigned to squalor just because their parents were, that's kind of our thing.
And in that same vein, I came to this site all prepared to talk about a lot of random things. But then I noticed that tankertoad, a great American, had started his own random "Bold Thoughts" thread. I read it. Other than the inclusion of loud, patriotic guitar feedback, it could not be improved upon. It's better than mine, so like any good U.S citizen I'm purloining it adding guitar feedback, and sending it back out into the world. Tankertoad's thread has already been promoted to the front page, but I'm promoting it here as well. Let's make tankertoad's thread the de facto FFF thread for the holiday weekend. Now who's got my big ass burger?
Until later everybody stay safe, remember those who have sacrificed (and continue to sacrifice) for our freedom and . . .
Go 'Dawgs!!!
*The Fifth Third Burger also has chili, corn chips and salsa, other examples of U.S. culinary thievery. Once we finish purloining chimichurri from Argentina and improving it, I bet that's what the burger will be marinated in. How do you improve on chimichurri you ask? I'm thinking it involves Budweiser, but I'll report back when I'm sure.