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Like most other holidays, the true meaning of the Fourth of July is of little consequence to me personally.

It’s the day that the USA became its own corporation with 13 different franchises.

Looking back, our Independence from England was more or less a pointless endeavor since the same problems quickly came back in spades in a manner that closely parallels “Lord of the Flies”.

The King used to be the tyrant, so we simply made our own tyrant to answer to.  The difference escapes me.

The states once again answer to a large centralized government with little real representation, a thousand different taxes now eat an enormous amount of the average person’s wealth, our local newspaper hands reader information over to the King upon demand, the Constitution has repeatedly been declared invalid by our courts, and we have the highest incarceration rate of any country on the planet.  We can’t even play online poker with our own money for Christ’s sake.  Some “freedom”.

Hell, at least England gives their people basic healthcare in exchange for astronomical taxes.  They also got the Beatles.

We got Britney Spears.

Some freaking “victory”.

People always tell me how fortunate I am to have been born in the USA, but realistically, had I been born in any other Industrialized nation, I don’t think I would have known the difference.  I just don’t think I would have been more oppressed or less free had I been born in Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, England, Ireland, The Netherlands and at least twenty other countries.

Where you pop out of your mother’s cooch is 100% the result of random selection, and I take no particular “pride” in the fact that I am an American.  Really, I had no say in the matter.

Hell, I probably would be far better off having been born in Amsterdam because … well, it’s not important.

The point is, I see Independence Day as little more than a national circle-jerk, and an excuse to blow s**t up, the latter being far more entertaining than the former.

I know, I know … “Hey Rex, This is Amuurrrrcah, people should love her or leave her!”

While this sounds like a great slogan, it is a gross simplification and is patently ridiculous.

90%+ of U.S. citizens simply can’t “leave her” because the bitch wants alimony.  After taxes, the entire working class has little disposable income.  It would be impossible for people who live paycheck-to-paycheck to effectuate an international move.

The government knows this, and we have what is by all accounts … modern day indentured servitude.

Most people can’t afford to move out of their neighborhood, much less their country, and regardless of how much they “don’t love it”, they simply have to stay put if they want to stay alive.

Not to mention, most other nation’s actually gasp control immigration and would simply not allow the average working stiff to stroll across the border and put down roots.

Unless you are reasonably wealthy, there really isn’t much “choice” in the nation in which you get to live.  Your corporate entity (nationality) stakes claims to all of your property the moment you are born, and you either stick with it or pay handsomely to buy your way out.

I don’t really view myself as an “American”.  I’m just a guy who happens to live in the USA.  I live here because I was born here.  It was not a conscious choice.

Now that half of the South (led by Toby Keith) is on their way to Las Vegas to hunt me down and blow my head off, I will try to cover the more entertaining aspect of the “holiday”.

Major holidays in Las Vegas tend to be a bit anti-climactic from a tourist’s point of view.

It’s not that the city isn’t a great place to be during these times, we just don’t tend to do anything special.

I’ve spent every  “major” holiday on The Strip – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc – and there simply isn’t much going on in the casinos that separate these “special” days from any other day.

Because the city is not big on tradition, It’s almost as if Las Vegas is the cultural black hole of the USA.

Given the prevalence of decorations, parades, and bell ringers on the corner you always know when it’s Christmas in New York City.  Unless you are holding a calendar, however, you could spend all of Christmas Day in Las Vegas without having any idea that it is a major national holiday.

The 4th of July is a bit different.

As a dual-citizen of DC and NYC (I spent about 2/3rd of my younger life in the former and 1/3rd in the latter) … I am used to fireworks displays.

Big ones.

Although I was only 8 years old, I still vividly remember the massive bicentennial fireworks that were launched over the Washington Monument in 1976.

We took the brand-spanking-new DC subway system (now the second busiest in the nation after NYC) downtown, then transferred to a bus that took us to the other side of the river in Arlington.

Thousands upon thousands of people were camped out on the river bank, and I still remember the crescendo of “oooh’s and ahhh’s”.

Later, I would be able to see the fireworks from the roof of my home on an annual basis.

24 short years later, I attended a Yankees game in the Bronx, and after the last out was made, I immediately hopped on a train to get to the Brooklyn Promenade where we watched the first fireworks of the new century (July 4, 2000).  The works were being simultaneously launched from several different spots over the Manhattan skyline, and there were once again gasps from everyone in the massive crowd.

That day, 9 years ago, was probably the last time I was wow’ed by any single fireworks display in any appreciable way.  Living in two of the “firework-iest” cities in the country for much of my life has made them old-hat to a certain degree.

This doesn’t mean that I no longer watch them, however.  Every year, Las Vegas has a myriad of fireworks shows throughout the valley on both New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July, and I tend to go to them.

There is a caveat to writing about Vegas fireworks, however.

For the most part, they are no more spectacular than the displays in Cleveland, Dallas, or Denver.

I’ve received many comments over the years that our fireworks don’t really seem to have a special “Vegas-flair”, and I believe that this opinion does have validity.

There are some special public events every now and then, however.  Last year, the Fremont Street Experience premiered “American Pie” the night before the 4th, and this was obviously unique to Vegas, but it wasn’t exactly a fireworks show.

This year, some corporate displays were scaled back due to budgetary concerns.

For the first time in many years, The Stratosphere did not launch fireworks.  According to someone I spoke with at the property “We have been taken over by a new company and they have decided not to spend the money this year”.

I’m not 100% sure about the accuracy of that entire statement, but the fireworks part was true.

While individual firework shows in Vegas are standard fare, there is one thing that is of paramount uniqueness to Las Vegas.

The number of simultaneous shows visible.

Las Vegas’ location in a geographic bowl is roughly 30 miles in diameter, meaning that the entire metropolitan area is clearly visible to the naked eye from any point of significant elevation.

On nights such as July 4th, you can literally see dozens of private and municipal fireworks displays simultaneously, over a roughly 1,000 square mile area.  This is something that, in my experience, is unique to Las Vegas.

I have been in the Hollywood Hills on the 4th, and have observed a similar effect in Los Angeles, but the LA basin is larger in area, and far fewer fireworks are visible from any particular point.

Simply put, Las Vegas is one of the few places in the USA in which you can watch 30 different fireworks shows at the same time … live.

Given that it has been a few years since I have deviated from The Strip or Downtown on this night, I decided to go ahead and seek one of those points of higher elevation.  In this case, I decided on Sunrise Mountain.

It was a good choice, as the night was clear and firework shows were visible from Henderson to North Las Vegas.  We watched some ground fireworks on the side of the hill, and sat down for an hour and simply scanned the horizon as dozens upon dozens of shows cropped up throughout the evening.

When all was said and done, a smoky haze settled over the entire Las Vegas Valley, and air quality warnings were posted for people with respiratory problems.  This is one of the hazards of living in a bowl.  I could still smell gunpowder in the air this morning.

In any event, regardless of whether people were actually celebrating the 4th of July, or just going along for the ride as I was, it appeared that a fairly good time was had by all.

Happy 4th of July.

I suppose.

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