4th of July. Well I must admit that I don't usually remember, much less celebrate this holiday. Probably because it's a national holiday in a country I've never visited. But to Zander*, who was there for a year as an exchange student, this is a day worth celebrating. He wanted to have the caption of this post to be something like "Britain-GTFO-day" (AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!), but then he made the mistake of allowing me to write this, and I can't find the Team America-spirit to be so grotesque. My feelings towards the land of the free are a bit more ambivalent.
While I don't find the USA to be the greatest country there ever was I'm not entirely anti-American. I laugh when the officials and politicians of the USA does something which would be frowned heavily upon in my country but I don't consider the USA a bad country and I like a lot of the products of American pop-cuture. I like some of the music (see the Spotify playlist), I like a lot of American comics, films, and literature. I am currently reading Hunter S. Thompsons Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which I find very American in it's way of being so over-the-top extreme. So while current American politics disappoint me, American culture does not.
This day is of course also about The Declaration of Independence. This is also something I can celebrate. I do not support colonialism and imperialism (I am not going to discuss American imperialism today - this is about the 18th century, not the 21st) so therefore any declaration of independence is worth celebrating.
So while some celebrate the best fucking country there ever was, I am going to celebrate American independence and culture (and counter-culture) by finishing reading Hunter Thompsons novel.
As for the picture, we wanted to have one of Jason Heusers drawings of American presidents in this post. It was hard to choose between the awesome depictions of anything from a lightsaber wielding Obama riding a lion to Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon fist-fighting a saber-toothed cat. But ultimately we chose Bill Clinton because this picture actually references some of the less political parts of the Clinton presidency. We have Monica Lewinsky (I think that's supposed to be her) by his leg, his pants are open, he is carrying a saxophone and Ronald McDonald is there too. So while Ronald Reagan riding a raptor is pretty cool, this picture has a lot more personality.
Happy Independence Day!
/Jonas & Zander
* I know Zander wasn't completely brainwashed over there and that he also questions American phenomenons and politics. I think the difference between us is mostly in the way we talk about the USA and not in the way we think about the USA.