I have lived off and on in Pittsburgh for a long, long time. The weather always sucks big time in winter but the last month has been among the worst stretches of miserable weather I can ever recall enduring. Cold, sometimes insanely cold, dank, damp, snowy just about every goddam day, its been just plain wretched. So my thoughts turn to summer and in particular July 4.
       I was in Chicago for three weeks last summer including Independence Day. Let me tell you July 4 in Chicago is a completely different experience from July 4 in Pittsburgh, New York, or Miami, the three places I have spent almost all of my July 4ths. In the east the emphasis is on patriotism, the birth of our country. In Chicago the main theme is freedom, I must have heard Richie Havens wailing Freeeeeedom (This video should be viewed at full screen to experience its full impact. If you are into Woodstock era music there is lots of great stuff on youtube. The video of Joe Cocker, who was obviously blasted out of his mind on every available narcotic, singing Ringo Starr's With a Little Help from my Friends is perhaps THE definitive music video from that era, is an all-time classic, and is one for the ages. The incredible success of this video was certainly a driving force behind the creation of MTV) on the car radio three times last July 4. I don't ever remember hearing that song on any other July 4. The talk on TV and radio was almost exclusively about freedom and not patriotism as it is back east. The fireworks are also different. Almost every neighborhood had its own extemporaneous grass roots fireworks display usually from some small empty lot set off by random people. I stopped and watched one such neighborhood display for about 30 minutes. About twenty people were gathered around a small empty lot in a residential neighborhood with the people going into the lot to set off random fireworks. This was not the small stuff. Much of it was the major league explosives that shoots up hundreds of feet and explodes. Some of them were duds which would shoot up a little ways and explode sending some dangerous little half lit pyrotechnics down upon those of us watching including a number of children. This was going on all over Chicago and I'm sure there were some injuries. The authorities including the police blithely ignored the goings on and so by its passivity tacitly endorsed what was happening. The attitude seemed to be that this is the price of freedom. This would never be permitted in self-righteous Pittsburgh with its obsessive concern for the welfare of the children. I ended up in a spot overlooking all of Chicago and let me tell you it was an incredible sight seeing all the major fireworks going off all over this city of three million people. I have never seen anything like it.











February 22 , 2009