The Big, Big Whoredom of America
Getting away from my usual dumb one-liner or sketch posts, today I'll be writing about my experience at Trinity Fest, the July 4th Celebration that I wished would end all July 4th Celebrations. Oh where to begin....
In previous years I had never cared much for watching fireworks displays. Whiz bang whoopee. However, my wife introduced me to the fact that fireworks can be pretty danged cool when we went to First Night (the New Year's Celebration in Boston). So this year for the 4th we wanted to try and see the coolest fireworks in our immediate area. This led us to Trinity Fest, the Dallas, TX Independence Day Celebration.
When we first arrived we soon discovered Trinity Fest to be a big carnival including all of the overpriced drinks and rides held together with used band-aids. It was miserably hot and it all took place in the parking lot of Reunion Arena. Not a tree or patch of grass in sight. We soon found the most comfortable area in which to sit....the concrete underneath an overpass along with everyone else trying to beat the heat. We basically paid to see what it'd feel like to be homeless.
During the four hours we had to kill, I saw some incredible sites that really made me think about life and what it means to be American. For starters, while we were sitting by the soft, soft concrete column, we witness a middle aged white guy wearing a blue wife-beater and a camouflage baseball cap making out with his overweight black wife (I'm assuming it was his wife) while he held an American flag. (Mind you, the interracial part doesn't bother me....just painting the picture for you). At this point I said, "That's America."
About an hour later and now facing in a different direction, the Dallas Desperado Dancers walked by. If you're not familiar with the Dallas Desperado Dancers, they're basically a raunchier version of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. It's almost like someone watched Basketball, saw all the lingerie-clad cheerleaders and said, "That's a damn good idea." So these women with large, fake breasts walk by wearing leather uniforms reminiscent of Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman outfit, except now with black leather chaps. As they move past, a guy who looked to be about my age, turned around and smiled at me as if to say, "I know you're thinkin' what I'm thinkin' and I want me a piece of that." By the way, he was missing a tooth.
This reminds me of another point. My wife and I had missed the part in the brochure where it said to come dressed up like you're going to a club. I mean who says, "Hey, I'm going to some fireworks tonight, I better dress like a whore." Maybe they were just all dressed up for the costume contest we missed out on. I don't know.
When it finally cooled off, we walked around and decided to sit near the ice sculptures. The ice sculptures weren't anything too amazing, two eagles on either side of a painted ice-sculpture of the American flag which read, "God Bless America" underneath. Not amazing or anything, but I tip my hat to anyone that can make a block of ice resemble anything. The deal with this that irked my wife and me, was that all these parents would bring their kids up to touch the ice even though the area was barricaded off. We wanted to scream out, "It's *expletive* ice, you *expletive*ing morons!" I mean come on! They weren't even just touching it, they kept petting the ice like it was the only ice left in the world.
"Mommy! Mommy! I have to touch the ice!"
"Mommy! It's so cold!"
We could tell the sculptor wasn't too happy about it, but what could he do? He knew he was outnumbered by the yokels, So he just stood back and let them not wanting to fight all night. Though just after ten minutes of sitting there, one of the eagles tipped over and shattered to pieces while the mother of the child who had been petting it simply smiled and walked away with her child. The sculptor had a horrified look in his eye. People started coming up and picking up pieces of the sculpture. Not because it was so hot out or anything, but because hey, ice chunks! One teenager walked off with the eagle's head.
Seeing the anger well up in the sculptor's eyes, it was quite the site to see him explode (not literally). He went to his sculpting bag and took out his ice pick and started hacking away at the other eagle before giving up and just pushing it over and letting it shatter. He walked around for a second, but I knew what was coming. He walked over to his American flag sculpture, stared at it for a while before pushing it over and letting it shatter into pieces of red, white and blue. He quitely grabbed his bag and walked away leaving Trinity Fest behind. Again I said, "That's America."
At this point, there were about forty-five minutes left until the fireworks and we had no idea in which direction they would be so we asked one of the volunteers. "The best spot to see the fireworks would be to leave Trinity Fest and go to the parking lot on the other side of the parking garage." At first I thought she was just being mean after probably having heard that question a thousand times. We decided to try it out.
On our way out, we were stopped by someone holding a clipboard, "Hi. We're asking people to sign a petition to get the City of Dallas Council Members to uphold the Constitution and to uphold the Bill of Rights." What?! They're going to go before city council and say, "Board Members. We have a petition here signed by XXX amount of people that demands you uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!!" We knew there was probably some deeper issue that they were getting people to sign for like the legalization of abortion or something, but we wanted to go see some fireworks and simply said no thanks.
So we leave Trinity Fest and sure enough we found an amazing place to watch the fireworks. So to watch the Trinity Fest Fireworks, you had to LEAVE Trinity Fest. What lame crap is that?! There were quite a few people out there, but what about all the people that didn't ask. They were stuck inside only able to watch the topmost part of the fireworks. I didn't feel sorry for the people, however, that paid $40 to be able to get on top of the bridge which probably didn't offer any better of a view than the one we got. That's just dumb.
The fireworks? Well, yeah, they were amazing.
Sadly though, because of those four hours, I decided that my former apathy for Dallas and for Texas and ultimately America has quickly turned to disgust. Not to forget that while we were waiting with a hundred other people to get on the train to take us back to our cars that I witnessed some guy that looked like Hammer (not the lovable MC Hammer with the baggy pants, but the washed up speedo wearing Hammer) yell at his wife and slap her and push her into a fence. A cop was there instantly though. We had to board the train and get out of there.
In previous years I had never cared much for watching fireworks displays. Whiz bang whoopee. However, my wife introduced me to the fact that fireworks can be pretty danged cool when we went to First Night (the New Year's Celebration in Boston). So this year for the 4th we wanted to try and see the coolest fireworks in our immediate area. This led us to Trinity Fest, the Dallas, TX Independence Day Celebration.
When we first arrived we soon discovered Trinity Fest to be a big carnival including all of the overpriced drinks and rides held together with used band-aids. It was miserably hot and it all took place in the parking lot of Reunion Arena. Not a tree or patch of grass in sight. We soon found the most comfortable area in which to sit....the concrete underneath an overpass along with everyone else trying to beat the heat. We basically paid to see what it'd feel like to be homeless.
During the four hours we had to kill, I saw some incredible sites that really made me think about life and what it means to be American. For starters, while we were sitting by the soft, soft concrete column, we witness a middle aged white guy wearing a blue wife-beater and a camouflage baseball cap making out with his overweight black wife (I'm assuming it was his wife) while he held an American flag. (Mind you, the interracial part doesn't bother me....just painting the picture for you). At this point I said, "That's America."
About an hour later and now facing in a different direction, the Dallas Desperado Dancers walked by. If you're not familiar with the Dallas Desperado Dancers, they're basically a raunchier version of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. It's almost like someone watched Basketball, saw all the lingerie-clad cheerleaders and said, "That's a damn good idea." So these women with large, fake breasts walk by wearing leather uniforms reminiscent of Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman outfit, except now with black leather chaps. As they move past, a guy who looked to be about my age, turned around and smiled at me as if to say, "I know you're thinkin' what I'm thinkin' and I want me a piece of that." By the way, he was missing a tooth.
This reminds me of another point. My wife and I had missed the part in the brochure where it said to come dressed up like you're going to a club. I mean who says, "Hey, I'm going to some fireworks tonight, I better dress like a whore." Maybe they were just all dressed up for the costume contest we missed out on. I don't know.
When it finally cooled off, we walked around and decided to sit near the ice sculptures. The ice sculptures weren't anything too amazing, two eagles on either side of a painted ice-sculpture of the American flag which read, "God Bless America" underneath. Not amazing or anything, but I tip my hat to anyone that can make a block of ice resemble anything. The deal with this that irked my wife and me, was that all these parents would bring their kids up to touch the ice even though the area was barricaded off. We wanted to scream out, "It's *expletive* ice, you *expletive*ing morons!" I mean come on! They weren't even just touching it, they kept petting the ice like it was the only ice left in the world.
"Mommy! Mommy! I have to touch the ice!"
"Mommy! It's so cold!"
We could tell the sculptor wasn't too happy about it, but what could he do? He knew he was outnumbered by the yokels, So he just stood back and let them not wanting to fight all night. Though just after ten minutes of sitting there, one of the eagles tipped over and shattered to pieces while the mother of the child who had been petting it simply smiled and walked away with her child. The sculptor had a horrified look in his eye. People started coming up and picking up pieces of the sculpture. Not because it was so hot out or anything, but because hey, ice chunks! One teenager walked off with the eagle's head.
Seeing the anger well up in the sculptor's eyes, it was quite the site to see him explode (not literally). He went to his sculpting bag and took out his ice pick and started hacking away at the other eagle before giving up and just pushing it over and letting it shatter. He walked around for a second, but I knew what was coming. He walked over to his American flag sculpture, stared at it for a while before pushing it over and letting it shatter into pieces of red, white and blue. He quitely grabbed his bag and walked away leaving Trinity Fest behind. Again I said, "That's America."
At this point, there were about forty-five minutes left until the fireworks and we had no idea in which direction they would be so we asked one of the volunteers. "The best spot to see the fireworks would be to leave Trinity Fest and go to the parking lot on the other side of the parking garage." At first I thought she was just being mean after probably having heard that question a thousand times. We decided to try it out.
On our way out, we were stopped by someone holding a clipboard, "Hi. We're asking people to sign a petition to get the City of Dallas Council Members to uphold the Constitution and to uphold the Bill of Rights." What?! They're going to go before city council and say, "Board Members. We have a petition here signed by XXX amount of people that demands you uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!!" We knew there was probably some deeper issue that they were getting people to sign for like the legalization of abortion or something, but we wanted to go see some fireworks and simply said no thanks.
So we leave Trinity Fest and sure enough we found an amazing place to watch the fireworks. So to watch the Trinity Fest Fireworks, you had to LEAVE Trinity Fest. What lame crap is that?! There were quite a few people out there, but what about all the people that didn't ask. They were stuck inside only able to watch the topmost part of the fireworks. I didn't feel sorry for the people, however, that paid $40 to be able to get on top of the bridge which probably didn't offer any better of a view than the one we got. That's just dumb.
The fireworks? Well, yeah, they were amazing.
Sadly though, because of those four hours, I decided that my former apathy for Dallas and for Texas and ultimately America has quickly turned to disgust. Not to forget that while we were waiting with a hundred other people to get on the train to take us back to our cars that I witnessed some guy that looked like Hammer (not the lovable MC Hammer with the baggy pants, but the washed up speedo wearing Hammer) yell at his wife and slap her and push her into a fence. A cop was there instantly though. We had to board the train and get out of there.