Boston's Alternative Source! image!
   
Feedback

Not born on the Fourth of July
Ten things to do on Independence Day when you don’t feel red, white, and blue

BY DAVID VALDES GREENWOOD

MAYBE YOU’VE NEVER noticed, but Boston has a serious flag-waving side. Despite being home to pot rallies on the Common and fire-swallowing lesbians at the annual Dyke March, this is no hotbed of antiestablishment sentiment, especially on the Fourth of July. On that day, the Freedom Trail emerges as the city’s spine once again and locals pat themselves on the back for living in the, ahem, Cradle of Liberty. Wild-eyed zealots sleep outside the Hatch Shell for a chance to claim their corner of lawn at the crack of dawn, and then sit there all day in their star-spangled athletic wear awaiting Pops renditions of patriotic tunes. From the harbor to the Emerald Necklace, the city gets all Yankee Doodle dandy.

For any number of reasons, many of us are reluctant to slap a steak on the grill and raise a beer to the alleged Land of the Free. If you’re gay, for instance, and know that fewer than a dozen states allow you equal civil rights, you may not feel like singing “God Bless America.” If you’re a legal immigrant dealing with the paranoid policies of the Immigration Reform Act, you may have trouble swallowing the phrase “liberty and justice for all.” But whether you’re anti-nationalist or just not a joiner, you’ll be in the minority — a fact reflected in the minuscule number of entertainment options available to you.

So what are you supposed to do if you don’t feel all red, white, and blue? All the suggestions below have one thing in common: you won’t have to worry about propping up the Man, and you won’t have wasted a day you are sure to have off.

1) Get the hell out of Dodge. What’s the easiest way to deal with the patriotic frenzy suddenly gripping Beantown? Leave. That’s right, hop in your car and choose a destination that Paul Revere didn’t ride through at midnight. Better yet, make a run for the border — hide out in Canada until the last sparkler has been lit.

You can get to a happening city like Montreal in just five hours. And the Montreal Jazz Festival (888-515-0515), which starts on June 28, will be literally in full swing when you arrive. With 500 concerts in a week and half — 350 of them free — this is the continent’s jazz event of the year. This year’s eclectic line-up spans the gamut from Wayne Shorter to Cesaria Evora to Prince, not to mention late-night jam sessions at the Wyndham Hotel. (And, in the morning, Montreal bagels — worth becoming an expatriate for.)

2) Go couch potato. If you live in a neighborhood especially likely to be overrun with Fourth of July celebrators, it may be best just to stay inside until the whole thing blows over. But before locking down in your self-imposed cell, consider renting some videos for your very own Antiestablishment Movie Marathon. Try a little genre mixing-and-matching for variety, with at least one comedy to keep you from slitting your wrists at the state of the union. Nashville, The Thin Blue Line, Primary Colors, Bob Roberts, and The War Room ought to keep you busy until the cannons stop booming. You should rent these videos from a small, local supplier like City Video or Hollywood Express, so that your attempt to fight the system doesn’t end up supporting a huge soulless chain.

3) Celebrate someone else’s independence. If you have trouble with the politics of the Fourth but love big noisy celebrations, you don’t have to feel left out. You just need to celebrate something that doesn’t oppress you personally. You have your chance when Boston’s Cape Verdean community transforms City Hall Plaza from sterile bunker to vibrant playground. The annual Cape Verde Independence Festival honors the tiny islands’ independence from Portugal with traditional music, tasty cuisine, and crafts (call 617-635-3404 for details). From 2 to 7 p.m., you’ll dance, you’ll eat, and you’ll even be in a decent location to catch a glimpse of Boston’s fireworks without having a complicated internal monologue about ideology.

4) Forget that McDonald’s exists. The whole world now knows that two-minute burgers and fries really define the ethos of the United States. When your average teen in Beijing can rattle off a list of Big Mac ingredients, you know homogenous “American” culture has gone too far — clearly, it’s time to put down our Happy Meals.

Why not figure out where your ancestral family originated and make an ethnic meal that honors your pre-immigrant roots? If the cuisine of your heritage is too complicated, just whip up your favorite stir-fry or rice-and-beans dish — anything but frozen pizza or Healthy Choice. And if you simply don’t cook, you don’t have to starve for your ideals; order take-out from the nearest international food joint, thus supporting a small business and enjoying a reminder of where we all (other than Native Americans) really come from: away.

5) Find your muse. Ever heard of a patriotic beatnik? I didn’t think so. It’s just too damn hard to wave a flag and pat a bongo at the same time. Poets tend to have a subversive streak, and conservatives eye them with appropriate suspicion — call a poet a “godless commie” and she just might thank you. You can support these cultural vanguardists by following them to their natural habitat: a dark, smoky room. At the Cantab Lounge in Central Square (617-354-2685), several dozen poets will cycle through an open mike and poetry slam, as they do each Wednesday. For $3, you can get all the heady metaphor and melancholy imagery you can stand, and not a single bar of “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The poems will pepper the air from 8 to 10 p.m., and if you get there early, you can even sign up to deliver your own rambling ode to socialism. Beret optional.

6) Send a hundred emails. If you’re boycotting the Fourth, you probably have a good reason. So why not put your money where your mouth is with an ecampaign for change? Write a punchy email explaining what’s wrong with a certain government policy or pending bill, complete with an action for receivers to take. Then send it to everyone you know, and some folks you don’t: elected officials who could make a difference on your topic. This should be an original email, not just a forward of a forward that you received (the kind of practice that borders on spam). No matter how far your crusade goes, you’ll have demonstrated your good citizenship far more concretely than those resting their fannies on a picnic blanket.

7) Get freaked out by an amnesiac. It is remarkable that intelligent elected officials can still feel threatened by the arts. From bomb scares during a gay play to a certain mayor’s fascist response to well-hung dung, it seems we’re never safely past the age of censorship. What better way to chafe against the restrictions of dogma than by seeing a piece of theater with a decidedly nonconformist bent? Eve Ensler, the playwright provocateur, is used to riding outside the mainstream. Her play The Vagina Monologues couldn’t be advertised under its allegedly obscene name in many of the cities it toured; even in liberal circles, she’s taken her hits, with Salon magazine calling her a “victim-obsessed paleofeminist.”

See what the fuss is about in the regional premiere of her play Lemonade at the Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theatre (508-349-6835) on the Cape. (Yes, it’s a long drive, but even the ART buys into the holiday madness and closes for the Fourth.) In this play, a woman walks into her kitchen and discovers an amnesiac sitting at her table. Obviously, this being theater, she falls in love with him. It’s a disturbing play that navigates issues of violence and desire — the perfect antidote to the saccharine anthems that will be ringing out over the Charles.

8) Wake up your wardrobe. If you must cross paths with the flag-wavers, make a fashion statement. Dig out that old anarchy T-shirt; gel your hair into a punk-rock disaster of epic proportions. Cross-dress or wear obscene slogans on your chest.

And if you discover that you have no clothes that could possibly push any cultural buttons, then consider this a wake-up call telling you that you’ve been shopping at Old Navy far too much. You’ll need either an advance trip to the Garment District or a steely determination to shake up your favorite top with some zealous cutting and a few safety pins. (The more skin showing, the better.) Then, appropriately inappropriate, hit the streets.

This may irritate the good folk milling about in their Uncle Sam hats, so bring friends. There will be safety in numbers, and your gang will have a chance to replicate the Village People in their entirety.

9) Take the Blue Line to Africa. We Bostonians tend to be snotty about any destination frequented by tourists: it crushes one’s cool to be seen on a swan boat next to couples from Boise in matching tracksuits. But this self-censorship means we tend to miss out on some pretty amazing local offerings, including “Nayanja: Africa’s Inland Sea,” the latest exhibit at the New England Aquarium (617-973-5200) — one of the few Boston attractions that will be open on Independence Day. If you’re going to be stuck in the city, might as well leave the sweltering confines of your overpriced apartment and head down to Central Wharf, where you’ll discover an exotic world of African fish, giant spiders, and crocodiles in a re-created ecosystem. You may be fascinated or have nightmare material for weeks, but either way, you’ll be transported well beyond the petty bounds of nationalism for an afternoon.

10) Do the nasty. My final suggestion is the cheapest and yet, in our current political climate, the most pointed. Nothing pushes our government’s buttons more than sex, especially non-missionary-position sex between unmarried parties. Have sex with someone of your own gender. Or someone not of your race. Or a complete stranger. Or, yes, even your own lawfully wedded spouse — but on a rooftop, standing up, wearing only bubble wrap. Sex, or a paper plate of franks and beans — it shouldn’t be a difficult choice. Some fireworks, after all, are worth it.

David Valdes Greenwood apologizes for the pair of red-white-and-blue polyester bellbottoms he wore as a child. He regrets any political — and fashion — statements made by the outfit.

Issue Date: June 28 - July 5, 2001