Thank you John from Pennsylvania! Your very generous donation of fifty-five cents will probably wind up having negative impact on my bank account (what with the cost of postage these days), but your well-wishes and kind heart are worth a dollar and change to me. Valued readers, this means the contest has been running for two days, and so far I’ve received at least one donation on each day! If one of you beautiful, loyal readers helps with my fundraiser today, I might start to feel like this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. In case you have not heard, my roommates are moving out and taking their turntable with them, and I don’t have money to buy a new one plus the new phone/contract I have to buy next week. If you love the music you hear on this page, and want to continue hearing it (that’s not a threat, it just means I will not be able to rip weird, rare, vinyl-only releases anymore), you should donate to this page so that I can purchase a new turntable. There is a Paypal link at the top left corner of this page. Or, you can bid on one of my eBay auctions. Or, you can e-mail me and I’ll provide you with a mailing address if you want to send a check instead of using Paypal.
Ah, July 4th. In years past, I have taken the day off and left you with almost nothing to ponder…although, there was that one time when I smoked a bunch of hash and played with some baby kittens. Boy was that ever fun! Wait a minute — I hate the Fourth of July. It’s a day off from work, sure, but you have to drive somewhere to drink and barbecue, and gas is so expensive these days it negates the celebratory aura surrounding the day. Did you know that on this date last year, 51% of Swan Fungus readers were living outside the United States? This year, that number has dwindled to a paltry 47%. Nice going, foreigners. What, you can handle a little humor when it’s written by a racist, sexist, greedy American asshole? It’s just jingoism, baby. Don’t take it so personally.
For Both Americans And Shameful, Freedom-Hating Non-Americans
10. Short Shorts – If ever there was a day you could get away with taking a pair of old jeans and turning them into short-shorts, today is that day. Now, I’m not advising you to make yourself a fancy pair of cut-offs, because I don’t want you to get your head caved in by some drive-by gay -bashers, but if you’re just going to be hanging out at home, grilling some choice cuts of meat, drinking some Rolling Rocks and chilling in a lawn chair, don’t you think you’d look best in a sweat-stained wife beater and a pair of fucking short-shorts?
09. Wiffle Ball – Maybe it was two or three years ago, I went over to Ian’s house and grilled up some burgers, got drunk on Paulaner, and played a serious game of one-on-one wiffle ball. It was surprisingly intense. We might have gotten high, too. I don’t really remember. Anyway, wiffle ball is really important for any successful July 4th gathering. You can buy a bat and ball for mere pennies (about 500-1,000 of them), and the only other item you need is a chair. That’s home plate. If the pitcher throws the ball and the batter swings — or doesn’t swing — and the ball hits the chair, that’s a strikeout. The rest of the rules are pretty much identical to baseball. Hits are judged on distance in the air. Ground balls can be fielded, but they’re usually automatic outs. Shoving a wiffle ball bat up a drunk girl’s butt counts as a grand slam. If you’re too drunk and you vomit you forfeit your at-bats for the next half-inning. Like I said, it’s pretty much just like regular baseball.
08. Fireworks – I don’t really care about opulent fireworks displays at night, but it sure is fun to buy fireworks and set them off with your friends in shady alleys or in densely wooded areas that are really dry and could easily catch fire. You guys could play the game where you light an M80 and see who can hold onto it the longest without chickening out, just don’t tell anyone I suggested it. For the faint of heart (and by that I mean the pussies), you can look excited while holding a sparkler. Just like Ralph Wiggum did in The Simpsons episode “Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder” when Homer bowls the last strike of his perfect game. Consider yourself warned, because Ralph’s sparkler blew up, just like every pin in every lane in the entire bowling alley, plus the overhead scoreboard. I don’t want your precious face to have any weird, creepy scars the next time I see you.
07. Red, Red Meat – Screw the vegans. Last year I had to eat vegan Sloppy Joe sandwiches and vegan potato salad. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have to eat it (I was poor…and it was free), and I didn’t hate it, either. But given the option of eating a fake meat sandwich and eating bacon-wrapped hot dogs and a double cheeseburger isn’t even really an option. It’s a fucking joke. In fact, I’m pretty sure that in some religions, it is considered a sin to not eat meat on July 4th. I don’t remember what religion it is exactly, it’s probably one of the weird ones like Judaism or Wotanism. I get those two confused.
06. Hot, Hot Sex – It’s summer. There’s beer and baseball and barbecue. There are bound to be chicks running around in bikini tops and short shorts (don’t wear your short shorts if you plan on being social, by the way). All of these girls are asking for it. I’m not kidding. You could stroll up to one of the cuties at the party and say, “Hey, I know this is the first we’ve spoken…but do you really want to?” And when she responds by saying, “Want to…what?” You give her your most suave look and say, “C’mon, mama, you’ve been asking for it all day. You want me to fuck you.” After that, she’s pretty much yours. She has to fuck you. At the very least, she’ll finger your dick hole or let you blow a load on her chest. Trust me, if this doesn’t work, it’s only because there was something flawed in your delivery. Am I right, ladies?
05. Good Tunes – The Fourth of July is all about having a good time, hanging out with your buddies, eating, drinking, and generally forgetting about the fact that your lives are being wasted while kids in Japan or India are learning the vocational skills that will allow them to supplant America as the world’s only superpower. Really though, what matters most is that your party has good music. If you need some suggestions for groovy, feel-good music that you can play on your Hi-Fi stereo system, you might want to ask somebody else. Honestly, I’d probably force everyone to listen to shit like Codeine or Slint, both of which are severely cold weather albums, in my opinion. I guess I could recommend Beulah, the American Analog Set (Know By Heart is summery), Explosions In The Sky (duh!), The Makes Nice, Beat Happening, Jellyfish…The Beach Boys (also duh!), The Byrds…and, of course, Anal Cunt. Ha!
04. Go At It Naked – July 4th is all about freedom. So why don’t you free yourself from the captivity of your clothing and just go at it naked? What are you scared? Suck it up, man. If you just act like you know what you’re doing, nobody is going to care that you’re balls are weird looking, they’re going to see you as the guy who made the party…with weird looking balls. Hey, one of the girls might take pity on you and go down on you. It’s not a bad thing when the piggy-looking girl with the roll hanging out of her girlie shirt drunkenly sucks you off, it’s called a blow job son.
03. Shoot A Gun – Not at somebody. Just…you know…find a person of color on your block and ask if you can kindly borrow their “piece” for a few minutes. They’ll probably appreciate your attempt to speak their language, and show you inside their house, possibly allowing you to borrow one or more possibly illegal firearms. During your town or city’s fireworks display, you can shoot the gun off into the air like a real red-blooded American. That’s what fucking Independence Day is all about. Firing a gun. The whole thing. 232 years since the Revolutionary War, all that progress, and what have we got to show for it? The desire to shoot guns at stuff.
02. Cheap Beers, And Lots Of ‘Em – You know me, I will almost drink shitty beer. In fact, the only time there is ever an exception to my staunch drinking policies, it’s on July 4th. That’s the only day of the year when I allow myself to enjoy a six pack of the aforementioned Rolling Rock (cans only), or PBR (can or bottle). The best choice, of course, would be a hefeweizen, because it’s the perfect summer beer and it hasn’t yet been co-opted by collegiate douchebags. On the cheap and affordable side, try any of the German imports (Weihenstephaner, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, or even Franziskaner). American Wheat beers are an acceptable, sometimes wonderful alternative. Pyramid makes a good hefe. Every brewery worth its salt also makes their own seasonal. Try Avery’s Maharaja IPA, Founders Blushing Monk (if you can find it), or even Sam Adams Summer Ale (just remember to add some lemon or an orange wedge). It also helps if you drink a lot of bourbon beforehand, so you’re already drunk when it comes time to pass out in the sun while everyone is inside watching the Mets game, leaving you alone to get heat stroke and die.
01. It’s Your Day – Do what you want. It’s a Friday and you don’t have to go to work; you don’t really have to do anything if you don’t want to. If you want to watch the Mets game alone at home (that’s what I want to do — sigh) do it. If you want to invite five-hundred people over and destroy a perfectly usable house with a television and a sports package (where I could watch the Mets game), that’s all fine too. You’ve got all of Saturday and Sunday to recover. Just don’t waste it man, because sooner or later you’re going to die, and I’ll be damned if your family asks me to say something at your funeral and all I can come up with some bullshit like, “Dude lived his life to the fullest, except for the one time it mattered most. On that day, he did jack shit and it was fucking pathetic.”
