Today we celebrate the birthday of the greatest country in the history of the world. We eat a lot, get drunk, and blow things up. And if you don’t like it we’ll send you to Gitmo.

You see today is the 4th of July.

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In 1981 I bought my first punk rock album, Los Angeles by X. This album is so cool. It helped usher me down the path of riot and rebellion.

Like all good anti-authoritarian punk rockers I came to hate America, and eventually I moved away. But after a few years I got homesick. And everywhere I went people said to me:

“Santo, I appreciate that you have brought the struggle for justice to my country, but if you really want to do something go back to America and fight in the belly of the beast.”

So being a man of the people I came back and landed in Oakland, California. And here I fought many glorious battles with evil monsters.

I fought robot monsters.

Mummies.

The Cyclops.

Martians.

Smurfs.

Mothra.

I joined forces with Kolchak to fight vampires and giant white men dressed like Native Americans.

I fought freaky magic talking flutes.

And of course I fought the greedy American capitalistas.

So in the spirit of this day and the fight for a democracy that serves all I offer you two songs. The first is “Fourth of July” by X from their album See How We Are.

The second is from Rev. Frost over at Spread the Good Word. He put together an excellent compilation, Wild Instrumental Party, with a song reminding us it is important to destroy all monsters. This includes the kind of monsters that oppress others.

You can listen to the songs here:

“Fourth of July”

“Casbah”

And download them here:

X - Fourth of July

Casbah

Happy birthday Uncle Sam!

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