They pop up all over my town on July 1st or 2nd literally overnight. They're only allowed to be open July 3rd through the fourth, as they sell explosive devices that are illegal the other 358 days of the year (with a bye given for New Years). With such a small window of opportunity for these guys to pound tent stakes into your local supermarket parking lot, muck up traffic and generally enable your neighbors to blow themselves up right in front of your window while you're trying to sleep (rant over), they obviously will resort to exceedingly aggressive ways to get your attention.
See figure one.
Because, obviously, nothing says Fourth of July like a thirty foot tall, inflatable, red-eyed, vampire gorilla.
These guys, for the record, will make an obscene amount of money in just a little short of forty eight hours. The guys I talked to last year made somewhere shy of ten thousand per day, selling incendiaries and quarter-sticks, ground blooms and artillery shells. Per. Day.
So what the fuck is up with the vampire gorilla? As far as I know (Brits, you can correct me if your history says otherwise) the colonials were fighting against exorbitant, arbitrary taxation, and it blew up into a full scale revolution against... the vampire gorilla? Or was it King George?
Now I'm confused.
And another look at the face of the oppressor...
(note the suspension rings in the nipples... Kinky.)
In conclusion, my vague sense of What-The-Fuck remains... Lingering. Will I buy fireworks in the shadow of Vlad the Gorilla? Probably. But even if I don't, I still have these pictures, even when all that's left of the celebration is holes drilled into the asphalt lot and scorched remains of fireworks casings... everywhere.
