Notes from a Small (Cold, Dark, Miserable) Island
Mike and Matt are two Americans stuck in London. Expect dodgy accents, transatlantic bantz and notes on queueing.
Notes from a Small (Cold, Dark, Miserable) Island
16: Five Star Fourth
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Early July is a particularly poignant time for American expats, as it's when we celebrate kicking British ass by detonating explosives and eating copious amounts of whatever it is that ends up in a hot dog.
So how can you recreate fun Fourth of July celebrations away from home? Fortunately your hosts are on hand to get you in the mood by reminiscing about Midwestern suburbs, sugar-filled parades and voluminous air pollution.
Matt and Mike also discuss whether the Founding Fathers pulled a fast one on us all just because they wanted a holiday right in the middle of summer.
Happy Independence Day!
And then I turned the plug around, something that would never happen in the United States, right? And the f the the fuse had just fallen out of the plug of the air conditioner. So I put it back in, plugged it in, and it works fine.
SPEAKER_00I was like That's a fucking goddamn Christmas miracle, man. Like the fact that you didn't put that fuse like in a in a joint box or throw it out all time.
SPEAKER_02I've just been using it as sort of like a fidget spinner for like like I've just I I just pick it up. It's on my desk and I pick it up if I'm in like a stupid meeting. We're still rolling here. Hello and welcome to Notes from a small, cold, dark, miserable island recorded not far from a river which is spelled T-H A M E S. But that's not pronounced Thames or even Tames, but Temes? What? I'm Mike.
SPEAKER_00I'm Matt. Is this this is just now bothering you? This is this is just come to your attention?
SPEAKER_02I every so often it enters my consciousness and it irritates me.
SPEAKER_00Well, this does beg the question or or or or beg the you know, when are we gonna do pronunciation bowl? When when are is that gonna be our season finale, like pronunciation bowl? I've been I've been talking about it for ages.
SPEAKER_02We've got to do pronunciation. I think why things are it what's with all those extra U's, you know what I mean? The superfluous U. That's the name of my indie bands. And then we don't don't even get into like uh place names, you know? I think if you look at Gloucester? Gloucester, how are you getting out of that? Lester.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I spent my whole child wondering what what Worcester sauce was as and also how to say it. So just just a just an idea here that that you know you could be a rapper and call yourself the mess and spell it spell it the same way as Thames. Because it could be T-H-A, M-E-S. There's so many interpretations, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This is the mess.
SPEAKER_02The mess.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. It's a river. Hey, we're in London. And it's what day is it? This is the 25th of June. We're recording this a little bit early. Looking behind the curtain. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Uh my household has just gotten deep into Wizard of Oz, so I might make a couple Wizard of Oz references by accident. But this is our use your illusion one and two, because we uh we are recording this just after we've recorded our previous episode. This is the first time we've we've stacked a back-to-backer. If you don't want that, Mike, if you don't want to, you know, show them how the sausage is made, you can just delete this from that.
SPEAKER_02I know it's a little bit, you know, inside baseball. It's a little bit inside cricket. They don't say inside cricket here.
SPEAKER_00They don't say inside no, they I think they say inside baseball too. They say inside baseball. See, another one. Another one of our concepts and phrases that they've just that Americanism.
SPEAKER_02God monkey frunky. Pretty soon we'll be playing soccer.
SPEAKER_00Well, one thing that they haven't done, Mike, I'll transition for you for free. One thing that they haven't done over here is adopted Fourth of July as a big party. I wonder why. I wonder why. Well, it's obvious. Uh we talked about this uh, you know, on one of our first episodes was was right around Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. And we addressed the awkwardness of celebrating a national holiday in a place where it isn't observed. So it's especially tricky, maybe maybe even like rude and obnoxious and American to celebrate independence from the country you're in while while you're in it. Um but I I really like the Fourth of July. And so I definitely wanted to do a Fourth of July episode to be like, hey, Americans in England, what is the Fourth of July about for you?
SPEAKER_02Let's let's f sk sketch out actually what it means back home, right? I mean, I think probably listeners will be familiar, but uh you I like what your your sort of list, all day rolling drop-in slosh fests. This uh this seems like you have your priorities in order.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I wanted to shout out, I want to specifically shout out and also to try to get the this dude as a listener. Um, just a friend of mine named Aaron and his wife Kristen for years and years in Chicago. They would do um the like the day before or a couple days before the 4th of July, they would do their Dependence Day uh house party, um, which was usually like the day before, like yeah, if if if 4th of July fell on a Sunday or a Monday, then they would do it on a Saturday, that sort of thing. And and there would be this all day rolling, come on in, BYOB, BYO snack, we'll have the grill going. Um there's a there's a kiddie pool.
SPEAKER_02They're pre-gaming the Fourth of July.
SPEAKER_00Pregaming the Fourth of July, Dependence Day. And you know, you know, Aaron and Kristen's politics are uh you know are super left, so they they weren't getting in the whole, you know, Chevrolet ads, um jingoistic flag waving thing, but they also, you know, they they sounds pretty traditional though. They believe at the same time. And yet, and yet pretty traditional. Nice. I like so so I you know, this is what I love about the Fourth of July. Um it takes place at a time of year when the weather is good. It's not it's not the dog days of August yet, um, and everybody gets a day off, even if it's in the middle of the week. Uh, there's not the same sort of Christmas and Thanksgiving expectation that you need to see your family, though many, many people will go and hang out with their families. And so I it gives rise to these friend-based house parties activities in Chicago. Me and my wife used to, you know, meet folks at the beach. Um yeah. Good old Fourth of July for grown-ups.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um that's true. The the idea of having a a day off that everybody sort of has off is is good, isn't it? You know, it's like, you know, you have to set aside that weekend. You've just reminded me that um at one point, uh I suppose this was I suppose this was two years ago, um, nobody wanted to uh Joe Biden was having his last rally, his last campaign rally, right? Before he quit. Wow. Wow. He didn't know that we were he nobody knew that he was going to quit. It was July and he was still rumored in the room. It was early July. It was the 4th of July weekend, 2024. And um none of the reporters really wanted to go from Washington or New York or LA to Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so for the um they sent me solo to do all the sort of like TV and and radio stuff, and I saw Sleepy Joe on stage at a w middle school in the uh suburbs of uh Madison uh give his sort of swang song. And um was it was farewell at the time? I don't remember what the timeline of that was. It wasn't sort of a goodbye, but he did mess up the year, I believe. Like what year it was. He gave a sort of a fiery 10-minute speech and uh jumbled up uh what election that he had actually won.
SPEAKER_00Or I don't know. I thought maybe it was something like back in 1843. Like, no, Joe, it was 1773.
SPEAKER_02It was it was very um yeah, the writing was on the wall then. Um, but uh that was perhaps I suppose I guess it was a memorable Fourth of July. Um I've had I've had maybe better ones though. Yeah. I think America has as well. Um I yeah, I I just yeah, you know, I just enjoy the uh a nice hot dog, a baseball game. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You could go to a ball game, yeah. You could like go to the amusement park, you could go to your local amphitheater and see a concert. Um now, small towns like the like the small town outside Cleveland I grew up in, because I was born in a small town, and I can breathe in a small town, um would have parades, you know, and just like your your local uh your local moose lodge and uh and baton twirling uh tweens uh would just trundle trundle down the main street and everyone would come for an hour and see their friends and neighbors in the back of pickup trucks. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I love the parade. Throw throwing candies. Devotee of the Oak Park Fourth of July parade for sure. You know. Did you fire Oh yeah, definitely. Okay, definitely. Every year, the the fire trucks, the uh liberal pressure groups. Uh Did they have their float? That was that was it. Basically, it was just fire trucks and liberal pressure groups. But they throw the candy, you know what I mean? They throw the Tootsie rolls and my British children pick up the Tootsie rolls and throw them back because they hate them.
SPEAKER_00Just pelting liberals and firemen alike.
SPEAKER_01Quick can meet me with the Tootsie Rolls.
SPEAKER_02Um I love it. I love it. It's it's great. All those things. Take them all.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, it's kind of an it's kind of an inform, it's more uh it's more of an informal you can you can make up make up your activities. And maybe that's why maybe that's why it's a little bit when when I googled like what sort of Independence Day activities um are profanely available in London. There wasn't a great amount. I mean, there are there are there are many concerts, there are many like uh you know, music ensembles and and churches that are having great American songbook concerts. There's a there's an odd like bar crawl and wine tasting. Um, and some like his there's a couple historic walks. You can walk around and be like, this is this is the shit that they were rebelling against right here. That dickhead king sat and you know decreed some stuff. Um but attacks the tea bags and the windows, and they threw people in jail for printing pamphlets. And they brought them back here, and this is the jail? No, I don't I don't think so.
SPEAKER_02That's good. That's good. It's interesting though. Um, it sounds a bit scattershot. I mean, I think like Thanksgiving, for whatever reason, like it will be pretty well established. There'll be like restaurants that offer Thanksgiving menus and stuff, and um you can you can definitely find that place. And then like your American friends definitely will have like a Thanksgiving thing, you know. Um sounds a little bit low-key.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, weirdly. Yeah. Now I'm eager to hear if because London is a town where fireworks go off all the time. Uh it's a global city where you know lots of different nationalities and and religions uh have uh you know footholds, and so they have times of year when they set off fireworks, and New Year's obviously is a big time. Um and and so fireworks be happening all the time. Um it's it's it's better than uh you know bombs dropping. Um for but for my nervous family, we don't love it the most when you know over London Fields kaboom kaboom. Um so I'm wondering whether this 4th of July, I'm gonna keep an ear out to see uh to to hear if if anybody cheeky Americans are yeah, shooting anything off.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I've not I've not heard of that. My yeah, it's New Year's, um Fire Bonfire Night in early November, and and Diwali. Yeah, um the Hindu festival, those those are when it is. And in fact, we we we used to live near the big um Niesden Temple, so Diwali was a big one. And gosh, yeah, very smoky, very smoky. Um what's your what's your stance on fireworks? I am generally uh pro firework, um, but but have have obtained some sort of fireworks skepticism simply because that it is really bad for the air pollution, and uh now we have some cats and the cats just like freak out. So you you're not a fan.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm not I'm generally not a fan, though a good sanctioned, organized, like I would I I in my Chicago years on a couple occasions went down to Navy Pier and saw the big show. Or on or on the fourth of July, you could just, you know, stake out a spot on on one of the many beaches and just and just look out and and see see them happen. But there were then all also these big, I can't remember the name of the park. Uh uh this is this is my brain melting. Um, but there was you know a big unsanctioned Fourth of July uh at at a north side park that was not far from my house that just every cowboy would just go take over this place. And it was like a scene out of the Warriors um with with bootleg fireworks going off. Ah, I've only got to remember the name of that park. It doesn't matter. Um so that's not my that's not my jam, but I do like a good, like a good civic leader. I love these, I love the footage of I I'm sure it's uh awful for the environment as well. The replacing the explosives uh with interesting drones.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, the drone thing that's that's becoming a thing. I think yeah, fireworks are phasing out, they're gonna seem too low-tech pretty soon.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna look like a really cool Bjork concert, you know, for the Fourth of July. Maybe even soundtracked by Bjork. We'll play her most patriotic American song. Yeah, yeah. Which is probably Army of Me.
SPEAKER_02I was like, wait, that would be um Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, Army of Me. The Oak Park was way too woke to have fireworks. They banned their fireworks, they donated the money to the poor. They were like, they scare children in small there was all sorts of things. There would be people grumbling about that, yeah. But you see, you just go to a neighboring suburb. We went we went to go see our friends. I had a another Fourth of July in Chicago, which was like, you know, a relatively well-off uh suburb, exurb, and it was just sort of classic. That classic Chicago hot dog, millions of people bringing millions of bottles of uh wine and beer to the park, sitting out there, and then you know, just air pollution for the next hour. Just boom-bada boom-bada boom.
SPEAKER_00But then get get get you know, get in your car. You've maybe only had a couple beers and get back home. But by the time you get out of traffic, you know you're sober. It's fine. Did you have in the bu uh in Buffalo? Did you have one of these like classic um 60s, 70s uh concrete amphitheaters where where there would be concerts and like you know, the the journey foreigner uh reunion tour would come and play in the concert, like like Tinley Park in Chicago. It's Blossom Music Center in the Cleveland.
SPEAKER_02Um there is um I I think there is a similar sort of thing in in Buffalo. There's a place called Art Park where people play. But the Fourth of July thing was always the some sort of iteration of the Beach Boys. Yeah. How there was like various Beach Boys iterations.
SPEAKER_00We've still got Mike Love. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And they would play at the baseball stadium in in conjunction with a minor league baseball game. This sounds very, very low rent, right? But like they would play around the Fourth of July.
SPEAKER_00Pretty American, like I I'd I would enjoy a minor league baseball game.
SPEAKER_02I I thought that I had like hallucinated this when um yeah, when Brian Wilson died, I was like, uh I was like, did that actually happen in Buffalo? Like this weird sort of and then I had to look it up. I had to look up old issues of the Buffalo News. And it did, yes. The the the rump Mike Love thing came came through on an annual basis for several years on the 4th of July week of year. I just you just think they could have gotten a bigger gig somewhere. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know, man. Buffalo, yeah, yeah. Geographically, I think Buffalo, you know, d do you know do you have knowledge from Buffalo history when you were in in middle school? Like, would did Buffalo see any skirmishes?
SPEAKER_02Uh in the war. Um I know Cleveland didn't. No, no. I think no. They um the the town where I grew up basically was founded uh after the War of 1812. Oh, okay. That war that nobody remembers. Well, except that they burnt down the White House. They burnt down the White House. He's mother. Pretty s pretty soon people can be asking to do that again.
SPEAKER_00I mean, let's not Well, I mean, it's three quarters of the way done already.
SPEAKER_02Don't worry about it. We haven't even talked about the UFC Fighting Championship. Um they burned down the uh the little village of Buffalo in 1812, and people ran to the village where uh where I grew up, um, called Williamsville. Okay. And uh that that really sort of established it as a as a thriving base of operations uh until they rebuilt Buffalo and everybody sort of moved back. And then then people moved back to the suburbs after a while, you know. This is precisely why riots. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00There's there you go. The history of uh Buffalo and the Arcade. Yeah, well, very linked to some pivotal moments in American history.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Absolutely. Um so yes. Um uh not as far not Revolutionary War skirmishes as far as I know. Um hopefully I'm not embarrassing myself there by missing some big battle.
SPEAKER_00I tried to look up um whether I I wanted to start a conspiracy theory that the founding fathers and the Continental Congress were like, you know, it must have been dragging on for for weeks into months about we can't go on like this. This king is murdering us. We've got our own identity over here, F this guy. We're gonna need to do something eventually. You know, we're gonna have to declare independence. And I just want to start a conspiracy theory where somebody was like, it was February, and he was like, Okay, okay, okay, I hear you. I hear you. And yes, I'm outraged as well. But if we're gonna do this, let's wait until the weather's nice. Because we're gonna win. This is crazy. I believe that we will win. And then uh So they were like thinking ahead.
SPEAKER_02They were thinking ahead. This is gonna be our national day. Yeah. And the weather needs to be good because like we are making a nation of eternal optimists.
SPEAKER_00Um We we wanna yearly have an opportunity in the in the, you know, not not the gross August summer, but nice July. We want to have these cookouts. I I decree I want an all-day rolling slosh fest, said Hamilton. Um Yeah. So this is my conspiracy theory is that they decided to hold the Continental Congress slash declare independence, but they waited until such a date that it would be uh that this you know national significant date would be a really good time for a holiday. I'm yeah, I'm now really stretching. I went to my Howard's Inn no evidence.
SPEAKER_02Great. This is awesome. But I'm really stretching against my the the history here, but I isn't it that um was it signed on July the 4th or was it just announced on July the 4th?
SPEAKER_00Well, this is the thing, is it like, yeah, July 2nd it was introduced. I don't know all the facts, but there is some like conjecture, like July 2nd. Right. Well, they had to pass the thing around, man. Couriers were quite slow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, in interestingly, like, isn't that the the Juneteenth story too? Oh, yeah, yeah. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in early June, but then like it took a while to get to the No months, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00Oh, see, this is where we are shamed. It took a while. That's why we left.
SPEAKER_02Some some time, some time, anyway. Um, Ward Wards did not get around. I mean, you know. The primitive fax machines of the 18th century. You know, um they probably they probably thought, well, look, you know, at at some point in our grand history of this nation, uh Chicago's gonna want to have a NASCAR race. And they cannot be driving around in February. This is ice, snow, no way.
SPEAKER_00I envision a horseless buggy with many sponsorships plastered on its side, and a man named Jethro sitting on the cockpit.
SPEAKER_02No, I didn't I don't know the yeah, I never actually witnessed the Fourth of July NASCAR race in Chicago because actually the weather was horrendous for those two uh races. Uh it was absolutely d disastrous, and like, you know, they were all driving around at the normal pace of Chicago traffic, which is about 30 miles per hour, plus some asshole who just tries to pass everyone. Like are we talking, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Are we talking like Lakeshore Drive? There's like you know about four thirty to seven thirty.
SPEAKER_02You just literally literally they were driving up Lakeshore Drive, but very slowly in heavy rain. Yeah. Not my vibe for a sporting event. Fourth of July. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I wanted to do, I wanted to sort of do a review of Founding Fathers pop culture, but there isn't that much, Mike. I mean, and before Hamilton came out, what, 10, 15 years ago, there's very little Founding Fathers related pop culture for us to, you know celebrate our history. There's a musical called 1776 that American musical theater nerds like. I don't know it.
SPEAKER_02I never heard of that before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um Hamilton Hamilton's the big dog.
SPEAKER_00Hamilton's the big dog in the street. There's uh, you know, when you when you Google this, you're reminded of that uh HBO miniseries, uh John Adams with Paul Giamatti as John Adams. Paul Giamatti going, I am not drinking Merlot. Wait, no, it's uh I'm not drinking mead, said John Adams famously to Washington as they went on their uh you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh uh the Saturday Night Live uh Nate Bargazzi uh sketch they send this to everybody.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a solid one. Where he also he does the bit that I just uh unconsciously copied of like I envision the bullshit of the future.
SPEAKER_02How many uh feet will be in a yard? Three. What?
SPEAKER_00Um So what are you gonna so what do you do you have any plans for the Fourth of July?
SPEAKER_02I I I don't like I've completely been waylaid by this uh whole whole episode. I feel like I now need to get some plans. I don't know if I've actually had plans, although I'm sure that maybe we've hung out on a 4th of July to be American all broy, but like I can't remember. Maybe doing anything other than the other specifically American on the 4th of July.
SPEAKER_00I think if you go back into our previous episodes, uh the Sasha episode, you know, when we revealed my bullying alley DJ pass, I think I may have I think I DJed at All-Star Lane's Bayswater one 4th of July. Is that the one is that one of the times that you came through? Possibly. I know I went to a US England, I DJed during a US England World Cup match at All-Star Lane's, you know, in 2011 or 12 or something. No.
SPEAKER_02I was I I hope I was there. If I if I wasn't, I want to go back and and and go there. Let's do it. Let's pop in the old time machine. Was it when you were DJing the 4th of July, was it an official American-themed uh All-Star Lanes event?
SPEAKER_00Well, no, it was just sort of every every every Friday. There were two of us. But the the the place was, you know, Americana themed. And so these American employees, they were like, Yeah, come on, I know you're gonna play a bunch of like Memphis Soul classics.
SPEAKER_02People should go back and listen to that episode. The Sasha episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should go back and I should go back and listen to it too. Because apparently it I didn't it didn't get into my brain.
SPEAKER_00Well, this this 4th of July lands on a Saturday. If you are hearing this, then please email us at colddarkmiserablepod at gmail.com. We're gonna release this one um a little bit before the 4th of July. So if you you know, give us give us a tip. What should we do for the 4th of July? This the uh Saturday, July 4th. I'm sure the World Cup will be going. Um I'm I'm at work that day, but um I get off at nine, so I could still go. Yeah, after you get off, let's uh let's do something yanky.
SPEAKER_02Hey Yeah, tell us what to do. Yeah. Tell us what to do. We have no plans.
SPEAKER_00Why do we even do this episode? Why do we do this use your illusion part two? Well, I feel like it needs to be acknowledged. And that's sort of the thing. We there's uh we'll come back to you at Labor Day. Celebrate labor, celebrate the great labor tradition and the wobblies.
SPEAKER_01Uh that email address again colddarkmiserable pod at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_00You can check us on all the platforms. We're on YouTube. Check out some of our YouTube shorts with more on the way.
SPEAKER_02Give us our Fourth of July gift of a five-star rating.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02July 4th, five stars. Fourth, five. Not fifth, four stars. Fourth, five stars.
SPEAKER_00So at my workplace where I'll be on the fourth of July, we had uh within the last couple months uh a performance where the the title of the show was was the name of two uh two lovers, and it was uh one of the one of them was Jack, uh, and then it was the ladies. Well, I'll just say it was Jack and Louise. And so I spent the whole run of this show just in my head being like, little ditty about Jack and Louise. And and you know, English people under 30 were like, What why do you keep singing that? And I was like, hold on, let me, you don't know, you don't know, let me play this for you. And it and I learned that English people under 30 have no idea who John Mellencamp is. And this was pretty, pretty painful for me as an American immigrant, that like John Mellencamp is being is being lost to history to uh uh you know, to non to non-Americans, even though he's pretty American coded is Mellenkamp. So I thought to really cement what we're doing here, being independent from America, but also keeping the American spirit, not the cigarette, alive, that I would attribute to Mellencamp with a new theme song for our podcast.
SPEAKER_02All right, all right. Let's hear it.
SPEAKER_00Are you ready? I think so. Okay, great. Beow down down, bow down, bow down, down, down, down, down. There's an orange man in a white house crumbling down his neighbor. He's got a wrestling ring plunked down in the front yard. Uh update. He's got a chain link fence round a toxic duck pond. His cronies think they got it so good. And we're two old dads with a podcast. We met at a college radio station. We got visa tales, I got cheesy rhymes for immigrants to this cold, dark, miserable nation. See they told us when we were younger, anyone can grow up to be president. But a narcissistic, racist, rapist, comman, clown probably wasn't worth they meant. So we ain't in America for 250. No, we ain't in America. We don't have to see daily all the hate in America for rationality. Yeah. Non-detached houses for Mike and me. Fourth of July in the UK for a Mike and me. Oh yeah. Ain't in America.