Happy 4th of July everyone.  I hope that all of you guys celebrating have a great time but do so responsibly.  If you’re going to have a few beverages find a place to stay if you don’t have a designated driver.  Even if you do have a designated driver, it may be a good idea to find a place to stay as there will be people on the road who aren’t as responsible.  Furthermore, if you’re thinking of driving after having any drinks whatsoever, cops will be out in full force.  It’s Saturday night and so everyone is off tomorrow, the party factor will be greater than ever (as it should be) but everyone also has no excuse not to find a place to crash until tomorrow morning.  Now that I’m off my soap box, for today’s blog I’m going to talk about my favorite personal 4th of July memories.  Let’s get right into it.

-It’s funny but in a pre 9/11 world there were fireworks shows literally taking place everywhere in every town.  I actually remember many of these shows we would go see as a kid would be held by police officers.  My family and I would go to local parks and watch police officers fire off fireworks that they probably had confiscated from people who had them illegally.  Looking back these were pretty unsafe as well as you could stand right under them.  Speaking of standing under fireworks, back in the Shea Stadium days, the Mets still fired off fireworks behind centerfield so you can see them anywhere in the town (Nowadays the Mets do an impressive Pyrotechnics show which are brought out after the game in the middle of the outfield).  Well my friends and I would head down to watch the fireworks and we would lineup by the fence right outside of shea stadium.  The firework residue would actually fall onto us after the fireworks went off, it was insane.  As I got into my teenage years my family, friends and I would all head to Jones Beach to watch the fireworks.  We would always plan to stay on the beach until we were kicked off because the traffic on the way home was always the worst.   I remember one year in particular, I ended up hurting my hand during July 4th weekend a few days prior to the 4th of July.  I wore a sweatband on my right wrist but didn’t it let it stop me from driving everyone and spending the entire day at the beach.  Well, it turned out that I actually broke my wrist and spent the entire day there with a broken wrist hanging there.

-As we got older my friends and I ended up going from Jones Beach to Montauk, once the Jones Beach fireworks went on hiatus.  Montauk was great because you were able to make bonfires right on the beach and also stay there all night if you wanted to because most of the people there were spending the weekend there.  Well one year, I was the designated driver and we piled four friends into a room at a budget hotel with my girlfriend and I.  We had a good amount of snacks with us at the beach and my friend, James, infamously brought along a full pizza from Seven Eleven.  In any event, as time went on, we started to file out of the beach and drive back to our hotel.  Well in one car it was my friends James and Bruce as well as my girlfriend and I and in the other car it was my friends, Adam and LP.  I was leading the way for Adam but halfway through the trip a police officer pulled me over.  I hadn’t drank anything so I wasn’t worried but had some sort of busted tail light or may have been swerving a bit due to forgetting my glasses (I told you cops are looking for any reason whatsoever to pull you over).  Well before long, the cop let us go but Adam and LP didn’t know as they were already at the hotel.  James had a great idea to pretend I had been arrested for a DUI (bear in mind I didn’t drink anything at all) and to arrive with Bruce back at the hotel without my girlfriend and I.  My girlfriend and I hung out around the pool area of the hotel and my girlfriend called James pretending to be at the police station picking me up.  The story was ridiculous that the police would arrest me and let my girlfriend tag along, then let James take my car to the hotel but Adam and LP bought it hook line and sinker.  When I returned triumphantly to the hotel 10 minutes later they still weren’t sure if I had really been arrested.  It was a pretty good rib.

  -This year for the 4th of July Flo Rida and Robin Thicke will be performing “live” on the Macy’s Fireworks Spectacular.  Well the show was actually recorded on Thursday night and we were invited to the live taping in what we being billed as a free Flo Rida concert by the New York skyline in Long Island City.  First things first, this was really cool venue for a show.  It was awesome to see Flo Rida right by the water with the Empire State Building lit up nicely right behind him.  However, to call this show a concert, would be the understatement of the century.  First off despite the venue selling food and craft beer, you couldn’t bring any of this into the concert area which made things pretty annoying for everyone who purchased food.  From there Flo Rida came out with Robin Thicke and the two did their new hit ” I don’t Like It, I Love It”  which got the crowd really into it.  Then the producer of the special came out and said they had to do the song again and finally a third time to get the best take.  They then played the song a fourth time so that they can film just the band and the dancers.  Finally they played the same song a fifth time just to film the crowd during the song for crowd reactions.  After this, Flo Rida came out and did his new song “GDFR (Goin Down For Real)” which was great and then they went through the same thing playing the song five times.  Then…that was it! That’s right Flo Rida performed two songs, five times each and that was it.  I don’t know if it was a Flo Rida call or a producer call but it would have been nice for him to do a few more songs for the live crowd that spent their night coming to see him perform.  At the end of the day we ate at a great place called “Shi” so it was nice night out with friends, but still this rubbed me the wrong way.  That’s going to do it for me today but be sure to check out the Wrestling section of the site.  I was up and at em at 5:30 this morning providing you guys with coverage of the WWE Network live special “Beast In The East” and I’d love your feedback on that. Until then, have a happy and safe independence day everyone.  God Bless America!