I Hereby Order You To Love a Parade

Happy Independence Day, 21st Century American readers of this blog! But to the rest of us, it's just another Wednesday. Which to the crew of the H.M.S. Exquisite means just one thing: my Weekly Mandatory Parade! We Amadans, we know how to RAWK a parade! My favorite is the one my planet holds every week to commemorate its liberation from the Waxing Tyrants of Depilatory Seven. Picture, if you will, the Amadus Shirtless Hairy Bearded Men's Bass Drum and Electric Guitar Corps (three hundred strong!) marching proudly through the labyrinthine streets of our capital and blasting away at our favorite military anthem, Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" -- which you may know better by its chorus ("Now you're messin' with a son of a bitch"). Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye. It also produces some other secretions but we shan't talk about that now. When I was a mere Blockade Tot the noise of it scared the bejeebus out of me, and as a Blockade Tween I would scoff and jeer at how the adults would get all worked up whenever the parade passed through town. That was before my terrifying ordeal in the Super-Stalag of Space!

I have a profound appreciation for the concept of liberty nowadays! So to honor the brave souls who perished in order that Amadus might preserve its way of life, I like to gather the crew and hold a little parade of my own!

As I mentioned before, I have Weight Wizard play a side drum, and I have a side drum of my own, only bigger (of course) and Rainbow Girl expertly plays her fife (which Weight Wizard is not allowed to touch after what we found him doing to the last fife). We play "Hair of the Dog", naturally, and some other classic marches, like "Takin' Care of Business" and "Bad Moon Rising" and "Barracuda." Tusker follows behind, waving and bowing to nobody in particular. As a courtesy we pass by Plant Lad a few times but of course he's in a dormant state so he can't really see us. Sometimes Storm Boy will clamber up from the hold and drunkenly raise a bottle to us... and sometimes he hurls the bottle at us and then I have to break ranks and smack his ass up. But either way it's a festive occasion!

Have a terrific day, everybody!