There\u2019s a famous video.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is insane!\u201d the guy filming it seems to proclaim. \u201cIt\u2019s the best fireworks show<\/a> ever!\u201d a companion confirms, inspiring a debate lasting over a decade.<\/p>\n All told, 7,000 fireworks exploded in the span of 25 seconds over San Diego Bay on July 4, 2012. A Michael Bay amount of unison. $125,000 worth of shells, cakes, Roman candles, and skyrockets had been placed on a barge\u2014enough for 17 minutes of decorative sky flares\u2014and\u2026<\/p>\n Boom.<\/p>\n The sky looked like someone had set a giant Rorschach test on fire. Or as if whatever we all see in our Rorschachs\u2014butterflies, clowns, tongue kissing, dads\u2014was being electrocuted and lifted heavenward, amen. It was shocking how bright it was, how much it sizzled the local cosmos. Could\u2019ve been one of those sci-fi films where a hole is ripped open between warring universes. But angstier, more metal<\/a>\u2014the work of some methy creator in a sleeveless concert tee.<\/p>\n The sound?<\/p>\n Lou Reed once released an entire album that contained 64 minutes of mindflaying guitar screeches and machine noises. No regular songs, just a fascinating amount of ear distress. His record label reps no doubt heard the melodic outro of their careers, but everyone else was in pain and stumped. That album still sounded better than the bay did that night. The bay sounded like a god who struggled with emotional regulation had blown his speakers and was working through the anger stage of AV grief.<\/p>\n In the left frame of the video, a middle-aged woman is attempting to drag her husband off by the hand. In no way does he want to go, possibly because he had missed the time Roseanne Barr sung the national anthem at a Padres game<\/a>, simultaneously disemboweling and amusing America through the power of song. He would not willingly abandon an equally worthy San Diego trainwreck.<\/p>\n Another woman in the video appears to have just filled her beer<\/a>, rushing to sit down for the show. She pauses mid-sit and returns to the full and upright position to properly bear witness. What was supposed to be prolonged entertainment has been so radically shortened that she will have to find another reason to drink. Lucky for her, drinking will be the only way to adequately process.<\/p>\n Locals remember the conspiracy theories. People wondered if the fuses had been tripped by a saboteur who was sympathetic to dogs<\/a>, fish, or the growing suspicion that late-stage capitalism is a gorgeously branded but impossible dream sustained by remarkably efficient top-tier wealth retention and the soft compliance of fireworks-watchers who can no longer afford a house<\/a>, a beer, or the personal impacts of human reproduction.<\/p>\n Speaking of being terrified of babies, babies were terrified. The children who witnessed it probably still can\u2019t go near a candle store. But those kids will be tougher, perfectly scarred kids. They\u2019ll write better songs.<\/p>\n That night helped us absolutely dominate the national news cycle. For a hot minute, we became America\u2019s water-skiing squirrel. Now, years later, when you Google \u201cfireworks gone wrong,\u201d San Diego is always a top contender, along with that poor Nebraska family who nearly wiped out a couple generations in their front yard, their minivan somehow turning into a howitzer of recreational TNT.<\/p>\n There is still debate as to whether Big Bay Boom<\/a> 2012 is the worst or greatest fireworks show of all time. But the advanced parts of civilization arrived at the truth as quickly as the women in the video did. It was undeniably amazing.<\/p>\n First of all, the point of Fourth of July fireworks isn\u2019t \u201cthe intricate choreography of sky fire over a guaranteed amount of show time.\u201d It\u2019s about creating a vivid memory shared with some people you like, love, or would like to love.<\/p>\n BBB2012 used large-scale chemical fire to create the ultimate memory.<\/p>\n Sure, some people who iron their jeans subjected their family to a sermon about how San Diego managed to botch America\u2019s birthday like a Disney princess-for-hire who smelled of quite a few Sauvignons.<\/p>\n The rest of us saw how perfectly it nailed the actual feeling of being an American. Because only a miniscule percentage of us bake postcard apple pies where every inch of crust is perfectly laminated like the wood in an Irish bar<\/a>. Very few of us can paint on par with Picasso. The rest of us\u2014despite truly believing in our America-activated abilities to achieve greatness in almost any field of our choosing\u2014burn pies. We try to paint only to realize it looks like our fine motor skills have entered active death.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why BBB2012 was the most perfectly American fireworks show ever: A wildly ambitious idea galvanized thousands upon thousands of people to both work on it and come to hold a beer and gawk at it, only to have it fail in the most glorious TMZ-level spectacle.<\/p>\n America isn\u2019t about immaculate, storyless wins. It\u2019s about how the framework of a country is solid enough that we can accidentally detonate our entire lives\u2014a few times\u2014and still probably be OK.<\/p>\n No one has America\u2019d quite like San Diego did on that day. It was performance art. Lou Reed\u2019s heart slow-clapped. Any brief municipal embarrassment quickly became a pride of our people. I can only hope the same for the Nebraskan yard family whose Dodge Aerostar became a hyperactive Death Star.<\/p>\n