The Inside Track with Alex Shelby: The Burn Ward of Freedom
Alex Shelby shares his thoughts on The Fourth of July
Alex Shelby is the fictional columnist of the Sacramento Tribune and the subject of the upcoming novel Landslide, releasing in 2027. The views and opinions of Alex are entirely his own and do not reflect the opinions of Vince Wetzel, Space Between, or Substack.
By Alex Shelby, Columnist, Sacramento Tribune
The Fourth of July is a monument to human idiocy.
Let’s be clear: I’m not talking about the founding fathers. You have to admire a room full of wealthy elite who willingly signed a death warrant, gambling on a little George Washington know-how against the might of the British Empire on a treasonous piece of parchment. That took spine.
Nor am I knocking the rare, fleeting miracle of national unity. For twenty-four hours every year on what seems to be the hottest day, we pretend to actually like each other. We treat the date with genuine reverence, on par with Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s not just a hollow excuse for a three-day weekend (looking at you, Presidents’ Day, and we won’t even talk about how badly we neglect Memorial Day).
No, the holiday isn’t stupid. We are stupid. The moment the calendar hits July 4, the collective American IQ drops into the single digits.
First, consider our choice of high culture. We have elevated the act of stuffing our faces into a premier national sporting event. Last summer, 35,000 citizens crammed onto the Coney Island boardwalk, accompanied by 1.6 million viewers at home, to watch grown men submerge long skinny pieces of white bread in water and inhale pulverized, encased animal parts at a rate rivaling a garbage disposal. It’s billed as “The Olympics of Competitive Eating” because nothing says freedom quite like a man vomiting on national cable.
Then comes the mandatory gluttony. The average American will casually munch down 2,000 calories by sunset, trailing only Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, my waistline is a dead giveaway for a man who enjoys a charred cheeseburger, a handful of greasy chips, and a couple of cold IPAs, and is later coated in a big bowl of homemade ice cream. But as a nation, we view the Bill of Rights as a mandate to push our digestive systems to the absolute brink, comforting ourselves with the knowledge that we said no to taxes on imported tea but yes to ingredients harder to pronounce than “unalienable.”
Naturally, our imbecility is fueled by alcohol. July 4th is the undisputed heavyweight champion of American beer sales. We average nearly four beers per person, a statistic which, by the way, includes toddlers and the sober. Throw in a toxic river of High Noons, lukewarm Margaritas, and questionable backyard Sangria, and you have a population fully marinated in Budweiser red, White Claws, and Blue Moon by 2:00 PM.
Which brings us to the grand, explosive finale.
Setting off explosives while heavily intoxicated is, hands down, the single most predictable disaster of the year. I’m not talking about the sanctioned, orderly light shows over Sutter Health Park or City Hall. I’m talking about the trunk-load of bootleg, state-line contraband procured by your neighbor, who has been sitting in the previously mentioned marination and decided to light it on fire.
The math of our annual madness is impressive, if you’re a fan of chaos. We detonate roughly 300 million pounds of illegal fireworks every July. The fallout? Nearly 32,000 fires, accounting for nearly half the annual fire calls in a single night. Ten thousand of our fellow citizens will spend their holiday in an air-conditioned emergency room, usually holding an ice pack over where a finger used to be, while the 911 switchboards melt down under the heaviest call volume of the year.
So, how are we feeling this morning, Sacramento?
Got a pounding headache? A sour stomach? Wondering if that lump on the lawn is a dropped hot dog or a missing digit? Congratulations. You successfully exercised your liberty to act like a complete lunatic.
It’s exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he put quill to parchment. Happy birthday, America. Try not to burn the house down next year.
Alex Shelby is on the verge of a Landslide
We first met Alex Shelby in Capitol Rookie, an 11-part serial set in 2004 and first published on Substack in 2025, and now the anchor of the anthology, Space Between. Now, more than 20 years later, Alex is on the precipice, his underlying cynicism and distrust threatening to bring down his career, his marriage, and his relationship with his son.
Landslide releases Spring 2027!
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