Last night, we watched a live display of fireworks. Typical, really, for a U.S. American family on the fourth of July (non-U.S. Americans, look it up). My two year old son somehow slept through the whole thing while my 4 year old daughter spent the whole time with her fingers jammed into her ears. We then returned to the in-laws' place (where we're currently visiting), put the kids in bed and got ready to pass out ourselves after a full day of boating, eating, swimming, biking and more eating. 

But right before we turned in, my mother in law mentioned that Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops were on television right then if we wanted to see that big fireworks display. So my wife and I figured, what the heck, we'll turn it on. I switched it on just in time to see Craig Ferguson announce that it was fireworks time and that we'd get to see the show without commercial interruption. And the fireworks began and my heart soared as I recognized Jerry freakin' Goldsmith's music. Now THAT'S the way to celebrate, I said. The Pops were playing Jerry's bombastic theme to Air Force One. This is terrific, I thought. When that was done, the orchestra launched into a Sousa march, I think the Washington Post, but I don't recall. It segued very nicely, with percussion bringing the two tunes together. Terrific.

Then it happened. The country music kicked in. For the first minute or two I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe some country guy was there singing live on stage. Then another, to my ears random, country song played. What the deuce? These weren't even the "God Bless the USA" overtly patriotic stuff but just very generic sounding "aw shucks us regular folks in the heartland are what make this country great" fluff. But still, I thought, maybe, just maybe, there's some guy singing live, even though the orchestra obviously was no longer accompanying him.

Then John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John started singing. Yes, that all-American patriotic anthem "Summer Nights" from the quintesentially americana masterpiece Grease played. And just the soundtrack recording from the freakin' album. There was nobody live at all.  Nationa network televesion had become the same as any local radio station's accompaniment to fireworks. I may as well have been watching the neighborhood fireworks display again. We shut it off in disgust.

So I ask you, what is the point of having a Boston Pops Celebration of the Fourth of July hen you don't even bother to let the Boston Pops play? Whatever happened to The Stars and Sripes Forever and Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder or even the 1812 Overture? Why have we succombed to more mindless zombie radio friendly pablum in place of good old fashioned orchestral bombast? It's just like the problem we continually rant about with movies. No longer is the composer allowed to create a musical backdrop for a film. It's all got to be pre-packaged pop song garbage. Why must we simply trash all of our beautiful conventions and traditions in place of generic least common denominator sell through artist crap? Why must we continue to treat orchestral music as a crotchety old man relegated to a nursing home out of sight and out of mind until we need to convince him to sign over is trust fund to us? Can't we even let him out at the holidays?

You kids get off my lawn.