Man's Guide To Fireworks

As a community service, here is the man's guide to fireworks that was just floating out there in cyberspace waiting to be found. Now I feel I should warn you, this guide is pretty simplistic and anyone with any familiarity with the explosive arts may be disappointed by this. But I'm guessing that the author of the guide most likely lives in a city where all the good stuff is illegal. King county has really gone out of it's way to take all the joy out of Independence Day and so I can see where this guy is coming from. And that's why I feel the need to augment it a bit.

Firework myth #1: Sparklers should only be used by kids. The fact is that sparklers are super damn hot and I would guess that a great deal of emergency room trips on the 4th are kids suffering from varying degrees of sparkler burns. Kids really shouldn't be allowed near sparklers until they are old enough to be bored by them. Don't think that this means that sparklers should go extinct, that's not true either. With some sparklers and duct tape, you can still make one hell of a sparkler bomb, although that tutorial I found recommends wrapping the sparklers in aluminum foil and electrical tape. Presumably either will work, however I can only personally vouch for the duct tape method. A quick youtube search resulted in a way too long but still impressive mushroom cloud of fire created by approximately 9000 sparklers as well as this much shorter, yet still impressive version with a mere 240 sparklers.

Firework myth #2: The guide says that you shouldn't use roman candles in firework wars. This is only partially true - roman candles make decent weapons, but for a proper war, saturn missile batteries are a far more effective projectile. Also, I can tell you that a 5 gallon drum packed with as many roman candles you can fit in makes for a fine show. Some dousing with lighter fluid or some other flammable liquid is required in order to get them all to light simultaneously though. Roman candles do play an important role in one of my favorite video clips though. I apologize for my laziness in not finding a version without some stupid commentary.


Fireworks myth #3: According to the guide, fountains are only for kids and girls. I actually like fountains a lot. If you're a full grown man and you can't enjoy flames and sparks shooting into the air, then either you've got yourself a wussy little fountain and need to find a bigger one, or something is wrong with you.

Unfortunately this guide failed to mention one of the best fireworks out there, the mortar. If you like loud explosives that erupt into a bright aerial, then mortars are for you. Also, the only rockets mentioned are bottle rockets. Those are pretty tame and I much prefer their bigger brothers. For some real fun, you've got to get the larger rockets or some missiles. The warhead launcher is an old favorite of mine.

One last story before I call it a night. Years ago, along with at least one cousin, maybe more, a covert operation was planned. Too many old people had gathered on the deck and complained too much about the fireworks going off. This was offensive to us kids since the old people belonged inside if they were going to be whining about the fireworks. And so the total sensory overload was born. Three mammoth smoke grenades were ignited, one on each end of the deck and one in the middle. This ensured that regardless of wind, the deck would be enveloped in smoke. The next step was a few whistling petes - possibly the most annoying firework ever invented (which it turns out can also be turned into a bomb). Finally, a few well placed lightning flashes provided the coup de grace. The deck was cleared of joyless geezers in a matter of seconds.

Have a safe and happy fourth!