Taking a page from the playbook they used to turn Halloween from a low-key celebration for small children into an excuse for drunken costumed debauchery for adults, the beer and liquor companies appear to have turned their attention to Cinco de Mayo. I don’t particularly recall ANY attention being paid to celebrating Cinco de Mayo until this year, when WHAMMO there has seemed to be a blitz of ads and PR, all of it coming from beer and liquor makers. Apparently the recession is even affecting alcoholics, and Seagram’s, Anheuser-Busch, et.al. need to pump up those quarterly numbers. They haven’t quite figured out how to turn the Easter Bunny into a beer-swilling, babe-ogling spokescharacter yet, so they had to settle for a holiday that isn’t even officially celebrated in this country. Of course, the candy makers have been left out on this one, but they still have the lock on Easter, so it evens things out pretty well.
Unsurprisingly, the remora-like sidekicks of the booze business — the chip and snack makers — are also along for the ride. Because, hey, if you’re drinking beer or margaritas, you probably want some nachos with that, right? What could be MORE American than getting sick drunk on cheap beer and tequila and throwing up an entire half-digested platter of nachos grandes con carne?
Eventually, ALL American holidays will be transmogrified into excuses for overindulgence of one sort or another. The big ones were snapped up years ago, of course, but there are some perfect branding opportunities available for Arbor Day and Flag Day. Also, the month of August is totally lacking in a national holiday — the only month of the year without one — so somebody really needs to get on the stick. My birthday, August 27, is available, although it’s a little close to Labor Day. Maybe we can just declare the third Monday of August “Hot Enough To Fry An Egg On The Street Day”, or finally give Herbert Hoover the recognition he so richly deserves by celebrating his birthday (August 10). Bill Clinton was also born in August, but we already celebrate “Steak And A Blowjob Day” in March.
But back to Cinco de Mayo for a moment. I am willing to wager that nobody reading this blog has the slightest idea what Cinco de Mayo celebrates, unless you already cheated and Googled it up. I had no idea myself until *I* Googled it up this morning for this post. Everybody sort of knows that it’s a Mexican holiday, and since that means Coronas and guacamole, who CARES what it celebrates?!?!?
Some people believe that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican version of Independence Day, and that erroneous factoid even gets taught in some schools. The real Independence Day in Mexico, however, is September 16. Don’t say that too loudly, though, or you-know-who will be pushing beer and nachos on us then, too. But the holiday does commemorate a significant date in Mexican history: it celebrates a victory over the French, who attempted to conquer Mexico in 1862. Apparently, Napoleon III figured that the United States was too busy with the Civil War to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, and thought Mexico would be an easy pickup. His commanding general got his ass handed to him at the Battle of Guadalupe, and THAT is the reason Mexicans celebrate on May 5. The French hung on to their foothold in Mexico for a few more years before they gave up, but the victory at Guadalupe represents the success of the Mexicans at preventing wholesale conquest.
So this gives me the perfect idea for a new holiday. I’ve already established that we don’t have a national holiday in August, AND the new-found affection for Cinco de Mayo demonstrates that Americans are perfectly willing to celebrate the national holidays of other countries as long as they can somehow be tied to binge drinking. Well, nobody ties one on like the Russians, my friends, and it just so happens that the anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad is August 23. American consumers LOVE premium vodka, so need I say more?
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