Reading: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Moving: nope

Watching: "Hilary and Jackie"

5 July 2000: Music, real and imagined

Not only is my brain feeding me about seven words from a cheesy, earnest, '80s song that a lot of people recognize but that no one can place, it is also feeding me fucked-up lines from fucked-up songs that I would never deliberately listen to. There's some pop Christmas song sung by maybe Paul McCartney or someone heartfelt like that: "And so this is Christmas..." Naturally I can't finish the line (let alone remember if it's really Paul McCartney*), so instead my internal jukebox is finishing it off with a line of similar cadence: "...all covered with cheese," because of course the "And so this is Christmas" sounds remotely like "On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, there was a poor meatball, till somebody sneezeed."

Sigh.

* Aha! 9 July 2000: I was confusing my Beatles. Reader Colleen tells me it's "Happy Christmas" by John Lennon.

So last night we went to Blues Traveler. Lance and Wendy told us Saturday we'd really like the opening band, whom they knew from Chicago, and they were right; but instead of going to Blues Traveler on the Fourth they were going to the Allman Brothers on the third (which doesn't get to be capitalized) and they were probably right about that too, except for the fireworks. What a mellow show. I'm at least two albums behind, which doesn't help; what also didn't help was the sound being all over the place and this bizarre tempo thing they had going. "Layla" on Eric Clapton's Unplugged sounds just fine; this didn't.

When RDC went off to pee for the nth time (HAO actually asked me how many times that made but I just don't even count anymore), I lay down in his spot--seating at Red Rocks is terraced into the foothill, benchwise--but promptly sat up because they had commenced "Devil Went Down to Georgia," just as they did three years ago.I sat up but did not stand up: I sat up because I discovered I was bored not sleepy but I did not stand up because I was at least tired. Three years ago, the opening band Leftover Salmon segued briefly into "Devil" and I thought that's why Blues Traveler covered it during their set; this time I don't know why they did it.

They did one new song from the upcoming album, "Pretty Angry," about the death of their bassist Bob Keehan, which was pretty good, except I didn't know who Bob Keehan might be and flew into a panic instead, seizing HAO's shoulders and demanding "Captain Kangaroo is dead?" before realizing that indeed the Cap'n is Bob Keeshan. Whoooo.

When I noticed that HAO's friend Scott was spitting his Skoal into an empty water bottle, I recoiled in fastidious horror in a blatantly rude way. Later, though, I followed his example by spitting my cherry pits into another empty water bottle. Scott did not redeem his spitting by knowing what the '80s song is.

HAO and I do not coordinate when we will wear our shorts overalls and when something else. Sunday she wore hers with a white tank top and I wore a dress; last night I wore mine with a white tank top and she wore a little dress. A couple of times throughout the evening, we would grab each other in mock fright and exclaim, "There I [or you] am again!" because there was another woman in dark blue denim shorts overalls with a white tank top--it was me not HAO because of her dark brown hair french-braided down her back.

The fireworks made it worthwhile. We saw displays from Fiddler's Green, Chatfield Reservoir, Mile High Stadium, maybe Coors Field, and other places I couldn't GPS, and Blues Traveler scheduled their set break to happen during the Jefferson County display at the rodeo grounds (I think that was the sponsor and place). That much farther west in Red Rocks, we could look straight out at the explosion level instead of up at them. That was pretty spectacular.