July 4th, Washington D.C.

I've seen a lot of great Independence Day celebrations at a lot of great locations. Air Force bases particularly. Especially one year the Barksdale AFB was opened to civilian public who poured inside in droves to crawl all over the aircraft and equipment that was set up for them. The fireworks exploding over the tarmac in the distance.

Another one in Tachikawa in Tokyo was similarly impressively large and long.

Yet another one in Denver was quite good above the spot where Auraria Campus is now.

But all that was before they could spell U.S.A. in fireworks.

I've never seen anything so impressive as what happened in Washington D.C. today. From the angle shown below in a video with the Lincoln Memorial underneath it, sometimes with the statue of Lincoln darkened and other times lit up, making the statute part of the demonstration and with levels of fireworks, a lower level of sustained sparkling with fireworks occurring above changing from full red sky to full white sky to full blue sky over and over and over. Truly spectacular.

I've never heard a president deliver such a spell binding speech beautifully supporting the military services, and choreographed with flyovers of American air power. While still all quite understated.

Truly impressive. Very well done.



I must say, the most adorable Independence Day parade that I've ever seen was in Aspen.

I was visiting a friend this time of year who lived there and we went to a restaurant and sat outside in the front facing the street. I didn't think it was Main St, but behind Main on Bleeker Street. I felt we were out of the way behind the main street. I think. It might have been Main Street because Main doesn't go all the way though as expected. I think the parade started on Cooper then crossed Hyman and Hopkins on the short side then continued on Main. That must have been it. At any rate we were not expecting to see a parade right in front of us. We were merely having lunch in a random restaurant.

It was the cutest parade I ever saw.

It seemed every single civic entity you never think of participated with gusto. Fire station naturally, you do think of that, police, medical EMTs, staff of the slopes, various civic groups in Aspen that we hadn't heard of before, musical groups, sports groups, commercial interests, restaurant groups, the airport, pretty much everything Aspen has to offer joined the parade to show off.

We sat there watching it pass mightily impressed with the creativity.

I compared it with Mayberry RFD.

Except better.

I never saw a small town put on such a great little show. The school kids were spectacular. The floats they produced were wonderful. The whole town has tremendous energy and creativity. They herded animals. They showed such pride in their town. They loved coming out and showing off.

And right in front of us a black dude done up in a monotone synthetic costume and same colored boots similar to a robot or android performed his mechanical robot dance moves wonderfully. For a long time. He looked absolutely mechanistic. He had us mesmerized with moves we hadn't seen before. This was before Jackson invented the moonwalk. And not doing it for money tossed into a hat, he was just part of the parade.

It was not the jet-set wealth of Aspen on display, rather it was the civic locals showing their pride. I've never seen anything like it before nor since. And I always wanted to go back this time of year and see that again. Truly spectacular in a quaint local way. But thorough. Absolutely thorough.

I doubt it will be as spectacular next time because that first time we weren't expecting anything. We were not anticipating a parade. The whole thing was extra entertainment that day for lunch.

--* -- * -- * -- *

That happened one time before.

I stepped out to experiment by going to an Ethiopian restaurant on Colfax.

That turned out to be a one-time thing.

Turns out everything on the plate was sludge. And flat bread like a giant tortilla.

Yellow sludge, light brown sludge, dark brown sludge and reddish brown sludge.

Some kind of bean sludge and lentil sludge and legume sludge and chickpea sludge.

It must have been vegetarian.

And I thought, "no wonder these people are always so thin."

And right as I was scooping some brown sludge onto a piece of flatbread I heard noise of a parade outside on Colfax.

It was a few drag queens acting fierce. Showing off.

It was Denver's first Gay Pride parade. But I didn't know that.

I had no idea any such thing was happening until I saw it right in front of me.

There were gays dressed as outrageous women, totally overly made up, gays dressed in leather, gays dressed in feathers, gays dressed in Speedos, gays dressed as cowboys, gays dressed as native Americans, gays dressed as law enforcement, exactly like a YMCA video, gays dressed as mechanics and ballroom dancers and High School band members, and rodeo riders. Gays twirling batons, gays with instruments, gays on floats, gays marching, gays with their pets, gays with their mothers, gays with their children. Gays being fab you lus.

Marching right past us.

It looked like fun.

Showing off. And I'm thinking well, here they are.

They're queer.

I'll just have to get used to it.

Or something.