Fourth of July

I've got a few personal music-related annual rituals, like playing Dennis Wilson's and Dave Alvin's songs both titled "Fourth of July" on the big day. Only got around to the first of these this year--and come to think of it, a few years back I added Ani DiFranco's two, count 'em, two 7/4 songs (after she wrote "Independence Day" she remembered she already had one called "Fourth of July"), but I forgot those this time, too.

Other than a lovely party at the new home of pals Susan and Marty, the holiday weekend was a blur of time-wasting, as it so often ends up. Evidently my forefathers struggled for independence so I would be free to:

1) watch all 8 hours of MTV's coverage of the Live 8 concerts (which was probably about 5 hours too many, though I certainly intend to mull over AOL's comprehensive list of clips of every single song by every single performer at every single show, if only to sample Brian Wilson's Berlin show, which was sadly absent from US television.

2) read about that Nike/Minor Threat brouhaha you may have heard about, and then linger over this giant page of hilarious responses to it.

I've got plenty more to say about both of these, but it looks as though I'm not gonna be saying it just now. As usual.