  nicknames i have had: little person, daughterly, liebling, bailey, cat, irish queen, petit choux, westside, little bit, squawk, liefje, cukla, mi ja, amytha, logicala. i don't mind any of them. social commentary is everwhere. i hope i don't grow up into a person who hears any cover band and says "wow, great band! " not that cover bands are bad, necessarily. i'm talking about growing old into the person who goes to festivals in the suburbs and hears a band playing familiar oldies mixed in with modern hits... and says "wow, great band! " i saw urlLink murph at the curragh several weeks ago, and he does covers to pay the bills... and he totally rocks.
but he makes the songs his somehow; he owns the riffs and the lyrics. he said he has his own stuff but "this crowd doesn't want to hear that! " (except for me, but i'm just me. ) tonight was a landscape of middle america: moderately obese, white-bread, hard-working, hoping to retire on pension one day, slightly republican... i managed to divide the men into categories: those who play golf, and those who think about playing golf. guys in polo shirts versus guys in harley meet shirts or margaritaville shirts or other sleeves-cut-off shirt. collars versus the nons. the women were all moms in some form: past, present, or soon-to-be... i think for the most part the people of carol stream (or at least who were there tonight) are all right.
probably most of them are struggling to make ends meet one way or another (even the golf guys). the fathers were dancing with their kids. the kids were hilarious; one kid kept playing air guitar between shoving matches with his sister (who fell in the mud but didn't cry - my kind of kid! ) and not a single adult with any conteporary fashion sense. i was the only person for at least a decade in either direction my age.
in the end, none of this matters. the fireworks were awesome. i didn't blink for a full 30 minutes. i love the m80s. and there were these new fireworks that would pop white, fade, and then all the little sparks would explode all over again - NOT like ths shooting star ones that dribble down the sky - thsee would explode while still in the form of the first explosion's circle, so it was like a million little firework exlosions held in this big smoke frame. hard to explain. but cool to see. happy 4th. 
