Hey...David Mathews is on!  He's rocking out (for Dave) on some song I haven't heard before ("Nothing to get excited about"?).  Was thinking that, at 1am, an email would be more appreciated than a phone call. :-)  But, I really wish you could watch this for yourself:  Fox is broadcasting Woodstock....  Well, use your imagination, maybe....

following DMB: Alanis Morrisset...man, she sure looks like she's on something...or, is she always like that?  I do like her...good lyrics.  She recommends biting off more than you can chew and going naked in the living room to anyone.  But, how can I bite off more than I can chew, you ask, if my foot's already in my mouth (as she also
recommends)?  It's a mystery.

after AM: Counting Crows...that song with the flamenco dancer, Maria..."Me & Mr. Jones," is it?  Those guys rock.  So do flamenco dancers named Maria.  When I'm king for a day, all songs will have a flamenco dancer named Maria...in there...somewhere....  I mean, I think it could work.  Hey, it's not like I'm sending people out to kill other people or anything!  Um, yeah.  Down Boy.

Peace.  Love.  Woodstock.

next: Jewel...wow, now she's definitely on something.  ...or, maybe it's really me that's on something, imagining that all the women are in some altered state. Do you think she's too young for me?  Hey, now she has some many thousands of people singing the words, "We're all OK" ..and.. "Only Kindness Matters".  That has to make the world a better place, no?  Maybe we need to be rock stars.  When I'm king for a day....

Hey, this is a GREAT concert!!  Somebody could definitely talk me into going next year.

Fox does these shots of the crowd & what it's like to be *at* the show by going around in the crowd and around the festival grounds....  Guy's simultaneously walking amidst the crowd and enthusiastically relating a story to what seems to be an invisible person walking with him, and is getting pretty into it, too...some dream about how all these gorgeous, naked women decide that he's some sex symbol (he describes his emotional response as, "...and I'm like, 'YEah!'")...and how they all gang bang him or something, etc...then, suddenly he realizes that his friend is gone...and, he looks around, but can't see or find him anywhere amidst the crowd of thousands.

<flash to his friend>  Same exact thing (even the same dream--pretty funny, actually) with his friend.  Both were so into telling their story that neither one of them even realized that the other was gone. How self-centered! I would never...um, hmmm...guess it's an honest mistake. ;-) Anyway, then, you follow each of them around looking for the other, going up to random people and asking, etc....  Pretty damn funny, actually, in an "I've been there" sort of way.  Hope that next time I'm lost and panicking at some huge festival I can remember how funny it will look to people on video later.  Actually, wait.  I like to be lost.

Offspring...man, they're kind of mysogynously abusive, huh?  "My friend's got a girlfriend and he hates that BIT-BLEEEEEP...<gotta love Fox>...Nonna, why don't you get a job?"  Now, is there something I'm not seeing here?  How does thousands of people singing those lyrics make the world a better place?  And, given that realization, how come I still like the song?  Scary.  Maybe it just needed to be said.  What really scares me, however, is this:  If Nonna really is currently unemployed, then who's making the "Nonna's Potato Salad" at Safeway?  It's a mystery.

Another episode from the grounds:  We're visiting tent city...lots of interesting tents...and lots of interestingly inebriated people trying to put up their tents...and, here's one guy who brought this six-man tent, but forgot the poles at home...ya know how there's always someone like that at every show?...someone we know forgot his poles at the High Sierra Music Fest earlier this year, eg.  Then, we see this one kind-of small, scraggly-looking guy pop out of a tent, with his shirt off, all sweaty, hair messed up...obviously, just finished doing the nasty...and, he's looking back at the tent kind of weird and sez, "Hey, that's not my tent."  About that time, this big, ugly, spare tire guy comes stumbling out, sweaty, no shirt, messed hair.  He looks at the scraggly guy, then they both realize what just happened...scraggly guy takes off running...a half second latter, spare tire guy is off after him yelling, "I'm gonna kick your ass!"  And, who hasn't been there once or twice, too, huh?

Love.  Peace.  Woodstock.

Then, the riot.  They start by tearing down a wall with lots of original amateur (children's?) artwork on it.  Dickheads.  They're all late teens, early twenties.  Was I like that?  Um, no.  Well, maybe.  I think that maybe just once I might have carelessly hurt someone's feelings in a vain, ego-serving attempt to make some insecurity-motivated statement about myself subconsciously calculated to usurp attention and that "Wow, he's cool" respect.  But, that was different.  Well, at least I've forgiven anyone who's done the same to me.  So, I got that going for me.  Actually...Uh, sorry.  Back to our story.  It gets more and more out of hand...riot teams show up...eventually, there are two or three REALLY big fires.  Sirens.  Firetrucks.  General pandimonium.  Then, the aftermath illuminated by the rising sun of the next morning: Several skeleton towers and supply trucks (the bands'?) completely burned to the ground.  Now, what was that statement?

There you have it, your very own personally-narrated review of Woodstock '99.  In10 years, you'll remember this story, probably telling it in the first person to your grandkids, having forgotten in your dotage that you were never actually there.  At that point, you have permission to claim it as your own experience.  :-)
   

...oh, almost forgot: the two lost guys finally find each other coming out of the port-a-potties...they embrace ("I love you, man!").  The synchronized male "urinal" cycle (theorized as attributable to a subconscious exchange of pheramones which occurs when men drink together for extended periods) saves the day again.

Peace.  Love.  Woodstock.