From: bs810@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (E. Nay)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Inauguration Reportations
Date: 22 Jan 1993 01:43:44 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bs810@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (E. Nay)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Somebody wanted to break into my account to post this, but they couldnt
figure out how so I decided to do it for 'em...no ODC, hope nobody's 
disturbed by it, and I'll accept flames if ya must :-)

                Is That Rock 'n' Roll I Hear on the Mall?
                           by the TobaccoMaster


	Freaky biker types hanging off of celebratory signs, swiggin' Buds
and rockin' in the noonday clouds, made it that much more meaningful when a 
couple legs later I hear Martin Luther King's voice booming across the 
Reflecting Pool (surrounded by 200,000 people who can't see the same things
I can't see): "Free at last, Free at last, oh-oh-oh oh-my-God, bumph-puffa
bumph-puffa, we are free at last" (or was that LL Cool J?).  Nevertheless,
the "Celebration for the Common Man" was upon us, and the common man was 
surely more common than the 20,000 or so of us who decided to stay for the
Little Feat encore, for by the time our chopper arrived at the Lincoln 
Memorial there was nowhere to land, and the landing strip was obscured by
people looking at people looking at bleachers that looked at more bleachers,
then those damn fighter planes buzzed us, so we set down on the closest non-
secured bridge and dialed in the football game. NFC East, heh.
	Jumping back for a second, Michelle Shocked sounded like Mary Chapin
to me, a sweet lilting voice rising above the subway platform, peter & paul
would've been merry, and Mary woulda been proud. The harmonica master had
popped on down the road by the time i arrived, but there's nothing like the
Tewa Dancers from New Mexico to lift the spirits, appropriately performing
the Buffalo dance as Miami fell like the South.  They followed up with the
Eagle dance (another NFC East tie-in) and I wondered where the rebel outlaw
from Wyoming that goes by that moniker was.  With my spirit alive I went off
to commune with the gods.  Luckily, the john was right next door and I made
it back in time for Taj Mahal, who, while I never made it to a position where I
could determine if it was a person, place or thing, provided a rousing set with
sing-alongs, jams and everything that had the whole spectrum, the young and the
old, the neo-yuppies, the neo-hippies, the neo-normals and all the rest 
swaying together and singing, "aawwww-owwwwwowwww, hey heyyyyyyaaa".  Made me
proud to be a Democrat, or that is it would of, if I could ascertain that I
actually was one.
	So the kids were havin' fun, the adults were bein' kids again, and 
the place was so packed I almost went to the press tent to see if I could
pass myself off as a HT reporter, and thereby gain access to the much-coveted
press riser, but good judgement overtook me and I realized it'd take forever
to pull that one off, and besides I'd have to write an article for 'em if I
actually got away with it.  Feats don't fail me now, and they didn't, bet ya
can't guess what they played.  Yep, a full set of rockin' classics, then we
flew off to the Memorial just in time for the Dylan/Michael Jackson duet, 
which subsequently went unreported, but trust me, it was a keeper, then
back to the bridge, where lo and behold, 3 barges sat about 150 yards out, 
halfway between the real "common mans" bridge and the Memorial Bridge. "Who'd
uh thunk it," I thought, as it dawned on me that these were the very barges
that would soon be xploding in an orgy of colors, fire and magic, not to mention
the glowing portrait of Bill wailin' his sax.  And xplode they did, after a
bizarrely distorted sound of bells ringing floated across the river to us, the
fireworks were off and running, triggered no doubt by the butt the guy a few
spans down from me had tossed off moments earlier. Reds and Yellows, and greens
and whites and blues and reds and whites, and well, fireworks doncha know.
There were lots of smoking, half-burnt parachutes about town after-
wards, I guarantee that, but hey, its a party! And maybe it was my vantage
point, bein' only a couple Montana passes from the detonation spot, but though
I've been on the Mall every 4th since '68, I don't recall ever feeling the 
deafening SMASH of the finale's explosive ending quite so profoundly, truly
of the earth-shattering, atomic BOOM, vibrating the bridge "lemme pick 
those flakes outta yur skin" quality, little did I realize that at about that
same instant halfway around the world some guy on the 7th floor of the 
Al-Rashid was feelin' somethin' quite similar. Excepting, of course, that he
probably wasn't worryin' 'bout the subway ride home, but then at least its not 
cloudy in Baghdad. 
-- 
It left a smoking crater of my mind I'd like to blown away
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead