Fourth of July From Number 3

Hey Family (Megs, you fall under that category as well),

I don't have any great video of my Independence Day fireworks experience, but I thought I'd let you all in on it. You guys have seen the view from my apartment from the pics that Mom posted up there. I'll post a panoramic shot soon, but you can get the idea from those anyways.

So from where I am in LA the fireworks last about two and a half hours. Most of that is a grassroots experience--people CONSTANTLY for hours setting off bottle rockets and roman candles and m-80s and blackcats. Keith and I were holed up in my bedroom trying to crack out the first draft of this treatment for the screenplay we're working on (deadline was yesterday, crunch time) and literally it sounded like a jubilant war-zone from the windows. People were blasting 80s pop classics at a party in one of houses below us and every 3 or 4 seconds you'd hear another loud explosion rattle off the windows.. actually if the interval lasted 3 or 4 seconds we'd wonder why it had gotten so quiet.

Anyways, at about 9:15 the official city shows started happening. Keith and I took a break to see if we could see anything from my walk-way. I thought we might be able to see the Hollywood Bowl fireworks from where we were. I underestimated the view. From about 9:15 until 9:30 there were at least 3 major fireworks shows that we watched from the back of my complex. The Hollywood Bowl's to the West, another to the North and one just South. They were not all timed up perfectly to make a great big finale, but they would overlap enough that it felt a little like a finale the entire time. I thought to myself as I watched that even though there are people I would have loved to share the moment with, there is no other place in the world I would have rather been for those few minutes.

To be in one of America's greatest cities, even troubled as she is, and to watch and listen to a city I love celebrate the freedom of the country I love moved me. Los Angeles is so racially divided even into particular geographical areas. The area I live in (adjacent to what used to be Chavez Ravine) is heavily Mexican. Three miles east is China Town. One mile south is Filipino Town. Five miles north we have more Armenians than Armenia. In West LA, about 8 miles west, is the largest population of Jewish people in the US outside of New York (which is home to more Jews than Jerusalem.)... but the point is that with the 80s classics blasting below, and a constant bombardment of celebratory explosions above it seemed that last night everyone around was pretty grateful just to be an American.

I know Keith and I were. As is his tradition we lead (or imagined that we lead) the fireworks shows into their grand finale with a top-of-the-lungs rendition of the Star Spangled Banner... in harmony (or at least imagined harmony).

I've been blessed to have a lot of great 4th of July experiences--lazy times hanging out in the Oaks Mall parking lot, hiking up Tarantula Hill for the best views, the parade on Main Street and playing master-slave, lighting off model-rocket engines over the lake as though they were bottle rockets, watching the fireworks in Clear Lake reflect on the water, even sharing a drink (Coke) with Michael and a Scottish trucker who wanted to make us feel at home when we were half a world away (Michael, you remember Tony. :)... This one goes right up there with the best of them. It's one of those times that just reminds me in such a clear way how good God is, how good it is to be alive, and yes, how good it is to be an American... and in that order.

Love you guys.
Lookin' forward to your Bill Clinton pics, Ma! :)