hi, i just got to dc. i took the train down from penn station in nyc, and the normally mundane amtrak commuter train was like backstage at the academy awards. in my train car alone were ian mckellan, keith olbermann, matthew modine, vanessa redgrave, and some people who i’m sure are big-deal tv celebrities, although i don’t actually know who they are. but the unknown tv celebrities looked really pretty and had glamorous personal assistants fetching water for them. the star on the train whom everyone wanted their picture taken with was keith olbermann. the trinidadian woman next to me said to him, ‘i’m from trinidad and i watch your show every day!’ and then keith olbermann punched her in the face. well, no, he didn’t, he nicely said, ‘thanks!’ and then continued talking about football with some other well-wishers.
i was just trying to make this blog a bit more interesting by writing that there had been fisticuffs on the train. no fisticuffs, just a ton of celebrities, all making the pilgrimage to the inauguration. and now i’m in dc and it’s obamalunacy. i mean, i love obama. i voted for him, i gave money to the campaign, i helped out with fundraising, and i’m almost obscenely thrilled that he’s going to be our next president. but the ubiquity of obamania in dc is almost absurd. every magazine has obama on the cover. every person you pass on the street is either selling obama merchandise or wearing obama merchandise. it’s ‘all obama, all the time’. which is awesome in a way, especially as the alternative would’ve been ‘all mccain/palin, all the time’, which would’ve been fucking awful.
regarding sarah palin, i did overhear keith olbermann saying on the train, ‘what a great idea! nominate the dumbest person in the united states as vice president!’ everyone laughed. me too. ok, i’m not going to be a cynic even if dc is buried under 50 feet of obamania. the truth is that it’s awesome. it’s overkill. it’s ubiquity in extremis. but it’s awesome. people are happy. people are smiling. movie stars are taking public transportation. people are selling homemade ties with badly rendered pictures of obama on them. cocktails are being renamed after anything even remotely obama-esque (like, ‘the cobamasmopolitan’, perfect for your politically savvy sex and the city fan or anyone who just likes vodka that tastes like a melted popsicle mixed with cough syrup). it’s awesome. and it’s particularly awesome that obama is one of us.
did you read ‘dreams from my father’? when obama was in school in l.a he hung out with punk rockers and got drunk and wore a leather jacket and listened to painfully loud music. when he moved to nyc he lived in a 4 story walk-up on 97th street and slept in an alley the first night he arrived. even in 2000 (just 8 years ago) he had to hang out in the parking lot outside the democratic national convention in l.a because he couldn’t get a ticket to the convention. he’s like everyone’s smart, cool friend who dabbled in drugs and loves billie holiday and is invariably the brightest person in the room. he’s smart, he’s thoughtful, he’s rational, and it seems as if is he might end up being a good president.
ok, i’m dj’ing later at the 9:30 club (late night, i go on at 1 a.m) so i need to go get some coffee. more blogging (i still virulently hate the word ‘blog’) later.
moby