If you're still on the fence about whether to make the trek to DC for the inauguration, get your ass down here!
I arrived late at the We Are the One concert. We filled half the Mall. There were more music and movie celebrities than the Oscars, and all to fête this man. Every time Obama's face appeared on the JumboTron, the crowds roared. He's become Jesus, or Elvis, and the streets of DC, a sort of Graceland, with Obama hats, Obama t-shirts, Obama $100 bills, Obama bags, and Obama buttons with blinking lights.
U2 sang "Pride", and the man in amber shades told the audience, "This is not just an
American dream, it's an Irish dream, a European dream, an African
dream…a PALESTINIAN dream." I'm glad someone said it, because Obama has remained frustratingly mum. (Bono, if you're reading this, I'm sorry
for ever making fun of you!)
I'm no longer worried about braving the cold. It's amazing the body heat several hundred thousand people huddled together on an open green can make.
At night, I got down at theRoot.com ball at the National Museum of American History with the very talented Dr. Jelani Cobb. The exhibits were all open, and in between chocolate custards and Obama-themed pomegranate martinis, you could quite literally walk through the past and ponder all the ways the world is about to change.
I'm not the kind to run and up and take pictures with celebrities, but I am also not above the not-so-subtle ogle. I spent half the night star struck. Isaiah Washington is just as fine in person as he was on Grey's Anatomy! Samuel L. Jackson, Spike Lee, Larry King, Alice Walker, and of course Henry Louis Gates, Jr. were also in attendence.
The highlight of the evening was definitely seeing Christopher Hitchens (make a valiant attempt to) get down to the beats of Biz Markie. Times, they are a changin…
We ended the night at U-street, where revelers were pouring out of bars well after 4am. There were more street peddlers and makeshift portrait studios. "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, get your picture taken with a life-sized, airbrushed Obama!" The only restaurant with the business sense to stay open that late was a Congolese takeout joint, serving pizza and chicken tikka masala. It was packed, with a line to the door, but the disco lights and lingala rhythms made it all worthwhile.
