One of the primary reasons I voted for Barack Obama, was my hope that any judge President Obama selects for appointment to the Supreme Court would be smart, precise thinking and equipped with a deep knowledge of our Constitution and legal precedent. I am still hopeful that that will happen. But for now, in an ironic twist, it’s unlikely that our Commander-in-Chief, whose self-identified race has certainly raised the volume in discussions of how race is lived in America, will have the opportunity to fill any Supreme slots before the next racially charged Court session begins on April 20th. Over the next two weeks, the Supreme Court will hear cases that cut to the heart of most current discussions and arguments taking place in coffee rooms, living rooms, locker rooms and in chat rooms, including: immigrant rights, affirmative action and predatory lending.

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reaffirm or reshape the nation’s civil rights laws as it faces a rare confluence of cases over the next two weeks, including a high-profile challenge brought by white firefighters who claim they lost out on promotions because of the “color of their skin.”

The cases also touch on the Voting Rights Act, the need to provide English classes for immigrant children and, more tangentially, discriminatory mortgage lending.

The most emotionally charged case is from the New Haven, Conn., firefighters, whose complaints define the real-life quandary that sometimes accompanies government efforts to ensure racial equality.

The firefighters accuse city officials of violating civil rights laws and the Constitution by throwing out a promotions test on which they performed well but no blacks scored high enough to be eligible. The city responds that relying on test results with such wide racial discrepancies could have violated federal law and left them open to being sued by minorities. Source – Washington Post, High Court Poised To Closely Weigh Civil Rights Laws

Full reliance on standardized tests is a slippery slope. So much of our problem solving talents and skills lie in the must more difficult to measure nuance of our abilities. I still clearly remember when I had my IQ tested. I was about 8 or 9 years old. Following the test I was tracked “gifted” because I answered about 10 questions correctly they included: Who is the author of ‘Winnie the Pooh.’? A series of analogy questions including a reference to “as cup is to saucer…” And the ability to correctly punctuate the following:

it that is is it that is not is not is that not it it is

I am still not convinced that those and other questions had anything to do with intelligence. I grew up in a home awash with books. Books were purchased for me at any time even when we had little money. My books were lined up on shelves and I would retreat to my room and read. I am not sure I would have been somehow less intelligent if I had not had the spines of ‘Winnie the Pooh’ series staring out at me for so many years of my childhood.

But fast forward to now and to standardized testing for adults. Of course a basic knowledge of technical firefighting knowledge is essential. And if the prep materials are standardized and widely available at a not exorbitant cost, I believe evaluators could expect for the outcomes for a fair test to not skew in any particular racial direction. However, if the rules are established that a specific score will result in a specific outcome, a managerial position for example, I believe it is patently unfair to change the rules when you don’t like the complexion of the outcome. Perhaps modification of future tests would be more appropriate. More details:

The lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci, is a veteran firefighter who said in sworn statements that he spent thousands of dollars in preparation and studied for months for the exam. Ricci said he is dyslexic, so he had tapes made of the test materials and listened to them on his commute.

The firefighters’ longtime attorney, Karen Lee Torre, did not allow her clients to talk to reporters — other than for a segment on conservative commentator Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News — but Ricci said in a sworn statement, “I relied in good faith on the promise that effort and not race would determine who would be promoted.”

When the results of the 2003 exams came back, only white firefighters, including one who is Hispanic, scored high enough to be considered for the openings for lieutenants and captains. All 27 black firefighters who took the test were below the cutoff.

After tumultuous public hearings, with minority groups arguing that the tests were flawed and the white firefighters saying officials were caving to political pressure, the city’s Civil Service Board voted not to certify the results. The promotions remain in limbo.

Source – Washington Post High Court Poised To Closely Weigh Civil Rights Laws

I suggest you read the entire ‘Washington Post’ article for yourself. The story of ‘The New Haven 20′ and commentary is riveting.

Still, if recent rulings are any indicators, the Supreme Court is unlikely to provide any definitive judicial answers to these most passionately argued racial issues.

This article originally appeared on Carmen Dixon’s blog All About Race.

When the same company responsible for the beanie baby craze in the early ’90s released the “Marvelous Malia” and “Sweet Sasha” dolls earlier this year, it created a firestorm. The beanies hit toy shelves in January. Shortly thereafter, the White House issued a statement denouncing the concept of the dolls, which were promptly renamed.

The two dolls—part of the Ty Girlz collection, which includes an assortment of pleasing pop tarts, including “Bubbly Britney” and “Precious Paris”—were notable for another reason. The $10 beanies happened to be the first non-white girlies in the line.

No one really bought Ty’s excuses (the company claimed the dolls weren’t exact replicas of the real-life Sasha and Malia), but many people did express interest in buying the beanies.

“I ordered them because customers called in and asked for them, before they even saw the dolls on the news,” said the owner of Emily’s Hallmark in Danville, CA. “I have daughters and don’t think it’s fair, but hey, what sells, sells.”

She ordered a batch of the dolls and expected to get them on the shelves in February, but those plans were cut short when she received a letter from Ty, saying that—in deference to the Obama family—the dolls had been renamed “Marvelous Mariah” and “Sweet Sydney.”

All names aside, some argue the dolls would have done more good than harm.

“For me personally, the issue is much bigger than exploitation,” Denise Gary-Robertson, the president of Dolls Like Me, an online toy retailer specializing in multicultural dolls, said. “Here we have a manufacturer that has not formerly produced black dolls and now they have two black dolls named after two gorgeous black girls. What does that say to black girls around the world? That says, ‘I now matter. I’m more important.’”

“This is an issue of self-esteem and one of reflection,” she continued. “Around 30 to 40 percent of all children in America are children of color. There should be no manufacturer producing a line of dolls that doesn’t include dolls of color.”

Robertson, who describes her business as “a toy retailer with a conscience,” said she was not exploiting the Obama girls by selling the Ty dolls.

“We were celebrating the fact that Ty is now producing black dolls,” Robertson stressed. “It was secondary that those dolls were named Sasha and Malia.”

The fervor to own the Sasha and Malia dolls is arguably a reflection of the Obama Effect. Blackness is now more desirable than ever, and the rise of the Obamas has unveiled a market that has always been around, but was previously ignored.

Jezebel recently reported a six percent increase from last year in the use of black models on the runways of this year’s fall fashion shows in New York. In an industry previously criticized for its gross lack of diversity, 18 percent of all models this year were women of color, and according to Jezebel, black models were the second-largest ethnic group on the runways.

In the case of the Sasha and Malia doll controversy, Dolls Like Me has been in business for three years and has never carried a Ty beanie in its inventory of 300-plus dolls—because the Ty dolls were always white. Robertson argued that the lack of multicultural inventory on the U.S. market is damaging to the self-esteem of children of color, which is why she’s in business—and business is good.

Robertson said the well-known Clark doll experiments of the 1940s—when most black children tested preferred to play with “pretty,” white dolls because they considered black dolls “ugly” and “bad”—were recently repeated and yielded the same disturbing results.

“I feel that, as a mother, Michelle Obama was well within her rights to do what she did,” Robertson said. “But her role and my role are are very different. She only had to look out for two black girls. I’m looking out for all black girls—that’s where I am.”

Synolve Craft, a freelance writer with a degree in African studies and a contributor to the Deep South Moms Blog, couldn’t disagree more.

“As a parent of two children, I think this is crazy,” Craft said. “You can’t say you’re going to do something for all black children and exploit two black children in the process.”

Craft argued that positive community role models, not dolls, nurture self-esteem in young people, and folks making a profit at the expense of two high-profile children do not embody the values she’d want to instill in her children.

The Obamas, who are indeed the impetus for the rising profile of blackness in America, represent a success—but also a problem. The fact that little Sasha and Malia were so swiftly singled out to be role models for the young black community, simply because they are a first in this country’s long history, hints at the gaping need for black representation in popular culture.

Robertson and Craft take different routes, but ultimately arrive at the same point: There should be more Sashas and Malias to choose from—we shouldn’t have to single those children out to be positive black role models—-and there are, we just haven’t taken the blindfold off to notice. Until now.

“As for Michelle Obama, I think her anger is misplaced,” Robertson argued. “She should be calling out all the manufacturers who aren’t making dolls that reflect children of color. Up until this point, I’ve been the only voice going to manufacturers saying, ‘Wait a minute. When are you going to make some dolls of color? When are we going to recognize that not all of the children in America are white? When are we going to get that?’”

WOW.

Things are moving even faster than I thought in the re-ordering of the American economy. It’s four PM on Wednesday 3/18/09. Although many people don’t know or don’t yet understand, the link between government and finances has been totally changed.

Yes, we had AIG (see below), and the foreclosures.

But now… check this…. the U.S. government is buying a TRILLION DOLLARS in mortgaged backed securities in order to create instant liquidity in the markets (read: cash you can borrow to buy a home or a market.) I never thought the hip hop chant to “make money money, make money money mon-EEE” would become so literal.

Yes, I am a news geek; and a politics geek; and I am astounded. I linked from the NYT to this handy dandy URL you can share with your friends. tinyurl.com/USmakes-fakes-Money.

I wrote the article below earlier this morning. Already it seems dated. But bear with me as I breathe.

F

==========

I’ve been guesting on WNYC’s syndicated morning show The Takeaway with John Hockenberry. (Adaora Udoji is on maternity leave.) We’ve been talking a lot about branding. Some folks told us about the brands they missed (“Bit ‘o Honey” and the “Reggiebar” candy bars each got a vote).

Other folks talked about what they would rename/rebrand “too big to fail/too small-minded to give up the multimillion dollar bonuses” insurer AIG as…

Amigos in Gold

Amateurs Implementing Guile

Anti Inflammatory Geeks

A**holes Invoking God

As If God

Appalling In Greed

(And that’s just from the journalists!)

Listeners wrote, among others:

Absolutely Insufferable Greed

Angry Investor Gross

But let me take a turn here.

Yesterday, I was invited to address the US Mission to the United Nations, now led by Ambassador Susan Rice. I was part of a panel that examined how and why then-Senator Obama won the Presidency; and what lay ahead. I spoke about Brand Black, or blackness as a mature political brand, just as hip hop is now a mature media brand. Every product/entity/person who wants market share starts out in the experimental, spaghetti against the wall.

Of all the people who start blogs, relatively few keep it up and even fewer find a longterm audience. If they do find an audience—not just bloggers but political candidates, preachers, musicians, etc.—then they enter the brand-building phase. They try to bring on a core constituency first, then expand that constituency. For hip hop, the core constituency was urban blacks/Latinos, adding graf artists, b-boys and b-girls, streetcorner wisemen…. and then multicultural urban youth… and then multicultural global youth. As hip hop has become a mature brand, you see stars like Ice Cube and Queen Latifah moving into mainstream family-oriented film; P. Diddy and Russell Simmons crossing onto Broadway; Simmons into philanthropy and spirituality; and Jay Z into the economic CEO/Beyonceed celebrosphere. My argument in the speech, which I will elide, concerned the use of hip hop as a feedback loop that helped make blackness a culturally mature brand that had political capital.

Since this is a blog post and not a dissertation, peep this:

First, check out Jay Z solo.

Then, Obama on the stump.

Then the remix:

When Obama first made the gesture, it split the world into three camps: people who thought he actually had dirt on his shoulder (maybe three people or less worldwide); people who got the intent of the gesture (back up off this; you don’t matter); and people who got the specific reference to hip hop and the 2003 hit by Jay Z.

The use of hip hop signifiers and metaphors, as well as support from the hip hop community, really drove the Obama campaign at first. The hip hop generation (or at this point, really two generations) were the “early adopters” of Brand Obama. The Civil Rights generation were later adopters of Brand Obama. And Brand Obama stood on…. the shoulders of the Civil Rights generation, who took blackness from an exiled/discredited “brand” among anti-integrationist whites to a nearly-mature brand that lacked one thing… the sense that a black man could be president.

I didn’t know that Obama would win. No one did. But Obama used hip hop to leverage early youth support, which in turn built numbers for what political scientist William Jelani Cobb of Spelman calls “The Black History Month Massacre” (Obama winning 10 Dem primaries and caucuses in a row), which in turn helped justify Civil Rights generation political figures/superdelegates like John Lewis switching their allegiance from Sen. Clinton to Sen. Obama.

In the end, Brand Obama leveraged hip hop to take the White House… a final signal that “Brand Black” is mature and thriving. What happens next? I don’t know. But I’m eager to see, hear, and write more, especially now that politics has a soundtrack.

Who compares himself to another in one breath, only to whack the same person from behind in another? It’s low. It’s dirty. And this is the behavior of the Republican Party’s new wonder boy—the kid they’re supposedly grooming to run for the White House in 2012? Good luck.

And, uh, if the American people “can do anything,” then why the hell was Jindal talking to us like we’re a bunch of illiterate children? We. Can. Understand. You. At normal talking speed. Governor. (But if you feel the itch to dumb yourself down more in the future—by all means…)

Look. We all bow down to Obama. He’s THE MAN right now. The big enchilada. The head honcho. Numero uno. A kick-ass politician with a bold, bad-ass plan to get this country back on track. He’s the ultimate Daddy Mac.

We. Get. It.

But there’s getting it, and then there’s killing it—which is exactly what a supporter at last week’s town hall meeting in Florida did. She was never singled out to have a moment with the mic, but she stood up anyway and let the creepiness creep on out.

There’s a fine line between sincerity and psychosis.  Watch this chick skip over to the other side with three short words and a long, uncomfortable stare. As they say—it’s the quiet ones we need to worry about…

As if Obama’s rise to the presidency needed anymore excitement, the folks over at Newsweek took a cue from MTV and gave the good prez his very own reality show. You might think The District wouldn’t be as juicy as The Hills or The City, but let’s remember—this is Washington, where congressional cat fights and shit-talking senators abound. Purrrfect!

Episode One (below) follows “Team Obama” as they man up to attack the economic crunch “Team George W. Douche” left behind. Don’t be fooled by Obama’s long, blank stares—that’s just the reality show way of indicating that drama is upon us—because the man is always up to the task. One trillion dollar stimulus bill at a time.

Eat your heart out, Lauren Conrad.

…That ain’t the question.

Obama is a man with a mission. He’s gonna pass this damn stimulus package, and he’ll pass it whether the Republicans like it or not.

“The time for talk is over, the time for action is now,” Obama said in a speech at the Energy Department yesterday.

An $800 billion version of the bill swept through the House without a single GOP nod of approval last week. It’s now in the Senate (with a new price tag of nearly $900 billion) and Obama’s been doing his darndest to woo some Republicans—but it’s going to take more than a bipartisan Super Bowl party and a few one-on-one parent-teacher conferences to get those conservative penny-pinchers on board.

A bipartisan group of senators is currently working to cheapen the package by cutting social initiatives that won’t immediately stimulate the economy. Blah, blah, blah. As time drags on, Obama’s getting more and more antsy to throw around some money, create a few jobs, and pop a few economic anti-depressants.

And so the Dems are gearing up to take a vote and pass the bill, with or without Republican support.

“Not … so … fast … !” some say—and around we go again …

That model of totally unbiased and legit broadcast news reporting—Fox news—has done it again. When the network’s Detroit affiliate called in its resident “Love Doctor” to discuss the ins and outs (so to speak) of Barack and Michelle Obama’s relationship, the sexpert backed into a Freudian flip. Pay attention MSNBC. Lookee here CNN. This is “hard-hitting” journalism at its finest:

Traveling out of DC on the morning after the Inauguration was actually more difficult than getting in. As we waited thirty minutes to get a free cab, I noticed this sign in the trash. Apparently even the anarchists are excited about President Obama! I had a long cab ride in traffic to BWI while poor Jared had to endure a charter bus ride from hell to get a good airfare out of Philly.

On my flight to Houston I sat next to an African American woman who let me borrow her newspaper so I could read the full text of Obama’s speech. I’d missed a lot of it during the ceremony because the sound system didn’t quite reach where we were standing. After reading it, I broke into tears, my first emotional moment of the whole trip.

I was firstly just so grateful that we had chosen a leader who is intelligent and speaks in complete, coherent sentences. Second, I share more values with the President than not—a first for me when it comes to political figures. Third, the country is facing arguably the greatest challenges we have ever confronted, but I sense more optimism and can-do-it-ness in rising to the challenge, than cynicism or apathy than ever before. And lastly, I was proud of America for doing the right thing—for electing the better man, and for overcoming racial bias to do so.

As I handed the paper back to my seat mate with tears rolling down my face I  said, “I am so grateful.” She said to me, “I’m so glad to be sitting next to you, honey. God bless you.” There was so much more communicated in that moment than what we said to each other—and I’m not sure I can find the words to describe it exactly. But we found ourselves on the same side, beyond the divides that would have previously kept us from connecting. We transcended something so ubiquitous and tacit that we don’t even have a word for it. Its one of those things that only becomes noticeable when you suddenly sense its absence.

As she continued to read the paper, she showed me a story about Angola Prison where the inmates had been allowed to watch the inaugural ceremony on TV. The picture showed a man who has been in prison since 1957, doing a life sentence for two murders. She reminded me that according to the US Department of Justice, 32% of black men will enter prison during their lifetime, as opposed to seventeen percent of Hispanic males and six percent of white males. Yeah, there’s that, I thought. How are we going to change that one? But what I said out loud was, “You know, I think that is going to change too.”

What happened next during my four-hour layover in Houston reinforced that nascent hope, when I struck up a conversation with a young African American man behind the cash register at a Mexican restaurant. At first I picked up on his energy of subtle hostility, but when I made a comment about Obama’s busy first day he broke out a huge smile and started talking to me like I was one of his homies instead of some white lady buying a taco. “My man ain’t wastin’ no time,” he said. “He got up and said, ‘We gonna get down to business, we got some work to do. We gonna make some changes today.’”

It was so awesome, he and I were suddenly “us” instead of “them.” Then he said something that blew me away. He said “Today I’m an American. I ain’t African American no more. Today, I’m an American.” “Right on, my brother,” I said and gave him a high five.

I think this might be the first evidence that a tectonic shift in race relations is taking place. And what is happening is redefining what it means to be American. I think we are going to see some amazing things on a human-to-human level, as long as we stay open and reach beyond our old ethnocentric divides to connect with others. Do the experiment for yourself and see what happens when you tell an African American stranger on the street how happy you are that Barack Obama is our new President.

The Has-Beens rallied for the Will-Be. Ashford & Simpson, the duet that produced the catchy “Solid” (as a rock) ditty back in the ’80s revamped the song and sang it for Larry King. Their vocals were a little stale, but they got one thing right: “The future looks ha-ha-ha-hawt!” (They’re not laughing. They’re just bringing st-st-st-stuttering back, ye-ah!)

THE SUPER STAR WHO TYPES LIKE A DAMN SERIAL KILLER JUST WANTED THE HATERS OF THE WORLD TO LET HIM BE GREAT AND ACKNOWLEDGE HIS GREATNESS BY NIXING THE CRITICISM AND BUYING THE UN-PRETENTIOUS LOUIE VUITTON (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) SHOES HE HELPED DESIGN (PLUG!). PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE, HE BEGGED, JUST GIVE HIM A BREAK!!! AND DON’T BOTHER TELLING HIM HOW BADASS HE WAS WHILE PERFORMING FOR OBAMA THIS WEEK. HE LOOKED DAMN GOOD IN HIS SUIT. HE KNOWS THIS ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!! PEACE OUT AND CAPS LOCK, B*TCHES!!!!!!!!!

Aretha Franklin went hat shopping, couldn’t find what she was looking for, and ended up throwing on this old thing, which kinda-sorta upstaged her performance on Tuesday. The hat already has its own Facebook fan club with over 18,000 members. Bow-yah! Move over Barack, methinks we inaugurated more than just you on Tuesday. America, make way for a new trend…

Guess who got their very own Jonas Brothers for being the most well-behaved first daughters of all time? (No, not the Bush twins. Obviously.) While Mom and Pop were making the rounds all over every dance floor in town on Tuesday, Malia and Sasha were watching High School Musical 3 with their gal pals and then embarking on a White House scavenger hunt that culminated with . . . the Jonas bros. So much for being “well-behaved.”

Speaking of the Bush twins, they got together and wrote a sweet note to the Obama girls, detailing the ins, outs, ups, and downs that come with being part of the American royal fam. Unlike their father, who also wrote a note to his successor, the Bush girls didn’t have to use “Hooked On Phonics” to get the task akomplished. Zing!

Ah, what a week. What a glorious, jam-packed, fulfilling, exciting week. Now it’s time to sit down, pat ourselves on the backs for a democratic job well done, and catch up on some much-needed shut eye while President Obama gets to work. Or…not.

Truth: I don’t care what went down in D.C. because we had some damn good times here in L.A. Let me explain.

All sorts of folks made it to the Mayan on Tuesday night: angels, devils, young, old, the bold and bedazzled, the mamas and the papas, the prepsters, the groupies, the stilt-walkers, the smooth talkers, and even a suited-up schmuck here and there. Anything and everything moved and mingled throughout the venue. We were a happy hodgepodge of mixed nuts.

“This is what liberation feels like, yeah?” screamed some dude into a microphone. And so, the night began.

The lights went down as the face of our new President took center stage on three big screens throughout the room. Most of us heard Obama talk the talk earlier in the day, but we couldn’t get enough of it. The room fell silent as we listened to his speech all over again. His words made sense of our madness—and we were hooked.

D.J. Motion Potion then pumped out the jams and infused bits of the speech into the mix. The crowd kept pace and let the new president take the lead. Words of hope and change punctuated every beat and we danced it up. We twirled and dipped. The clench of these past eight years—we let it rip. We let it all loose. Free at last. That’s what we were.

“What a great turn for our country!” exclaimed Gabriel Avenna, a high school teacher who had kickass $20 t-shirts on sale.  The tees read: “From abomination to  Obama-nation.” Avenna said he didn’t create the shirts with a profit in mind. He just wanted to raise awareness. “We’re finally going to regain the respect we lost over the last eight years,” he gushed.

Kathy Leonardo, a singer/songwriter decked out in a patriotic fairy getup, shared the same sentiment. “I’m so excited that suddenly Americans have opened their eyes,” she said with a grin. “And I love the fact that this is happening at night, so I can go out and party!”

Kathy Leonardo

The crowd kept dancing as the “visual symphony” took command of the floor. The music got faster and the beat bumped louder as a whirlwind of visuals flashed on and off the screens. All the images were made in the U.S. of A. They made me want to pat myself on the back—just for being an American. For voting for Obama. And for adding a new achievement to this country’s rich history.

And then—shh!—The Mutaytor.

The Mutaytor

If you haven’t seen this cirque-du-so-whoa! rock group, you need to. From the antics of the hoola-hoop contortionist to the sheet-climbing ballerina to the upside-down, fire-whirling, baton twirlers, this alterna-grunge troupe does it all. They jam, they dance, they strip a little here, then bump and grind over there. It’s talent in the raw, cool raunch all the way.

So what does The Mutaytor have to do with Obama?

“It’s art for the sake of art,” said Commander Dazzle, a Mutaytor groupie. “We’re coming out tonight because we’re inspired. Barack Obama is all about hope and what America stands for—freedom. Being cool to each other. That’s what we’re all about. That’s what this entire scene is about.”

Commander Dazzle

As I meandered out of the Mayan, I realized that Commander Dazzle had her finger on the pulse of the evening. The people I partied with were from all walks of life. I even shared a laugh with a 65-year-old robot maker who had no idea what he was getting himself into when he decided to attend the ball that night. But in the end, he was “very pleased” about partaking in the fun.

Bill Schonlau

We’ve spent so much time, money, and life on being at war with the world, each other, and our leaders, it’s about time we stop dropping bombs, reclaim our integrity, and foster an environment where the countries around the globe are just “cool to each other.” The allies, the enemies, the young countries, the old ones, the bold and bedazzled, the unstable stilt-walkers—again, why can’t we all just be “cool”? And Barack this party.

Naysayers, go ahead. Call me naive. But hey—take a look at us in L.A.

The world clearly has some catching up to do.

Tick, tock, tick, tock . . . Wasting no time, SuperPrez signed an order today to close down all secret prisons and detention camps monitored by the CIA. The order also puts an end to all the coercive interrogation tactics implemented throughout the Bush regime.

One small executive order by Obama is indeed one giant leap for America’s comeback, but the plan has its snags. Obama and company still haven’t decided what to do with the dangerous prisoners who can’t be tried in American courts, or how to prevent other countries from torturing transferred prisoners. These matters will be revisited at a later date, but for now, let’s just be happy that we’re finally out of the wilderness and on our way back to civility.

Click here for more deets on Obama’s decision and overall badass-ness.

It’s been an incredible experience. I’ve produced concerts and events for years and I’ve never seen anything like this. The sheer number of people was amazing. Lisa Chacon, my tour partner, and I headed out to the inauguration a little later than planned and ended up walking the entire way there from Dupont Circle. We’re both into walking, so a few miles didn’t seem like such a big deal. Watching all the people streaming to the Mall with smiles, cheers, and this incredible joy, made this long march easy. This lasted till about the time we got to the Third Street Tunnel. They had closed it off on the other end and as we got about two hundred feet in you couldn’t see clearly what was happening and there was no signage.

The tunnel just started filling with people and you could feel the anxiety levels rise as hundreds of people decided like us that being stuck in a tunnel with thousands of people wasn’t on the agenda for the day. It would have been nice to have had some people communicating to the crowd because this led to complete confusion. There are only certain streets that cross over to our destination, and after spending an hour finally getting through one check point, we were told that we had to literally go back to where we came from, because the tunnel was THE ONLY WAY to the Silver Ticket area!!!

So our very own Long March to Freedom began. After literally standing for hours neck to neck with people moving ten feet every few minutes we managed to slip into the coveted Silver Ticket area and see almost nothing.

It didn’t matter, though. What was incredible is how, through all of it,  everyone maintained such grace and humor. It was all about the people.

That got me thinking about how great it is that this man, Obama, can give so many people such hope and inspire them to really know that they actually matter. People cried. They shouted and booed Bush. People held each other up, and every face I looked in, I sensed a real connection. These kind if moments are so special, so incredible to share.

It really is amazing, You feel it, this has done more to create real connection between all kinds of people than anything I’ve ever seen. Now we’ve got real work to do, and the people seem ready for it!

While hoards of vendors are frantically trying to capitalize on the Obama-mania that’s sweeping the streets of D.C.— “Commemorative buttons? T-shirts? Ball caps? Condoms, anyone?”—one good-looking Indonesian stud needn’t lift a finger to bank on the inauguration of our 44th president. Why? Cuz he’s the spittin’ image of Obama.

Ilham Anas was an ordinary magazine photographer until Obama took the world stage, and now — he’s famous. People reportedly stop to take pictures with him all the time. In the following commercial, we see “Obama” get served up his fave anti-diarrhea medication. (Hey—given the enormous amount of responsibility the real Obama took on today, you understand . . .)

Give Bush the Boot

After going through travel hell to get to D.C. from Seattle, I decided to hit the Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend at the Washington Plaza. I’m not sure if this counts as an “inauguration party” but you gotta give those leather queens points for timing.

My very sweet and talented host Shea Van Horn has seen fit to line Lisa Chacon, my Obamarama Tour partner, and I up with a whole array of “other side of the track”-style parties and gatherings. So after tossing a few back with the Leather Boys we went to an “A-Gay” Party thrown by David Goodhand (nice name.)

I met a bunch of hot, married gay boys and girls who are thrilled that Mr. Obama is taking over this show.  Who knows: maybe we’ll  get marriage passed all around and we can really move on.

Next we hit a neighborhood bar filled with people watching the re-runs of yesterday’s big concert. Looked like a great show. Had I not dealt with travel drama all day I might have made it.

I have never seen so many married gay boys in my life. It’s weird actually. Where I come from, everyone seems to be single or in some variation of an “open” relationship. Something about this town seems to foster rowdy hot, married gay men. I think I’ll be coming back to visit. Maybe some of that will wear off on me.

The energy everywhere is fantastic, people are all being so considerate and funny. I, for one, would love to see people take that vibe and incorporate it into their daily lives. It’s amazing to see so many people feeling excited again after all these years of fear and gloom and  still more fear.

Lines, lines and more lines for Inauguration Tickets

Today’s adventure was getting the cherished ticket I won in the Lottery. I had to rangle major lines of people all trying to do the same thing. I overheard a security guard telling some people that all the house office buildings connected underground and that we could go to any line at any building and get to the building we wanted—Rayburn in my case—by taking the basement routes. So I rallied the people in line around me and we headed out. People had been waiting for  up to three hours at this point.

We found a tiny line and while we were waiting we saw Arnold Schwarzenegger coming out which I took as a good sign that we were in the right spot. While traversing the basement corridors we ran into Barney Frank, the openly gay congressman from Massachusetts. He was with his spouse and they were on their way to the gym. Gotta love the gays!

Jared, Barney, and Shea Van Horn on route to getting my ticket

I ended up getting inside and getting my ticket all within an hour. I have a “Silver Standing” ticket. It’s real pretty, but lets face it, it’s way the hell back there. Not that I’m not grateful. It could be worse. [Ed note: Yeah, you could be me, watching on TV!] We’re going to have to hit the lines at dawn in order to get a good spot within our special ticketed standing area.

The view from Lisa and I's special Silver Standing tickets

Adults having some good clean fun

On the way to pick up tickets we passed a crowd tossing shoes at a huge inflated likeness of Bush with a sign that said, “Give Bush the Boot.” Hundreds of people were throwing shoes at him trying to catch them on his long nose. When someone made it, the crowd would lose it. People of all ages were tossing shoes.

I love this kind of thing! Simple, funny actions that cross generations and drive the point home. Everyone is very excited about Obama and excited to Give Bush the Boot, at last.