01.20.09: A Spatial Commodity or Mr. Obama Goes To Washington

[MuthaWit]

Hola, Loved Ones!



"This Is America!" - AJ Fielder

A student at the University of Washington answered a bonus question on his mid-term test that had profound implications for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration. The question was "Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?"

The student surmised that most religions insist that non-believers are destined to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, he projected that all souls go to Hell and of course, can never leave. Accessing health system data he determined that current birth and death rates insured that souls in Hell increase exponentially. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in a given space(Hell) to stay the same, the volume of the space(Hell) has to expand proportionately as gases(souls) are added. This left the student two possibilities and here they are for you to absorb:

"1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Teresa Banyan during my freshman year, '...that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you.' and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then, #2 cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze."

Of course, that brilliantly witty student received an "A" but he was wrong. LOL

Hell finally froze over Tuesday January 20, 2009 when a black man was elected President of the United States of America.

Every inch of space in downtown Washington, DC was Obamanized. One nation under a groove indeed (more or less).

I'm still living and breathing in a state of surreality. The URB ALT trip to Washington, DC was a wonderful success. Last night(1/20/09) around 12 midnight most of us started gathering outside Babies R Us (LOL) in wait of our charter bus to President Barack Obama's inauguration. It was colder than a mugh so some folks went down into the subway in an attempt to keep warm while others of our crew hung outside making introductions and convo. After placing a call to the bus company I found out that the confused driver was actually on his way to my house to pick us all up, uptown instead of downtown. He turned around and finally showed up so we all climbed aboard the bus excitedly.


I broke down our itinerary for the 59 passengers on the bus and we were soon rolling through downtown NYC, through the Lincoln Tunnel and onto the New Jersey Turnpike. One of my fears while putting this Get On The Bus trip together was getting us bogged down in the anticipated traffic wave towards DC. By and large things flowed busily yet smoothly, however, with our driver, Max, behind the wheel.

I dozed a bit only to wake as we were coming upon Newark. I was a bit surprised to see "Newark" on the roadsign because I knew that we had passed through New Jersey. Had we driven through some kind of time portal only to wind up driving through Newark, NJ again? No, we were rolling through Newark, Delaware instead. Just as that reality settled in blue lights flashed and Max pulled the bus over to the side of the road under the order of a police officer. What the?! The cop came up to the door of the bus and Max stepped out to talk to him. It was difficult to hear their conversation but let me set the scene for you. Max is an orthodox Jew. He wears a black Yarmulke and primarily speaks Yiddish. Our bus passengers were multi-ethnic but clearly majority black so my, shall I say, trust issues with police kicked in. Max entered the bus again saying that the cop had informed him that the rear brake lights on the bus were out. I asked him what could be done as he was rambling through a little storage cabinet looking for a brake light fuse or bulb. The cop came back and had Max pull out drivers license, travel log book and insurance papers. I couldn't believe that this was happening and certainly didn't want our passengers alarmed.


Max weirdly asked Tim to sit in the drivers chair and to put his foot on the bus brake. He went around the side of the bus and asked Tim to push the brake when he asked him to. Tim let up off the brake and the dadgum bus began to roll backwards. LOL Some of us screamed as Tim jammed on the brake in desperation. Max ran back into the bus and asked Tim if he could see him out of the side view mirror. Tim was somewhat confused(obviously) as to why he had been selected for brake duty. Max seemed very nervous at this stage. The inside of the bus was dimly illuminated by the blue lights from the police car. It was taking entirely too long for the situation to be resolved. The officer asked Max to come outside again and my mind automatically went into "Fargo" territory. The vision of gunfire eerily entered my mind. I imagined Max covered in the cops blood while running back into the bus screaming at Tim to "Gun it, man. Let's get the hell out of here." LOL As things would have it the cop ordered us to follow him to the next exit where we could go to a truck stop to repair the lights on the bus. He mentioned that if we couldn't fix the bus we could wait til sunrise when the tail-lights wouldn't be a hazard. The irony of us traveling to the presidential inauguration of the first Black Leader of a Western Power and getting stopped by the cops was not lost on me. LOL

Depositing us at the truck stop with a warning the cop drove off and we all kind of tried to stay busy as Max sought to repair the bus. It was a good time to get out and stretch our legs as well as buy something to munch on.






Max informed me that their charter bus office in DC would have to put in a new relay so we had to sit at the truck stop til daylight creeped in. No way could I have that cause everyone was righteously set on being in DC when Barack Obama was sworn in. Max and I came up with the idea of driving with the hazard lights on and we were off again. Nervously but no worse for the wear.

Finally we arrived in DC and instantly saw hundreds of thousands of people filling the streets as they headed towards the Capital area. We found our parking space and exited the bus in anticipation of the upcoming ceremony. Our initial plan was to try to keep as many of us together as possible.




My brother, Jim, is the head of the film department of Benjamin Banneker Academy in Brooklyn. He brought 13 of his best high school students along for the trip. The sheer number of people and street closings in the city made it impossible to keep everyone together.

We'd walk (very very very slowly) for a few feet and someone would get swept off into the sea of humanity not to be seen again until much later in the day. Ultimately, Jim decided to focus his energy on the keeping his students together with all of us adults hanging out in whatever groups we could manage.


My crew pretty much ended up being YAMs, Gutty, YAMS' mom, Tim, JC(for a while til we lost him) and Justin(til we lost him too LOL).






The streets were crowded with interesting vendors of all nationalities bound together by their capitalist strand of Obama Merchandise.








After slowly working our way through the Capital streets we ended up on the crowded grounds of the Washington Monument where Ed Marshall was stationed and managing to shoot several photos of the throng of Obama supporters.

You know how folks are saying that Obama is the anti-Christ? I believe the idea is that a charismatic figure is supposed to come from the Middle East who will hold millions of people in his sway. It's all pretty laughable until you see the crowds going on as far as your eye can see. A mugh could retire if he received 50 cents from each person in attendance. It was awesome and truly a testament to Obama's mass appeal and potential Satanicity. LOL


We were just a 50 or so yards away from a Jumbotron monitor which broadcast a feed from the Inauguration ceremony that was happening in real time a few blocks away from us. It became an entertaining game to anticipate how the audience was going to react to the public figures who appeared on the screen. For the record: The Bidens(cheered), The Clintons(mild cheering), Elder Bushes(quiet respect),


Dick Cheney (loud booing and actual laughter that he was in a wheelchair. Apparently dude strained his back lifting boxes while moving out of his DC home. Call it a fateful good riddance accident. LOL Oh, also a lady standing beside us called Cheney "Darth Vader" as he rolled across the stage. Tim corrected her immediately suggesting that Cheney was more like "Emperor Palpatine, leader of the Sith." LOL) and W(loud booing which I found kind of sad actually).


Obama took the oath (was Judge Roberts drunk? How you gonna read the oath to the brother wrong? Geez),


Aretha sang (did her thang as usual),


Obama rattled off his speech (he seemed tired to me but hey, he's only the new leader of the free world) and Reverend Joseph Lowery gave a moving prayer that ended the inauguration ceremony when he intoned the following:

"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around (people laughed nervously), when yellow will be mellow (people cracked up), when the red man can get ahead, man (people were keeling over with laughter especially Joe Biden!) and when white will embrace what is right (rimshot and crash!).

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: Say amen

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: and amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen! (Cheers, applause and a few nervous looking VIPs.)


After Reverend Lowery's speech it took Tim and I well over an hour to work our way through the crowd across the Washington Monument field, pass the fences that had us all boxed in and to the freedom of the seriously congested streets. During this process we saw guys jumping across the tops of the porto-johns and also people ripping some of the fences apart so they could slip through the wire. By the time we escaped the monument area we were pretty much frozen and exhausted. We'd been in DC for about 8 hours and my butt had seen and done enough. LOL


All I wanted at that point was to find something to eat and somewhere warm to sit. LOL JC and I walked to the bus parking lot and found Max there watching an incredibly violent movie in which Michael Douglas played a secret service agent who was having an affair with the presidents wife. Considering Obama's desire to generate trust and good will from the governmental sector I wonder if political films such as "All the President's Men," "Wag the Dog," and "Traffic" among others will be going the way of the dodo bird? Probably not. So, anyways, I spent the rest of my time in DC on the bus conversing with the various passengers as they staggered in for preparation to return back to NYC. Much like the feeling that enveloped me during the Million Man March I was inspired by how gentle and kind the large number of people at the celebration managed to be towards each other. Barack Obama's inauguration surely had 4 or 5 times the number of MMM participants but everyone still managed to conduct themselves with grace, good humor and civility. It was one of those days (yes, Michelle) where I really felt proud to be an American.


Our return to NYC was pretty cool (COPLESS) with some mughs sleeping all the way back and I do mean ALL THE WAY BACK. Drool and other liquids abounded. LOL. YAMS gave away complementary copies of her GrungeCake Crisis Magazine; Amanda Ray handed out free CDs; and Jim's students took their cameras and interviewed all of the passengers on the bus. I was impressed with the thoughtful questions and eloquent answers concerning the days events and this historic moment in time. Touching down in New York at the Babies R Us was almost sad as I felt that over the course of a few hours my family was extended by about 50 new people. I think we all feel a degree of pride and anxiety about Barack Obama's new leadership position. We're happy that he is there but also strongly want to see him succeed in the face of the harrowing obstacles his administration will confront. Being in DC when he took the oath was very important for me. It was a beautiful experience that I will be articulating insufficiently for some time to come.

Here is a list of the 59 folks that made the DC jaunt with us:

Amanda Ray, Julie Hardee, Shawn Stewart, Jasmina Chuck, George Lee, Tara Gadomski, Tanya Fields, the Kids, Fiance, Everton Wright, Lyndon Douglas, Jim Fielder, Derrayle Barnes, Tim Fielder, YAMS, Yams Mom, Justin, Robert Buchan, Mia Davis, Brandy, Son, Mazz and Husband, Rosalyn, Star, Rosalyn's Friend, JC, Keima Dunn, Milton, Mustafa, Ashely Mackey, David Grant, Malawa Johnson, Chris McNeil, Bethany Person, Bria Williamson, Megan Reneau, Shareen Akhter, Ishamael Islam, Kristian Winfield, Dvandra Morris, Selima McMillan, Jessica Jupiter, S. Stephens, D. Williamson, Sanela, Abigail, Maureen Cooper, Diana, Chirs, Natalia, Ed Marshall, Melonie, Jude and me.

Thanks as well to all of you that offered good thoughts and prayers for our safe passage. Hmm, who got next? Hopefully we'll see the first female president in, say, 8 years from now. RAWK!

Blessings,

Boston


View my page on URB ALT
PS If you want to REALLY get a good feel for the public figures amongst the crowd check out this cool link to a NY Times photo installation.