Please forgive the continuing election post-mortem.
This is required viewing for anybody who confuses sporting a lapel pin for true patriotism (nicked from The Daily Dish). I question and doubt my government because I want it to be better, because its impact on the world is undeniable. All those baseball games where people stood respectfully and listened to a celebrity of dubious talent sing the national anthem were just practice for this moment. Eddie Izzard said about the American national anthem: “70% of what people react to is the look, you know, it’s how you look; and 20% is about how you sound; and only 10% is what you say.” But that crowd on St. Mark’s Place knew and believed 100% of what they were saying. The awkward pause before ‘banner,’ where the crowd collectively catches its breath to belt out the last three words of that phrase, gives me chills.
Courtney took this picture of me in the crowd at James Hoban’s. Even if in the future I am happily married with five children, this past Tuesday may still be one of the top 5 best days of my life.
And just as 25 years and 364 days is just a night of sleep away from 26 even, I know that though the president-elect is now preparing for the quantum leap into residence of the Oval Office, the deep, fundamental flaws that bore this cynicism and disbelief have yet to be addressed. The ecstasy that washed over crowds was just rain water; the ground supply still needs to be cleansed of its bitterness. Until then, I still worry. I’m always prepared to be let down, to be told I’m wrong again, to be part of a minority stewing over beer and waiting for vindication.
I’ve been listening to “Changes” by 2pac pretty much constantly since the morning of 5 November. My iTunes library is rarely sorted by artist, but that morning, it was, and this song was at the top of the list. I remember riding around Irvine with Rishi and Ky Vinh, this song blasting and us commenting in between laments about our respective existential crises that it was still relevant in 2005. That two lines of that song — and although it seems heaven sent, we ain’t ready to see a black president — were rendered moot in one night is why St. Mark’s Place burst into song, why I can’t stop grinning, why I stick my tongue out at the sky not to spite the heavens but to catch a drop of rain.
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