Cole’S Law Blog

Ed. Note:  The following piece was written in the days following Inauguration 2009.  A lot has changed since then and it’s unfortunate that this piece chronicles an Inauguration that was a blip in the past year instead of the catalyst many of us thought it could be.  Instead it’s just “hope” (or false hope) in a time capsule.

I. Missing Lay-Ups

Tulsa is up one.  Memphis has the ball.  Fifteen seconds left.  Anderson is dribbling, he passes to Taggart, 10 seconds, 9 seconds, back to Anderson, he dribbles at the top of the key, 8, 7, 6 seconds left, he’s still there jabbing in with his pivot foot and pulling it back again, dribbling lazily, lulling his defender to sleep, Anderson waiting to make his much anticipated drive to the basket, five seconds left, now four…

“BARACK OBAMA MOTHERFUCKERS!!!” yells the balcony two doors down.  Even with the door closed I can hear it.

“OBAMA MOTHERFUCKERS!!!” yells the balcony once again.  You can hear the bubbles going and the chamber clearing.  A girl laughs.  Someone coughs.

It’s January 13 and there’s something in the air.  You can smell it, you can hear it.  There’s a buzz about town and it’s not just the second hand follow-your-nose tranquility that any ordinary night on my balcony affords.  It’s a week before inauguration and I’m already catching a cold from everyone else’s OBAMA fever.

“OBAMA!  B-Y-O-BAMA!” says another.

I duck my head back inside the apartment, closing the door and collapsing back on the couch to watch the highlights.  I pick up the remote control and turn the volume louder.

II. Triple Threat

For those readers who are not basketball savvy, triple threat is the ready position where the player with the ball is in the best position to pass, shoot, or take his man off the dribble.  Watching the replay, Memphis’s Anderson was in triple threat before he made the buzzer beater.  More pertinently, I am referring to the three headlining events of the weekend.

So what makes inauguration weekend a triple threat?  Well, the most enticing choice, let’s call it the jump shot option, is the inauguration of our forty-fourth president Barack Obama, the second (pass) being Martin Luther King Day, and the third being the actual journey to and from inaugural events, a spectacular nightmare in and of itself that will reduce yours truly to a dribbling idiot.

Despite all the logistical nightmares and additional uncertainties, I’m optimistic about inauguration weekend.  DC is not a big city and there are times when even the most populated parts of the city appear utterly devoid of intelligent life.  (insert your own political joke here)   There’s a vibe that DC gives off that could rival even the most tightly fastened areas of the Bible Belt.  It’s a city that tells you to look but not to touch, a place where you always feel like there is a limit as to how far you can press things.  But this week is different.  You can feel it, a half-foreboding, half-bemused anticipation of what’s to come.

Some dissenters would be quick to call this a Triple Threat Weekend in its most derogatory usage, a defcon 4, code burnt umber sense of the term.  By their reasoning you can either get shot at the inauguration, shot on MLK day, or shot on MLK Blvd.

III. America’s Choice: A Concerted Effort for Recovery

I live in a building with college students, diplomats, and people who wish they didn’t live with college students and diplomats.  On Friday, I take a cab from there to Rumors, a bar near Dupont Circle.

When I arrive I’m immediately annoyed about the $5 cover and become increasingly more pissed off when there are no Inauguration drink specials.  Not one Obama-bomb to be found.

There are little Budweiser banners placed around the bar.  They look like NASCAR flags and read from top-down

“Line 1: Inauguration 2009.  Line 2: Budweiser Logo.  Line 3: January 20.  Line 4: America’s Choice.”

I’m basically drinking alone now as my friend talks to a fake platinum blonde and her ugly friends reveal generic arm tattoos of Asian descent.  I’d be hard-pressed to escalate things without interminable gobs of America’s Choice.

I’m on my fifth or sixth bottle of AC when the DJ comes over the mic:

“OBAMA! OBAMA! OBAMA!”  The opening piano lick for “Don’t Stop Believin’” comes over the speakers.  “This is for the President!” says the DJ.

The next morning, I get a call from E-Lowe.  When someone’s been your friend since you were 12, it’s an unwritten rule that you have to pick up the phone, regardless of what your current condition may be.  America’s Choice did not agree with me at all and I want to remember Saturday morning as much as I don’t remember Friday night.  I had just finished solidifying an intimate relationship with my roommate Kohler, ridding myself of AC for the past six hours.

“Sup man?”

“Not much,” I manage to croak out.  I pop two Advil and head over to the kitchen sink, putting down the phone and proceeding to drink from the faucet.

“So, what are you up to tomorrow?”

“Nothing.  You?”

“Well I’m trying to go to this concert for the inauguration.  You interested?”

“Not really.”

“Come on man.  It’s Bruce!”

“Fuck Bruce!” I say.

“Alright, well, looks like it’s just me, Sara, and her friends then.”

I’ve had a sudden change in heart.  I dress quick and hop on the Metro.

I’ve always loved the quasi-futuristic architecture of the Metro station but today something feels a bit off.  The corridor is covered in corporate banners and swarming with annoying pamphleteers.  IKEA has bought out the entire Terminal, lining the walls with banners and a slogan meant to tie-in with the Inaugural spirit:

CHANGE STARTS AT HOME

In the banner’s background is a well-lit room with sunlight coming in from the outside, sun-splayed on an ergonomic chair, one do-it-yourself beige coffee table, and a two-piece sectional couch with Swedish lamps.  I run up the escalator before I develop Stockholm Syndrome for a Poang Chair.

I get out onto the street and am met with similar trinket-peddlers.  There are stocking-stuffers galore and everywhere I turn I see the face of the next POTUS.  There are Obama shirts, Obama sweats, Obama winter hats, Obama gloves, Obama commemorative plates and Obama silver spoons, Obama decorative pins, and Obama surgical needles.  Most of the concertgoers walk by and laugh, some buy, some gawk, and others just don’t give a damn cause my feet hurt.

But by far the creepiest of all the street memorabilia would have to be the shirts and other assorted fanfare picturing the entire first family as they pose for an airbrush artist.  It’s one thing to have the President and his wife but the children are a different story.  These are not kids with show-biz parents getting bottle service at the Mickey Mouse Club.  They’re normal kids who jump rope and play red rover.  So for the future, please airbrush them out of the letterman jackets and surgical needles.

Sifting in and out of rush hour human traffic, I find myself boxed in by a horde of 200,000, lining a 2029 ft. expanse of Reflecting Pool.  Somewhere among this endless strum is E-Lowe, his girlfriend, and the promiscuous friends he promised.

It’s a one mile sea of people that stretches from the steps of the Lincoln to the flags at the Monument.  The atmosphere is like Mardi Gras except instead of boobs, beads, and massive numbers of chicks there are mini-American flags and massive amounts of Gore-Tex that obstruct even the most pronounced cleavage.  There are hardly any girls making out.

The ceremonies begin as a minister offers a prayer that no one can hear because something is wrong with the sound system.  The crowds chant goes from OBAMA! OBAMA! OBAMA! to LOUDER! LOUDER! LOUDER! Within 30 seconds the sound system is working and the gay minister’s, not that there’s anything wrong with that, mike cuts in at “Amen!”  Chanting always gets you what you want.  Shamans must get serious dome.  When all this inauguration business is done I’m going to chant until someone gives me a casino.

As we’re leaving the concert, some college kids behind us start singing “Don’t Stop Believin’.”  I’m reminded of America’s Choice and a lump automatically forms in my throat.

IV. Oohs and Aahs Pt. I: Just when I think I’m out…

At 11:30 on Martin Luther King Day I find myself startlingly awake.  I turn on SportsCenter just in time to see the Top Ten plays for the past week.  Holding the number one spot is the Memphis buzzer-beater.

My phone vibrates and it’s Suskind.  I completely forgot I’d agreed to house him and his sister for the night.  I scrape away the empty beers lining the cocktail table, dirtdevil the couch, and throw some juice boxes into an already overflowing receptacle.

The Oohs and Aahs Soul Food restaurant is on 11^th street in a section of the city called the U Street Corridor.  Before Marion Barry smoked the majority of crack off the streets, this was not considered a good area.

Oohs and Aahs is a vestige of the old U Street, a soul food restaurant with a worn-out sign and an old luncheonette countertop where you can watch them fry your chicken and whatever else you want them to throw in oil.

There are two other parties in the room.  One is a group of three white people, around 25-27, the other a group of late 30s, early 40s black men and women.  We’re all eager and waiting for our food to come, talking quietly and casually glancing at a 42 inch plasma tuned to CNN.

V. Oohs and Aahs Pt. II: They pull me back in!

“We now go live to Calvin Coolidge High School in NW Washington where the students sat down for a special assembly.  They were told only that they would have a special guest speaker…I don’t think they were expecting this.  President-Elect Barack Obama and the future first lady were there to greet them.  We now go live to that school assembly.”

To hear him talk you know why Barack Obama is the new Vito Corleone.  It’s the same reason why The Beatles became The Beatles and Herman’s Hermits became hermits, it’s why I believe The Godfather Part I but don’t believe in The Godfather Part III, and it’s why that when I look at Barack Obama and the way he looks at his wife, I know that this is a person who might actually care.

Nobody is talking in the Oohs and Aahs and it’s not because they just got their food.  I’m not listening to whatever the hell Suskind’s sister just said and I’m only slightly pissed that the waiter gave my food to the beard with the guy.  She keeps talking as apparently I’ve responded verbally to whatever she just said.  At least I look attentive.  But that’s not where I am right now.  I’m at a small school just three miles away.  I’m watching The Godfather.

(There was a Part III to this segment but it really sucked and should’ve never been written.  Sofia Coppola was involved.  I don’t want to talk about it.)

VI. Absolut® Pandemonium with Obama Nation

I can’t sleep.  We’ve decided to call it a night and have an early wake up call for the following morning to land a prime spot on the Mall for optimal viewing of a jumbotron broadcasting the inauguration.

For someone who gets up at 2 p.m. on off-days, I’m wide awake when my alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m.  I pick up my ski jacket and place the following contents into the pockets:

3 used handwarmers from prior Redskins game, wallet,      Blackberry, a 2.75    ml of vodka, and a set of keys.

We walk with thousands of others who, like us, have no idea where on Earth they’re going.  At 5:45 a.m. the three of us finally set foot on the National Mall, which we share with a few thousand other early-risers.  People aren’t walking so much as frolicking, skips and caprioles on a dewy sheen of short grass and gravel.

By 8:00 much of my fanfare dies down and I’m so cold I want to punch Suskind in the face for convincing me to get here so damn early.  At least the vodka works.

I’m sitting Native American style in a cramped space with what is later said to be approximately 1.8 million other people who voted, who believe in someone, and whose absentee ballot isn’t still sitting on their dining room table, unmailed.

From the looks on their faces and the timeliness of their arrival, people are looking to believe in something.  Still, despite what Mary J. Blige sang the other day, I feel that I’m bigger than just this.  I’m bigger than 1.8 million American flags waiving on a national landmark at the most significant historic moment since 1863.  It’s a time to discount the second-guesses of the past, the who’s better lists, and the trivial concerns of camera phones.  Leaning on each other isn’t the answer; self-reliance and ingenuity are the cornerstones of the American spirit.

When the proceedings end I just want to go home.  The past six hours have been an inspired mess, the most memorable blur I will have for quite some time.  The red light in the back goes on and a poet comes out to talk about bus stops and ice cream cones during summertime.  The room clears into the bottleneck paths of museums that lead to a Metro Station far, far away.  Somehow I’ve managed to get through the fracas unscathed.  For now.

VII. Overtime

Maybe you could tell me why I wrote it all.  You’ll say I’m a jackass, a leech, an ironic hipster-hating self-loather, an apathetic douchebag who wants nothing more than to sign his name on the cast of this broken world.

If none of these descriptions rings true then at the very least we can agree that I’ve had too much time on my hands.  But if you haven’t had these thoughts then you are lying to yourself and that even in the deepest clutches of human joy and optimism there must be a check and balance.  Our forefathers knew this.  It’s what the executive branch is for; to provide a check to the groupthink of Congress and all the others who’ve denigrated Triple Threat Weekend with their booze and balls, a balance to the assault on reason that has pervaded us.  America has made its choice.  It’s time to stop dribbling and take a shot.

I’m not sure it was the speech but I feel like I got that kick in the ass this weekend.  At the very least, I want to kick somebody’s ass and I certainly wouldn’t mind getting some ass.  But in the end I’ll probably wind up feeling like an ass and getting it kicked.  Sitting on the couch certainly won’t help.  So hand me that Sharpie and give me your fucking cast, I’m signing up…

Right after the game.  It just went into OT.