All good things must come to an end. But so do all bad things. Today Barack Obama becomes the first man with initials B.O. to take up the presidency of the United States and I become the first man to stop writing this blog. As I leave my post he assumes his. I hope that, like me, he does not get shot.
So because I'm eager to get this over with let's crack on with the "liveblogging" of the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America. BBC coverage all the way baby.
16:00 Huw Edwards looking severe. Old. I'm not sure I'm happy being represented on the world stage by a Welshman. Some footage of George W Bush slinking out of the White House for the last time flanked by a black guy. Huw tells us how cold it is in D.C. while Adam Brooks, the BBC Washington correspondent says the whole thing is "just breathtaking".
16:10 Huw introduces Obama's tort lecturer from Harvard and another academic. Are these our pundits? At least the lecturer looks like a film noir hero. There have been five references to JFK so far by the way. Matt Frei makes the patently untrue observation that although Obama is a gifted speaker no one can remember individual lines he's said in the past. I can reel off at least five. There was that one about hope and... uh, how we have to hope for stuff and shit. Then there was that one where he called Jeremiah Wright a bitch, I think. And loads more. I'm in the middle of something here. Ask me later.
16:15 The BBC is using a truly hideous background design that we are shown every time they cut to two cameras simultaneously. It looks like someone spat blood all over the screen.
16:20 Like everyone else watching I've just remarked on how old George Bush Snr looks. Look. Barbara Bush is having to wait for him to catch up with her. Suddenly we join Guardian columnist Hannah Pool who has been asked to explain what Obama's victory means to black people in Britain. No one ever asks me to speak on behalf of the black race.
16:25 Impressive crowd shot showing the reported nine billion people in attendance. Hooray, a man named Jon Sobel called the crowd "a sea of humanity". That old chestnut. Oh, George W Bush's face just appeared on the Jumbotron. And people are booing! Ha. Deep breath George. They can't hurt you now.
16:30 The Obamettes enter. They look just lovely. A "friend of the Obamas" tells us that the kids are "going to do just great" over the next four years. That's the kind of insight I tune in to the BBC for. Adam Brooks then tells us that "things are just about to kick off". By my calculations things don't "kick off" for another hour and a half Adam.
16:35 Michelle Obama dressed in... gold? No. I suppose that's lemon. Looking great as always. I like how she always looks respectful yet derisive.
16:36 Bush is approaching the sea of humanity! That's got to be a terrifying feeling for him. And understandably he looks anxious. Is it going to be like that scene in Gladiator where Maximus steps out from the dark, stone corridor into the glaring light of the Colliseum? We need a Ridley Scott 360 degree tracking shot of Bush blinking and looking up into the light as thousands of spectators boo and throw their shoes at him.
16:38 Dick Cheney looks somehow more sinister in a wheelchair. Michelle Obama basically stands eye-to-eye with Bill Clinton by the way. I wonder how Bubba feels about that? An announcer who's apparently borrowed his voice from the local NASCAR stadium introduces Bush and Cheney to the crowd and the president enters to Hail To The Chief for the last time. Am I only person who thinks that's an absurd piece of music. I mean, it kind of sounds comedic.
16:41 Our first glimpse of the man, the myth himself, now on the premisis. Obama is in the building. Looking focused. Looking intense. Looking... a bit like he's about to be sick? Is it my imagination or is he thinner than usual? Is it my imagination or have I just remarked on a minor fluctuation in the weight of a politician? But before Obama there must be Biden.
16:45 "Regular Joe" Biden. What a guy. As long as he keeps squinting and grinning everything will be alright. And then suddenly Barack Obama appears on the stage! We are treated with the first shot of a black person in the audience crying. The applause is deafening. Huw Edwards gets poetic. Evokes MLK. Diane Feinstein busts loose with some fierce rhetoric. The sole of someone's shoe hovers for a good five seconds above her right shoulder.
16:50 Pastor Rick Warren does his religious bit and, I think, does a good job. He pronounces Sasha Obama's name in the weirdest way possible though. SaSHA!
17:00 Aretha Franklin does her singing bit. Huw Edwards tells us she is the Queen of Soul in that same tone of voice BBC commentators use during Olympic opening ceremonies. "And now... we see dancers representing the twin elements of fire and water... and they look... simply remarkable." Oh, Biden's in everybody. Biden's in! So at this very moment do we have a Republican president and a Democratic vice-president? Somebody get back to me on this. Look at Biden. He needs a top hat and a cane.
17:07 Yo Yo Ma enjoying himself a little too much up there. Calm down Yo Yo.
17:08 Obama gets up to recite the oath. I feel nervous about him flubbing his lines. And then he flubbs his lines. To his credit it was apparently Chief Justice Roberts' fault for reciting the words in the wrong order. Still that didn't look great did it? Conspiracy theorists can now begin claiming that Obama never officially became president as he never officially took the oath. Do you see? DO YOU SEE? In any case Obama is now the new big cheese in world affairs.
17:10 The big speech begins.
17:30 Well I liked it. I was a bit underwhelmed at the halfway point. I thought he was pushing the stoic, no-time-for-smiles bit too far. However the moment the focus shifted away from "our challenges" and towards a more intangible, almost mystical patriotism I was gripped. The strongest segments to me were the passages addressing America's relationship with other countries. His message was one that Americans are desperate to hear: Let's show everyone what being an American is really about. Let's not beat people up unless it's absolutely necessary. Let's defend our culture against criticism, but at the same time let's hone and perfect it.
People are going to rave, if anything, about how somber the speech was and how it should be admired for its parity and restraint. I think these are the qualities to be taken for granted. What I believe made it a great speech was the sophistication of its message. Although the words themselves were rarely overtly poetic the actual picture being painted was a subtle and rewarding one. Where imagery was used it was used sparingly and with great effect. The line that sticks most in my mind was the one about offering an open hand if America's enemies were prepared to unclench their fists.
Did it deliver the one golden line historians were clamouring for? A line comparable to Kennedy's bit about doing stuff for your country, or FDR's assertion that fear was the only thing worth fearing? I don't know. Probably not. But I imagine Obama could have pulled out a line like that if he had wanted to. I think the idea of having one catchy slogan in the middle of the speech he ended up giving would have cheapened the product. At a push the line about "childish things" might be the one which ends up defining his inauguration. Or maybe the one about leaders being respected for what they build rather than what they destroy. Ultimately however this was a precise, firm declaration of national purpose, not a poetic flourish appended to his campaign.
There were at least three distinct kicks to George Bush's balls. The first was the statement about "restoring" science to its rightful place. I imagine this brought a tear to the eye of stem-cell research lab workers across the country. The second was the extremely eloquent comment about not sacrificing American ideals for homeland security. Thirdly he said, referring to America's relationship with other countries, that "power does not entitle us to do as we please". He may have been looking right at George Bush while wagging his finger as he said the last one.
If I had to sum up his speech I would say it revolved around the twin themes of hardship and reconciliation. A statement of anti-hubris. What made it doubly affecting was the antidote that Obama proposed was plainly one of love over hate - something which sounds unbelievably drippy when written down like this.
17:40 Adam Brooks makes superficial observations about how "grim" and "resolved" the speech was. We'll forgive him though. He's only had a couple of minutes to think what to say.
17:55 Dick Cheney is thrown into the back of a car. Goodbye you snarling, cold-hearted psychopath. The cold, impersonal limosine is an apt vehicle to drive him out of our lives.
17:58 Chris Hitchens' voice is suddenly in my ears. What's going on? Is he drunk? Hard to tell. His first comment is about the fear of Obama being assassinated. Thanks for bumming out all the BBC's viewers Chris. Hitchens then exposes himself as an Obama groupie by gushing about how "presidential" he looked giving his speech. That's pundit-ese for "hot" I believe. They obviously got Hitchens in to play devil's advocate and piss on everyone's parade but he's refusing to do so. Good for you Chris. Join the love cult.
18:00 This is the point at which I cease being interested. Someone is reading out the worst poem I've ever heard. It's distinctly less poetic than the speech that came before it. Well done event organisers, you've ensured the next generation of Americans will hate poetry.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
November 16
Today is my last day in America. Tomorrow I will enjoy myself by wandering around three different airports. Each stop-over is perfectly timed so that I'm never given quite enough hours to leave the airport, although the hours are sufficient to allow the onset of boredom. In truth I don't mind just hanging around departure lounges. Bearded men roaming round airports by themselves give security guards something to focus on.
As it is my last day I should do a great deal of reflecting. On the country and so forth. But I don't want to. I just want to leave this hell hole for good and authorise some kind of fire bombing so the gormless blobs that live here can ignite and cook in their own BBQ sauce. Just joking! America is great. When British people talk about America they are unreasonable. They tend to accuse them of being one thing just to create the illusion that Britain is the opposite. So Americans are unnuanced and tasteless, while we have irony, sarcasm and a wide selection of cheeses in our supermarkets. Americans are unhealthy and wasteful, therefore British people do regular excercie, eat our five-a-day and recycle compulsively. We even have the cheek to criticise American film and music - often using the prefix "American" to denote something big, noisy and vapid.
To make matters worse we also enjoy comparing the worst of American culture to the best of British. Let's imagine the opposite were true and Americans did the same thing to us:
"Yeah, American comedy is the best," they'd say. "We've got Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development. You guys have Coupling."
British people must accept that they are not Stephen Fry or Howard Moon. They are Benny Hill, guffawing at men in drag. Clapping as women's clothes fall off to musical cues.
And stop comparing London to everything, British people. London isn't England. Ipswich is England. So is Slough, I've heard. Next time you're about to say how Nasville is great but London has better nightlife, at least reach for an analogy that exists in the same weight class. Like Bradford.
I'm not besotted by American mainstream culture. If I see Along Came Polly again in this lifetime it will be too soon. But American culture is subject to Clooney's Law. For every three Oceans movies, a Syriana will be born. I like this set up. If American TV executives find it impossible to produce the Wire without first inflicting King of Queens on the world so be it. The last time I looked behind my sofa there was not an American CIA operative forcing me to watch an Adam Sandler film every time I want to put on the Aristocrats.
And people the world over will always want to watch or listen to crap. Bunging up America's crap spewers will only result in crap-deprived world civilians going elsewhere for their crap fix. I don't know about you but I'm happy these people get to watch big-budget, vaguely-clever American crap instead of dodgy Italian or Russian crap. Banning Nickleback, although satisfying, would not result in Nickleback fans developing taste.
George W Bush's eight years in power provided British people with what seemed like the ultimate excuse to be snotty. Hanging chads or no, Americans elected a shifty gimp into the highest office in the land twice. This is surely conclusive proof that America is an idiot nation. No, it's proof that America is trusting nation. Bush did what Nixon did, and like Nixon he did it twice. They both charmed their way into power. Not charm in the traditional sense. Nixon looked like a squinty warthog and Bush can barely talk coherently. However Nixon's campaign said to the public "look, this guy may not be pretty but he's got moral fibre and he'll get America out of Vietnam". Neither of these things were true and he succeeded in this twice. Bush told Americans that he was a down-home sort of guy who didn't know much about fancy matters. He was a do-er. A guy that could get America out of a pickle by talking, and shooting, straight.
Just like with Nixon it was a sleight-of-hand trick of epic proportions. The man that people thought they had voted for eventually revealed his true form. There are of course plenty of die-hard W fans. People who like him simply because everyone else hates him. But Bush's White House bid in 2000 (in 2004 the war made it more complicated) relied on the sort of people who now hate his guts. These are normal Americans and they were tricked by clever politics.
These voters turned out for Barack Obama in 2008. I suspect pulling the lever on November 4 was an exquisite kind of deliverance for many of them. People in America would often apologise for Bush to me, people that had voted for him. It often felt awkward but Americans' propensity to admit their own mistakes is one of the qualities which endears the country to me personally.
As it is my last day I should do a great deal of reflecting. On the country and so forth. But I don't want to. I just want to leave this hell hole for good and authorise some kind of fire bombing so the gormless blobs that live here can ignite and cook in their own BBQ sauce. Just joking! America is great. When British people talk about America they are unreasonable. They tend to accuse them of being one thing just to create the illusion that Britain is the opposite. So Americans are unnuanced and tasteless, while we have irony, sarcasm and a wide selection of cheeses in our supermarkets. Americans are unhealthy and wasteful, therefore British people do regular excercie, eat our five-a-day and recycle compulsively. We even have the cheek to criticise American film and music - often using the prefix "American" to denote something big, noisy and vapid.
To make matters worse we also enjoy comparing the worst of American culture to the best of British. Let's imagine the opposite were true and Americans did the same thing to us:
"Yeah, American comedy is the best," they'd say. "We've got Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development. You guys have Coupling."
British people must accept that they are not Stephen Fry or Howard Moon. They are Benny Hill, guffawing at men in drag. Clapping as women's clothes fall off to musical cues.
And stop comparing London to everything, British people. London isn't England. Ipswich is England. So is Slough, I've heard. Next time you're about to say how Nasville is great but London has better nightlife, at least reach for an analogy that exists in the same weight class. Like Bradford.
I'm not besotted by American mainstream culture. If I see Along Came Polly again in this lifetime it will be too soon. But American culture is subject to Clooney's Law. For every three Oceans movies, a Syriana will be born. I like this set up. If American TV executives find it impossible to produce the Wire without first inflicting King of Queens on the world so be it. The last time I looked behind my sofa there was not an American CIA operative forcing me to watch an Adam Sandler film every time I want to put on the Aristocrats.
And people the world over will always want to watch or listen to crap. Bunging up America's crap spewers will only result in crap-deprived world civilians going elsewhere for their crap fix. I don't know about you but I'm happy these people get to watch big-budget, vaguely-clever American crap instead of dodgy Italian or Russian crap. Banning Nickleback, although satisfying, would not result in Nickleback fans developing taste.
George W Bush's eight years in power provided British people with what seemed like the ultimate excuse to be snotty. Hanging chads or no, Americans elected a shifty gimp into the highest office in the land twice. This is surely conclusive proof that America is an idiot nation. No, it's proof that America is trusting nation. Bush did what Nixon did, and like Nixon he did it twice. They both charmed their way into power. Not charm in the traditional sense. Nixon looked like a squinty warthog and Bush can barely talk coherently. However Nixon's campaign said to the public "look, this guy may not be pretty but he's got moral fibre and he'll get America out of Vietnam". Neither of these things were true and he succeeded in this twice. Bush told Americans that he was a down-home sort of guy who didn't know much about fancy matters. He was a do-er. A guy that could get America out of a pickle by talking, and shooting, straight.
Just like with Nixon it was a sleight-of-hand trick of epic proportions. The man that people thought they had voted for eventually revealed his true form. There are of course plenty of die-hard W fans. People who like him simply because everyone else hates him. But Bush's White House bid in 2000 (in 2004 the war made it more complicated) relied on the sort of people who now hate his guts. These are normal Americans and they were tricked by clever politics.
These voters turned out for Barack Obama in 2008. I suspect pulling the lever on November 4 was an exquisite kind of deliverance for many of them. People in America would often apologise for Bush to me, people that had voted for him. It often felt awkward but Americans' propensity to admit their own mistakes is one of the qualities which endears the country to me personally.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
November 15
I love the fact that Texas - arguably the most conservative state in America - is governed from Austin. Austin is the South's most liberal city. Not only that but the State Capitol building is situated slap bang in the middle of the university district. So Jeb Bush, or whoever the governor is at the moment, has to do all of his governing in plain sight of the barbarians who are, quite literally, at the gate. Maybe this set up makes it easier to do all the things Texan governors are known for. Approving record numbers of state executions, raging against early, mid and late-term abortions and of course demanding all illegal immigrants are expelled while passing no actual legislation that makes the expelling of said immigrants any easier. Yes, if this horrible to-do list were my own I would certainly want to work on it in plain sight of a campus of pot-addled slackers. At least then I would feel less like a heinous pol and more like Mr Burns or Count Dracula.
Later my friend and I dropped in on an improv-comedy event, held in an art gallery. I'll stick my neck out right now and say the art was bad. Not entertaining bad, or even Turner Prize-winning bad, just your standard-issue bad art.
The comedy show would have been less funny had it not been for the free wine being handed out in the lobby. My friend and I weathered filthy looks from the event's organisers as we helped ourselves to refills ad infinitum but to these people I say: "No! Did you not advertise unlimited, free wine? Well this is United States of America pal, and if you prefix anything with the words "free" and "unlimited" you can bet your bottom dollar some shameless pig is going to take advantage of your offer. This evening I was that pig, but he lives on in the hearts of every decent, functioning American.
The show was a half-baked parody of teen slasher flicks. Its best feature was a "more is more" approach to gore which saw absurd amounts of corn syrup, sausages and cow hearts flung about the stage with gay abandon. However the show also featured the worst individual performance I have ever seen on a stage, professional or otherwise. The offending actor in question was a middle-aged blonde woman who delivered every one of her lines in a high-pitch staccato scream while staring unblinkingly at the audience. Because we were in the front row this was doubly unpleasant. When her final scene rolled around it was a relief and I've rarely been happier to watch a woman being eviscerated right in front of me.
Later my friend and I dropped in on an improv-comedy event, held in an art gallery. I'll stick my neck out right now and say the art was bad. Not entertaining bad, or even Turner Prize-winning bad, just your standard-issue bad art.
The comedy show would have been less funny had it not been for the free wine being handed out in the lobby. My friend and I weathered filthy looks from the event's organisers as we helped ourselves to refills ad infinitum but to these people I say: "No! Did you not advertise unlimited, free wine? Well this is United States of America pal, and if you prefix anything with the words "free" and "unlimited" you can bet your bottom dollar some shameless pig is going to take advantage of your offer. This evening I was that pig, but he lives on in the hearts of every decent, functioning American.
The show was a half-baked parody of teen slasher flicks. Its best feature was a "more is more" approach to gore which saw absurd amounts of corn syrup, sausages and cow hearts flung about the stage with gay abandon. However the show also featured the worst individual performance I have ever seen on a stage, professional or otherwise. The offending actor in question was a middle-aged blonde woman who delivered every one of her lines in a high-pitch staccato scream while staring unblinkingly at the audience. Because we were in the front row this was doubly unpleasant. When her final scene rolled around it was a relief and I've rarely been happier to watch a woman being eviscerated right in front of me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)