INAUGURATION POMP REPORT - Sunday, January 18, 2009

Carol King has great legs, soul (Bono needs to cool it)

There is a modest celebration presently happening in the District. My family and I have been fortunate enough to be able to attend some events. Below is an update:

At this morning's Gospel breakfast, Congressman John Lewis (GA) said that forty years ago, when he was lying bloody and unconscious in the street after the march from Selma to Montgomery, if you had told him that in less than 48 hours a black man would be sworn in as president of the United States, he would have said, you crazy.

The food was delicious at this Gospel Breakfast, and so were the tunes--smooth gospel from the Dartmouth College gospel choir (we all thought it was pretty funny a sound like that could come out of New England), Yolanda Adams and Bebe Winans layin' it down, liftin' it up...and Carol King--the woman, besides being one of the best and most prolific songwriters of arguably the best and most prolific generation of songwriters--has damn fine legs. I took pictures, I will share soon.

Our bellies filled with soul food (spiritual and animal--vegetable, in my case), we (hundreds of thousands of us) huddled together in the cold, waiting for the 2:30 start time of the "We are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

Bruce's opening version of "The Rising" with a red robed gospel choir gave me chills--Bruce doesn't usually do this to me.

Mary J. Blige killed a solo version of "Lean on Me." With Bruce, she helped set a perfectly reverent, yet emotional tone for what would be a (on the whole) respectful and humble display of talent and enthusiasm.

At first I thought the choice to follow up a poignant anecdote of Eleanor Roosevelt's fight to allow African-American Marian Anderson to sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" in 1939 with Josh Grobin was lame, and kind of inappropriate. And though I still hold that Grobin is indeed lame, the fact that he was backed by the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC was a move that befitted the shout out to the progressiveness of what it meant to have Anderson sing.

Herbie Hancock joined Sheryl Crow and Will.i.am for a delightful performance of Bob Marley's "One Love" -- Herbie groovin his Fender Rhodes on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, for the president-elect of the United States! Awesome.

Stevie, as Stevie would, got Obama up out of his seat and dancing. Stevie!

Obama's speech was, I must say, a bit of a downer...but I plan to reserve all my judgement in the hope that he's saving all his best, historically significant "Yes We Can" bits for Tuesday. I want all the MLK anomalies and phoenix stories you can throw at me, Bama. I want to cry.

I have had it up to here with stupid Bono. He took up too much time at this concert, he talked too much when he was supposed to be singing, and he did annoying rockstar things with the cameras. I mean, he sat down in the middle of a song. Take your stupid sunglasses off, BON-O and for the love of God, stay out of our newspapers.

I did secretly hope that Beyonce would bust out the leotard and robot glove for a "Single Ladies" finale, but settled for "America the Beautiful."

Sasha Obama is the most adorable little girl in the world.

More pictures will follow in the near future, I hope.