president obama in grant park

President Barack Hussein Obama.  President Barack Hussein Obama.  President Barack Hussein Obama.  I got to see him in his first appearance as President-elect tonight in Chicago - bless this city, and bless America.  This is how I spent the day. 

No, I didn't vote today. I voted three weeks ago, by absentee ballot, in California.  I peeled the sticker off my bulletin board and proudly wore it around today. You will note this action is permitted under the fifth canon of judicial ethics.  

I tried to sleep in until the first polls closed, but failed to do so. I worked half-heartedly in the morning but spent far more time fretting over the news than I did working.  I had the funny feeling in the morning that I was falling in love - like there was something wrong with my stomach. I couldn't keep any food down and felt nauseated the entire day. I refreshed FiveThirtyEight and Andrew Sullivan and DailyKos and TalkingPointsMemo and Gawker and Wonkette and Politico and Huffington Post, my drugs of choice as of late, approximately three times each per minute, and hung my hopes on the anecdotes and photos posted on blogs. Again it was a beautiful Chicago summery day - got up to 75 degrees at some point - but I couldn't tear myself away from the infostream until 3:30, when I walked to the hipstery heart of my neighborhood to get my guitar fixed up. I kept thinking I'd see long lines in the street, or I'd lock eyes with strangers and we'd feel some democratic camraderie, but that didn't happen. Instead I saw store after store empty of people - I guess it's to be expected midday on a Tuesday, but it only impressed upon me further how fucked the economy is. No one's buying, no one's selling, and these stores are gonna be closed in a few months. I stopped in a couple stores to try to buy an American flag today, but couldn't find one anywhere.  I even went to Kmart! I did the same thing last week, in a different part of Chicago, but was likewise fruitless in my flag hunt. 

Anyway. I thought I would kill time before heading down to Grant Park by jogging off some excess energy, but I couldn't bring myself to do even that. I made an omelette, stuffed it in my face with my left hand while Google chatting my hysterical left coast friends (sucks to be on PST on Election Day!) and refreshing blogs with my right hand, and then literally ran to the subway to get to Grant Park. 

I exited the blue line at LaSalle and Congress and came out of the subway with a crowd averaging twenty or so years old.  The exit was about five blocks from Grant Park, and even then, and even at the relatively early hour of 7 p.m., I saw crowds streaming east toward the lake.  People wore Obama shirts, smiled at each other, and walked with light steps. I kept my MP3 player tuned to Chicago Public Radio and listened with an earbud in one ear, and I wanted to shout when Pennsylvania was first called for Obama.  But I'm not that kind of person, so I just muttered, "Pennsylvania!" over and over to myself hoping that others might overhear. 

On the walk to Grant Park, vendors lined the sidewalks hawking all sorts of Obama-inspired items.

The man I bought this button from said that the buttons were free but mandatory tips were $5. His way, I guess, of "fooling" the Chicago police officers that stood about ten feet away from him. I think the police had other things they were worried about. I choose this button out of all the others because it was the only one that did not have offensively bad graphic design (i.e. Obama and Biden photoshopped badly in front of the White House, script fonts, ugh) and it is patterned after the Chicago Cubs logo (but that means that the button, unfortunately, claims victory for Cbama).  I also picked up this doozy for five clams:

Obama on a handtowel. I asked the vendor, "What happens when you wash it?" before remembering that I would not have occasion to wash the towel because I'm not actually planning on using it as a towel. I would not wipe my hands on the face of our next president. Maybe my face. Only my face, though. With light, gentle strokes. 

There were police and barricades everywhere but security was surprisingly lax. I had almost decided against going to Grant Park because I was, as I noted a couple posts below, worried about getting blown to smithereens by an Eric Rudolph type of maverick. In fact, and I can say this now that it's over, I was nervous the entire time that President-elect Obama spoke that I and the 80,000 people around me would witness a high velocity round tear through the man's body. I was relieved when his sixteen minutes of speechifying ended and he started moving his head around. Morbid, I know. Sorry.

Once I got past the barricades, which seemed to serve no purpose except prevent pedicabs from rolling into the park, I was in the carnival proper. There was less revelry than I expected, and more purpose-driven milling, but this might have been because I got there after dark. Here's a shot of some of the buildings around the park:

There were some anti-Bush protesters distributing pamphlets about the war. They seemed really out of synch with the mood - for the first time in eight years, I wasn't just going into an anti-Bush something, I was going to a pro-America celebration! I'm still against the war and still against Bush, but it was just nice for once to be up on something too. Anyway, I thought this poster was sort of funny:

In the distance, I could hear the beat of some arrhythmic bongos.  Many people were taking pictures, shouting to one another, acting giddy already. I really liked this banner:

Say it aloud - it has one more syllable than you'd think.  There was a Metra stop right nearby, and people shouted as they emerged from the exit.  Their shouts echoed in the stairwell. 

I got there ninety minutes before the field opened up, so I found the back of the queue (two blocks away) and started waiting. I got stuck behind two very drunk identical twins who chain-smoked and solicited high fives from people walking by. It was sort of fun in a fratty way, even though they were at times obnoxious and I had to pretend to be texting so that the unbearded twin would not tell me anything more about his hard rock/funk band, Assimilation.  Incidentally, all the text messaging made me feel so modern and American and awesome - I was doing a tit-for-tat exchange with friends: you give me updates from the polls, I give you updates from Grant Park - but once I got inside Grant Park my phone mysteriously stopped accepting texts and phone calls. I thought it was some sort of security conspiracy but apparently it was just AT&T's shittiness.

Anyway, the twins were very drunk. I got a high five from one of them, and then I meekly said, "Hey, did you know that Pennsylvania went for Obama?" and he shouted, "WHAT? You're from Pennsylvania?! REPRESENT! What other states do we have here? Missouri? Iowa? Who's from Iowa!?" and he turned his attention away from me. This Operator problem repeated itself about an hour later, after HM joined me in line, when drunk twin #1 shouted, "Hey! He's from Ohio!" and the women standing behind me misheard and shouted, "What?!!! WE WON OHIO!??!"  She then immediately declared that she was for the first time not ashamed to say that she was from Ohio, and she called three people on her cell phone and shouted to the listeners on the other end that Ohio had been won.  Ohio was ultimately called for Obama, but not until much later! But that was the mood of the moment: talking with strangers, mishearing strangers, having a little bit more hope than we'd previously thought prudent. I peered over somebody's shoulder at his Sidekick, and chatted it up with a hair stylist from Evanston who said she had to kick out a client to catch her train down to the event. 

I just thought the above picture was funny. Michigan Avenue southbound was slow-moving traffic, and some brilliant promoter realized that he could drive his billboard advertising a gentlemen's club slowly down it, past a captive audience of tens of thousands. Other cars drove by, including a white convertible with "OBAMA '08" painted on the side and four bouncing ladies inside, and we all cheered.  I overheard some conversations. One woman left her friend saying, "Goodbye! I'll see you in New America!" I texted that to NK in California, and NK said she cried.

HM joined me around 8 p.m.  I bought two flags (jumbo for me, less jumbo for her) and we waved them like idiots. We thought they were appropriate within the strictures of canon #5. I have never waved any flag more vigorously than I waved my little flag tonight! I shook it like I was being electric shocked! I got crunk with my flag! It was like all my love for America was channeled into that flag and it was too much for the flag to bear and the flag trembled violently from the passion of my love! Oh, I didn't mean to sexualize/anthropomorphize the flag that way. 

We finally started moving around 8:45 p.m. At this lighted sign, a canned female voice directed ticketgoers to the right and advised us to throw away our food and drinks. Apparently there were up to a million (NO! Really?) people without tickets at the park, but I didn't see them because I was among the select. For the select, there were large piles of horseshit on the walk to the field and because the crowd was so thick, many people did not see them in time to avoid them, so you heard shouts of "Aw, I'm standing in horseshit!" We laughed. I narrowly avoid the horseshit. 

The first line of security merely checked our bags for food and drinks, though not very well - my explosive peanut M&Ms got past these folks. Then we flashed our IDs at the next corral, and proceeded to the big ol' field where Obama was to speak. It was ginormous. Five states worth of bar examinees could have taken their bar exams on that field. (Why is that my point of reference?) HM and I got on the field late and had to take positions way in the back.  There were people in all directions, and I could not see the stage - I couldn't even ascertain the direction of the stage from any vantage point accessible to me.  We sat for a while and watched CNN playing on the Jumbotron. It was the boring part of the broadcast where various heads talked and the polls were slow. During commercials, the sound crew cut off CNN and piped in old school R&B and soul, and people got up and danced or nodded their flags and heads in time with the beat. Will.i.am. appeared as a "hologram" on the Jumbotron and we were all very confused. 

Around 10:30 p.m., things started happening very quickly. CNN started cutting over to shots of Grant Park and, as HM pointed out, it became this amazing feedback loop. We watched ourselves on the Jumbotron and shouted, and the more we shouted the more the Jumbotron showed us shouting, so we shouted louder. I jumped up and down with my arms and legs fully extended, waving my flag over my head.  The shouting paused for a second, and the CNN announcer said, "Ok, we're ready to call this one. Virginia has voted for Obama!" and the crowd ERUPTED. This was a smart bunch of folks. We all knew what it meant that Virginia went for Obama. I don't think anyone was expecting the announcement to be so abrupt, so we appeared to be taken by surprise. I gasped! I screamed! I jumped! Seriously, the whole crowd just threw up their hands and howled.  Primal screams, guttural screams, whoops of joy.  Seconds later, CNN called the election for Obama and everyone went crazy all over again.  I could not stop saying "President Obama. President Obama. President Obama" and beaming at everyone around me. 

CNN went back to its business and the sound check for Obama's speech concluded. The sound checker said, "Final sound check for the microphone for the next President of the United States of America," and the crowd erupted again.  

McCain came up on the Jumbotron and gave his concession speech. For the most part, the crowd was quiet and respectful and grateful for his closing remarks, though some heckler behind me kept shouting, "LOOOOOSER!" and "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!" And I'll admit I groaned audibly when McCain gave a shoutout to Palin. But no one applauded louder than was appropriate when McCain finally exited, and we were all excited for Obama. 

A pastor came onstage and gave a prayer. I bowed my head. I have changed my views about religion and religiosity generally and am ready to do things like bow my head and close my eyes when people talk about God. I think I'm (almost) ready to believe that God is not only a metaphor for all that is good in us but also something supernatural and awesome. Does this make me sound like Dennis Kucinich on UFOs? Sorry. 

Back to the point. A unknown came out and sang the national anthem. She swapped some words ("gave proof through the times" rather than "gave proof through the night," etc.) but that was okay. Instead of singing the final line stepwise descending, as it is always sung, she ended with "brave" on a high note, which I felt was totally appropriate for the occasion.  Okay, I just had to Google "define:occasion" to see if I had spelled that word correctly. It's almost 5 a.m. and I'm not even to the part where Obama comes onstage. 

"Signed, Sealed, Delivered" started playing, and we all knew what that meant.  Obama then came onstage. 

Nuts were went.  As you can see, I was not only a million miles from the stage, I was a million miles from the Jumbotron, and the world's tallest man and the woman with the world's frizziest hair stood directly in front of me, so I couldn't even really see the Jumbotron. I stood on my toes and shouted "PRESIDENT!"  The view behind me: 

Obamatron:

Obama gave a wonderful speech. Quarter of the way through it, my face screwed up into a walnut and I cried like a gentle Irish rain. Halfway through it, Obama began working. I mean, the man was just elected, and he started working immediately. He started talking about sacrifice and the task ahead and started preparing the country to get to the job of cleaning this mess up. I really hope he continues to find ways to address the nation as president, because his words are not just pretty but productive also. 

His speech ended. The Obamas and the Bidens came on stage, and some weird orchestra score played on a ninety second loop that built up to the same crescendo over and over again.  Half the crowd pushed forward, half the crowd pushed back, and I stood on a hill watching Michelle Obama walk around in that lovely dress.  HM and I left after fifteen minutes or so.

This was the crowd looking back on Balbo Drive. As far as the eye can see.  There wasn't any dancing the street, like NG and OZ report happened in Oakland. There wasn't any more hysterical shouting, though a few "O-ba-ma!"s punctuated the air occasionally. It was near midnight, and we were simply exhausted and elated. 

My Bavarian man called me as I walked back to cell phone range and congratulated me. It was 7 a.m. his time, and he said he woke up at six just to check the news. At home, I found a message in my inbox from HLK in London: "My dear American friends, Congratulations to you all. America has finally got it right and picked someone decent to be in charge. I'm so happy and so is the rest of the world. Well done, guys." I don't base my self-esteem on European popularity contests but it's still very nice to feel that the world is behind America on this one.

Here I am with my proudest possession.  Look. I am an overeducated gay Chinese-American blue-state atheist woman whose parents are immigrants.  The point is not that I am more oppressed than thou, it's just that it's hard for me not to be cynical about American politics. I know many of you feel this way too.  We're aliens, and the story of America never seems to quite match the hype.  But today I carried around a feeling - that funny nauseating feeling in my stomach - of being in love with my country.  I bought that flag. I waved that flag in the street, in the field, in the subway, and even in my house, a little bit, when I got home. I wanted to call my parents and tell them that they had made a brilliant decision thirty-one years ago to come to this place. I am so, so happy. Dare I say it? Yes. I am filled with hope.