Consummatum Est

[collisionwork]

Ladies and gentlemen . . .

Please rise for the National Anthem.

Twice.

from Mr. Jimi Hendrix, for the years past . . . with pain and suffering . . .

from Mr. Bruce Springsteen, for the future . . . with reconstruction and healing . . .

Last night's party at The Brick was one of the coolest, happiest, joy-i-est I've been at in a long while. There's an offical fuckload of shots and words for y'all behind this cut - not the world's greatest pictures, but there as a reminder for those who were at the party last night or those who wish they were, and to remind me of what it felt like, there and then.

So, we gathered after the evening's performance of Lord Oxford brings you The Second American Revolution - the cast, crew and audience of the show, plus guests who began to show up, right after. I had spent the show sitting in the lobby watching ABC on one of the TVs with the sound turned off, being variously happy or wary.

Then, when the show ended, we ran around getting the screen down and the computers and monitors and foodstuffs set up as quick as we could. And then we ate, drank, and waited . . .

And paid some attention to the screen . . .

A nice spread was put out . . .

Since we could only stream by computer to the big screen and four monitors inside the space, we had three TVs in the front hall with antennae to get local channels. Roger Nasser & Alyssa Simon watch ABC:

And we waited and ate and waited and drank and waited and watched and drank . . .

And behind the bar, the "media center," with the two laptops streaming MSNBC - one to the screen and one to the four monitors in the theatre. And we waited . . .

Until . . .

Champagne is poured as Berit plays the CD Richard Harrington brought of "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead." Here I see Richard and Audrey Crabtree at left, with Iracel Rivero pouring for Ivanna Cullinan, Alyssa Simon, and Timothy Reynolds, hidden behind Robert Honeywell. I couldn't imagine another place I'd rather be this night than with these people (including the many friends and associates not in these shots who were there).

And we all keep an eye on the screen, remembering the false starts of years past . . .

And it's official!

And, then, after going nuts, the (happy) shock sets in . . . though it looks like Richard Harrington doesn't like his champagne . . .

Gyda Arber said there was cheering out in the street, so I went to look . . . it was kinda quiet . . . there were a few cheers here and there in the distance, then closer, and some car honks . . . gradually rising . . .

So our whole party moved out to the street and began screaming and cheering and whooping it up:

And we soon saw and began waving to other celebrants on the street and in cars. Berit's visible at far right here, with a big grin (!).

And the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and Lorimer Street began to fill up with people and get very very loud . . .

It got a little loud out there for shy little me, so I went back inside to quietly reflect and have a few tears about the election in the now empty theatre.

So I was there with only Audrey and a couple of others when suddenly McCain's concession speech popped up, and I ran to the street to call everyone in. It took a few times of yelling "CONCESSION SPEECH!" at the top of my lungs before everyone got the message and poured back inside, but they all did - along with a lot of other new friends from the street who had to see this . . .

It was so crowded and hard to get in the space itself I hung with Moira Stone and Robert Honeywell and watched McCain over at the bar. We agreed that, for someone we disliked and were more than happy to see go away, that he did a generous, dignified job (though he maybe emphasized the "race" issue too much at the start, as if that's the only reason Obama won, and his supporters were a bunch of assholes he had to keep telling to shut up).

After McCain's speech, Berit played the other track on Richard's CD - a rousing '30s "Happy Days Are Here Again" - and we had a celebratory singalong. Michael Gardner noted that given the current financial situation of the USA, maybe it wasn't such an appropriate song, but I replied that it was pretty much the same case the last time that song was a hit, so it was pretty apropos indeed.

Then, it was the wait for Barack's speech . . .

And when he appeared, everyone gathered in the theatre again . . .

And made it difficult to get in.

So Berit and I sat together in the lobby and watched the speech on the ABC monitor while listening to it, out of sync, from the MSNBC feed over the theatre speakers. We were both a bit afraid that, in the midst of his speech, he'd say something that would piss us off just enough to take away our high, either some sop to religion or bipartisanship (luckily, none of the former, and only a tiny bit of the latter - not enough to take away from the rest of the beautiful speech).

A pleasant young drunk man walked in to listen, moved by Obama's election, and chatted with us about Obama and whether he could actually get anything positive done. We were all worried that, no, given the system as it is, the corruption is so ingrained that no real progress could be made as it is, but that if there maybe was a chance, maybe, just maybe, then this was a positive step - a baby step, most likely, but a step in the right direction. This nice stranger shook my hand hard, hugged and kissed Berit ("Been a while since I was hugged by a drunk stranger," she says), and vanished into the night.

And I cried more than a little bit.

And then it was over and we got out of there as soon as we could (I hope the rest of The Brick staff didn't get stuck with too much to do - I tried to make it clear B & I would come in early Thursday to put stuff in order).

At home, we kept our eye on the races and Propositions still in play for some time, until I fell asleep on the couch. I didn't know until I went to upload my pictures this morning that I'd been joined by my special buddy, and B had taken a shot of us. Nice way to end a nice night . . .



And now, a word from Mr. Lee Dorsey & Mr. Allen Toussaint:

A few more from The Chambers Brothers:

And a final word from Mr. Sam Cooke:

All that said, the dark side of the day is that a number of heinous anti-Gay Propositions (notably, California's Prop. 8) and state Constitution rewrites have gone through. Fuck you, the majorities of California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida.

The Great Work continues, folks . . .