(click the picture
above for the high definition
video - but also click
YouTube
for me!)
7:40 PM, Saturday,
November 1st, 2008:
If "The Journey"
does anything, I hope it inspires you to be more
spontaneous...
At 4:45 yesterday
I surfed upon a site showing Obama was gonna rally in
Nevada the following morning. I figured - what the
hell. Called some friends on my way to buy some
halloween candy for the runts and an hour later it was
set. I was staying up all night to drive a 600
mile, 8 hour round trip to hear him speak for 20
minutes. This is a very different election year
to say the least.
Got there
around 6:15, gates opened at 7 - but they let
people in early because the line was just too
long to wait. Ended up being around 15,000
crammed into a high school football field and
we were actually able to get RIGHT up to the
fence. Unfortunately it ended up being one
"fencelink" off of Obama's eventual crowd
handshake circle but I was still
daaaaaaamn close to slappin' his hand at one
point when he came around. A bit ahead of
myself...
Pat ended up being
the only guy who could make it with such short notice.
I mentioned Pat a couple years ago as the animator
friend I was gonna do "Let's Bomb Iran" with. I have
to publically thank him for not having the time to do
it because I got to hog the spotlight.
LOL.
Our entire
car ride was pretty much 4 hours of talking
about how transformational Obama has been and
how much is riding on this election. How many
wrongs are righted the moment he becomes our
representitive. That, and of course how
ridiculous it is that we were staying up all
night driving to Vegas... to see a
politician. I joked it'd be the only
time I'd ever left Vegas with hope.
Ha.
Now I know
I was really tired and zoned out, but is Harry
Reid the worst public speaker ever? Majority Leader...
didn't he have to win an election at some point in his
life?
I mean, the
crowd could barely get up the energy to clap.
He spoke like he was giving an interview... in a
library.
"yes, we
can".
Then
of course, Obama came out. My reaction
surprised me. It's a sense of surrealism
that I wasn't prepared for. It felt
like he had walked out of a history book.
Now I know that's because of my own
feelings about him but the sense was
overwhelming. It was actually unsettling.
The only comparable figures in history to
him were destroyed and they weren't even
close to the power he's days away from.
I can't express enough how much it
felt like I was at some "virtual
museum" watching a figure from 50 years
ago. I had felt the similarities from
the beginning, but never really thought of
Obama himself as being of that caliber. I
no longer feel that. He is special. He is
King. He is Kennedy. He holds people's
hopes and dreams the same way. It's
frighteningly hard not to see the pattern.
Of course
as I mentioned at the debates, the
secret service is outstanding but
I can't fight the feeling. I honestly
don't have the appropriate words to describe
how sick it feels to seemingly watch
something in slow motion you can't control.
So I'm just gonna do what we all have to do,
which is hope. You jump, you believe and you
just hope this time it's different. If it
isn't, we will be the jaded ones like those
from the older civil rights movement and all
of this will have to wait another 30 years.
Today however, the future is now.
Now what a perfect
angle to watch this from. After seeing dozens of
speeches from straight ahead - this was an absolute
dream for me. 'Cause not only could I get shots
like this, but I could also pan back and take in
the crowd from his vantage point...
Look closely and you can see
the Vegas Stip in the distance....
...it was
absolutely perfect. People around me were trying to
get to sit behind him for the "tv" shots and I
kept thinkin' - screw that. I couldn't ask for more
versatility without being part of the media. And of
course, I had to get the "I was
there" shot:
The speech was his
"closer" speech he introduced this week and I've
heard several times. As I mentioned before I was
so wrapped up in the eerieness of it all that there
seemed little time for a "rah-rah" rally. There was
one jovial moment that makes me feel like an 90s girl
at a New Kids on the Block concert.
I swear
to you, at this moment - he's looking at me
and smiling because I'm wearing a Chicago
White Sox hat. Swear, swear, swear. LMAO. He
had just made the "Don't boo, just
vote" joke and was looking back at us -
and not one other person in that crowd was
wearing a hat featuring his favorite baseball
team... which I actually found one day
as I hate baseball personally. But yeah
- he smiled at me. Totally.
Then of course he
came down to shake everyone's hand. I knew that
I wasn't gonna be able to actually shake his
hand, but I was surprised at just how close
I got because everyone pushed. What was once 3
deep became literally a foot away.
And again, that
sense of dread and unease permeated - not that
something was gonna happen at that moment - but that
it's inevitable. You don't even want to mention it,
and I know most people wouldn't and hell probably
think I'm this big asshole for bringing it up but the
feeling really surprised me. So, much, is riding on
this. Thank GOD he has the temperment 'cause
I sure as hell don't. I'd have written 90 shitty
songs by now.
I'm gonna save my
final thoughts on the election until tomorrow - but
suffice to say my belief in what he can accomplish has
gone up considerable since the primaries. My pet issue
is still the Iraq war and repairing our standing in
the world (how perfect was it that he said that as
I was doing my 'I was there shot' in the
video!??!) but in the past few months it's gone up
several notches. I believe he can completely
transform our political landscape, completely
transform our government and in the next entry I'll
tell you how.
Adam
PS - Pat just sent
me some pics he took (DAMNIT, after
I painstakingly lifted all those stills - lol)
here's a good one:
He just saw the
hottie standing next to me. :-) No, no, no I take
even JOKING about that back. Please no scandals,
please no scandals, please no scandals...
