Why!?!?!

Erik and I went to Madonna’s concert at Wachovia Center last night. Traffic was pretty awful between DC and Baltimore, and it started to feel like we would be late to the show, but we arrived in the City of Brotherly Love just prior to the advertised 8:00pm opening.

When the show finally started at 9:30 (ahem!), it got loud and strobe-a-riffic quite quickly. If I were epileptic, I might be dead by now. But the show was killer, like I knew it would be. Madonna’s only unbearable vocal shortfall came during “You Must Love Me” from the film version of “Evita.” She seemed to end every other line on a flat note, but with commitment each time–that just makes it worse.

The crowd was enthusiastic, the seats were all full, and even Erik really seemed to enjoy the show more than I could’ve expected. It’s hilarious to watch Madonna ripping through a heavily distorted rhythm guitar riff and turn to see your straight, mountain-climber friend holding up two devil-horns and jumping up and down. Her Madgesty is clearly a uniter, not a divider.

After the show, we did drinks and cheesesteaks at Rotten Ralph’s and crashed. Ya gotta eat at least one on every visit to Philadelphia, and ours came with my favorite of the local-gone-global brews: Yuengling (yes, it does taste better closer to the source). The bartender was a petite, young Russian woman who challenged us to finish our third round before closing. We failed. I mourn the wasted beer, really.

This morning, we did 20 minutes at the Liberty Bell, retrieved the car, and headed for I-95. Half the drive was spent in a pretty healthy snowfall. Overall, I had a great 18-hour break from the insanity of impending exams and workload overload. Maybe one day I’ll visit Philly when it isn’t so cloudy or foggy that I can’t see the tops of the buildings though…

Update: Here’s this week’s address!

I really want to find a video clip of Stewie and New Brian’s conversation right up to and including Stewie dragging New Brian to the curb.

Bush goes around explicitly saying “God wanted me to be President” and his supporters eat it up. But a TV star calls Obama “the one” (as in “the one who will open the door” and “the one candidate she has ever openly endorsed”) and every Republican blogger and message board poster decides to push the “Obama is a messianic egomaniac” talking point? Check please!

I saw Reagan smile and spend us into the crapper just to spend the Russians into the shitter. I saw Michael Jackson at the White House and Nancy Reagan on “Diff’rent Strokes.” But I never heard the President say “AIDS.”

I saw Bush make a promise he couldn’t keep then win a war in 100 hours while respecting international law. I saw Dana Carvey making pleasant fun without being too critical. I saw a President throwing up in Japan and his wife telling me to read. I saw a third party candidate emerge and spoil it for the incumbent, but not his fellow ideologues in Congress.

I saw Clinton promise to bring justice to the working class, the military, and the fight against AIDS, and bring empathy into politics. I then saw him sniped for eight years by the opposition doing everything they could to undermine America’s leader while calling themselves patriots. I saw comedians thrive on scandal while only rarely criticizing the scandal-mongers. I saw the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. I saw a President impeached but not removed and a First Lady enervated then energized.

I saw Bush stutter through a campaign and the theft of 27 electoral votes. I saw 3,000 on 9/11/01, 2,000 on 8/29/05, and 4,500 since 3/20/03. I saw the largest expansion of the federal government in four generations under “small government” leadership. I saw a Vice-President shoot another man in the face and make him apologize for getting in the way. I saw a government sell a war to its people instead of justifying it. I saw a war hero’s record attacked unscrupulously by a frat boy with none. I saw openly vicious satire from awakened and alarmed comedians, too fed up to do it just for laughs. I saw science overruled, equality undermined, and America hijacked by oligarchy.

But then I saw Karl Rove’s “permanent majority” crumble. I saw a longshot captivate us all. I saw the politics of fear and the politics of personal destruction supplanted by the politics of hope and the politics of peace. I saw an inevitability lose to a longshot in the spring. And I saw it happen again in November. I heard my mother’s tears of joy and the hope in her voice for my own future.

Now I see the promise of equality in the workplace for women, federal protection against orientation-based employment discrimination, the end of arbitrarily keeping Americans from serving in their own army, the return of fiscal responsibility, the responsible return of our troops to their families, and the reinvigoration of the American dream for every person on the planet.

The Baby Boomers too had handsome and captivating leaders and an unjust war in which we were not attacked. But their leaders were gunned down by a still seething racial and socio-political schism. And where my generation doubted that a dictatorial Iraq run by Sunnis would be working in harmony with a fundamentalist Shiite group, the Baby Boomers could never argue that communism wasn’t spreading in South Asia and that’s why they lost the battle at home.

It’s the same story with a more optimistic climax. Now it’s time to make some “happily ever after.”

His electoral vote total is now 365. Check out the latest word here.

I haven’t reacted on here yet, because I”ve been too busy reacting in real life. Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States! When the networks made the call at 11:00pm on Tuesday night, my mother called me. I answered the phone with “Mom, NBC just called it!” and all I heard on her end was sobbing.

“Ray?”

“Mom are you okay?”

“Ray, I can’t believe it. *incoherent gasping and crying* When you were six years old, you told me you wanted to be President one day and I told you that you could do whatever you wanted. People say these things to their kids because we want them to aspire to greatness, but I never really thought it was possible until now!”

She’s right. Nobody with a sense of “different-ness” will ever be automatically barred from achieving the heights of success again. If anyone ever says “nobody will vote for you because of what you are,” you can now say something you never could before: “That’s what they said about Barack Obama.”

I’d like to point out that I picked my candidate in April 2007…and he just won. You heard it here first, folks!

Younger, idealistic versions of our parents failed in 1968…now’s our turn to get it right. Go vote. Wait in line as long as it takes. If your registration is challenged, demand a provisional ballot. If you hear you’ll be arrested at the polls because you have outstanding parking tickets or arrest warrants, don’t believe them–it’s not true and never has been. If your machine screws up while voting, demand a poll worker’s assistance. Confirm your final selection before casting your ballot.

This year every vote counts. Real, substantive change starts with you.

If you hear this message, wherever you stand
I’m calling every woman, calling every man
We’re the generation
We can’t afford to wait
The future started yesterday and we’re already late

We’ve been looking for a song to sing
Searched for a melody
Searched for someone to lead
We’ve been looking for the world to change
If you feel the same
Then go on and say

If you’re out there
Sing along with me
If you’re out there
I’m dying to believe that you’re out there
Stand up and say it loud
If you’re out there
Tomorrow’s starting now
Now, now

No more broken promises
No more call to war
Unless it’s love and peace that we’re really fighting for
We can destroy hunger
We can conquer hate
Put down the arms and raise your voice
We’re joining hands today

Oh I was looking for a song to sing
I searched for a leader
But the leader was me
We were looking for the world to change
We can be heroes
Just go on and say

If you’re out there
Sing along with me
If you’re out there
I’m dying to believe that you’re out there
Stand up and say it loud
If you’re out there
Tomorrow’s starting now
Now, now

Oh now, now

If you’re ready we can shake the world
Believe again
It starts within
We don’t have to wait for destiny
We should be the change that we want to see

If you’re out there
Ooooh
If you’re out there
And you’re ready now
Say it loud
Scream it out

If you’re out there
Sing along with me
If you’re out there
I’m dying to believe that you’re out there
Stand up and say it loud
If you’re out there
Tomorrow’s starting now

If you’re out there
If you’re out there
If you’re out there

If you hear this message, wherever you stand
I’m calling every woman, calling every man
We’re the generation
We can’t afford to wait
The future started yesterday and we’re already late

The map, if I could bet on it in Vegas:

I say Obama overperforms across the board, starting in the south. Heavy African-American populations in Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri tip those states over the edge. Georgia and Missouri will be the surprises. The early voter total in Georgia alone, 1.9million, is nearly 2/3 the entire turnout for that state in 2004.

Ray’s bets
Final EV tally:
Obama 379
McCain 159

Final national vote:
Obama 54%
McCain 46%

Networks will make the call for a winner at 8:03pm EST after wins in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia make it clear that McCain cannot mathematically overcome Obama. Fox News will be the last one to make that call.

You “raised” us all by raising him…

I cannot imagine getting so close to making the rock of your family so proud and not having her survive one more day to see it happen. My heart aches for the Obamas tonight at this insanely bittersweet moment in their lives.