Inauguration Part 2

January 20th, 2009:

Midnight:

Jeff - "Dio! Dio! get out of the bathroom, we're going upstairs."
'Dio' - "Just one second, these American Bathrooms confuse me!"
Jeff - "Understandable, you see, you just drop your trousers and let fly, the rest will work itself out. Oh make sure you open the lid first!"
'Dio' - "It's too late!"
'DIO'
Dio emerges from the bathroom into a barrage of white-skinned Washingtonians. He goes over to Jeff, who is still talking to one of the white guys, a larger one with a sizeable beard like a leprechaun. The large leprechaun is nodding his head intently as Jeff speaks to him, but through the mingling conversations of this bar on U St. on the night before Inauguration, only choice words can be heard.

...celebrity...Bollywood.....India....first time....America....Slumdog Millionaire... celebrity....Dio Gupta.... yes for real.....not kidding.

The large leprechaun turns his gaze toward Dio, cocks his head slightly puzzled. Jeff grabs Dio by the arm and crosses through a crowd away from the bathroom.
"Nice talking to you, have fun in America!" the large leprechaun yells to us as we exit the scene.

MIKE aka "Stanley - the stylist"

MAX aka "Lars - the best friend bodyguard"

JEFF aka "the manager"

At the opposite end of the bar our friends Max aka "Lars", and Mike aka "Stanley" have scoped out a place relatively close to the bartender. Lars was supposed to be Dio Gupta's best friend / body guard, from Bulgaria, and speak with an accent. Stanley was Dio's stylist and overall image consultant, who is always at odds with Jeff, who is Dio's strung out manager and acting coach.

The Inauguration of Barack Obama, January 20, 2009

THE INAUGURATION OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA:



The real story begins on the Sunday before inauguration. Mike and I had a little breakfast in the morning and planned out the day.
Mike had to go train for his new job of which he’d just procured gainful employment. Something about 2009 is making opportunity, skills, and luck all huddle together and join up under the umbrella of hope, and one of the first signs of that hope was Mike’s new job.

MIKE

When you pick up a Sunday newspaper and flip open to the entertainment section, there are often advertisements for movies opening in your area, and around the country. Sometimes these advertisements state that the current screenings for said movie are special engagements, opening in select cities only. One of the benefits of living in Washington DC is that it falls under the category of select cities, but even in these select cities, there are even fewer select theaters that actually screen the film. In reality there is only one true theater in DC that obtains the cream of the crop of special engagement screenings, in select cities only, in select theaters, and my roommate just convinced the managers of this theater to give him a job.


THE BOSS

Mike’s first training day at the E Street Cinema was that Sunday ,January 18th, and as such Mike was heading downtown at noon for work. We had heard of a free concert going on at the Lincoln memorial to kick off the Inauguration festivities, and decided to meet up down there after he was out of work. I found out the concert was starting at 2:30pm, so I hopped the metro and got downtown to a local Barnes and Noble to kill some time before the concert. As I was walking into the store, Mike called me, and informed me he was out of work, and just happened to be in the same Barnes and Noble that I had just walked up to outside. So by happenchance Mike and I head down to the National Mall together to see what celebrities would show up for this thing.

And here they are:

BON JOVI


SHERYL CROW



HERBIE HANCOCK & WILL.I.AM.


JACK BLACK


SAMUEL L. JACKSON

BONO


KAL PENN… we still don’t know why.


We show up on the west side of the Washington Monument, already packed with thousands of people. The pictures above show how close we got to the Lincoln, where all the action was (not that close). But we were amongst a great crowd. Everyone was singing with Mary J. Blige as she belted Lean on Me, rocked together as Will.i.am. and Herbie kept it funky with One Love, and did some form of the white guy clap when U2 played. The highlight was probably Garth Brooks, who played a 3 song set, best of which was Shout!, where hundreds upon thousands of people would jump in the air as the word 'shout!' sonically reached them, creating an impromtu wave. I felt a little bit at home, or at least in the Pereiras driveway...

Then a special guest showed up.