Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Rick Warren Opens for Aretha Franklin in Once In a Lifetime Show

You have to have a heart of stone to not be excited about this time in America. So much lies on the shoulders of Barack Obama, yet earlier today he gracefully and tactfully addressed the nation he now leads.

All but one of my teachers cancelled class today in order to pay respect to the moment. With this gift of time, I decided to wake up at 7am and drive over to a coffee shop I found while going to Bible college in SE Portland. It's called the Bipartisan Cafe, and I hope you can guess the theme. I don't know where they got some of the decorations, but the place is littered with old presidential memorabilia. You just have to go there, it's awesome.

Anyway, I knew there would be a crowd there because they have a flat screen and it's just known for hosting political events. All of the debates were there and yada yada. So I went thinking there would be a good sized crowd, therefore arrived at about 7:45 and IT WAS FRICKIN' PACKED. Quite the scene. I loved every minute of it. I grabbed some "Obama Blend" coffee that Bipartisan threw together and stood sandwiched in between an agnostic and a young dad of twins. It's SE Portland, so everyone is a Democrat, and while normally Pre-Coffee Democrats act a lot like Post-Whiskey Republicans, today was a different day. Everyone offered one another chairs, and got out of people's ways, people constantly apologizing...it was lovely.

We were talking for a while about the year and the campaigns and Bush, but when the ceremony began the whole place just shut up. I mean, not a word was spoken. Eyes glued to the television. We stood like ice in the arctic and listened to a new era beginning.

I've been over his speech a thousand times. I had to write a rhetorical analysis of it for one of my classes and I have to say that Obama is a brilliant writer. If this whole "leader of the free world" thing never worked out, I think he'd have an easy time finding a writing job. But he stumbled into this gig so we'll see how it goes huh? I will say, that if I were to say all of that to his face, he would most likely credit this guy, his 27 year-old speechwriting director who says he "channels" the voice of Obama. The guy carries around Dreams From My Father like a Bible. He rarely sleeps and wrote the speech that turned Iowa to Obama in the summer of 2008. What a punk. Yeah, this generation knows nothing about anything. He's 27. 27 means he's got three more years until he's 30.

I have more to say, but there's another paper to write. I just felt like I had to write all of this to validate its reality.

I'll post some pictures soon.

Monday, January 19, 2009

History

Even though I memorized this speech when I was in the seventh grade, and have heard it numerous times since, I still believe that this is one of the most important speeches in the history of humanity. It is true that King had many personal faults, but what prophet didn't?

Monday, January 5, 2009

He Was Wearing An Obnoxious Leather Jacket

They were great drinks. Mixed to perfection and being sipped by all of us in suit jackets and dresses. Dressed to the the nines, we were in the classy hotel, The Nines. There's a better word to describe this place, but I can't think of it. The Nines is the type of place where twenty-something college students do not go, but since it was the last night with some special people, we decided to dress to the nines, go the whole nine yards! I'm done.

We were done, and as I said before, the drinks were great. There were about six mannequins which stood in a row outside of the hotel bar in a type of lobby. They were naked and we thought that was funny, so naturally, the camera's came out and there were poses being made by the girls. It was Susie who drew the short straw because suddenly a man materialized next to her. He was smiling.

"You two have the same body type," he slurred.

Why didn't I think of that one? Susie sort of made a face of distress. Before any of us could form a sentence he had another line for us.

"Where ya'll headin'?" He asked. Good question.

"Home," stated Susie.

He had reddish blonde hair that started past the edge of the top of his head, and his half-shaven face was sort of bursting out of his paisley shirt. He had stark eyes but they softened because of the alcohol.

It was after Susie's answer that we all decided the naked mannequin photo shoot would have to be delayed to another time because all of the guys grabbed their dates and we began to run.

The hunt was on, the predator was lurking. I still do not know whether or not he was moving incredibly fast or incredibly slow, but we had beaten him. The prey had escaped, for all six of us were safe in the elevator just waiting for the doors to sh-

A hand.

It slipped in between the crack as the door was closing. The hand was thin and scaly, but it had made it through! Holy What the guy made it in! It was an Olympic effort, and before we knew it we were riding eight floors down with Dateline.

"Hey, it's just me."

"Oh, good," I said.

We started busting up laughing and all the guys started making cracks at him.

"Thought we missed you."

"Oh, thank God."

"Yikes, that was close, well done"

We were laughing uncontrollably when we arrived at the lobby floor and made our escape. I think at this point most of us were trotting or giving some type of gallop at the very least. We disappeared into the city and as I looked back I saw him standing defeated, making conversation with the bellhop and thinking just how close he was.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

On Her Starbucks Cup This Morning

"Success in life is that your kids want to spend time with you once they've grown up."
~Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko's

Found on those darn Starbucks cups...how bout that! All of this from a man who started a copy company named after his childhood nickname. How bout THAT!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Top 10? How About A Lengthy Ramble!

I love music. But over the past year I've realized I'm a pretty sad music critic. I can get into so many different types of music it's hard for me to listen through an album and just tear it apart. I'm also bad at juggling, but that's a different topic.

I normally do this thing where I tell you my top 10 albums of the year and I post it on January 1. But this year, as I said, I sort of realized I was bad at this, and I was always scrambling over the holidays to listen through all the albums I haven't listened to. This was both exhausting and somewhat worthless, not to mention financially irresponsible.

So, then, here we are, and I'm feeling a little guilty because I still love music, but I can't keep up with 'cool' or even its siblings. I just wanted to mention some great listens I've had over this year without formulating a "Top 10" list.

I loved "Evil Urges," because My Morning Jacket has shown us what rock and roll is and how it progresses. The album is so diverse yet so concentrated. Speaking of this combination, I loved The Raconteurs "Consolers of the Lonely." Great title, even better sound. I hope I can catch them live next time around.

Have you listened to Fleet Foxes? Please do.

I'd have to say though, in just looking through my itunes under "2008," I think my favorite contribution to this year's music scene was Vampire Weekend. That album just rocks through and through. I don't listen to the radio much, besides my morning dose of news, so I don't know what the "hit" is off of that album, but any song off of that album could run as a hit. I'm finding that a lot of people agree with me. This is an incredibly difficult place for any band to be in, and I'm only hoping that the sophomore effort from Vampire Weekend holds as much recognizable gusto.

I'm kinda sick of Coldplay.