ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES

"This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you."

~ Barack Obama, November 4, 2008..

.

During the last days of the presidential campaign, I was on the way home from my nightly swim when I ran into my neighbor Patty, a semi-retired oceanographer, on her way home from her nightly run feeding the stray cats up the block. After commenting on her Obama badge, we began talking about the election and our hopes that things would change, that the pendulum would swing towards making things better for all Americans, with an eye on global repercussions of our foreign policy..

After a couple minutes, another neighbor walked up. Matt is a Marine and member of a bomb disposal unit with two tours of Iraq under his belt. During the course of the campaign he had switched his allegiance and was to vote for a Democratic president for the first time. He opined that, with where the country had gone in the past eight years and where he saw it headed if McCain would be elected, he could not vote along party lines with so much at stake.

.

At this point in our street corner conversation, the sun was down, I'm still dripping wet and getting butt-ass cold. Right when we were getting ready to part ways, Willie, another neighbor from across the alley walked up. He was on his way home from work, as a cobbler & shoe shine man. He's a fixture in Ocean Beach, and has been here since I was a little kid. A few years ago, some racists burned his shoe shine stand to the ground (he's African-American) and some locals rebuilt a better one for him the very next day. His take was that it was much more than the last eight years. He had been waiting a long time for this, and while not going into detail, I knew from past conversations with him, that stealth racism was something that troubled him deeply. He doesn't bring it up much now that he's given up drinking (under doctor's orders), but when I used to run into him on his way home from the VFW bar, he'd let it spill.

.

After a few more minutes, the four of us went our separate ways. The three of them had each made two new friends, we all felt a sense of community and hope, and I went home shivering, feeling warmer then I had in quite a while.

.
Though more detached, I've experienced that same sense of community the last few days while visiting mp3 blogs. t's been really interesting to see the comments and song selections posted in reaction to election. Rather than just download songs, you really ought to check out the hosting blogs and take in what they're saying; from "Dream Come True", on Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop, a blog from a Brit expatriot, to the succinct "Fuck Yes!!", posted on the largely punk rock blog, Last Days of Man on Earth.
.
Bob & Marcia - Young Gifted and Black mp3
The Impressions - We're a Winner mp3 at Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop

.
James Brown - Funky President mp3
Lee Dorsey - Yes We Can mp3 at Funky 16 Corners
.
X - The New World mp3 at Visions and Revisions
.
We Are the One - The Avengers mp3 at The Last Days of Man on Earth