The Magnificent Seven Ride!

A bunch of us stood in a media room at the UN/VIC in Vienna and watched the inauguration with an unusual crowd of visiting experts, committee staffers, UN staff and day visitors. They were rapt and, I thought, oh, cripes, I hope these people aren’t standing here four years from now blaming the poor guy for failing to meet their expectations of him to sweep away 28 years of non-stop looting of the civic and of industry. The states may be a culture in decline but it’s importance to the larger world community doesn’t seem to have diminished. But that may have something to do with the venue. The Democrats Abroad folks had an inauguration party on a barge on one of the big canals downtown. I was hoping for howls of liberation and wild outpouring of relief and spilling of champagne in celebration of occupation’s end and, finally, giddy leaps of naked, giggling expat Americans into the canal. Alas, mellow earnestness and misty eyes were the order of the evening. My colleagues, senior career US civil servants/mandarins, were palpably relieved, one just wept watching the replay of the inauguration on a big projection TV screen. I bid them good evening and found a Greek restaurant and wondered over a glass of good retsina and bland stiphatho how long Obama would get before he was cursed for his failures.

@FlyingChainSaw: I think we’ve decided on a two-week honeymoon, then we rip into him as a total failure.

@nojo:
that sounds like my last marriage.

This painting still isn’t as good as Homofascist’s sequined sweatshirt. That is truly spectacular.

I love that Coretta & MLK and Michelle & Barack are riding with Tupac, Ice-T, Marley, and Prince. And Elijah Muhammad and Muhammad Ali. Can’t figure out who is second from left and the one behind MLK and Barack.

@SanFranLefty: I’ve got either Laurence Fishburn, Larry Wilmore or Eldridge Cleaver. I think that painting is the bomb.

It needs to be on black velvet.

@RomeGirl: Or a smoked mirror.

What, no Cleavon Little?

@SanFranLefty: I’m going with Jim Brown and Thurgood Marshall.

@SFL – But did you buy it? If so, bring it to the SF show in Feb…we’ll talk .

@LuxMentis: I wish. Actually, I didn’t see it – this photo was taken by my friend who I’m staying with in DC. Homofascist and I got some awesome souvenir calendars with a stylized painting of the First Family.

@Jamie Sommers: I don’t see Justice Marshall there.

@SanFranLefty: He should be.

@SanFranLefty: Just added photos of the calendar to the Inaugural Stream.

@Jamie Sommers: Yes. And there’s no Rosa Parks, either.

@SanFranLefty: Or Oprah, for that matter.

They need Al Sharpton on a little burro, just for comic relief.

@Ewalda: I forgot to tell y’all that I saw Al Sharpton yesterday!! He was hustled through the throngs of those of us with useless purple tickets by his posse (which I should have joined) about 9:30 am.

No Paul Robeson either.

Damn. Now I’m going to have Elmer Bernstein’s great music from the film going through my head all day. The soaring strings singing the theme in my mind, while my molars tap out the wonderfully propulsive brass/percussion counterpoint.

Jimi Hendrix, goddammit.

Don King should be up with Ali on that horse. That is Ali, right? He looks more like Marcus Allen.

James Brown, riding Maceo Parker.
George Clinton.
Coltrane.
All kidding aside, where’s Marcus Garvey?
Or Malcolm? He didn’t make the grade because Elijah Muhammad was included?

I think they should add Mary J. Blige’s shoes from her performance last night. Amazing.

@SanFranLefty: I just reread this thread. That’s Huey Newton wearing a Panther beret back there with Elijah Muhammad. Still trying to place the person in the back row between MLK and Hopey. I’m going to see if the image SFL uploaded to Flickr is clearer.

Are we even sure that’s Elijah Muhammad? Looks like Nelson Mandela to me.

The dude on the far left is totaly Tupac Shakur.

From what I can tell it’s like this (l to r): Tupac, Biggie Smalls (srsly, it’s the right complexion and build, and if they’re gonna include Tupac, why the fuck not him), Coretta Scott King, MLK Jr., Madame C.J. Walker (the original Oprah), BHO, Michelle Obama, Huey Newton (am deferring to Ewalda on this one), Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela (makes more sense than Elijah Muhammad, don’t it?), Ali, and Bob Marley.

No Urkel, No Justice.

Only Michelle knows for sure: http://www.borowitzreport.com/article.aspx?ID=6978

Hellwiddit.
What a crappy artist.
I can see Betty Shabazz, so that must be Malcolm, it’s just a bad likeness.
I can understand including Tupac (though not to the exclusion of Rosa Parks or Fannie Lou Hamer). Biggie, on the other hand, shouldn’t be there. Especially riding next to MLK.
I’m still going with The Messenger instead of Mandela.
There is someone else missing. Today, it might be remarkable for Stonewall to be mentioned on the official website, but there was one time when a president gave a speech and uttered words that thrilled and electrified like no other in my lifetime: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbjweshallovercome.htm

@Ewalda: LBJ is the Tragic President of our era, hands-down. I heard “tragic” applied to Nixon the other day, but all I could find was hubris, not greatness.

@homofascist: Are you going to wear your sparkly Obama sweatshirt on Monday?

/wanted to revive this thread 4 years later because of the ridonkulous painting, saddened to see Ewalda posts.