theparkerfamily
The quick brown fox jumped over the good, but lazy Parker family.
Live blogging the Inaugural Concert on the mall today. Actually, not live blogging — because AT&T can’t maintain a #$%& signal on the mall — but kept blogging into my iPhone and uploaded it after the fact. Here you go:
11:01 am | on the 42 to the inaug concert on the mall. there is standing room only two stops in. |
11:42 am | made it through security. no where near as nuts as I thought. no bags … except purses, shoulder bags, backpacks, bodybags …. *sigh.* |
12:10 pm | lots of jumbotrons. early tweeters said there was only one. were they trying to drive down attendance? |
12:18 pm | pre-flight entertainment has started. wonder if they will use the same 20 songs from the manassas rally. |
12:35 pm | why does my blanket always end up as a prime cut through for people wandering the venue? |
12:38 pm | elmo leading a chant of “we are one.” sweet Jesus, take me now. |
12:53 pm | it’s nuts down here on the mall. two hours ’til showtime, and the place is packed. |
1:10 pm | amy Hawthorne! |
1:25 pm | The Lady Sparkler flipping out that people are stepping on her blanket. gonna be a long hour-twenty. |
1:52 pm | Yup. same soundtrack. |
2:10 pm | just noticed snipers on top of the Lincoln. btwn that and the low planes coming in to national, I’ve become temporarily distracted by mundane safetly concerns. |
2:20 pm | convocation. |
2:31 pm | nice reception for the first couples. |
2:36 pm | denzel actually got more screams than Obama did in our little section. ear drums bleeding from pre-teens behind. |
2:44 pm | Bruce Springsteen and a 100 person gospel choir. Sparkler’s happy. I think we can leave now. Oh, wait. Not until U2. |
2:49 pm | mlk3 just mentioned the peace corps and half the crowd holla’d. think there are hippies around? |
2:52 pm | jamie foxx doing an Obama impression is creapy good. |
2:56 pm | clapping with gloves on makes people sound stupid. |
3:00 pm | some just screamed “run forest run” when tom hanks took the stage. |
3:06 pm | is it too much to ask for ATT to keep a functioning network for 2m people in then mall?!? |
3:11 pm | I’m in such a good mood today, that I don’t even hate James Taylor … well, not *as* much. |
3:19 pm | at the climax of mellencamp’s “pink houses” we had a dramatic fly-over by a perfect formation of 20 very confused looking Canadian geese. |
3:22 pm | wow, the Daughters of the American Revolution just got thrown under the bus for denying African American singer Marian Anderson the right to perform at Constitution hall … in 1939. ouch. |
3:25 pm | someone just asked if josh groban was an American idol winner. ouch. |
3:28 pm | Is that the guy from “Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo bay”? what do you have to do to not deserve to appear at this thing? |
3:32 pm | tiger woods? hmm. |
3:41 pm | Garth Brooks singing American pie? this is the atlanta-olympics-memorial-36-white-pickups-stuffed-with-cheerleaders moment of the afternoon. |
3:43 pm | nope. garth brooks just medley-ed into “shout.” *this* is the stuffed-with-cheerleaders moment. I guess “pie” was just the white-pickups part. |
3:47 pm | celebrity #239 and #240 just spoke. can you imagine how big the greenroom must be? |
4:01 pm | not one, but TWO songs by U2? Sparkler has left her mind. I repeat. Sparkler has left her mind. |
4:07 pm | how do you follow that? two tethered eagles? ick. |
4:10 pm | or, maybe, Obama? |
4:18 pm | great speach. well written. made up for the awkward eagles thing. |
4:24 pm | sing-a-long. I get the feeling I am in kindergarten, and beyonce is my teacher (WOHOO!) |
4:35 pm | walking out. |
4:38 pm | there is a boy on a leash rolling around on the ground like a dog. interesting lesson in socialized behavior. |
4:46 pm | no way we are getting on public transportation. no way. |
5:10 pm | wow! made it on a bus. a metro manager stopped a south bound S2 and turned it around in the middle of L street. it has these fuzzy seats, as if it were a charter. strange. |
5:16 pm | Being interviewed by the Washington post. can’t wait to see how that story pans out. (pdf) |
5:21 pm | final thought: if this many people showed for the concert, the inauguration is going to crazy. CRAZY! |