Barack & Roll All Night – Inauguration Celebrations In L.A.

Regular readers of ‘LA Woman’ (or, in fact, regular followers of world events) know that the happiest Los Angeles evening of 2008 was Election Night (read my election night blog here to relive my joy.)

And so far, the happiest night of 2009 has been January 20 – the glorious, ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead date when George W. Bush handed over the White House keys to President Barack Obama and then took off in that sinister big black helicopter of his, hopefully to be never heard nor seen from again.

So understandably, on inauguration night all of Los Angeles (along with all of America, pretty much) was celebrating. And I was no exception.

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It was a positively balmy 22 degrees outside – which definitely beat the subfreezing temperatures over in DC – so that was an added incentive for me to get out of the house on such an historic evening. Overcome with an utterly unprecedented (at least within the past eight years) wave of good ole-fashioned Stateside pride, I painted my nails in a patriotic “Obamicure,” knotted a stars ‘n’ stripes scarf in my hair, and went out to paint the town red, white, and blue.

While the official Democratic Party inaugural bash was taking place in Westwood at, ironically, the W Hotel (get it? W??), I opted for a different first stop on my personal campaign trail: The non-profit YPM (Young Progressive Majority) inauguration party hosted by GOOD Magazine’ and Causecast.org.

Keeping in line with President Obama’s noble call to community service, the party’s lobby was filled with sign-up charity booths, though it seemed the “call to service” most heeded by guests was the desire to be serviced by the champagne-pouring volunteers at the open bar. No worries – for more hedonistic revelers, there was a awesome DJ and live all-American entertainment by local trio Los Otros:

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And all that complimentary champagne loosened party guests’ tongues by the time they hit the State Your Change video booth, where they hopefully not-too-slurrily recorded their hopes, dreams, and youthfully optimistic advice for our new president.

I, however, wisely refrained. I’ll just write Obama a letter later on, when the champagne buzz (but certainly not the election buzz) wears off.

Next it was off to the massive Art Of Change Inaugural Ball at the cavernous Mayan downtown, where local electronic auteurs the Crystal Method DJ’d and thousands of barely-costumed clubbers exercised their pagan-God-given right as free Americans to dress like Burning Man wackjobs and dance their Obama-tattooed asses off:

Yes, the freak flags and the American flags were flying, all night long, and I for one was glowingly proud to be an American in the middle of this giant political party.

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