October 2007 Archives

This evening I had the chance to hear Barack Obama speak at a fundraiser/rally held at the Charlottesville Pavilion. My regret for this post is that I do not have similar media with which to offer for that other presidential campaign that trailed through Charlottesville last month, the fund raiser for Hillary Clinton. Why no pictures or videos? Because I left my camera at home assuming it would not have been allowed. Quite on the contrary, this was the first thing that struck me about how different these two events actually were. The security and grandeur for Barack was surprising. Hillary's event at the Paramount was quiet, calm and given the Q&A with John Grisham, played out as close to an evening conversation as possible, if say, you had several hundred people in you living room. Obama's rally, on the other hand, had gates, police tape, lights and took place outside with Gnarles Barkley, U2, Dave Matthews Band and Lifehouse piped through massive speakers. In their own rights, neither event was bad in the ways in which they were very carefully put together, but I don't for one second believe that Barack listens to Lifehouse during his free time. Anyway, as far as comparisons go, this is completely one-sided and I'm a little sad about that. Instead, I have the following 5 snippets of Obama's speech, in chronological order. To note, the video quality is *terrible* -- I'm 5'2", was behind some taller folks and my arms got tired. These are really just glorified audio links to reference his speech. 1. On dignity, decency, respect, etc. 2. On experience; character. 3. On health care (Barack is discussing his mother's battle with cancer at the start of this clip.) 4. On education, jobs; investing in America, not Iraq. (The end line is, ". . . let's take those tax breaks for companies that are [keeping jobs/investing in the American economy].") 5. On diplomacy; America is not afraid. Barack ended the evening by relaying a tale of a small town in South Carolina where a city council woman got him "fired-up" and "ready to go". He encouraged everyone at the Pavilion to get fired-up and that this would be the first step in affecting change: a voice changes a room, a room changes a town, a town changes a city, a city changes a state, a state changes a nation, then that nation changes the world. Then, he very quickly exited the pavilion; I expected more of a meet-and-greet; but the list of towns to get fired-up and ready to go are never ending, no doubt. I certainly appreciated his enthusiasm, though I can't say he seemed any more passionate about his platform than most of his rivals are about their own. His call for a courageous America (beginning of clip 5) kind of scared me a bit as I feel it negates that diplomacy he strongly insisted we need. While it must certainly take courage to sit down and have a discussion with a dictator, his insistence on suppressing all fear is what got us into this mess. I wish somebody would just own up to the fact that fear is actually a great check, as long as you can be steadfast. I suppose that kinda talk doesn't win elections. Anyway, I'm glad that I'm finally getting to see presidential candidates speak live, right here in Charlottesville.

Last night I saw Andrew Bird at Toad's Place in Richmond. Bird's compositions aren't exactly danceable -- I find them best listened to through good headphones with a certain degree of introspection -- so it seemed a little weird to be just standing there in a crowd listening, except how much fun it was to watch Andrew run around stage picking up instruments, setting up different loops which he would weave in and out of whatever instrument he happened to actually be playing at the time. He was thoroughly a pleasure to watch play. Even while complaining of a fever and feeling "loopy", he couldn't hide the musical gears turning in his head, always considering different sounds and melodies to add and noodle with on already familiar tunes. I decided to take a video of the last two minutes of a rather spirited version of one of my favorite Bird songs (har, har), "A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left" [.mp3]. So let this post also be a memento of my first-ever YouTube upload. My favorite moment of the concert by far, however, was Bird's solo performance of "Why?". Thank goodness the following video exists of an entire Andrew Bird concert in Amsterdam. Each track is a different song; click the forward button 6 times to hear "Why?". For contrast, here's another video. This one is for "Imitosis", the first single off Bird's latest album, Armchair Apocrypha. At first glance I almost thought it was directed by Michel Gondry, but those cute broach-insects were in fact brought to life by Britta Johnson. I'd like to see more of her work. And a few words about the venue, Toad's Place. Go see a show there. Seriously. The sound is great, it's smoke-free, it's easy to find, there's free parking a block away, it's brand new, has two floors, three bars and apparently a restaurant in the near future. My only hope is that they will also book some seated shows.