Obamaparty

The Obama Pre-Inauguration Party reminded BabbelOn of a Royal Variety Performance, if the Queen had been 47 not 87.

The contrast with the British, of course, is that the Americans really know how to throw a party, and have the talent to back it up.  No washed-up TV comics doing 90 second stand-ups or Eurovision Song contest winners. 

In fact, the only common factor between the Lincoln Memorial and the Albert Hall was the presence of royalty.  The Americans can out pomp the Poms and have a much younger and more charismatic king.  But groovy readers knew that already. 

The list of performers was impressive, from Aretha and Stevie to Bruce and Beyonce.  However, to your humble correspondent’s eyes there was a noticeable contrast between the artists that was, well, black and white.

What do Usher, Will I Am, Beyonce and Shakira have in common?  In a word, sexappeal.  What do Bruce, John Mellencamp, Jon Bon Jovi, James Taylor and Garth Brooks have in common?  Prostate problems.  The show was like a two hour advertisement for white euthanasia. 

James Taylor looked like a homeless guy, wearing a hat with ear-flaps – surely it wasn’t that cold? 

To be fair, Jon Bon Jovi has still got it.  Unlike the rest of his white brethren, he doesn’t appear to have aged since 1986.  He must have an attic portrait that looks like Bill Nighy.  John Mellencamp on the other hand appears to have been turned into a leprechaun. 

To break up the choir-backed musical numbers, and to remind voters just why the heck they were standing in sub-zero temperatures, there was also an AAA-list of spoken talent.  Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks put on Oscar-winning performances as Lincoln.  Jamie Foxx did an Obama impression that was better than the real thing.

Steve Carrell and Jack Black did somewhat lower the tone.  It makes one wonder about the criteria applied in the casting process.  BabbelOn imagines that Tom Hanks has a powerful agent who simply said: “If you want Tom, and frankly it’s not a show without him, then you have to take Carrell AND Black.  I’ll make sure they suit up and stick to the cue cards.” 

Actors, of course, love a good speech and an audience.  It’s a heady mix.  They all learned their lines, even the tough ones, and delivered with the gravitas one expects from actors who have more experience playing Presidents than Obama himself. 

However, the decision to use such gold standard talent does raise a dilemma.  If politics is spin over substance, employing the world’s greatest actors raises the bar for the actual politicians. 

And, sad to say, in BabbelOn’s opinion, the bar was lifted sufficiently high for Joe Biden to walk right under it. 

Not quite as good looking as Tom or as compelling as Denzel, he sounded like a B-grade actor.  No, that’s unfair to Ronald Reagan.  He sounded like a C-grade actor.  A bit like Fred Thompson might have if he had got the gig.  

So, ironically, the cheesiest line of the day was said, not by the cheesiest actors of a generation, but by the Vice President elect.  

Biden looked the Washington adoring masses in the collective eye and, using a line that Hollywood dropped about the time that Bon Jovi had their last hit, said that every parent in America wants to be able to say:

“Honey, it’s going to be alright.” 

BabbelOn didn’t watch the party all the way to the end to see if Morgan Freeman appeared, God-like, to bless the proceedings.  And perhaps to take the oath himself.  If he had you can bet he wouldn’t have got the words wrong.