Mischa was on Washington DC’s U Street on election night. He wrote a funny, vivid post about it. Here’s the first part:
[…] I hope you’ll forgive my reducing history to one man’s personal narrative of 12 hours of chaos. At best, this will fade into the millions of personal sketches that comprise the people’s history hiding behind any newspaper headline.
Two fucking years of this stuff boiled down to one day worth of drinking, voting, waiting, waiting, drinking, waiting, and drinking again. We kicked off at Busboys and Poets, Andy Shallal’s Washington leftist landmark. (I met Shallal when he guest-lectured on business and peacebuilding; he’s fantastic.) Busboys is a good place to spot Dennis Kucinich and his amazon wife. Unfortunately, the place was packed like sardines in a Chongqing bus, (line around the block,) and eventually we left for more breathable climes.
Second option was a dead little Ethiopian restaurant. There must’ve been four people in the place when our group showed up and promptly piled bottle after bottle of honey wine on top of the prior stuff. By the time they called Ohio for Hopey, everyone was shitfaced. At this point I started texting WIN! to 18 people at a time, even while it was still technically too early to call the election.
Once Virginia came around, the entirety of DC hit the street. Here’s photographic evidence, and the videotape. (Sadly, we lack footage of Mireille shrieking “I LIVE IN BLUE VIRGINIA!” for the next four hours.) Open bottle laws went the way of the permenant Republican majority, and people were passing champagne bottles (and what I believe was heroin) along the street. I don’t think I’ve ever hugged so many strangers.
A few thousand people marched in the rain to the White House, a sort of traveling Woodstock complete with SDS signs. Chants of “Yes we can!” and “U-S-A!” rang out in Lafayette Park as a revelers welcomed their new patriotic hero with the funny name. Amidst the crowd I see a familiar-looking woman, and amidst the vodka I approach her. “Excuse me, but you look exactly like Joan Baez.“ The woman puts her hands on her face, smiles, and replies: “I wonder why?” And then, piss-drunk at 3 AM on election night at the White House, Joan Baez hugs me.
How fucking awesome is that!? Go read the rest. It gets even better –and wackier!
Transitionland 
