While shooting some photos of rich and famous dignitaries today it occurred to me how easy it is to make someone look bad with a photograph. People make so many little tics, movements and suchlike even over the course of, say, 30 seconds, that it's blatantly unfair to pick the one or two shots that have someone doing something kinda dumb.
Call me blatantly unfair. Here are some embarrassing photos of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives and S.F.'s voice in Washington (And if you're reading this: I'm still available for a bailout, Madame Speaker).
Deficit up your nose?
"Some people are poor, you say? Oh, Willie -- how droll!"
And... AHHH! SHE'S WATCHING YOU!
Or rather, me.
This was a little strange: once the bust of Mr. Harvey Milk was unveiled, Ms. Pelosi kept repeating, "It looks just like him! It looks just like him!" Seeing as how it was based on a rather famous photo of the man, and a professional sculptor made it, I don't know what else was expected -- but I would have to agree: the bust of Harvey Milk does look an awful lot like Harvey Milk.
Corner of what used to be Larkin and Bush Streets, 9 p.m. Wednesday
Don't get me wrong -- what happened on Tuesday can only be described as "farting amazing," for a host of reasons. I, like many others, finally respected, liked and felt bad for John McCain, all at the same time and about eight years too late. I, like many others, bounced around from nervous to ebullient, sagged back down to normal and then soared back up again, dancing in the streets, hugging strangers, and swilling cheap champagne, in public, in full view of police officers who only smiled when I made eye contact.
And then I, like many others, woke up on Wednesday hung-over, and had to step over homeless people on the way to work, at a job that might vanish over the next year, in an economy where "budget crisis" is a nom du jour, and in a world where there are still two foreign wars and a corporatocracy running it all.
Because what now, indeed. Much -- in fact, everything, as a certain W is still in office -- is exactly the same it was Nov. 3. Surely what happened Tuesday is an epochal moment, and surely I have never, ever seen so many young black people completely immersed in the political process (for that matter, the same goes for young whites and Latinos, but I digress), but the fact remains: nothing has changed and there is everything yet to be done.
Worst: having won the White House in only the second national election of his life, only four years removed from the Illinois State Legislature, Barack Obama has nowhere to go but down.
Where else could he go? His followers run the entire gamut of the Democratic party, from far-left wackos like myself to just barely right of center Midwestern family people. Don't think for a second that each of his followers, each of whom believes that they've been guaranteed their personal redemption on Tuesday, expects Barack Obama to fulfill each and every campaign promise he's made. Which is, of course, impossible.
Lost in all of this is an onimous warning from Mr. "I handed the White House to Bush in 2000." Ralph Nader, for 50 years a great American -- ever since "The Safe Car You Can't Buy".
In true media fashion, the meat of the argument was lost admist the "Gotcha Gotcha!" sound-bite journalism. He is, of course, old and crazy and a bit inappropriate, but he is, of course absolutely right -- for whom will Barack Obama govern? Will it be for the millions he e-mailed on a daily basis, asking for cash and promising change? Or the corporations he's already voted to bail-out, the military industrial complex he's indicated he wants to expand, the old-money, more of the same Democratic windbags he has to thank with jobs like Secretary of State?
Some other "blogger" said it first -- once the dust settles, there's going to be an awful lot of awfully disappointed people.
