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This is January 20, 2009 and Berock Obama is officially the 44^th President of the United States. They have been stressing today all the varied Inogural traditions that have grown up. Apparently Franklin Roosevelt instituted one about when the prayers and invocations were said. Lady Bird Johnson started the tradition of holding the Bible that the President is sworn in with. Of course Ronald Reagan started the tradition of holding the ceremony on the west side of the Capitol rather than the more traditional east side. There is a tradition about kissing your wife after you give a speech. Eisenhower started the tradition of the Inogural luncheon. There is some “departure tradition” that has sprung up only recently. Of course Thom Hartman has spoken extensively of the status of Freedom that sits atop the Capitol dome. I remember hearing something about that in grammar school somewhere. Apparently the status was adapted from a plaster statue of the Goddess Columbia or something, but it was only a Negro slave that knew how to cast such a statue in bronze. I guess Hartman was troubled by the headlines in the newspapers back in early February 2003 that “Columbia Dies Over Texas” and exclaims, “My God, Bush has killed Freedom”. Supposedly the original plaster cast had the statue wearing a hat of the abolitionist but Jefferson Davis, who was on the committee had that changed to some Roman garland. One thing that struck me was the whooping it up of the crowd at what seemed to me to be inappropriate to the solemnity of the moment- - including the famous “Obama” chant. Michelle is six feet fall. Melia seems to be really tall for a ten year old inheriting her mother’s height. Now we hear that Obama will not change the Presidential seal rug in the Oval Office. Just as long as it’s not the one that Bill Clinton and Monica made love on- that’s all I care about. Apparently Lyndon Johnson did not use a Bible when he was first sworn in in November 1963 but the only thing they could find was the Book of Common Prayer. The festivities ran late because is the endless introductions of the Vice President, the wives and children, the congressmen, and whoever else they felt like announcing. By my watch the speech did not begin till eight after nine. Though I should note that Obama kind of muffed his own oath in a way that will be remembered for the ages. There are no re-takes. So the festivities got off to kind of a late start and they had Rev. Wright and I was impressed with his invocation. Aritha Franklin’s voice is shot. She should retire now. She’s lost it. The coldest inoguration was Ronald Reagan’s second one when it was only seven degrees. I remember they moved the ceremony indoors because they were afraid the brass player’s mouth pieces would stick to their lips so it was a “safety issue”. Obama gave an impressive speech. He borrowed from Kennedy’s talking about “to those who would wish us ill” and a lot of those “to those people” type statements. The emphasis on national security surprised me a little. There was a lot of emphasis on the sacrifice of others who went before. I must say that it was a conceis speech- - one that he’d obviously honed to perfection.

In my life on this momentous day, we had pancakes for breakfast with sausage, for the first time in a while. Sometimes what you invision isn't always the case. As I said before, it was on the evening of May 29th. 1967 that I predicted all the presidential elections in this country up to 2004 and I was unable to go beyond that. Four years later in June of 1971 I refined that "prediction" to predict the end of the world on June 16th. 2007 at 3:13 in the afternoon. I always envisioned on that day I'd be sunning myself on the beach for some reason. Then it's an interesting note to learn just what I exactly did on that day. It was one of the last times I saw my father alive. It was just the five members of the "nuclear family" as they call it, without the wives- - and we went down to parent's house on a Saturday afternoon. I had been a bit reluctant to go but was told it was important. On that day we all kind of ganged up on my Dad, who was having definite "substance abuse" issues. It's also another interesting thing to note that none of the people I predicted would be president were Black men. I did predict one woman who otherwise unidentified I said was an older, attractive brunette, and a Republican and she won. About the clossest thing we ever came to that in 1996, the year I predicted, was Elizabeth Dole, who keeps changing her hair color. Interestingly, and others have noted this- - Obama is the first President who is younger than I am. People say they can hardly believe a Black man is president. I remember one class in grammar school tossing the idea around of either a black or a woman President. It didn't happen till I was in my late fifties. I am what you call on the down-side of life now. It's young kids who will have fascenating stories to tell of this day to their grandchildren. The thing is- - it almost didn't happen even this year. The event was far from inevitable (from a non Calvinist point of view) There were various forces arrayed against Obama from many different directions, as you all well know. To my Federation friends who said this day would never happen, they are obviously wrong. I don't really think of Obama as "the Black candidate". I just associate his political belief and his temperment and personality. It took his cool as a cucumber personality to win the day over.

Some of you may wonder what happened to Diedre Hall since we mentioned her on December first, saying that she'd left the soap opera. Well, she is still around, with no indication at all of her leaving any time soon. Of course I've been wrong about these things before. I'm going to flash back into some of my writings now but I'm not going to comment on the "Days of our Lives" plot now, but I might- - very soon.

I see my title pick for this file has not been used yet. Last night I watched the network news where we’ve been having Obama up the wazoo. There was a big concert in the Washington Mall with lots of pop celebrities performing yesterday afternoon. Don’t they know football finals were in progress? How inconsiderate! We are getting security on a paranoid scale like nobody’s business setting all records closing bridges to traffic in case there is some terrorist emergency the bridges are open for evacuation. That limozine is right out of James Bond, only James Bond isn’t as paranoid. It had super armored sides that withstand bomb and rocket attacks. They won’t even let reporters see the inside of it for fear or some security violation. They say that this limo will never be left unattended for Obama’s tenure in office. Heaven forbid some teenager might soap the windows. And Obama has already “test out lines of his speech”. To my way of thinking borrowing from Abraham Lincoln in so many ways seems to be jinxing yourself. Do we forget that Abraham Lincoln his whole term in office presided over thee bloodiest war this country has ever gone through. His second inaugural was some kind of vague explanation, or rationalization for that war. I wouldn’t care to duplicate anything about that period including the train trip from Philadelphia where they picked up a suddenly aged Joe Biden in rout. I’m going to get really sick of the endless comparisons between King and Obama by Tuesday night.

We have some Romulan news that is months old. But lately I’ve been hearing Phil Wrigley’s name flashed around quite a bit and I think he’s “making news” somehow. As you know he was the bass player back in the mid sixties for the Detroit Romulan combo that on CMK albums featured Cabrillo on drums, and “Dion” on guitar and Richie was known as “Ricardo” and Phil Wrigley was on bass. In our son “Cold Turkey” recorded very soon after the original was out in the fall of 1969 it featured FH on lead vocal, Richi on guitars, Black Bart on drums and Phil Wrigley- - rather than Black Bart’s brother on bass. This is the only track I’m aware of it being this combo. Phil Wrigley also plays bass on our version of “Are You Happy?” the Iron Butterfly song with Richi on guitars and Cabrillo on drums. I am typing this paragraph “blog friendly” in case we’re that hard up for material. [added just now] Also a few months ago, Richi Vallenz publicly admitted that "He was Zachery" for the first 26 months of his life through November 1977. This is significant because it means that Stewart Sutcliffe never met the 2nd. Zachery. I met the 2nd. Zachery but not the third Zachery. There was one Beatles spoof that said "Every Beatle died EXCEPT Paul, and ther Ringo died twice, so that there were actually three Ringos. ( ? ) How's your semafore you Jeopardy fans?

This morning we had oatmeal for breakfast but they ad least put sugar in it, which is at least the second day (and perhaps third) day in a row we’ve had hot cereal rather than cold. I was hoping we’d have waffles since we’re due. We had a fried egg and cinnamon toast. I poured myself a second cup of coffee for both lunch and dinner. Sarah offered me and William more toast and she ended up giving me both pieces of cinnamon toast, because William was leaving.

I watched Meet the Press and Chris Matthews. I had Beatles on a while and they were reviewing recording sessions from the latter half of 1963. This is a period where a lot of songs came out that Romulans take credit for. At ten I looked for football but only found this rehash stuff on CBS. Neither CBS nor FOX appears to be offering us the playoff games. So I turned on Leo Le Port on at eleven and he only repeated his opening line from the previous day. He talks about Circuit City and all these “electronic stores” that are the “first to be hit” by abandonment of the geeks who used to frequent these stores. Book and record stores of course are going by the way side. But there comes a point in my mind where this trend seems rather groundless. Leo has said CD’s and DVD’s may become a thing of the past, too as more stuff is downloaded online. It doesn’t make sense. We live in a real world and believe it or not certain people would like certain tangible entities that they own and can’t get lost in cyberspace, or have the software develop a glitch.

We’re on page six right now. We’re on Sunday January 18, 2009. Another thing that’s passé now is “old media” that is “passive media”. I don’t know- - “passive media” and “mass media” has served mankind now for the past century and I see no pressing need to abolish it even though in StarTrek they predicted TV died out soon into the 21^st century. Howard Beale tells us “Turn off your television. We are a bunch of illusion. Your own lives are what’s real”. In terms of all this “circus” business, it’s the TV evangelist watchers that need to learn this most.

I went out for coffee in the courtyard and got seconds. We had tuna sandwiches and a green salad for lunch. Of course then I wanted something else to drink and a cigarette from Joe to get the “cat food taste” out of my mouth. The weather continues warm and pleasant. Leo says to mind your P’s and Q’s when it comes to what you post on the internet. My word to any potential employer is that it’s none of your fucking business how I choose to express myself in my free time.