I’m worried about the deification of Barack Obama. On this monumental day, as we sit on the cusp of this historic event, I find myself anxious about the expectations loaded on this one man. On the one hand, words cannot express how grateful/relieved/excited I am that Obama won the election, and that the hellbound train churning sulfur and doom we were all riding shotgun in has been temporarily veered off its course (hopefully, anyway). November 4th was like an Olympian pressure being lifted from my shoulders — as if an 80 pound tumor I’d been living with for 8 years had been miraculously removed from my soul overnight. Once again, there was hope. Once again, there was faith in my country. Remember that last scene added onto the end of Return of the Jedi? When they showed planets across the galaxy partying in epic celebration? That’s what it felt like that night watching gatherings across the USA — Times Square, Los Angeles, Hyde Park in Chicago, Boston Commons, Brooklyn…Berlin, Paris, London. The Empire had finally fallen, and it was time to get down.

Go to any local bar today and see for yourself — people are outright exhilirated. (Hell, Google “Obama inauguration party” and you’ll rack up over 14 million hits.) But now as the parties end, the cumberbuns loosen and the champagne buzz wears off, we have to realize it is a pure shitstorm that Obama is inheriting. I don’t need to go through the litany of Bush’s epic failures (Gitmo, Scooter Libby’s unconscionable pardoning, Katrina, Gonzalez’s firing of US Attorneys, encharging the EPA to Gale “Mining Lobbyist” Norton, the false war in Iraq, the thousands of US soldiers killed, ANWAR, the attempted handover of Social Security to a collapsed NYSE, the gutted mortgage industry, the bumbled Afghan War, a free-running Bil Laden, etc ), but it just might be his total absence during the last couple months — as people’s entire life savings have vanished literally overnight — that will be Bush’s most lasting and disgraceful legacy. A final Flipping of the Bird to the American people. A going away present of inaction to his successor. Take that, Magic Negro! Heh he he heh!

So in this day-and-age, is it really sad and cynical to find it odd that people would rally behind a politician? Or is it that in this post-Nixonian, post-Bush, post-Cheney environment, you’d have to be a moron to actually believe in one of these guys? Or is this perhaps Obama’s greatest trait: that he inspires even normally cynical, intelligent people to actually have faith in him? (Not in the religious sense, but in the secular meaning of trust and confidence.) But is there a risk in it going to far? Is it possible the posters, video montages and breathless panegyrics are going too far? One only need take a quick peek on QVC, or peruse the local swapmeet, and you will be smacked with an avalanche of cheap commemorative coin sets and low cost t-shirts and tchotzkis being poured on the pubic; it’s hard not to see that maybe we’re getting out of hand. Obama is not Kurt Cobain. Let’s not cheapen him this way. He is simply an accomplished administrator that has one helluva cleanup job ahead of him.

I understand the upsweep in emotion. I’m there too, and I have been firing the horses up since Day One. I get that we all needed to rally behind him, his figurehead, and his symbolism to get him elected, and if that meant creating and believing in something bigger than life, something almost celestial in scope — if that meant pitching our horses to a glowing tree — then so be it. It still took a helluva lot of work from a lot of important people, from the grassroots organizers to the Hollywood Hills powerplayers, to get this most impossible event to occur. Now though comes the really hard part. Now we have to steer our wagons through the Valley of Darkness, and you sure can bet it’s gonna be one helluva bumpy ride.

Luckily, every move Obama has made so far has me feeling re-assured that we have one profoundly perspicacious Stagecoachman leading the flock, and that’s about all you can ask for. He’s surrounding himself with the brightest minds in America, and with that kind of mentality I have little fear that we won’t overcome all.

Anyway, enjoy the above video (thanks to Patrick over at Coterie) of Adam Freeland’s remix of Daft Punk’s “Aerodynamic”, retitled “Aer Obama”. All due respect to Adam and his tribute, but this was the video that finally got me ranting (after stomaching about 10,000 YouTube tributes). As much as I love to see people and artists inspired to actually rally behind a politician instead of against them, I still worry about the pedestal we’re lifting this guy up to. Can he ever live up to the HOPE that the Great Lost Generation has placed on him? Maybe. Maybe not. But at least I can rest assured that he sincerely has his county’s best interest at heart… which is already a mighty step up from his predecessor.

Good luck President Obama — we’re all sure as hell gonna need it!

UPDATE: Wow. Like the rest of the free world, I just spent the last couple hours watching the inauguration and…damn if it isn’t really hard not to get swept up in the emotion of the moment. You know, when Barack says this election wasn’t about Him, it was about Us, I now know what he’s saying. I wasn’t so taken by Barack’s speech as I was by the faces of the millions who’d traveled the country to be there. Yes, all those millions of people were there to catch a glimpse of Obama, but more importantly they were there to be together to catch a glimpse of American History. Our American History. A whiff of the Great New World that we always hoped for, and always knew was possible. I’ll stop my rant here and leave it at this: when Bush was inaugurated in January of 2001, there was no pomp or fanfare. It was grey and raining. There wasn’t even a parade, because more people had shown up to protest the US Supreme Court handing the election (illegaly?) to him than had shown up to celebrate his “victory”…and look at how the next 8 years ended up. Cursed, as if by a dark-eyed Disney witch. This time, more people communed at the National Mall to witness the inauguration than the populations of Alaska, Wyoming and Vermont combined. Damn. Fine, call me a hopeless dreamer, but I’m just gonna take that as a sign of auspiciousness, a benediction to these next 4 (…8?) years…bring ’em on…

Below: A sure sign that Obama fandom has slipped into absurdity (and in this case, insincerity). Didn’t you shitbaths just spend the last couple of months shilling your asses for McCain and Palin? Are you serious? What goddamned phonies…

This is now:

That was then: Yes, that’s a “God Guns & Glory/Palin for VP” tshirt his Grand Douchiness is wearing…and yes, your eyes are not deceiving you — he is carrying a shotgun, and tits-on-a-stick is carrying a copy of Harry Browne’s You Can Profit From a Monetary Crisis book (I’m shocked she’s not holding it upside down). My god — will somebody please throw these two into an Amazonian piranha bath already???

A couple more pics of their utter gayness after the Jump…