Drinks With Doug

Don't Dream It's Over

Friday's weather: moist and unusually warm in the air. 68 today and the hound is on her toes, taking me on super walks. Trees across DC now at peak; this town is lovely in autumn. Pumpkin on porch, not looking so lovely anymore. Oh, and my fall crocus are up and ready to bloom while the basil is all gone.
Friday's drink: again, water.
Friday's crush: on Joel McHale, star of "The Soup" and now doing live shows - C and I are going tonight to see him.

(ed note: most of what follows is basically copied from something I wrote and posted on another blog I write for. But as that's a private group thing, I wanted to offer this to friends here at the bar. Sorry, JR)

Hey everybody. I wish I could say this is going to be something smart, but I feel the need to be current more than smart right now. And smart was never my trump.

In these weeks leading up to the election, we all must have felt - whichever candidate we were supporting and whatever our ultimate goals - a tingle passing through the body of America. That feeling like nerve stimulation: awake aware, but what is it?

Each of us, no doubt, has our story to tell. Mine is two-fold. Quick, but two fold.

First: I was the primary anchor for ***'s live radio/tv simulcast for this event. Being ***, everything was fucked up, but we stumbled through. Election night is always the same: spurts of news, filling in between. I was filling in between when the bulletin crossed the computer/wire at the desk. I glanced up to my trusted colleague Jim, he saw it, caught my eye, and jumped right in.

"Doug, I think you have some important news to report."
(geez, I'm getting teary writing this. press on...)

So I had the great honor of announcing to the world - well, that tiny portion of it that was listening or watching to us, but still...millions of people - that Barack Obama had won the presidential contest and was now the next President-elect of the United States.

Of course the blah-blah and what-not and screw-ups continued: to McCain's concession, to Obama's valedictory. Only at the very end, as I queried all our guests/contributors about the evening, and turned finally to Jim did I really get it. Jim's comments - as always - were crisp, poignant, and, rare for him, at the very end, shaded by the emotion of the moment. He turned to me and said: "Doug, tonight we have not only witnessed history, we've had the unique privilege to be its clarion." As he did so he looked me hard in the eye, and I heard that unique signal only broadcasters hear: "help me out here. I can't talk anymore because I'm going to get choked up."

I, too, began to choke. But I had a job in the moment. "And there's no one I would rather have joined me to chronicle this moment but you," I said. Or something like that. Who knows. wrap! wrap! they're yelling in my ear. I wrapped and was out.

Which leads me to my second story. This has been a long ... very long ... campaign for me. At it's end I felt something best described as exhaustion. This is due in some measure to the big changes I'm going through, and instabilities and hopes and questions I have. To have them in such a profound way about your nation at the same time? It's like nausea.

The newsroom was popping corks as I left the studio. I came in and everyone (generously) gave a big hurrah, slurped a tiny bit of champagne and was out the door, as I had to be in early next morning.

Driving home I wondered. What just happened? Horns were sounding all throughout Washington. People on the streets waving, lights flashing, fireworks going up. I made it home through to discover perhaps the biggest crowd was at my feet. The U Street center - 13, 14th streets - was over-run with people. DC police just blocked it off: no cars, just revelers. Still, horns everywhere. Strangers embracing. The din of a crowd that has just won a World Series; oh, but even more. Cameras flash flash, whoooo's! rising and falling. A mob of joyous abandon.

I wandered in the mob for a while, still in my now slightly wrinkled tv suit and tie, makeup still caked on. No-one cared. "WHOOOO!" they'd say before just grabbing you by the shoulders. "YES WE CAN!" as they planted a kiss on your cheek. Is this what it is to win a war, I thought?

Yes, it is. I am very very tired now. Exhausted physically and emotionally. Just keeping myself from crying jags at inappropriate moments. To be clear: crying mostly for what this moment is, for where we may go, for belief in hope, and for the dizzying position of, perhaps, having been the voice that first broke the news to someone living in Nigeria, Indonesia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Brazil, Kenya.

Tonight I had hoped to come home, make some tea, shut off and uplug every TV and just sit in the quiet of my house. And I expect break down sobbing. That's not a bad thing. It's just, I guess, what you do to process a moment of history. However there's comedy to hear tonight, and friends to meet tomorrow fresh off the campaign trail with their own stories to hear.

So I'll just say that I am very, very proud to call myself a citizen of the United States, and to number so many of you my friends.