Hello to my old friends on my/barack.obama.com. You know me from coming over to our house (Owen and Mary Lou's) to watch our guy take on the heavyweights in primaries and debates. We ranted and cheered and felt at home with one another, even though we had never met, we were different ages and came from some very different worlds. We loved every second of it all the way down to the thrill of seeing Barack Obama sworn in as 44th President of the USA.
It was such a relief to see the end of an 8 year nightmare and welcome a guy so wonderful in so many ways, it was hard to believe he ran and got elected. I don't know about you, but I relaxed and no longer felt the strong urge to get onto the Obama netroots page and talk about politics. I knew our country was in good hands.
Today, I'm back because of a remarkable development in my personal life. During the second term of Bush and Cheney, Mary Lou was diagnosed with cancer and ended up spending a lot of time at MD Anderson in Houston getting treatment. Thanks to getting the best, Mary Lou is healthy and cancer free today. But during that difficult time, I had a great deal of time at home alone. One day a Muse visited and I found myself writing a novel that covered the events and impact of my era, the 60's. The novel, still unpublished, is full of music, because the narrator listens to music, hears music on the radio, goes to concerts and hears music playing in his head pretty much nonstop. I even wrote several original blues, R&B, rock&roll and rock tunes specifically for the novel.
In 2008, during the campaign year, I recorded 12 songs including 9 originals with some excellent musicians I know at a great indie studio, John Keane Studios in Athens, GA. One of these was a heavily satirical number about guns and violence in America, using the music of Chuck Berry's immortal Sweet Little 16 but satirizing the Beach Boys copycat version of Sweet Little 16, Surfin' USA. Mine is called "Murder USA." I entered this song (under the name of our band, Dr. Morpheus) in the Land Shark Lager 2009 Battle of the Bands online contest and to my shock, the tune was accepted!
So, I'd like you to follow this link to my band page in the Land Shark contest, Dr. Morpheus and see if you'd like to vote for us in the contest. Besides being a rockin' tune, Murder USA makes a statement about the casual way Americans often shoot one another for no good reason. It's not anti-gun but it is ant-senseless violence. Please check it out. If you get what I'm doing here and like it, I would really welcome your support and assistance in our campaign to get into a live face-off concert in Nashville, TN on Sept 245. Voting in Round 1 of the contest last through Aug 10- you may vote once daily from as many email addresses as you have. If you vote, you will receive a confirmation email and YOU MUST ENDORSE THE CONFIRMATION EMAIL FOR YOUR VOTE TO COUNT. It is likely the confirmation email will go into your SPAM folder and you won't realize what it is, so please pay close attention. If you want to get involved with our campaign (please get involved with our campaign!), contact me through this site or my email drscott@psychclinic.com We have a great campaign going but we need a lot more help to make it to the concert. BTW, the grand prize includes a 2 page ad spread in Rolling Stone magazine! Should we go all the way, I commit here to display Obama gear prominently in my outfit when I go to the photo shoot.
Thanks for checking this out. And whatever you may or may not do with the contest, keep in touch with Mary Lou and myself. We miss you!
All the best,
Owen
PS Can we do it?
Dear friends,On the evening of the election we've all dreamt about, anticipated, imagined, and worked toward, I feel impelled to write and recognize all of you, the foot soldiers of the Obama Nation throughout the country and the world. You have rewritten the book on political campaigns by showing what a vast movement composed of small decision makers working together can accomplish when each one is inspired by a believable leader who speaks the words we didn't even know we were waiting to hear. This is the first 21st Century political campaign and the American political process will never be the same. But I'm also reminded of the inspired decision makers who banded together to oppose a British monarchy that believed it was entitled to rule over them and enrich itself from their hard work. The country they invented had a long way to go; and, I'm sure it still does. But the day after tomorrow, we will all sit down in amazement and realize how far we've come. Instead of saying, "Yes, we can!" we'll say to ourselves, "Yes, we did!" Each one of you believed our country, the United States of America, one more time could build on the long struggles of the past, could overcome the hijacking of democracy that has taken place over the past 8 years, and could rise to greater heights than ever before. And, then you went out and did something about it. I'm proud of our positive, grassroots, bottom-up, hope-based campaign and grateful to each of you. So, from the bottom of my heart, I want to say "Thank you!"
Now, let's do what it takes to get the vote out!
My wife and I are quintessential, older, over-educated, internet-connected, Kool-aid drinking, “Yes we can”-chanting, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Gonzales-Rice hating progressive voters, the type the right likes to characterize as “elitists” even though we have friends from many cultures at all levels of society and they(our right-wing critics) only commune with the wealthy and privileged. Beginning with the Super Tuesday primaries, we have hosted a series of TV watching parties that continued through the primaries, the Obama-Clinton debates and the Democratic convention. We publicized the events through my.barackobama.com and by direct invitations to like- minded friends. Every get-together has been a delightful and stimulating experience where diverse people, many of whom we met for the first time when they knocked on our door, joined us in uninhibited expressions of enthusiasm and hope for a better USA. Each party had its own unique flavor, determined by the mix of people who happened to attend. We had several repeat visitors and many new faces on every occasion. The debate last night between Barack Obama and John McCain was our first opportunity in a month to host a gathering on a major occasion in the Fall campaign. Following our usual procedure, we put up a notice on my.bo.com. With a limit of 25 people listed, a steady rate of people signing up built the number of online registrations to 12. Yesterday morning, I saw an email in my inbox from Amy, a neighbor in the next subdivision, who had noticed the Obama sign in our yard while walking down our street, read the event notice, figured out that the sign and the party belonged to the same household, and who wished to come to the party with her teenaged daughter. Amy mentioned that since the event was full, she would have to see us another time. I was surprised that we apparently had an influx of registrations at the last minute and I wrote Amy back asking her to come anyway and bring her daughter, too. Checking my event, I saw that someone had signed up with the intention of bringing 13 people, just enough to max out our party. That seemed odd, so I emailed the person and asked him to confirm the registration. Further checking of my inbox showed a letter from my.bo.com notifying me that someone had signed up for 10 or more spots at an event, triggering an automatic warning email. It dawned on me that the 13 person sign up was in all likelihood a dirty trick by a McCain operative to disrupt our event by preventing additional people from signing up! I deleted this person’s registration forthwith. Perhaps this little Karl Rove-style tactic was relatively minor; seemingly it had minimal impact on our party. My new friend, Amy, from a few blocks away came with daughter, Morgan, and most of the other people who signed up made it by the time the debate was underway. Did anyone else besides my neighbor try to register after the trickster maxed out our registration? Who can say? But, what is clear is that this tactic reflects a dishonest, dishonorable, mean-spirited mindset among those who oppose Barack Obama. The aim of the dirty trick was to keep Obama supporters from getting together for an evening of sharing. Why do this? Perhaps they are afraid we will all pitch in some money and send it to our candidate. If that’s it, they could save their effort- we don’t use our parties as fund raising vehicles. I suspect that the fraudulent sign-up claiming that 13 people wish to attend was intended merely to keep a few people from joining us for fun and friendship. Lovely, isn’t it?
I have a motto, “Always a student, never a victim.” If you can learn something from an experience, then it wasn’t a failure or a defeat. Therefore, when I list our “Watch Sen. Biden put Sarah Palin back in the box where she belongs” debate watching party for next week, I’ll make the registration limit 50 people. Anyone signing up for 38 spots at the event will definitely get my attention.
Owen Scott, III, Baton Rouge
Good morning, Obama fanatics! Are you pumped today by Barack's choice of Joe Biden as his VP choice? Can you feel the excitement as the Olympics close and the Democratic Party Convention opens for some serious business? Are you like us, planning to watch every night for the build-up to Barack's speech on Thursday night? Get you Obama gear together, pull out your cookbook, and fasten your seatbelts for the Barack Obama Democratic Convention History Watching Heritage Potluck Dinner! Mary Lou asks that you email her (mkelley@lsu.edu) to let her know what you plan to bring. We will have beer and wine for those who indulge (as well as our own surprise heritage celebratory beverage of choice).
And wear something flashy because we will be taking pictures and sending them to the Obama campaign! Can we do it? YES WE CAN! Owen and Mary Lou PS We've opened up a few extra slots for guests if you want to bring or invite anyone.
You may have received an event notice for a convention watching party at our (Mary Lou Kelley and Owen Scott) house on Thursday August 28 at 6:30PM. That's the night Barack Obama will make history when he accepts the Democratic Party nomination for President of the USA! To celebrate the occasion, we are inviting all Obama supporters who can make it to join us for a heritage potluck dinner. What that is, is a dinner where you bring a dish reflecting your cultural heritage, whatever it may be. We hope to have many different ethnic, religious, national, and what-have-you represented. Mary Lou and Owen have hosted quite a few primary watching parties this year and every one of them has been a special time for those who came. Don't be shy and don't let your intertia or social phobia get the best of you: Come celebrate with us!
BARACK THE VOTE IN '08!
Mary Lou and I met Yohance "Yo" Simon during Don Cazayoux's successful special election campaign for a seat in the US House of Representatives. Yo was easy to spot, a big, handsome, athletic black guy with shaven head, big smile, upbeat attitude, and boundless enthusiasm. He told us he came down from Indiana after economic conditions led to the loss of his job as a corporate recruiter. He followed his passion and got hired by the Democratic National Committee to assist candidates running for office in Louisiana. We invited Yo over to watch primary results and struck up a great relationship as his home away from home surrogate parents. Now, Yo has been hired by the Obama campaign to coordinate activities in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he got his degree from ISU. He's happy to be going back to a familiar place and to be working directly for his hero (and ours), Barack Obama. We'll miss you, Yo, but we're happy for you, too. You know where to find us when you're passing through Baton Rouge- sitting in the family room watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann!
Barack the Vote,
Check out Yo's myspace page and read his blog "Mama I'm comin' home."
http://www.myspace.com/yosimon1
Last Tuesday, as we all know, was an historic occasion and a night of joy and celebration for the Obama Nation. For my wife, Mary Lou, and myself, it was also the end of our hosting a series of Tuesday night social gatherings for watching the votes come in, listening to speeches by the candidates and the analysis of all of this by the pundits of CNN and MSNBC, and breaking bread with other people who share our enthusiasm for Sen. Barack Obama and his message of change and hope for the future of the USA. This Tuesday might have been the best of all, not just because we heard Barack say the words we had been waiting for with excitement and anxiety, wondering if it could really happen, if it was more than just "a fairy tale (as claimed by former President Bill Clinton), and if somehow it would be snatched away at the last second by Bill's parnter (in crime?), Sen. Hillary Clinton, who seemed to have more lives than a cat. "Old" friends Frank, Mike, Yohance, Shameka, and J.P joined new friends Deborah, Caroline, David, and Mary as we watched Hillary win in South Dakota and give a strange speech that left us all hanging. Then, it happened quickly: AP called the race for Obama, MSNBC and CNN followed, Hillary finished her speech with 5 minutes to spare until the polls closed in Montana. There they are, Barack and Michelle coming out together, him elegant as ever, her in a stunning violet-purple dress, radiating inspiration, love, and good will. We all knew that he is a powerful and exciting speaker but on Tuesday, he took it to the next level of gravitas and passion.
"Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States."
It was not a dream. My daughter, Lauren, who has denied being excited about the race and who commented that she would "vote for the Democratic nominee," described Barack as "magestic." It didn't matter if Hillary and her advisors and supporters were living in an alternative universe, we knew Barack Obama was going to be the Democratic nominee! We broke out a bottle of champagne and poured it, we toasted the future of American with President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama.
But there was one sad note. With the primary season over, what are we gong to do on Tuesday nights?
Hello to all our Obama friend,Mary Lou and I had considered having people over this weekend for one of the big campaign events; but, we ended up accepting an invitation from Chris and Amanda for Burgers and Barack yesterday at their house just a few blocks away from us. We were joined by Derek and Lisa from St. Francisville and by the one and only, the amazing one woman event planning campaign wonder, J.P. By the time we got started around 5PM, the Rules and Bylaws Committee was wrapping up its long day of hard work and voting on compromise solutions to the problems of seating Michigan and Florida and splitting up their delegates between Barack and ‘what’s-her-name’ (WHN) who’s been running against him. The committee did a great job, voting through a fair solution so that those two great states, much needed in the Obama column in November, now have a voice and imposing the smallest penalty they could under Democratic Party rules and regs, a reduction in ½ of their votes by giving each delegate half a vote. The only people who aren’t happy are, yes, old WHN and that bunch of sore losers (sorry about that, Barack. I’ll try to be nicer!). All of this is getting around to this Tuesday night, the last day of the primaries and the day Sen. Obama will give an address from St. Paul, Minnesota at the site of the 2008 GOP convention that will later nominate John “I never me a war I didn’t like” McCain to try to talk the voting public into another 4 years of McBush-Cheney. (I hope you have seen the You Tube video “John McCain’s You Tube problem just turned into a nightmare” and the new DNC video on You Tube featuring Scott McClellan, John McCain, and Dick Cheney.)OK, Mary Lou and I would once again like to invite all of you over to our house to watch MSNBC and to CELEBRATE! Barack Obama should clinch the nomination with the South Dakota and Montana delegates along with superdelegates who will be coming out for him between now and Tuesday! Email me if you can make it. I’ll also post it as an event on my.barackobama.com. You may sign up for it and get Barack points by visiting my home page.
Best wishes, Owen
