Four years ago on Election Night I was in the First Class Lounge of British Airways at LAX waiting to fly to Barcelona to see Spamalot.  There was a tall, rather drunk man standing on a table, waving a champagne glass and cheering very loudly.

It was me.

So though I can’t vote don’t mean I can’t feel, and I feel we all just dodged a bullet.   Big Bird can breathe easily again.  Ethel Mormon has left the building.  Fortunately for us all, Romney was born with a silver foot in his mouth.   Finally, just when he seemed to have the prize in his improbable grasp, his God let him down.  He brought a mighty wind and a tempest to remind us what Obama was good at: governing.  Global Warming, that hype to prevent businessmen freely polluting the planet, had struck again in a devastating way.  “Good job Brownie” echoed through our minds as we watched the Candidate pathetically fake a food drive, handing bewildered people cans of Spam to donate to New Jersey so they could shake his pampered hand for the cameras.

This year I was not quite so rowdy at the bi-partisan Election Night Party held at Café Cordiale.  (And, by the way, expecting politicians to be bi-partisan is like asking Hugh Heffner to be bisexual. )  My wife was extremely anxious.  She had heard me muttering darkly about learning Chinese and moving to Tokyo.  On TV the vast red states like tectonic plates seemed to be forcing the country apart, threatening a new continental divide.  There was a lot of paranoid talk of election rigging.  We should have taken heart from Rachel Maddow, who, as we were leaving, announced that the Romney camp was not taking phone calls.  That silence presaged the end: they knew.  A loud cheer from the bar announced the barely believable news that the nightmare was over.  This Book of Mormon was closed, and over at my table the British were coming, with relief and joy.  So we spent the evening happily listening to Bern, the fabulous twelve piece soul band, with three great singers, led by the incomparable Bernie Dressler, the lead drummer of The Dicktones.  They rocked the night away.

So thank you America, on behalf of the rest of the world.  It’s a nicer country to live in today.  And, mercifully, it’s all over.

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