Inaugural Balls: Not So Bad

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INAUGURAL BALLS ARE TERRIBLE. This gets drilled into our heads from the moment the election is called. Inaugural balls have sparse, bad food, cash bars and crappy music, all for a thirty second visit from the new president.

Well, let's put it another way. OFFICIAL inaugural balls are like that.

The attendees of unofficial balls don't have to worry about the president showing up, so no-one waits around for him. Last night, these parties abounded -- even more than usual, everyone wanted to celebrate Obama's inauguration.

The Inaugural Peace Ball took over the National Postal Museum, with a giant concert of peace-movement luminaries.

Andy Shallal, owner of hip restaurant/bookstore Busboys and Poets, rented out the Smithsonian building most people have never been to and filled it with music, an open bar and catered food from risotto to Obama-themed cookies.

Attendees (once they drained their drinks) could wander through the museum exhibits and find out everything they ever wanted to know about the Pony Express. Perhaps the most popular attraction was the simplest: the cab of a monster truck hulking in one corner that was always filled with people eager to fiddle with the controls, pretend to honk the horn and take pictures of themselves at the wheel.

On top of that was a concert, featuring peacenik celebrities like Joan Baez, Eve Ensler, Alice Walker and Harry Belafonte. The audience of increasingly drunken hippies first grooved to Baez' still-stunning renditions of "Imagine" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," yelled along with Ensler's "Obama Monologue" that called for "No more George Bush!" and got surprisingly down and dirty with Angelique Kidjo and Michael Franti by the end of the evening. It was a night of odd gowns (including one screenprinted with Obama's face in gold) and beautiful people — one girl with incredible arms, when asked what she did for exercise, replied, "I'm a Marine." Well, OK then.

After an evening of dancing, drinking and singing along to "Rude Boy's Back in Town," some Peace Ball attendees were headed home in a cab that stopped to pick up some shivering party-goers headed the same way. "We were at the official Western Ball," said the newcomers. "It was awful: cash bar, no food, terrible music. We all just sat and waited for the Obamas to show up and they were there for 30 seconds and I thought, 'We are never going to get a cab.'"

So maybe the rumors are true and official balls are terrible. It doesn't mean you have to spend inauguration evening at home on the couch.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images