by douglas john imbrogno | thestoryisthething.com | oct25.2025
Sometimes, you need to take a few hours break from fretting about the fate of your nation. And whether by this time next year, you’ll be trying to stomach that morning’s lumpy porridge swill served for breakfast in a bucket with brackish tap water at an Official Trump Retribution and MAGA Re-education Prison Camp, outside of the newly renamed Putinville, Oregon, after the takeover of liberal Portland by the Red Army and the Proud Boys Militia Force (PBMF), the new fourth armed service arm of the U.S. Military.
But I digress. I actually think Kamala Harris will win. And, then, fashionable Kamalistas can wear to her inauguration the inspired campaign-chic outfit seen at the bottom of this post. Meanwhile, in my ‘Mental Health Break from Apocalyptic Election Uneasiness,’ I spent some hours trimming up, timing down, and tweaking words on the artistic experiment below. Let me know what ye think.
‘WIND SONG’ | Click to View Video
The piece above, ‘Wind Song,’ is an ‘Art/Music/Video/Poem’ featuring footage from the Huffman Prairie Flying Field outside Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The flag seen in the footage is one of seven that mark out the historic field where the Wright Brothers developed the first practical aircraft near Dayton. The footage is matched to an original poem and an improv electric keyboard piece I recorded at Capon Springs & Farms earlier in 2024. The 3 minute-38-second work is an experiment in mixing art forms, yielding something greater than the sum of their parts
I shot the whipping flag footage after witnessing the April 8, 2024, full solar eclipse at Huffman Prairie Flying Field. The National Historic Landmark site is where the Wright Brothers developed the Wright Flyer III, considered to be the world’s first practical airplane. After the cosmic solar eclipse experience, I wandered over to one of the flags that mark the prairie’s perimeter, struck by the flag’s solitary beauty. (NOTE: Some close readers of this site may recall an earlier version of this flag footage posted months ago, set to what I later felt was a too revealing — if crappier and whinier — different poem and soundtrack. My official International Poetic License allows for several radical revisions and poetic makeovers per year, which is why I maintain a Gold membership level.)
Below is a one-minute look at the Great North American Solar Eclipse of 2024, as seen from Huffman Prairie Flying Field, on Monday, April 8. See a companion essay on this production of the Cosmic Phenomenon Bureau of theSTORYistheTHING and more video footage of the startling event at: www.thestoryisthething.com/archives/13730
‘TOTALITY COOL’ | Click to View Video
Yet let’s get back to the American Election of All Elections coming up within days on Tuesday, Nov. 5. This election will dramatically set the course of your life and mine, as we choose between a man hungry to be a tyrant and thirsting for retribution on Day One and the seasoned, principled leadership and vision of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
It should be emphasized that Trump looks and sounds worse by the hour. An equally horrific, if possibly worse, scenario is that he is incapacitated or his crappy health fells him. Then, the equivalently amoral, yet Energizer Bunny-busy JD Vance becomes president. And was there ever such a value-free, billionaire sock-puppet, willing-to-say-and-do anything and even utterly change his views for the sake of power toady/factotum/tool as this guy?
No. The answer is no. So, as Election Day bears down on us, I ponder what’s best to say in these final hours. What about a song or two concerning what’s at stake, America? My NotesBeforeYouVote.com election series already featured the fabulous Stevie Nicks and her stirring musical sermon “The Lighthouse” from a recent ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Yet with EPISODE 9 in our election series, we commenced a new ‘Election Season Song Series’ that is closer to home. My home in West Virginia, at least.
‘ONLY UP (Election Day)’ | Election Season Songs | Click to View Video
My friend Paul Callicoat is a fabulous West Virginia singer-songwriter and one of the state’s finest lyricists and turners-of-musical-phrases. Paul’s soulfulness and heart is all over his music and the song featured above, ‘Only Up (Election Day),’ is no different. Take a listen and ponder the lyrics on screen or dive into them below. Free subscribe to ‘NotesBeforeYouVote.com‘ for e-mail notice of new posts coming up through Election Day eve. On deck in our ‘Election Season Song’ series are: Chet Lowther, with an evocative song called ‘The Anchor,’ and Steve Payne’s on-point “Cheap Seats at the Circus.” I’ll be adding my ‘America the Beautiful, the Alt. Version.’
LYRICS: ‘Only Up (Election Day)’ by Paul N. Callicoat
An election referendum is just around the bend,
And if we can upend them, we can start to heal again.
If we organize and rise and vow to persevere,
Then hope might spring eternal when it’s only up from here.
Emerging from the darkness will be a glorious day,
Make no mistake an army is standing in our way.
And it’s a gloomy proposition, to live our lives in fear.
So, let’s take a breath and let’s fix this mess, so it’s only up from here.
Seems our barter system feeds arrogance and greed.
And now they hold the power to exploit our every need.
If the greater good can shed their hoods and start to see things clear,
We can wake up to a brighter day, where it’s only up from here.
So, listen to the tempest that’s tearing up your heart.
We must face the devil down and right the righteous cart.
Snide lies, deception, bring agony and tears.
So, let’s crush their coalition, ‘cause it’s only up from here.
So, yeah, I’m drawing lines that separate the sides.
We can’t ride the fence, we can’t run and hide.
If we ask of ourselves: What is it we hold dear?
Most of us will agree it’s only up from here.
So let’s lift our eyes to an angry sky
to see the light appear.
And let’s rise with grace to a better place
that’s only up from here.
P.S.
I don’t think I can pull off this look for Kamala’s inauguration. But, please, someone, try. For more of the photographer’s fine portraiture and artistic photography work, check out Eric Korenman’s Facebook page.
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