Walking around the Capitol as the crowd disperses, there is a sudden

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Whoosh of wind as a marine helicopter rises up into the air. There in the window, looking down and waving, is George Bush being carried away.

As the day progresses the festivities devolve from the profound to the silly. My two favorites are watching inaugural guests go wild over actor Henry Winkler ("Fonzie! Hi, Fonzie! Sign this for me, Fonzie!") and the chanting that accompanies the President and Mrs. Clinton as they walk the last leg of their long parade route from the Capitol to their reviewing stand across from the White House. When the people in the exclusive bleachers set up just beyond the president's stand realize that he is going to take his seat without greeting them, they all chant, "One more block! One more block!" Bill and Hillary hear them and come over to do the big wave and smile and Presidential Point. They have this last one down; Bill touches Hillary's shoulder, whispers in her ear and points toward different spots in the guest stands and then she lights up and waves to that spot, as if they have just noticed the Most Important Guest of All. They do this about every thirty seconds.

After the parade the Clintons get dolled up for the inaugural balls. By the time they arrive and greet the crowd at the MTV party Adam, Larry, Mike, and Michael have "One" down so tight that Bono had better be careful he's not put out to pasture. The MTV people are mighty excited by this coup, and it is clear that this one-night-only, half-and-half supergroup should close the evening with their single song. The only unpleasant question that is raised is, who's going to tell Don Henley, the announced show-closer, that someone else is going to follow him? It's like the Amnesty tour all over again!

Now, you might think this is not a big deal. You might say: So Henley does his whole inaugural set as planned and then the other guys come out as a little encore and sing "One"—what's the problem? The problem is that Don Henley may be a great singer and a fine songwriter and a good-looking drummer, but Don Henley is not an easygoing guy. He has been known to fume and fester because the hotel maid hung the toilet paper with the flap out instead of in. He is, to put it politely, a perfectionist. He does not, to put it gently, suffer fools gladly. He was, to put in karmically, in another life the high school gym teacher who made the whole class stay after until the fat kid climbed to the top of the rope.

Tonight Henley, the former voice of the Eagles, seems to be taking his gig so seriously that one suspects he may be under the impression that his performance at the MTV inaugural ball will determine whether

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or not Clinton appoints him Chief Justice. He has prepared a sort of musical social studies lecture for the young people, climaxing with a performance of Leonard Cohen's "Democracy." Tom Freston, MTVs likable CEO, is told by his minions that as the boss he has the ugly job of telling Henley that this R.E.M./U2 supergroup is going to close the show.

I wouldn't want to be in Freston's shoes! A few years ago I drove with Henley from Cincinnati to Detroit and I remember him shaking his head about some of the new things in the music world that he just didn't get (by which I think he really meant he just didn't like): one of them was U2 and another was R.E.M. and a third was MTV.

Freston goes up to Henley and says, look, Don. You do your whole set, close the show, then after the applause ends these other guys'll come out and do "One" as a sign-off.

Henley goes pale—he looks shaken. He reminds Freston that he is supposed to close the show. Then he turns, goes into his dressing room, and shuts the door. Freston is left staring at the closed door wondering if he should knock, when someone comes up, hands him a portable phone, and says he has a call. Freston says hello and gets an earful of Irving Azoff, Henley's powerful manager, telling him he's made a big mistake and now Don's not going to go on. While Freston is saying Oh, come on and trying to deal with this he hears a voice announcing, "The Vice President of the United States and Mrs. Gore!" and suddenly MTV employees are tugging at Freston's coat shouting that He has to m up and greet the Cores right now. Freston is trying to explain his situation to Azoff, saying, 'Irving, I gotta call you back, the Vice President is here," and Azoff is demanding to know who's more important, the Vice President or Irving, and the MTV staffers are yanking Freston toward the grinning Gores and click Freston hears Azoff hanging up on him.

So Automatic Baby go on before Don Henley, and perform "One" as beautifully as it's ever been done. When that song appeared in the studio in Berlin it seemed almost like a gift telling the struggling members of U2 that they could trust each other and lay down their arms. Later, it became the centerpiece of an album about the struggles within a marriage. As an AIDS benefit single, it spoke of the possibility of conciliation between those who hate gays and the victims of that hatred. It was the song that led Axl Rose to U2's perspective and that reunited David Wojnarowicz with his family just before his death.

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During the making of the video at Nell's in New York, "One" was a source of silliness and laughter. But tonight, at the televised inaugural ball, when Stipe sings, "We're one but we're not the same, we get to carry each other," he is using the song to try—however hopelessly—to plead a case and make a promise to this whole country.

That's a lot of weight for a song to carry! "One" is a pretty strong song.

While one half of U2 is playing it to celebrate democracy in Amer­ica, the other half is playing it to ward off fascism in Europe. Bono and Edge, accompanied by the Indian violinist Shankar, are singing "One" at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg, Germany.

They have been invited by Vanessa Redgrave, the actress and activist, to perform in an antifascist evening at the Thalia. Also there is author Gunter Grass, actor Harvey Keitel, Native American poet/activist John Trudell (who declares, "As far as I'm concerned, when Christopher Columbus came to America he was wearing a Nazi uniform"), old pal Kris Kristofferson, and director Robert Wilson, who is in Hamburg staging a new version of The Black Rider with book by William Burroughs and songs by Tom Waits.

Bono goes to see The Black Rider, also at the Thalia, and for all the effort of following the German translations of American writers, the creepiness of the supernatural German folktale comes across. In the story a young man must pass a marksmanship test in order to marry the head forrester's daughter. The devil offers to help the kid out by giving him magic bullets guaranteed to hit anything he aims at—except for one bullet, which will hit the devil's secret target. The young man makes the deal, and the devil's bullet kills his fiancee (what black heart decided Burroughs should adapt this story?). Actor Dominique Horwitz plays the devil—called Pegleg—as a grinning, cloven-hoofed smoothie, more like a German cabaret performer than a traditional Mephistopheles. The show ends with Pegleg alone onstage in a tuxedo, singing Waits's sentimental "The Last Rose of Summer" like a nightclub entertainer.

A different sort of devil haunts the Thalia's antifascist evening, where Bono makes a speech about the dangers of creeping Nazism in the new Europe: "We are united not just because we are antifascist, not just because mostly we're Europeans, but because as artists, filmmakers, writers, we all work in the realm of imagination and know that is our best weapon. I suggest that it is our failure to imagine both in art and

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