Rally to Restore Sanity: Pretty Crazy

I am very protective of my free time, that is to say, that time where I don't engage in structured activities. As a result, I rarely engage in long range pre-emptive planning.

However, when I first heard about the Rally to Restore Sanity (hosted by John Stewart). It went on the calendar almost instantly. This was back in September. We had a lot to do: figure out the Metro, figure out DC, figure out what to put on our shirts, and figure out what to do with The Dog... there was a lot to figure out. Fortunately, that made it a lot easier when 10.30.10 arrived.

The stencil we made for our shirts.

We dropped of the dog at 0800, and found our way to the Vienna metro station by 0900. The Eastbound exit off 66 was jammed with cars trying to get in. Apparently, this was a popular idea. The eastbound parking lot was jam packed. Cars where lined up for a mile, threaded through the rows, and left. I hope the person who double parked the one empty space got a ticket.

 It is a bit of an intellectual oddity that the Vienna park-and-ride spans both sides I-66. What about westbound side? I had not noticed cars filing in there with the same abundance. I am not sure where the refuges were going, but it wasn't the westbound lot. We were delighted to find no line many empty parking places just across the bridge. Amazing. I wonder where everyone else went? To try their luck at East Falls Church. Good luck with that!

Amazing too, was the line for tickets. The automated machines were swamped with folks purchasing tickets. We, luckily, had plenty of credit on ours from the last trip, and waltzed past the line, through the stiles, and down the escalator, just in time to pack into the train.

Metro was caught quiet off guard by the Rally. Either they didn't get the memo or decided that it was not worth thinking about. Vienna only had a few employees on duty, certainly not enough to guide a lost crowd of out-of-towners lodged near Dulles. There were also not enough trains. Vienna is the last stop on the Orange line, yet the train inbound to DC was packed when it left the station, and few additional people could squeeze in at each stop. We managed to nab a seat, and watched sympathetically as people peered in from the podium, looking for a niche to cram in. The Girly scowled when I suggested we do the Royal Hand Wave and smile vacantly at each station.

Not this train: looking for space on a crammed Metro car

We considered getting off at a number of stops, but ultimately left when everyone else did. Sometimes fighting the crowd is a very bad idea. Hundreds of people tend to push pretty hard when they do it en masse.

From the subway, we first ventured away from the rally, reasoning that bathrooms without lines would be further, not closer to ground zero, and were rewarded with relatively pristine fixtures near the Washington Monument. Our reconnaissance trip made a few weeks ago was paying off quite well, having given us locations of useful things like bathrooms, a set of ready train tickets, and later, bearings that gave us a nice patch of grass to pause and relax on.

We tried to get close to the stage, but found the crowd far too dense, so we decided to camp out near a video screen. We pretty much choose the location because moving anywhere was getting impossible.

People

There were people everywhere. Thousands of them. We may not be good at government, or obeying traffic laws, or algebra, or english, or making crème bruleé, but we are very good at breeding, and we have celebrated our skill by doing it lots.

I was initially worried that the rally was going to be loaded with lots of political people trying to do political things. This sort of behavior would be very contrary to the goals of the movement, and I sincerely hoped that everyone would get the message and recognize what we were really rallying against. Fortunately, there very little politicking going on.

There were a few Pro-Choice, Get Out the Vote, and Libertarians about, one very large sign that might have been promoting Glenn Beck, but might not have been, and a disproportionately large number of people trying to get pot legalized. Unfortunately, I keep getting mistaken for John Lennon, so I spent a little time smiling politely while listening to people promote behavior that could quite possibly ruin my career if I ever did it.

This is how to organize a movement. Or something.

Politcos:

All and all, it was a very friendly and warm crowd who were generally not a big angry mob and pretty cool to be hanging out with. It was a new, kinder, gentler mob.

Of course, it is the individuals that give a mob it's character.

The Rally

The rally was delightfully defocused. Or, stayed pretty much right on topic throughout, depending on how you look at it. John Stewart &co did a very nice job organizing and planning considering the circumstances. The circumstances being, in my opinion, that they were wildly successful beyond any stretch of the imagination. When Stewart first got on the stage, he definitely affected the air of disbelief. As in, "Wow, there's like 10 million people out there. Um, ah, I guess it worked." This is definitely very close to the thought that crossed my mind, which was something like, "Wow, there are a lot of us!"

There was a series of skits and awards focused on marked cases of (in)sanity in our modern world. The most major heartbreak was when Stephen Colbert stopped Cat Stephens Yusuf Islam from playing Peace Train. We all wanted to cry, although having Ozzy start playing Crazy Train was some comfort. If anyone had to take one in the yarbles, it was The Media, who's needs for maximum profit and duty to inform the public result in an eternal case of freak out. Case in point: NPR firing reporters and preventing employees from attending The Rally. Nuts.

Post Facto

At 3 o'clock, the rally permit expired and we were no longer part of a rally, but a mindless hoard tresspassing on federal property. Thousands of people scattered in all directions. We wandered down, past the stage, in front of the capitol building, then a few blocks north, where we found a nice patch of grass to eat our picnic lunch that we had prepared (impromptu at the grocery store at 0800 that morning) to enjoy while the crowds scattered. 

Finally, green grass and a sandwich.

The tree of the knowledge of politics and real life never bears fruit.

Sunset in D.C.

Of course, hundreds of thousands of people don't easily scatter just like dog hair doesn't easily come out of the carpet. After a little over an hour, we packed, and trudged back to the subway to stand in line for the train. Fortunately, Metro had called in reinforcements, rolled every train they could find, and getting out was not quite the hassle as getting in. I slept in a slumpt pile on the way home.