Washington D.C., October 2010, Day 3

The Rally To Restore Sanity

Today is the day.  This entire Washington D.C. trip was about something that we care about.  Something that we believe in.  And today is the day that this something is going to happen.  For those who do not follow or do not care or do not feel that I have explained the Rally To Restore Sanity clearly enough, allow me to explain it  now.

There are people to the far Left of our political spectrum who, during the George W. Bush administration, carried around posters at political rallies of the President of the United States with a Hitler moustache.  There are people to the far Right of our political spectrum who during the current Barack Obama administration, carry around posters at political rallies of the President of the United States with a Hitler moustache.  These posters are... stupid.  The slightest understanding of history proves both representations to be ignorant at best.  But more than foolish, they are destructive.  Why?  Because there are now multiple 24-hour news channels that devote significant airtime to these ignorant fringes of American politics.

In response to this, The Daily Show proposed the Rally To Restore Sanity.  The Daily Show is a television program that provides a comedic look at the news and specifically the way that news media reports it.  Part entertainment and part experiment, this rally represents that it is time in this country to see how many people will show up for a rally that is devoted toward moderation, cooperation, and sanity.  A rally that acknowledges intelligent people can have differing political opinions without accusing each other of plotting to destroy the nation.  And, depending on the number of people who show up at this Rally, it just might send a message to the media and the politicians that the sensible center deserves a voice.

But first... breakfast at the hotel with Greg and Sabrina, the couple from Sherman Oaks whom we met at check-in. 

You bet I got into the omelet line.  I am going to need my strength.  I am going to a political rally.  Me.  A political rally.  For the first time, ever.

My breakfast.

After breakfast we headed out into the streets of Washington D.C.  I had our path mapped out on the iPhone.  No more waiting!

We passed by Ford's Theater and the house across the street where, well, you can read.

The closer we got to the National Mall, the more people walking with us.  And note that everyone is walking in the same direction.  At this point there was already a feeling of excitement and togetherness.  (Barbie makes a subtle appearance in this one.)

I turned around to take this shot.  As you see, the crowd is getting thicker.  You might also notice that people of all ages and racial backgrounds have come together for sanity.

Some signs make a point.  Some go for a laugh.

We are nearly there, and already the area is packed with people.  If you care to know, those signes read, "You're mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the tears of morons," and "Shave the Whales."  Shave The Whales is pretty damn funny, but please note that it also mocks the stupidity of the average sign at a political rally.  Yes, it is a meta-sign in a post-ironic world.

We are not there yet, but that is the rally, my friends.  From the moment we decided to fly across the country for this rally, I had a tiny fear that the turn-out would be disappointing.  Not going to happen.  

Almost there.  From here we are going to try to get a little closer to the front and towards the center.

Here is a panorama of where we ended up.  We can see the screens and hear the audio clearly.  The only true disappointment is that we could not get close enough to the center to look back and see the Washington Monument.  It is hitten behind trees.

My favorite sign.

As of today, Barbie and I can both officially claim to have been in a sea of people.  At this writing, the estimates of the crowd seem to be coalescing around the number 215,000.  More on that later.

We saw every race, every age, and every creed at this rally.

I needed to be twenty feet tall and in the center of this rally to get the shot I wanted.  Since I was neither in the center nor twenty feet tall, I settled for a 360° HD video.  (Make sure to view it in HD if you have a decently large monitor.)

Self Portrait at the Rally To Restore Sanity.  Made much better by the young women making silly faces behind me.

Barbie joins me for another self-portrait.  I held my arms up as high as I could to show as many people behind us as possible.   Eventually I am going to be able to get a satellite photo of this event and circle our position.

The view in front of me.  This is as close as we could get to a screen and speaker setup.

Then came the rally.  It was a combination of music, comedy, and message.  The message was subtle much of the time.  The entire rally aired on Comedy Central, and if you truly cared then I assume you would have watched it or recorded it with plans to watch it sometime in the future.  At this point, I already felt on thing; what happens next is important.  What do we do next?  Do we organize like the Tea Party (whose rally on the Mall we outnumbered approximately 2.5:1) and do our best to force one of the two main parties to change their platform?  To we attempt to force both parties towards the middle?  Step one was proving that we do in fact have numbers on our side.  Step two remains to be seen.

With a half hour to go in the rally, we forced our way to the side and tried to get to the back of the crowd to see just how far back it went.  It took us a long, long time, but we finally got to where there was some space between people.

I got this shot near to 12th Street, which means that this crowd stretched for half a mile.  More than half a mile, actually. 

And with that, it was over.  We were very hungry and ready for lunch.

I hade to take this picture for my mother.

And with that, Colossal Waste's coverage of the Rally To Restore Sanity is over.

After stopping into the Hard Rock for some merchandise, and seeing that they could not seat us for an hour, we opted to go back to the hotel for a late lunch at the hotel's bistro and bar, Cure.

The people at Cure were overwhelmed.  Apparently this city was not at all prepared for people to show up for the rally.  And the service was borderline awful, from the maitre d' who was rude to everyone without a reservation - wait, we had one and he was still kind of rude -  to the waiters who got orders wrong, lost orders, and basically could not even get around to refilling a water.  On top of that, the soups were not good.  Therefore, no soup pictures.

These sliders were very good, at least.

This mac'n'cheese with ham was pretty good, but not great.

As if that was not enough activity for one day, tonight things get taken up yet another social notch.  Well, taken up a notch for me.  You see, one of Barbie's best and most famous clients happens to be in Washington D.C. with his wife, and they have invited us out for the evening.  Sure, I have friends who are working actors and I am by no means star struck when I see celebrities around our neighborhood, but what happened tonight is delightfully surreal.

The famous man and his wife invited us to see the musical Hair with them, and then to go to dinner after.  Good thing I brought a sport jacket this trip.  We hopped into a taxi and I shouted, "To the Kennedy Center, my good man!"

It is funny.  I cannot think of the musical Hair without thinking of the word Hippy, and I cannot think of the word Hippy without thinking of Cartman on South Park.  That said, I know the music to this show and there are some great songs in it, so I was sincerely looking forward to this.

I remember seeing this style of sculpture in the 1970's.  Between you and me, I am not sure that it stands the test of time.

The show was, in the words of a man in the know, kind of like a High School production of Hair.  I agree entirely.  Awkward choreography, uninspiring production design, an onstage band that played like they had just met and did not like the music, and performers who did not quite know how to connect with the audience.  Look at that!  I just became a snarky theater critic.

Between you me, I wondered if it was not too much of a challenge to stage this play today.  It is not just anti-war, it is anti-enlistment.  At the time it was first staged, this was all about Vietnam.  But with nothing in the musical that addresses whether it is against all war or that war specifically, it is a lot harder to not side against the hippy's and instead support the parents who were proud to see their son go off to fight for their country.  Time can be cruel to art.

After the show, our gracious hosts invited us up to their apartment next door to the Kennedy Center -- in the Watergate.  This is tremendously cool.  Do not get me wrong.  I think that the use of the suffix -gate for every stinking political scandal is one of the more stupid traditions in our culture.  Heck, when Britney Spears appeared in public without proper underclothing I believe some called it Panty-gate.  Still, the Watergate complex on the Potomac River is a seriously famous place.  How cool is it to be invited up to a seriously famous person's apartment in a seriously famous location?  

For the record, I am not going to divulge this person's name.  He was incredibly nice to me, and we walked and talked as friends all night.  He even referred to me as both "young" and "thin," two adjectives that I rarely get to hear applied to me nowadays.  So, besides respecting his privacy as far as being mentioned on my travel blog, I feel like I should treat him on the Waste as I treat most friends, which is to not mention them by full name and let them start their own blogs if they choose.

It is October 30, by the way.  A Saturday night the night before Halloween.  We walked to Georgetown and the streets were packed.  There were times we had to slowly work our way through the crowd.  (Yes, it was not at all unlike the rally earlier in the day.)

And, as we were weaving through the crowd, I would say that every minute or two a young person dressed for Halloween would double-take toward the man walking next to me, and one in five of them would shout his name with a smile, while others would mention a television show or commercial or movie he has appeared in, and then some would ask to have their picture taken with him.

At one point he said to me with a grin, "It's wonderful to be famous."  I would add that it is especially wonderful to be famous on Halloween in a neighborhood filled with college aged women.

After the pleasant and extremely entertaining walk through Georgetown, we came to our destination; Clyde's.  The other night we got to eat at the fancy, new Clyde's next to the local NBA arena, tonight we get to eat at the Georgetown original.

The conversation was great, as was the food.

I got the Marathon Pasta.

Barbie got the Ravioli.

For dessert, Bread Pudding and Ice Cream,

We walked back home, taking some back roads that would allow us to avoid some of that Halloween madness, and arrived back to the Watergate.

That is the Kennedy Center reflecting its lights on the Potomac.  The Watergate is just to the left.

We said good night to our lovely hosts and hopped in a taxi.  This might have been our fullest day ever in North America.  A massive political rally followed by an evening with a man who pleasantly enjoys his place in our celebrity culture.

It rarely gets better.