I Went!

Somehow, this time I really went down to DC, and attended this event, the Rally to Restore Sanity AND/OR Fear.

My friend and I went down two days earlier, because we had a long weekend; we stayed outside the beltway, and took the train in, and cased the joint on the day before.  My friend is a fan of the Library of Congress, so we spent most of our time there.  [This is a gorgeous building; there are literally scores of busts and murals, most of them with mottoes adorning them ---or possibly, the murals were intended to illuminate the mottoes--- some of them utterly corny.  But truly, the Library of Congress is a worthy effort on the part of the USA put forward to stand beside the great libraries of London, Paris, Rome and Berlin, for instance.]  We saw with relief and satisfaction the large array of Porta-A-Johns standing ready for the attendees, which meant that we did not need to take potties with us.

On the day of the Rally (Saturday) we arrived around 9:00 A.M., long before the event was scheduled to start (noon), and observed the uncompromising sanity of the crowd sanely trickling in.  We were surround by the lunatic fringe of the out-of-town Sanitarians, from as far away as Michigan and Georgia, accompanied by their calm-eyed, sane children.  The roads off the Mall were populated by people selling unlicensed merchandise, and some of them giving away Sanity merchandise (notably a souvenir Sanity towel, on which you could sit, on the grass)!

We took a walk out into downtown Washington, hoping to buy a spare battery for my phone, but failed to do so.  But we saw yet more Sanitarians, eagerly holding up their placards.  I just could not think of something both sane and funny, and so I didn't have a placard, to my utter shame.  (It did make it easier to get around, though . . .)

We got back, and got seated in front of a large so-called Jumbotron, which is a large digital screen that shows what's going on onstage.  Until the show started, there were clips from The Daily Show, and the Colbert show, bringing everyone up to date on the planning that led up to the event.

Finally, sharp at noon, the first act was introduced, the band The Roots, with guest star John Legend.  In addition to being the first act, they were the backup band for all the musical acts that followed.  (The Roots featured a bassist playing a 6-string electric bass, which impressed me.  He was great, accurate, and firmly on the beat.  There was also a huge Sousaphone, a sort of large tuba that is played by the player inserting him- or herself into the coils of the instrument.)

Just as I was beginning to despair that I would have to listen to an interminable string of hip-hop, or rap, or whatever, Jon Stewart came on, to cheers, and introduced Father Guido Sarducci, a character familiar from Saturday Night Live a couple of decades ago.

Fr Guido, having respectfully thanked God for everyone getting to the Mall safe and on time, proceeded to ask God for a sign to know which religion or denomination was the true one.  Unfortunately, there was no response, but I'm not surprised; all around me cellphones, for instance, were not getting through.

Then the Myth Busters team came on: a pair of funny guys whose main idea is to present demonstrations of principles of physics on TV. They choreographed a number of experiments suitable for a large gathering of the size of close to a couple of hundred thousand people, for instance creating a seismic wave by jumping up and down. (As Colbert remarked later, the willingness of the crowd to get to its feet and cooperate in this bit of idiocy showed the kind of crowd it was: earnest, fun-loving, and more filled with political frustration than viciousness. There's a bit of a leap there, from seismic sensors to mood sensor, admittedly :)

The business of the rally got started, with clashing of the apparent intellectual differences between the two hosts, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the latter who claimed to be extremely unwilling to give up being scared.  Colbert put forward the unwillingness to be scared as positively unAmerican.

One of the musical highlights of the rally was Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, singing his 70's hit, Peace Train.  I have seen videos of Yusuf from around the turn of the century, singing Peace Train, looking very sober and unhappy, and I despaired of ever again seeing him with the vitality of the old Cat Stevens.  But on Saturday, his voice had the energy and the flexibility of Cat Stevens at his best, and it was delightful!  But Colbert interrupted with Ozzy Ozbourne singing about a train running off the track, in true Hegelian style, until the O'Jays came in to sing Love Train, which managed to get all the musicians singing together.  Also singing were Kid Rock, and Sheryl Crow.  (The rally ended with a musical item, led by Mavis Staples.)

The event also featured David Byrne, Spinal Tap, Green Day and Devo and several other bands in the video portion,  before the live portion started.

The crowning event, for me, was a thoughtful and funny monologue by Jon Stewart, called his Keynote speech, in which he articulated the principles he was trying to put forward, namely the demonization of each political side by the other, aptly explained by Arianna Huffington.




Linkins of the Huffington Post describes his Sanity Rally experience like this:

The Rally To Restore Sanity was a well attended, and [by my] vantage, a well organized event, that drew thousands of very friendly, somewhat liberal, but not at [all] limited to young, people to Washington, DC. The early [arrivals] were deep into the sanity theme. With signs that decried hysteria, endorsed conversation, and made great sport of the excesses that we are, all, used to by now ("There was only the one Hitler" read one), the most dedicated attendees showed up to support reasonableness. (It was only after the show was over that the "Fox News Sucks" signs seem to show up.) Everyone was very well behaved. It was one of the friendliest crowds I've ever been a part of. One attendee seemed to have it exactly right, carting a sign that read, "I'm pretty sure I'd like you if I got to know you."

That shows you how little this guy knows about me!

Respectfully submitted,

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