We got up quite early for a Saturday and got down to the Greenbelt station by about 9:30am. Given that the rally wasn't supposed to start until noon, we were quite surprised when we met the line that looped around the front lot. But the excitement level was so high! Lots of friendly chatting and "holy shmoley, the line is over where?" exclamations later, we made it to the metro car - which was certainly not any less crowded than a sardine tin. We hadn't expected to get quite so intimate with our fellow rally-goers so early, but laughter is the shortest distance between two people - or, perhaps, a whole subway car of passengers who were just starting to realize how absurd their day was going to get.
The first thing I noticed after we squeezed out of the station was the signage. Everywhere. People selling nonsensical signs, people giving away political signs, people carrying folded "we didn't think about bringing this on the metro" signs... Any variation you can think of on a popular meme, it was there. It felt, to me, like the Internet personified. A giant mass of people with opinion boxes filled with "we brought sandwiches" and "who farted?" and "bears!!!" Some were political, some were completely random, and an occasional few were somewhat mean (but mostly to Fox, which is relatively justified). But almost all were funny, if not just because of the scale of it all, and we spent a good amount of time pointing and going "look at that one!" - as if we weren't already painfully obvious tourists.
After establishing that the portopotties were not a myth, we tried to get a good spot. There was only so much we could maneuver versus the tide of people, and we settled down to a mediocre vantage point at best. I wish I could have climbed a tree, as some did, but not everyone can be so lucky. Admittedly, I was miffed throughout the Roots set, but how long can you really sulk when the Mythbusters come out and test the periodicity of a giant human wave, or the ability of a huge crowd to shake the ground by jumping all at once, or the sound that happens when a sea of people simultaneously laugh, cry, or cheek pop. That was awesome by itself. The rest of the show had some slow parts, but it was almost impossible to not have a good time. Some of the reasons:
- Colbert came up in a psudo-Fenix contraption and wore some sort of flag superhero suit
- Father Guido Sarducci gave the benediction and asked God to give us a sign, maybe a tattoo on someone's face, to show who had the "correct" religion
- Cat Stevens and Ozzy Osbourne dueled their peace and crazy train songs, respectively; Jon and Stephen eventually compromised with the O'Jays rendition of Love Train
- Stephen and Jon sang "I'm more american than you", but most importantly, Stephen's tuning at the beginning caused his singing partner to double over in "I can't sing that" laughter (well, he can't sing well in the first place, but still)
- John Oliver wore a Peter Pan / Robin Hood / ?? costume
Jon Stewart's last 13-minute speech rivaled all of that, however. I strongly recommend it - http://bit.ly/9lNPYu - as there was such silence during it but you could tell that people were agreeing. They were empathizing. We were all together in wanting more willingness to compromise, more real progress, more reason and sanity in what is and what represents our political discourse. Contrary to some reports, it was not an apathetic crowd. You don't draw ~250,000 people and break Metro ridership records because you don't care. Not everyone was there for the same reasons, certainly, but they showed up. Even if our spot kinda sucked and we had to shout "louder, louder!" to hear what was happening on stage, I was proud to be a warm body in the crowd count. Everyone we talked to was very friendly and smart, and made me feel like things are going to be good, not crazy like the media touts. Never perfect, perhaps, but with everyone's help it'll be pretty darn okay.
