Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in America
TPR Special Report (as in, this isn't a James Report!): The Rally to Restore Reason and/or Fear in America
Washington, D.C.
October 30, 2010
"If we amplify everything, we hear nothing"
Jon Stewart, 10-30-10
So, Comedy Central's Political Pundit/Satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert ("The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report", respectively) hosted their gigantic 3-hour Rally to Restore Reason and/or Fear in America on the National Mall in Washington D.C. and I was there! *Snoppydance* Even better, my daughter and her boyfriend went with me. :) It was AWESOME! The awesomest of awesomeness! (as MB says). A perfect fall day. Great, funny and, at times, musical extravaganza. Massive crowds! (CBS estimates 215,000 as of this report. It was lots and lots and lots and lots!) But congenial as hell! Stewart said what he wanted from us we'd already given by "your presence". :)
The stage was just north of 3rd St and the crowd stretched past 7th St and well into the next section, as far back as the Washington Monument (south of 15th St), by one report. We got off the jam-packed Metro a bit farther away from the National Mall and walked past the White House on our way. We got to 7th about 11 AM (the Rally was from Noon to 3 PM) and discovered a wall of people already occupying the area before and behind us. We got some surprisingly good on-site Thai food and settled down in a spot that turned out to be too far away to see or hear anything! There was a JumboTron screen 'way over there' we could kind of see when the heads and signs shifted just right, but the speakers were just not loud enough where we were. After about an hour we started wandering and eventually found ourselves by the Air and Space Museum where we had a better view of the screens and in decent hearing range finally for thelast hour and half.
The rally was not about politics, but about 'taking it down a notch for America'--a polite request to cut the melodrama and scare tactics of the minority of political extremists who have a loud and fear-mongering voice in the media today. You know who they are. The message to restore reasonable discourse, calm speech and compromise (not a dirty word) and a call to tone down the media rhetoric was gotten across admirably through the wit and satirical humor of the political-and-people-savvy Stewart and Colbert, who basically said 'be sensible, stop stirring hatred, stop over-reacting, and quit making everything dire'. As they do on their shows, they used satire, video clips, guests and a wonderfully sane, thoughtful, humorous and intelligent keynote speech made by Jon Stewart.
Video:
Text: http://www.examiner.com/celebrity-in-national/rally-to-restore-sanity-jon-stewart-s-closing-speech-full-text
Among the guest performers were Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters, Sam Waterston of "Law and Order", The Roots with John Legend, Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow singing together, and even Tony Bennett singing "America the Beautiful". There was a humorous sketch where Jon Stewart brought out Yusef Islam (artist FKA Cat Stevens) who started singing "Peace Train". Colbert interrupted...with Ozzy Osbourne coming out to sing "Crazy Train". After several backs and forths of each starting their songs, and being interrupted by the hosts, they finally settled on having the O'Jays come out and sing "Love Train" LOL! Other celebrities made brief appearances as well.
There were signs everywhere--attendees were encouraged to bring Sanity and/or Fear restoring signs, and man, did they! Everything from political issues, political commentary, and political satire to just downright funny. Some I saw:
"Have you seen my keys?"
"Generic Sign"
"Meh"
"Who farted?" and another elsewhere "I farted. Sorry" (they need to find each other!)
(On a gold posterboard in glitter) "Ooh...Shiny!"
"I'm Extremely Moderate"
"Death to Nobody"
"Things are Pretty OK"
"I am not a Witch" (on the back of someone in a witch costume)
"There is nothing to fear but fear itself...and spiders"
"I disagree with you...but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler"
"Anyone for Scrabble (TM) later?" (in the appropriate tiles)
"Liberal Illegal Mexican pot smoker with Gay agenda"
"If this is a mall, seriously - where are the shoes?"
"I'm for the Cold Beer Rapport" (using the iconic Colbert Eagle "C)
"Confused Senior Citizens for Sanity" (an older couple)
"Dinosaurs against Creationism" (technically not a sign, it was on a t-shirt)
"George Washington smoked pot; Benjamin Franklin was in a sex club; Thomas Jefferson screwed a slave...Christian Nation?"
"Sanity has a well-known Liberal bias"
"We're mad as Hell...and we're gonna write fic about it"
"dissent is sexy"
"Think Outside the Fox"
"Snakes on a rally sign"
"My arms are tired"
and finally:
"Fear the Amish"
(there's lots more on www.Flickr.com, just type in the full Rally name!)
Numerous takes on the Hitler moustache thing had pictures of President Obama in various moustaches including one making him look like Einstein and one that added a Charlie Chaplin hat to the usual moustache and labeled it "Vaude "villian"?" A lot of people lampooned the Tea Party -- some had tea hats, tea decorations and numerous Mad Hatters (one complete with a tea service laid out).
Mine:
There were lots of costumes as well--my favorites were the Blue Meanie
and the Black and White Charlie Chaplin and Clara Bow with a sign that declared "the original Silent Majority" were there. My daughter's:
Her boyfriend is nicknamed Waldo, so he went as Waldo of "Where's..." fame, and got a ton of "There you are!"s LOL! There were a lot of them in the crowd, BTW--popular little guy! One group had a sign reading "Jump rope with a Muslim" said indeed there was a Muslim girl and friends turning a rope. A second sign said "Don't jump to
conclusions, just jump rope" :) As we watched, Jesus came along and jumped rope with them!...
All of the 'reporters' for "The Daily Show w/JS" made brief appearances, and even R2D2 was there as part of a special edition of "Formidable Opponent", which featured a giant 'Dia De La Muerte' style puppet of Colbert (and Colbert eventually being 'melted' by Stewart's irrefutable common sense, along with the puppet). The crowds were orderly and everyone seemed to be having a great time. They left the place in what appeared to be a spontaneous march out of the Mall, emptying and spilling out onto the surrounding streets in a friendly spirit of having shared a special moment and were in no hurry to end the mood. As I said before, very genial company to be in.
And tidy--one of Jon's requests (and his charity of choice for the Rally--*Trust for the National Mall*) was that we clean up after ourselves and leave the National Mall clean...and we did! As we left, we wandered the National Mall over a 5 x 2 block area and found not a single piece of litter! See what we, as individuals, can do when we are rational...
Washington, D.C.
October 30, 2010
"If we amplify everything, we hear nothing"
Jon Stewart, 10-30-10
So, Comedy Central's Political Pundit/Satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert ("The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report", respectively) hosted their gigantic 3-hour Rally to Restore Reason and/or Fear in America on the National Mall in Washington D.C. and I was there! *Snoppydance* Even better, my daughter and her boyfriend went with me. :) It was AWESOME! The awesomest of awesomeness! (as MB says). A perfect fall day. Great, funny and, at times, musical extravaganza. Massive crowds! (CBS estimates 215,000 as of this report. It was lots and lots and lots and lots!) But congenial as hell! Stewart said what he wanted from us we'd already given by "your presence". :)
The stage was just north of 3rd St and the crowd stretched past 7th St and well into the next section, as far back as the Washington Monument (south of 15th St), by one report. We got off the jam-packed Metro a bit farther away from the National Mall and walked past the White House on our way. We got to 7th about 11 AM (the Rally was from Noon to 3 PM) and discovered a wall of people already occupying the area before and behind us. We got some surprisingly good on-site Thai food and settled down in a spot that turned out to be too far away to see or hear anything! There was a JumboTron screen 'way over there' we could kind of see when the heads and signs shifted just right, but the speakers were just not loud enough where we were. After about an hour we started wandering and eventually found ourselves by the Air and Space Museum where we had a better view of the screens and in decent hearing range finally for thelast hour and half.
The rally was not about politics, but about 'taking it down a notch for America'--a polite request to cut the melodrama and scare tactics of the minority of political extremists who have a loud and fear-mongering voice in the media today. You know who they are. The message to restore reasonable discourse, calm speech and compromise (not a dirty word) and a call to tone down the media rhetoric was gotten across admirably through the wit and satirical humor of the political-and-people-savvy Stewart and Colbert, who basically said 'be sensible, stop stirring hatred, stop over-reacting, and quit making everything dire'. As they do on their shows, they used satire, video clips, guests and a wonderfully sane, thoughtful, humorous and intelligent keynote speech made by Jon Stewart.
Video:
Text: http://www.examiner.com/celebrity-in-national/rally-to-restore-sanity-jon-stewart-s-closing-speech-full-text
Among the guest performers were Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters, Sam Waterston of "Law and Order", The Roots with John Legend, Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow singing together, and even Tony Bennett singing "America the Beautiful". There was a humorous sketch where Jon Stewart brought out Yusef Islam (artist FKA Cat Stevens) who started singing "Peace Train". Colbert interrupted...with Ozzy Osbourne coming out to sing "Crazy Train". After several backs and forths of each starting their songs, and being interrupted by the hosts, they finally settled on having the O'Jays come out and sing "Love Train" LOL! Other celebrities made brief appearances as well.
There were signs everywhere--attendees were encouraged to bring Sanity and/or Fear restoring signs, and man, did they! Everything from political issues, political commentary, and political satire to just downright funny. Some I saw:
"Have you seen my keys?"
"Generic Sign"
"Meh"
"Who farted?" and another elsewhere "I farted. Sorry" (they need to find each other!)
(On a gold posterboard in glitter) "Ooh...Shiny!"
"I'm Extremely Moderate"
"Death to Nobody"
"Things are Pretty OK"
"I am not a Witch" (on the back of someone in a witch costume)
"There is nothing to fear but fear itself...and spiders"
"I disagree with you...but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler"
"Anyone for Scrabble (TM) later?" (in the appropriate tiles)
"Liberal Illegal Mexican pot smoker with Gay agenda"
"If this is a mall, seriously - where are the shoes?"
"I'm for the Cold Beer Rapport" (using the iconic Colbert Eagle "C)
"Confused Senior Citizens for Sanity" (an older couple)
"Dinosaurs against Creationism" (technically not a sign, it was on a t-shirt)
"George Washington smoked pot; Benjamin Franklin was in a sex club; Thomas Jefferson screwed a slave...Christian Nation?"
"Sanity has a well-known Liberal bias"
"We're mad as Hell...and we're gonna write fic about it"
"dissent is sexy"
"Think Outside the Fox"
"Snakes on a rally sign"
"My arms are tired"
and finally:
"Fear the Amish"
(there's lots more on www.Flickr.com, just type in the full Rally name!)
Numerous takes on the Hitler moustache thing had pictures of President Obama in various moustaches including one making him look like Einstein and one that added a Charlie Chaplin hat to the usual moustache and labeled it "Vaude "villian"?" A lot of people lampooned the Tea Party -- some had tea hats, tea decorations and numerous Mad Hatters (one complete with a tea service laid out).
Mine:
There were lots of costumes as well--my favorites were the Blue Meanie
and the Black and White Charlie Chaplin and Clara Bow with a sign that declared "the original Silent Majority" were there. My daughter's:
Her boyfriend is nicknamed Waldo, so he went as Waldo of "Where's..." fame, and got a ton of "There you are!"s LOL! There were a lot of them in the crowd, BTW--popular little guy! One group had a sign reading "Jump rope with a Muslim" said indeed there was a Muslim girl and friends turning a rope. A second sign said "Don't jump to
conclusions, just jump rope" :) As we watched, Jesus came along and jumped rope with them!...
All of the 'reporters' for "The Daily Show w/JS" made brief appearances, and even R2D2 was there as part of a special edition of "Formidable Opponent", which featured a giant 'Dia De La Muerte' style puppet of Colbert (and Colbert eventually being 'melted' by Stewart's irrefutable common sense, along with the puppet). The crowds were orderly and everyone seemed to be having a great time. They left the place in what appeared to be a spontaneous march out of the Mall, emptying and spilling out onto the surrounding streets in a friendly spirit of having shared a special moment and were in no hurry to end the mood. As I said before, very genial company to be in.
And tidy--one of Jon's requests (and his charity of choice for the Rally--*Trust for the National Mall*) was that we clean up after ourselves and leave the National Mall clean...and we did! As we left, we wandered the National Mall over a 5 x 2 block area and found not a single piece of litter! See what we, as individuals, can do when we are rational...