The Rally for Sanity: An Eyewitness Account "We Came Because We Were Tired"

We left the house around 10:30 a.m. to get to the Mall and be part of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The cold morning breeze in Bethesda chilled us to the bone, but we chatted all the way to the metro station. My girlfriend, her aunt and uncle, her two cousins, her aunt's friend, and his two boys had all been motivated to go to the rally not because of political affiliations, but because of our fondness for the Comedy Central shows of the rally's organisers, Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report). Oh yes, and because I had been asked by EA WorldView to write on the event.

That fondness evaporated a bit when we saw the normally empty station packed to capacity and long lines stretching as far as the eye could see. Luckily, our metro cards saved the day and we made it to the platforms in about 10 minutes. Then came the long wait for a train with cars empty enough for us to fit in.

Folks, I've never seen cars so packed --- not even in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where people are on the roof and hanging from the doors.

The train that we managed to get into was slightly less crowded --- we could squeeze in without pulling awesome yoga moves. But by the time we got out of the train, it was already noon, so we unable to catch up with a group of friends we had arranged to meet. But coming out of the station, the size of the crowds told me we would not have found our friends even if we had been on time.

I tried counting. On the avenue we were walking, there were 20,000 to 30,000 easily, and that's only the people I could see. People had already filled the Mall and were moving towards it on several other avenues. Others joined us later. I'd say the number was in the hundreds of thousands, but that does not really matter.

What matters is the kind of people that had shown up. Men in chicken costumes, a guy wearing a giant teabag, people dressed as witches, wizards, and dragons. One guy was Dr Rockso the Clown from the show Metalocalypse --- complete with a leotard with a giant slit in the back glaringly showing off his private parts.

Then there were the signs. "Live Red, Vote Blue", "What are you looking at?", and "This is a sign" were the less provocative ones. There were some political messages: "We need more than two parties, "Keep Comedy Central out of my MediCare", and "Vote Joe Sestak", an endorsement of the Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania. 

One guy dressed up as a zombie was holding a cardboard sign that had no words, but a big blotch of blood. My personal favourite was a little boy carrying the placard, "I'm 4, what's your excuse?"

Sadly, that was the best part of the show. Neither Stewart nor Colbert nor any of the other organisers had expected the numbers that appeared. So less than half of the crowd heard the rally and maybe a fifth saw it. No chance of a glimpse at the stage and the giant TV screens with guests like Ozzy Osbourne, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens if you still live in the 1970s), the O'Jays, and many others.

I tried for an hour to get close enough to see the screens but failed. The excuse, "I'm just trying to get to my friends, they're over there", i.e., right by that giant projection, worked for a while but not enough. I suppose many others had better, ingenious ways.

A last-ditch effort was attempting to climb one of the trees. However, as I got close enough to give it a try, a cop showed up and shouted at the two guys already enjoying the view, "Unless you have four feet and eat nuts, get offa my tree!"

That did it for me. I walked back through the sea of people for about four blocks to where I had lost my girlfriend and her cousin amidst a grinding soup of humans, including one with the sign, "I need a sandwich", next to another one announcing via a board with a smiley face, "I'm not mad".

As we walked back to the metro station six blocks away, we were joined by another portion of the same sea. Humans as far as the eye could see. That's when I realised what everyone was doing there --- they were tired.

Tired of being told to get together to change things. Tired of being told to gather round and decry the coming Apocalypse. Tired of being promised change, restoration, and God knows what and then losing that hope and finding the fear unfounded. But most of all, they were tired of being told what to do. They wanted to come together and do what they wanted to do, which was beautiful, sad, bizarre and, in some cases, pointless.

Will it make a difference? Does anything these days?

I'll get back to my wine and let you figure that out.