"We the People of the United States of America"

Do you often loose sleep over the fact that you have still yet to locate Waldo? If so, then have I got some news for YOU! On Saturday October 30th, 2010 at approximately 1:45 p.m. I stepped onto the grounds of Washington DC's National Mall where Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert, (one of which has been argued to be the most trusted "newsman" on television), manifested their long awaited Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. At that moment, with the Capital building and the Library of Congress not too far from plain sight, I found him. That's right. For those of you who have wondered where Waldo is, on Saturday Oct. 30th, 2010 at approximately 1:45 p.m. Waldo, along with what has been reported and seemed like tens of thousands of people of every stripe, was at The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. Mr...Waldo... was unavailable for comment on what must have been an insanity filled trip to the sane-fest. Luckily for you, I am. And my trip to the rally, (though I'm the first to admit, I am no Waldo), was anything but bland. So let's walk through it, shall we? Alright.

Recently on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Arianna Huffington announced that she will be bussing anyone who wants to go to the rally for free. I saw this myself, as did hundreds if not thousands of people, and jumped at the opportunity. The trip, I knew, would be demanding. A four hour bus ride from Boston to New York and then a four-and-a-half hour bus ride from New York to DC and then back. But I was up for the challenge. And so like a good neighbor, Fung Wah was there; and $15 later I was on my way to New York City on Friday October 29th at 7 p.m. I arrived promptly approximately at 11 p.m. and followed my prescribed plan, spend the entirety of the night walking around New York City interviewing people on the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear in the wee hours of the night in every borough I can get to before 5:30 a.m. when The Huffington Post had told me via e-mail that I had to check in for my free bus ride to DC at Citi Field where the Mets more dwindle than play. I was off!

The first person I met, and arguably the most demanding of all my interviewees, was Lisa, 35. Lisa, who I met in Times Square at approximately 11:46 p.m., was like a soft drink in the desert. She was a Russian immigrant and held a giant sign across her body that helped her spread her political message about George Bush being a criminal. The conversation was... interesting. "People look at the US dollar like a coupon overseas", she'd say in her rough Russian accent. She managed, in between taking photos with empathizing tourists and handing out political literature, to string together an anecdote about a trip she took to Italy last summer where several shops refused to take her American currency, claiming it has no value and she should have it exchanged immediately. It was obvious that Lisa had some strong sentiments in opposition and in favor of the former and the new US Presidents respectively, but when I asked Lisa, who clearly was quite well read on past and present politics, about The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear, I received the first of a multitude of the same answer I would receive in my pilgrimage through New York City's latest morning hours. "Nope, never heard of it", she said, maintaining her accent's Russian garb. The word rang in the concrete jungle of New York's late night sidewalk crawlers like a mating call. By the time I had sat to notice my notes and interviews, at approximately 1:32 a.m., I had interviewed 11 people who all had political cognizance and opinion. Still none of them had ever even heard of Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert's rally. So I thought to myself, how is this? How is the birth city of both shows known across the country so unaware of the rally? For the answer I was able, at approximately 2:11 a.m. , to turn to Kendia, 26, who I met earlier at her job at the Bubba Gump Shimp Company in Times Square where she worked as a hostess. "I totally wish I could have gone", she said as we walked towards the subway entrance where I eventually dropped her off. "I think people don't know too much about the rally because [they] watch the show for a laugh, not for information. Uninformed people, I mean.", she said when I asked about the seeming ignorance towards the rally. Kendia herself seemed better informed about the rally than the politics it was due to discuss. As my wee hours dwindled down in the NYC sidewalks and subways, I managed to make my way to Brooklyn and caught my first sight of the Brooklyn bridge at approximately 3:27 a.m. Not 15 minutes later, I was huddled in conversation with Nizar, a 20 year old Brooklyn native whom traded me a cigarette for an interview. Nizar and I stood outside a closed deli as he tried to convince me of his political points. Amidst a conversation which I'm sure would have made a beautiful ad for the rally, I asked young Nizar his thoughts on the rally. His response gave me my first glance at what would eventually become apparent in the rally itself. "The rally seems like a reasonable call to reason. It appears to be a more of a point than an event. Saying 'Hey, would you stop the anger and actually have the conversation, because the bullshit clearly isn't working.'", he said in his deep New York accent. "For one, I wish I could have gone. But I'm just another guy with a job, you know?" So with that I shook the young man's hand, offered him another cigarette for his time, and made my way to Citi Field to prepare for another long bus ride with my fellow DC pilgrims. I arrived at Citi Field at approximately 5:40 a.m. and became a leg of a seemingly perpetually winding centipede of a human being lined up to take up Arianna Huffington's generous offer. The air was electric with political conversations, jokes, and conversations about the rally and it's fabulously famous hosts. Renald, 32, or 'Remmy' as I later learned to call him had made his place immediately after me in the line. I took out my pad and started my inquisition. "The Rally is just what it insinuates, a call for normal people to hold real conversation." I asked the sir about the political nature of the rally and it's ghost like political message, to which he replied "It's not pushing politics. It's pushing reasonable politics. It's pushing reason in conversation. It's pushing... Sanity!", he said as he sipped on his Gatorade. Eventually the busses came in sight and we all made our way at random into our vessels and began the four and a half hour trip to The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. The bus ride was itself interesting and filled with all types of people having all types of conversations ranging from political and religious to instructions on how to make a legitimate "Snooki" Halloween costume. We all made it to our destination about 2 miles away from the Rally at approximately 1 p.m. Charged with enthusiasm and unable to conjure expectations, the masses from the busses made the walk or took the train to the rally grounds. In order to catch a glimpse of the environment the event took place in, I joined those walking to the rally. The capital of our country, for those who've never seen it, is absolutely gorgeous. People obeying stop signs and walking signals. A DC native, when observing a NY native walking across the street, asked the J-Walker what she was doing. In stereotypical New Yorker fashion, the NY native yelled back "I'm New York baby! I make my own green lights." As the Capital building came into view, the faint bass of the giant rally speakers came into the air. And about a half hour after I made my way to what I understood was DC, my Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear began.

I made a strong effort to not note or write down any signs on the way to the Rally in order to accurately and honestly report the following two sentences, (and dammit did it pay off!) The first sign I read at The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear was held by a young woman, (who's age later became a topic of conversation with rally goers.) It said "I Have A Sign". It wasn't far from that moment in time that I met Mathieu, 25 from Canada. The first clue I got that Mathieu was from Canada was his sign, which read "Dear America, Don't Give Up. Love, Canada." The sign evoked thoughts of beauty that were confirmed by the ensuing interview. "This rally is monumental because it reminds you that there are still reasonable people in the world.", he responded to my question on what the rally was to him. "This is beautiful. People feel like they belong." I asked Mathieu what made him make the pilgrimage all the way from Montreal to Washington DC for a rally that only addresses his own personal interests in a completely indirect manner. His response was.. well.. judge it for yourself: "We need to feel universal. Our issues are, no matter who or where you are or what you believe in, universal. And we need to be united. I'm apart of something, even if I wasn't supposed to be. People are contrasting colors of the same photograph. Blue or red, it's not important because we only make starry nights when we work together."

In accordance with Mathieu's response, the rally moved forward to prove his point. In 3 hours at the rally, I decided to ignore what was happening on stage, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it was just so damn hard to see or hear. The shear amount of people made it difficult to listen to Stewart make some hilarious comment or listen to Jeff Tweedy play some beautiful guitar riff. And though people were standing atop many an object, from benched to climbing trees, to watch the events unfolding on stage, I felt it was more important to go to the reason why we all had gathered. The masses at this rally, or a lot of them at least, gathered with the ambition to see Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for themselves. But they also gathered to simply be together. This rally, or at least what I was able to take most from it, was about one not so simple simple concept. Being together. As Americans, as human beings, as sinners, liars, anything we were. We were together bound by the idea of a sane unity. In this rally I met 911 truthers,tea baggers, socialists, anarchists, Prop 19 advocates and admitted pot smokers, old people, young people, conservatives, satirists, feminists, happy people, liberals, angry people, sad people, sarcastic people, even people who simply wanted you to have safe sex (and so they passed out free condoms.) I think what I'm trying to get at is that at this rally, for the first time ever, I met people. Let me clarify. I met People. They disagreed with each other, and they disagreed with me, and I disagreed with them, and A LOT of them disagreed even with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. But there they were. United and universal, like Mathieu had told me. They were people. Not all American, not all funny, not all not funny, not all angry, not all serious, and not all anything really. There was no ideal demographic, in my experience. The idea that this was a liberal or even a radical liberal meeting is false. I know! I was there! The press, of any political stripe, may report it that way. Well, I was on the ground. I experienced the rally. It was not that. My mind was not built for objectivity. Unfortunately, my DNA lacks that gene that makes you a kind of eunuch of opinion. But if, let's say 40 years from now, I was asked "Hey, you went to The Rally To Restore Sanity. How was it?" I would think, for fondness more than lack of memory, about it for a moment before I can honestly answer. "It was, like Mathieu said, beautiful."

Currently, I'm on a bus back to Boston where I will chop this document up to a tiny version of it and make it more objective, or at least as objective as I can get it. But I wanted, even if briefly, to let you know of my account. It's hard to be descriptive and as honest as possible, and for obvious reasons I can't account for every single person I met, whereas I met probably over fifty. But this was a brief history of my weekend at the Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. An event that scarcely had a political reason of being, and yet brought together people of different ideas and beliefs together to finally talk, cheer, sing, or sometimes just stand and stare. Regardless of what anyone did, we were all there. And finally, I've seen what they meant when they said "We the People of the United States."