thekid
10-31-2010, 04:49 PM
First let me preface this post by saying this is not meant to be a political thread in any shape or form!
I am a big fan of Jon Stewart and so when he announced the Rally to Restore Sanity would be held in DC my son and I planned on being there.
We left early Saturday morning thinking that while the turn out might be big it would be fairly limited to hard-core fans in the more immediate area. Wrong!!
We got to the Metro about 2 hours before the start of the rally. The line to buy fare cards extended from the station and out the adjoining parking garage. After an hour waiting in line to get on the Metro we finally got on our way jammed into a Metro car with dozens of our now close friends. At each stop along the way the people waiting at those platforms just had to wait until the next train came along. Later on Metro reported that by 2PM Metro ridership had exceeded 330,000 which is equal to a regular Saturday's entire rider amount. After a 45 minute Metro ride which was longer than normal because the conductor did not want to take any chances with the overloaded cars we finally arrived at the Mall.
I won't bore you with the details here but my son and I managed to squeeze/slide our way to within about 100 yards of the last set of jumbo screens and speakers at just about the time the entertainment began. The stage was not even a distant speck. I won't go over the entire show because if you are interested you can certainly catch it on C-Span or Comedy Central. I will just say that the Yusaf Islam (Cat Stevens) and Ozzy Osborne "Battle of the Bands" bit was pretty funny. Probably the first and last time those musical legends will share a stage. The signs, people and costumes were very cool and often hilarious. Even though I was on my feet from 10:30AM to 4:50PM it was an event well worth attending and a shared moment with my son that will be a source of conversation and laughter for the rest of our lives.
Here are some pics from a pretty lousy camera. For the most part I just held it up over the crowd and pushed the buttons.
I am a big fan of Jon Stewart and so when he announced the Rally to Restore Sanity would be held in DC my son and I planned on being there.
We left early Saturday morning thinking that while the turn out might be big it would be fairly limited to hard-core fans in the more immediate area. Wrong!!
We got to the Metro about 2 hours before the start of the rally. The line to buy fare cards extended from the station and out the adjoining parking garage. After an hour waiting in line to get on the Metro we finally got on our way jammed into a Metro car with dozens of our now close friends. At each stop along the way the people waiting at those platforms just had to wait until the next train came along. Later on Metro reported that by 2PM Metro ridership had exceeded 330,000 which is equal to a regular Saturday's entire rider amount. After a 45 minute Metro ride which was longer than normal because the conductor did not want to take any chances with the overloaded cars we finally arrived at the Mall.
I won't bore you with the details here but my son and I managed to squeeze/slide our way to within about 100 yards of the last set of jumbo screens and speakers at just about the time the entertainment began. The stage was not even a distant speck. I won't go over the entire show because if you are interested you can certainly catch it on C-Span or Comedy Central. I will just say that the Yusaf Islam (Cat Stevens) and Ozzy Osborne "Battle of the Bands" bit was pretty funny. Probably the first and last time those musical legends will share a stage. The signs, people and costumes were very cool and often hilarious. Even though I was on my feet from 10:30AM to 4:50PM it was an event well worth attending and a shared moment with my son that will be a source of conversation and laughter for the rest of our lives.
Here are some pics from a pretty lousy camera. For the most part I just held it up over the crowd and pushed the buttons.