i normally blog about baby stuff but since we are still waiting to hear results in regards to whether or not we should use jason as a sperm donor i think i will talk about my completely insane week in dc. i attended a conference in farifax, va, just outside of dc last week and made an impulsive decision to stay and attend jon stewart and stephen colbert’s rally to restore sanity and/or fear. i had no idea what to expect as i have never been to dc nor attended a rally. unless you count pep rallies, in which case i have participated in dozens. let’s hear it for the slater wildcats! ok, back to the subject at hand. i arrived in dc on wednesday and promptly checked into my hotel in fairfax and headed back into dc. my first stop was lunch at oohsandahhs, which is a soul food restaurant that was featured on diners, drive-in's and dives. it was definitely a dive but the food was delish! from here i went on my own tour of dc, i saw the white house, capitol, national monument, and much , much more all crammed into one afternoon before i had to head back to virginia to get ready for my conference on thursday and friday. i left fairfax after my conference on friday and headed towards dc on the metro. lucky for me, i met a very nice gentleman who was also taking the Metro who helped me find my way otherwise who knows where i would have ended up. we had a very nice conversation and i learned lots of interesting facts about dc including that i was staying in the same hotel (mayflower renaissance) that eliot spitzer took his hookers and to stand on the right side of the escalator if you do not intend to walk up/down or the locals go bananas. good to know. after getting off the metro with help from my first friend in dc I was able to navigate my way to my hotel with only the help of my trusty map. i checked into my hotel and promptly found the hotel bar. i never have too much trouble finding that. one of the best things about visiting the east coast has to be yuengling, a delicious beer brewed at the oldest brewery in america. i am pretty sure everyone at the bar was attending the rally. i didn’t come across anyone who wasn’t anyway. after a few, okay several, yuenglings i headed to find materials for my rally sign. i came across a cvs and purchased a cardboard packing box and a package of sharpies. from here i hopped across the street to the liquor store to purchase some liquid inspiration. i headed back to my room with my screw-top bottle of wine (they discourage traveling with corkscrews these days) and began work on my sign. i had decided that the front would say “i’m okay with the mosque, it’s walmart that scares me” and the back would say “do what is correct, not what is right or left.” after spending what felt like an hour on the front I decided it would have to do. it was no masterpiece but it would serve its purpose.
i knew the rally was supposed to last from 12:00-3:00 with the pre-show beginning at 10:00 but i had no idea what time i should get there. i set my alarm for 7:00 and decided to figure it out in the morning. i woke up at 4:30, tossed and turned for an hour and decided to go ahead and get up. i got ready, packed my bags and headed to the lobby not sure what i was going to do. when i got downstairs the bellhop asked “going to the rally?” to which i quickly responded “yes” and within minutes was in a cab headed to our nation’s capitol. i think this was the point that i thought "omg, i have no idea what i am doing." when the cab driver dropped me off i saw a group of about 10 people walking in direction of the capitol and followed them in. it was completely pitch black and they could have been hobos for all i knew but i just went with it. fortunately, they led me to the right place. there were probably about 500 people there at this time so i made my way to the front and claimed my space. within minutes i realized that i could have been more prepared. most people had blankets to sit on, some with chairs. i would have to improvise. while waiting in line for a cup of coffee i noticed a women getting ready to throw away a cardboard box. sweet salvation! i kindly asked her if i could have it and she obliged. now i had my own little space three rows back from the front. by now it was about 6:30 and was still not light outside. what in the world was i going to do for the next four hours? i met a very nice couple behind me from ohio, another couple next to me from michigan, and three ladies, (two sisters and a wife of one of the sisters) from southern california that were so nice i decided to unfold my precious cardboard to share with them. as the day went along some people around us moved or were lost in the crowd but I stuck with these three ladies throughout the day. after expressing my profound love for wyatt cenac from the daily show, one of them who brought a sharpie wrote “i love you wyatt” on the back of my sign. finally, i felt complete. after four hours of sitting in one location we learned a lot about one another. within the first hour i decided there was no way i was going to make my flight back home to dc and promptly changed my plans so i could leave on sunday. my new friends were very impressed that I was brave enough to attend such event alone, and if i may brag a bit i was quite impressed with myself as well.
i could go on and on about the show but that wasn’t really what the day was about for me. sure that was what drew me there but it was not what i took away from it. yes, it was great entertainment from the roots, john legend, the ojay’s, ozzy frickin’ ozborne, kid rock, sheryl crow, jeff tweedy, mavis staples cat stevens, jon stewart, stephen colbert, and many more but the coolest thing about it was the people next to me. of course there were a few nut jobs there but the overwhelming majority were perfectly sane citizens of our wonderful country. this was not a rally to encourage or persuade people to vote democrat or republican, this was a rally to persuade and encourage people to be kind and respectful. you cannot turn on the tv anymore without someone screaming and yelling about politics and i personally don’t believe one side is any better than the other. they are both at fault. we all, are to some extent, at fault. we teach our kids from an early age to be kind and have manners and to be respectful even when we don’t get our way and then when we don't get ours we act like children. i think we could all practice what we preach more often. i do not agree with a lot of people about a lot of things but that does not make them less than me. i will not look down on anyone regardless of how crazy i think their views are. that does not change the fact that i think some others views are crazy, but it does change the way i react. i am not a saint, i can judge someone just as easy as the next person but i am going to make a conscious decision to be more accepting of all people. there have been so many times, often involving politics that i get incensed because i don't understand another's viewpoint. i don't need to understand their viewpoint, i only need to respect it. often times the media doesn't even discuss the issues at hand because they are so busy putting one another down. we should be able to state our varying opinions in a calm, reasonable manner without insulting anyone. we are adults, and we should act like it. i get it, I understand that who is in office affects each of us in a certain, most of the time different way. i have been affected both good and bad over the years but at the end of the day is it really worth raising our blood pressure? all we can do is inform ourselves the best we can and vote in the manner we see fit. and if it doesn’t go the way that we wanted than better luck next time. i do not believe that the people who represent all parties in the media are a good representation of the masses. i believe most of us are relatively sane. i am even more sure of this after attending the rally. anyway, i could go on and on but hopefully you get my point. if not, that's okay too. i think jon stewart says it much more eloquently than i ever could so i have attached his closing speech below. i have also attached some of my favorite rally signs below. i hope you enjoy them as much as i did!
jon stewart's closing remarks
“I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.
But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.
If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate--just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker--and perhaps eczema.
And yet, with that being said, I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.
So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!
The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundations that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do—but they do it--impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make.
Look on the screen. This is where we are. This is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car, swerving, I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA and she loves Oprah. There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.
And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by conscession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.
And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.
Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together. And the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.
If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted.
Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you."
But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.
If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate--just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker--and perhaps eczema.
And yet, with that being said, I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.
So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!
The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundations that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do—but they do it--impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make.
Look on the screen. This is where we are. This is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car, swerving, I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA and she loves Oprah. There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.
And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by conscession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.
And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.
Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together. And the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.
If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted.
Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you."
