I missed the beginning and came in during John Legend. So far, it is not what I expected. I await the comedy.
We've got two groups of people there from metachat? I wonder if we will hear from them before it's over.

Watching the stream right now.

Youssef Islam / Cat Stevens is on now. Wow.

2 hours later via CSPAN:

I really have to applaud John Stewart for attempting to sing during their singalong song, which is amazingly catchy.

Now, Sheryl Crow is singing another catchy song which seems very breezy and not her usual thing. Is that a cover of something?

Oh, and a sign I spotted in the crowd that I liked is a Westboro-stylized one that said "God Hates Hate."

Live stream

Everyone who addresses a crowd honestly runs the risk of looking a bit awkward, ridiculous.
I cringed a bit at his honest speech at the end.
But I think it he really believes in the importance of finding a middle ground. And the took the risk of dropping the humorous façade for a moment. That took guts.

Personally I remind myself of talking to my grandmother, long gone, asking her about what it was like to live through the first world war, the great depression, the second world war, the cold war etc. She said that somehow there's always another day and you'll make it through.
That's the kind of faith I think our society needs. The kind of sang froid that Britain showed during WWII: bad things may befall us but we'll overcome them by staying level headed and keeping on going.

Favorite signs:

1. From the Comedy Central broadcast:

Make awkward sexual advances, not war.
Civility is sexy.

2. From HuffPo's collection:

Say no to Sarah Palin & say yes to parasailin'.
I support the moss at ground zero.
Show us your birthmark.
Calm is the balm.
I can see America from my house!

And the took the risk of dropping the humorous façade for a moment. That took guts.

That is good to hear. I haven't paid much attention to this because I thought it was all going to be some big joke thing. Glad to be wrong.

I watched the whole thing on TV and now wish that we'd gone. I found his speech at the end to be quite moving and sincere.

I just watched Jon's speech. It's wonderful, and I wish it would reach more people than I know it will. It's spot on, and it's exactly what we need to hear. "We're living in hard times, we're not living in End times."

I wish I could have hung out with people and watched this. It looked like a blast.

I do have to remind myself sometimes that many of my friends, co-workers and neighbors have political values that are 180 degrees away from mine but that they're still good people. I can't begin to understand how they come to the conclusions about the world that they do but I shouldn't think that they're bad people because of that.

I semi-followed the rally on Twitter, where a lot of very well-written funny signs were quoted.

Sadly, Stewart's excellent message at the end got a bad reaction from Keith Olbermann who twittered "FALSE DICHOTOMY!" which was just a bad joke from the ONE liberal host who tries the HARDEST to be the Anti-Fox. I replied to him "I liked you better when you were trying to be as funny as Stewart. Now you're one of the people who make me reconsider my opinion when I hear you agree with me." and FINALLY unfollowed him.

Still, following the Twitter feeds seemed almost as fun as watching it, especially when they rolled out the "Train" medley... from Yusef/Cat Stevens' "Peace Train" to Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" to the O'Jays' "Love Train"... it all made me think (and tweet) that "The '70s WERE a more sane time than today!" Too bad Father Guido Sarducci apparently bombed (according to the viewers I followed), but his was always an act that was "considered funny" more often than actually laughed at.

I have the whole thing on DVR so I'll take it in at my leisure, probably Tuesday night instead of watching election returns.

It was pretty much impossible to see or hear anything. The PA system was pretty bad...a chant of "Louder! Louder!" kept going around. We're watching it on Tivo now.

(My photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan_arkham/sets/72157625279288308/)

I am a huge sap, and some of the signs and people choked me up a bit. I...kind of wanted to hug people. (Ew!)

I watched parts of it, and loved the sincere ending. a lot. I think that's what it was about. Thanks for going, and standing up for Reason.

Man, the MeFi thread turned into a clusterfuck quickly. That was disappointing.

I posted this over there. I think it's worth sharing.

A friend of mine went, and quite enjoyed it.

I was there. Couldn't see even the jumbotron most of the time, but it was a gorgeous day and lots of fun and we found great food afterwards. I felt really sorry for the Metro system though.