So it was a long day--and a hot one to join half a million people for a slow march through the concrete oven of midtown Manhattan. But I must say it was a great day.

My friends slowly assembled on my stoop this morning around 10am. Paula, Mark, Elizabeth, Joe, Katie, Bryan, Andrew, and I all headed off together for the assembly area in Chelsea. We waited almost an hour and a half in the 90-degree sun for the march to kick off. I made a few signs for us to carry:

That's me with my sign, and Mark Fox in the background. Photo by Joseph X. Burke.

Once the march got going we had a good time chanting and singing and sweating. Bryan was the first to be lost from our group, as he moved ahead of us to find another friend. Then Mark and Elizabeth took off to catch a plane. But our numbers increased again as Andrew--that dog--picked up a cute girl. As we got to Madison Square Garden we lost Joe and Katie, later confirmed to be home safe and sound.

Hours later, when our part of the march finally made it to Madison Square Garden the chanting became louder and the whole march felt very powerful and emotionally charged. There was only one small incident of violence reported--and of course we were right in front of it when it happened. Seems a group of anarchists (don't get me started) lit up a large papier mache dragon--smoke and flames went roaring up right in the middle of the street. Paula and I immediately took flight, as protesters and cops all began running in various directions. There was a bit of pushing as we rounded the corner in front of Macy's. Then another quick charge of running protesters came up behind us, so we hopped the metal barricade to get onto the sidewalk, descended into the subway to cross under the march on 34th Street, took a quiet side-street over to Fifth Avenue, and rejoined the peaceful part of the march there. We were shaken and pissed off that our peaceful protesting had been tainted by these losers, but whatever. Anyway, the press reports are all that it was a minor incident, but from where we were (and from Andrew's report later) we thought it was a pretty big deal, as it looked like this:

I stole this image from off the web somewhere. Copyright someone somewhere...

Anyway, we had a good time despite this little interruption which caused our heart rates to soar. So after five full hours of all that, we were too hot, tired, dehydrated and hungry to finish off the march back to Union Square. We instead went to L'Express, a little French brasserie where we like the burgers. My lord, it was the best burger I ever ate, I was so damned hungry. Funny thing was, the entire restaurant was filled with other protesters, with everyone giving each other knowing looks and smiles. And everyone loved our new t-shirts, which we bought along the way somewhere:

Asses of Evil, indeed.