Given the Power - Giants Stadium

On January 11th we traveled to the Meadowlands of New Jersey. The Giants were hosting their Philadelphia rivals, the Eagles, in a playoff game. Of course, we anticipated a huge crowd and considered the mayhem good prep for the upcoming Inauguration. So just like all of the Giants' fans there, we came with our game faces on, but were looking ahead to "next week."

The best word to describe the scene in the parking lot at the Stadium was slop. Not only did it look perfectly like slop, but the very sound of the word slop is likewise perfectly suited for the vision of the place. Smoke from grills and campfires and cigars hovered. Piles of emberring wood were just dumped into the roadway, into the puddles of melting snow and beer. It was bone-chillingly cold, but ice-cold booze flowed and flowed again. There was broken glass everywhere...long painful looking lines formed outside port-a-johns. Red, white and blue shanty tents and lean-twos dotted the landscape. The different smells of meat cooking competed in your nostrils. The different sounds of music, from all sides, and the exuberant "WHO-AHS" competed in your ears. In short, the tailgate was just past ripe.

We didn't know what kinds of responses we'd get to our President Question. After-all the scene wasn't given to intellectual policy discussion, but as it turned out, the answers we got were passionate and spirited. People were pumped up and shooting ideas out of their mouths like canons. These were people who enjoyed and celebrated competition and I guess, in some way, Giants versus Eagles, isn't that big a leap from Obama versus McCain. In the spirit of competition, understanding your side and the strengths and weaknesses of your rival and TALKING ABOUT IT, SHOUTING ABOUT IT, is what it's all about. But we weren't asking the fans to choose a side or a point of view, but to be one, to have one. On January 11th, with less than a month before the Super Bowl, and under ten days till the Inauguration, sports fans were sure of their team and anxious and angry about the state of their country.

If you were keeping score at home...Giants' fans, and I am one of them, were bold, brash and bullying. Eagles fans were quiet and humble. Karmicly speaking, Philly fans had the edge going in and, therefore, the win going home.

www.GivenThePower.com, a national video survey site, will broadcast and allow upload of video responses to the "If I was President" question. For more information or to contribute your video to the project contact us here on YOUTUBE or at GivenThePower@yahoo.com.

For regular updates please visit www.giventhepower.com.

Video directed and edited by Steve Rogers. To see other work by Rogers please visit: www.drivingjersey.com.

Video shot by Marc Steiner. To see more of Marc's work please visit: www.agencynewjersey.com.

"Hey, Mr. Marley" is played by THE FOLLOWING. To hear more of THE FOLLOWING please visit: http://www.myspace.com/thefollowingisback

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