Banks close at noon on Good Friday, which didn't occur to me for even a second on the four-block walk to mine yesterday afternoon around 3:45. But that's okay. On the way home, a demonstration ate me.
I'm not a protest sort of person. I'm aware of politics, I vote, I read the newspaper. But chanting slogans in front of the post office isn't really my idea of influential law and policy reform, unless it's A) The 1960s, B) I'm in Selma, C) A police dog is trying to devour me, and D) I can reasonably expect that a good-sized chunk of the nation will actually see this police dog trying to devour me tonight on the news and be thoroughly appalled.
Things have changed. A lot. But not enough that I could ignore the high-pitched mewling sound in my hindbrain urging me to join the herd and mill aimlessly.
How things kicked off. This mob marched in off of an intersection, banging time on a snare drum and brandishing the Spanish anarchist's flag and dabbling in a bit of light cross-dressing.
I find it a little weird that all of the self-proclaimed anarchists, even just the ones in Spain, would hold still long enough to agree on an official flag. That much organization doesn't strike me as very anarchistic. If I were an anarchist, my flag would be a green bath towel with huge, throbbing gentials drawn on in orange house paint. Seriously huge. Not even gentials, more like fractions of genitals. The idea of genitals. Genitals so enormous and abstracted that everyone would have to ask me what they were. And whenever they would ask, I'd bite them in the eyeball. ANARCHY NOW.
The meet n' greet. It was pretty obvious that protesting was the hub of the social lives of a lot of the people here.
"Oh hey Barb, how ya been? Ya goin' t' that gathering against the privatization of the university's janitorial staff on Tuesday?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world! Ya gonna be on the state capitol steps this fifteenth for the gay marriage visibility project?"
"You bet! Cliff's organizing! See ya there!"
This guy was golden. Total attention whore. He spent the twenty minutes before the speeches began standing on a bench, strumming his guitar and ad-libbing an Engrish-y little tune with "Bring troops home now!" as the bridge. He was eventually drowned out when the drummer in the ski mask began parading up and down the block, pounding out something I vaguely remembered from marching band.
Also golden: This guy. He didn't say anything, he just stood quietly on the edge of the crowd, holding up this picture of the Pope. He was wearing anti-Bush buttons, so I'm assuming he agreed with the general sentiment, but cognative dissonance ahoy. Later on, when a representative of a local mosque stepped off the stage, Pope Man ensnared him in a converation that I would have paid admission to experience.
Especially golden: Hispanic Anarchist. He spoke in Spanish, so I only caught bits and pieces of his contribution, but he mentioned las fascistas a lot and pushed for socialized health care. Such energy. If felt like the build-up to a chorus. I bet he listens to a lot of Rage Against the Machine.
Clayton Bailey should sue. Also, a news van. There were at least three. Maybe I got on television, the dreads and army surplus and what-not must make me the epitome of the Malcontented Political Protest Chick the news guys expect.
Love this flag. It's so granola.
A parting shot of the crowd. Lending credibilty to the I Look Like a Goddammittin' Hippie theory, I was approached by one of the organizers before I left and asked if I would like to address the crowd; she was looking for women-on-the-street types who wanted to speak after the official representatives were done. I guess I looked marginally coherent or something.
I probably would have spoken, actually. I'd have loved the attention. I even thought of something slightly clever to say. But I had a Clutch show to catch at the Bottom Lounge at 9:00, and I had a line to stand in.
Bye bye, protest.
More on the Clutch show later.
