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yesterday was a very long day
Aug. 31st, 2004 03:12 amTo: The RCP-ers
CC to: The ICL
Re: Stop Flyering Me!
If and when I come to you and say "take me to your leader" you may take me to Bob Avakian. Until then, take your posters of The Revolution and your copies of Workers Vanguard and go back to your mothership.
To: My Coworkers
Re: Face Masks
Dear Coworkers,
I am sorry that the masks that I brought to the office, along with ear plugs aren't coutour protest gear. My mom sent them. They use them at her hospital when they get patients with tuberculosis or, like, SARS. They are called particle masks. They are very effective. Therefore, the thing to do when I give them to you is say "thank you" and not to focus on how much they may or may not look like Maxipads.
To: Dude on top of the phone booth with me
Re: Rocking the phone booth
Dear Dude,
Now, I understand that you have been condtioned by MTV to Rock the Vote, or maybe you like to think of yourself as someone who Rocks the Boat, but when it's myself, you, and another dude on the top of a scorchingly hot phone booth on a street corner, and I am trying to film as much as possible before the cops shoo me down, don't be jumping up and down in rhythm with the crowd chant to show your solidarity. Yes, I understand the hypnotic power of call-and-response and agree that the answer to whose streets? is our streets, but the phone booth isn't the sturdiest contraption on the block, and wasn't really designed have three people on top of it, so when you do a jiggy on it, it wobbles, and that makes me feel like I am about to fall off it. So, when I turn around and ask you to please not do that, that's because I value my limbs and my expensive three-chip camera, and thus looking at the other dude with a complicit "girls, man, they are such pussies" look just makes you look like an ass.
To: Dumbfuck protesters
Re: What you did wrong
Dear dumbfuck protesters,
When we are all in the middle of an intersection, and the police have split the march into two groups, and the air is tense, and they are patrolling the perimeter and putting on riot gear, and when the proteters append a strategic chant "give the cops a raise" to "let them through," and furthermore after the cops do, in fact, listen to the crowd's demands and move to to open the barriers and let the marchers through, that is not the time to start screaming agitated calls to violence. I am sorry if you are short, and your trigger-happy MaChesmo stems from a Napoleon complex, but even if you can't see over people's heads what is transpiring at the barricades, you should actually figure out what is happening before you start inciting behavior that has nothing to with creating a productive atmosphere for a protest and everything to do with your secret fear that your cock does not measure up.
To: The Daily News
Re: Lying
Dear Daily News,
Much like my ex-boyfriend, you never fail to disappoint. And no one expects accurate estimates on the number of protesters anyway. Not from authorities, not from the corporate press. So we know that if the organizers say there were 750,000 people at the march yesterday, the unofficial police source will (and did) say that about 500,000 people came. Downplaying is the name of the game. But, dear Daily News, reporting that "tens of thousands protesters" is really above and beyond the acceptable margin of lying. Perhaps you are overimpressed by the old adage that it is easier to get away with a bit lie than with a small one, but I bet what you didn't know is that rumor was perpetrated by Pinnochio. Pre-nose job.
To: Boys at the Media Convergence Space
Re: wallowing in filth
Dear Boys,
I was already covered in layers of grime and dirt by the time I arrived at the Space. From the magic markered-phone numbers that blurred into an undifferentiated amoeba-shaped blob on my forearm. From sweating in the sun all day. From lying on the ground in Union Square between the rally and the march. From climbing on top of things to get a better shot. However, it wasn't until I spent quality time in the video workroom logging and dubbing that I started to feel Unclean, like biblically so, like I needed to bathe in the waters of some Sacred River or something. Just because the Revolution will not be televized does not mean that we should wallow in filth. So, um, boys, pick up the banana peels and your random scraps of paper and crumpled business cards that say "film producer/revolutionary" and take the garbage out. And unless you are one of the people who just came back from Pier 57 thissecond, take a shower. And what the hell was that plastic bag with, like, 12 pieces of pale rubbery boiled chicken legs in it in the middle of the conference room?
Anyway, enough bitching, here are some photographs. I don't have that many pictures from the actual protest, since I was videotaping most of the time, but it was a long, long day, and here are a few snapshots, in chronological order.
The night before
( Camera Obscura )
After the protest Pnts and I went to see The Fourth World War (amazing) and then she went off to promote her website on Air America and I went down to the convergence space. Much later we went to Kiev for some late-night food and beer with Brian, Jello, and two Chrises. Emmanuel and Terence came later. Interestingly enough, not one of them knew what the phrase "bros before hoes" meant. We conducted an impromptu poll. Weird, right?
( Camera Lucida )
After another beer we started bitching about sexism and misogyny in the IMCs, but that's another story for another entry.
CC to: The ICL
Re: Stop Flyering Me!
If and when I come to you and say "take me to your leader" you may take me to Bob Avakian. Until then, take your posters of The Revolution and your copies of Workers Vanguard and go back to your mothership.
To: My Coworkers
Re: Face Masks
Dear Coworkers,
I am sorry that the masks that I brought to the office, along with ear plugs aren't coutour protest gear. My mom sent them. They use them at her hospital when they get patients with tuberculosis or, like, SARS. They are called particle masks. They are very effective. Therefore, the thing to do when I give them to you is say "thank you" and not to focus on how much they may or may not look like Maxipads.
To: Dude on top of the phone booth with me
Re: Rocking the phone booth
Dear Dude,
Now, I understand that you have been condtioned by MTV to Rock the Vote, or maybe you like to think of yourself as someone who Rocks the Boat, but when it's myself, you, and another dude on the top of a scorchingly hot phone booth on a street corner, and I am trying to film as much as possible before the cops shoo me down, don't be jumping up and down in rhythm with the crowd chant to show your solidarity. Yes, I understand the hypnotic power of call-and-response and agree that the answer to whose streets? is our streets, but the phone booth isn't the sturdiest contraption on the block, and wasn't really designed have three people on top of it, so when you do a jiggy on it, it wobbles, and that makes me feel like I am about to fall off it. So, when I turn around and ask you to please not do that, that's because I value my limbs and my expensive three-chip camera, and thus looking at the other dude with a complicit "girls, man, they are such pussies" look just makes you look like an ass.
To: Dumbfuck protesters
Re: What you did wrong
Dear dumbfuck protesters,
When we are all in the middle of an intersection, and the police have split the march into two groups, and the air is tense, and they are patrolling the perimeter and putting on riot gear, and when the proteters append a strategic chant "give the cops a raise" to "let them through," and furthermore after the cops do, in fact, listen to the crowd's demands and move to to open the barriers and let the marchers through, that is not the time to start screaming agitated calls to violence. I am sorry if you are short, and your trigger-happy MaChesmo stems from a Napoleon complex, but even if you can't see over people's heads what is transpiring at the barricades, you should actually figure out what is happening before you start inciting behavior that has nothing to with creating a productive atmosphere for a protest and everything to do with your secret fear that your cock does not measure up.
To: The Daily News
Re: Lying
Dear Daily News,
Much like my ex-boyfriend, you never fail to disappoint. And no one expects accurate estimates on the number of protesters anyway. Not from authorities, not from the corporate press. So we know that if the organizers say there were 750,000 people at the march yesterday, the unofficial police source will (and did) say that about 500,000 people came. Downplaying is the name of the game. But, dear Daily News, reporting that "tens of thousands protesters" is really above and beyond the acceptable margin of lying. Perhaps you are overimpressed by the old adage that it is easier to get away with a bit lie than with a small one, but I bet what you didn't know is that rumor was perpetrated by Pinnochio. Pre-nose job.
To: Boys at the Media Convergence Space
Re: wallowing in filth
Dear Boys,
I was already covered in layers of grime and dirt by the time I arrived at the Space. From the magic markered-phone numbers that blurred into an undifferentiated amoeba-shaped blob on my forearm. From sweating in the sun all day. From lying on the ground in Union Square between the rally and the march. From climbing on top of things to get a better shot. However, it wasn't until I spent quality time in the video workroom logging and dubbing that I started to feel Unclean, like biblically so, like I needed to bathe in the waters of some Sacred River or something. Just because the Revolution will not be televized does not mean that we should wallow in filth. So, um, boys, pick up the banana peels and your random scraps of paper and crumpled business cards that say "film producer/revolutionary" and take the garbage out. And unless you are one of the people who just came back from Pier 57 thissecond, take a shower. And what the hell was that plastic bag with, like, 12 pieces of pale rubbery boiled chicken legs in it in the middle of the conference room?
Anyway, enough bitching, here are some photographs. I don't have that many pictures from the actual protest, since I was videotaping most of the time, but it was a long, long day, and here are a few snapshots, in chronological order.
The night before
( Camera Obscura )
After the protest Pnts and I went to see The Fourth World War (amazing) and then she went off to promote her website on Air America and I went down to the convergence space. Much later we went to Kiev for some late-night food and beer with Brian, Jello, and two Chrises. Emmanuel and Terence came later. Interestingly enough, not one of them knew what the phrase "bros before hoes" meant. We conducted an impromptu poll. Weird, right?
( Camera Lucida )
After another beer we started bitching about sexism and misogyny in the IMCs, but that's another story for another entry.
