a little more detail
So. The demonstration yesterday. First of all, the day was unbelievably gorgeous. Blue sky, sun shining, good temperature. We all met up in front of Border's Books on the Max tracks at 3rd and Morrison and walked over to waterfront park where a sea of people had already amassed. Then we stood in the sun (which got hotter and hotter as we stood there, baking me in my black long sleeved t-shirt) for what seemed like *hours* listening to lifeless antiwar music and similarly uninspiring speeches. Ok, two of the speeches were pretty ok and one was downright uplifting, but that one was by a preacher and preachers are, by nature, talented speakers. Right?
Finally we were let loose. It was me and my old Portland friends along with a snowball of other acquaintances and people I'd only heard about (like Hoot's friend Smack. And D-Jay's annoying friend with the bad sunglasses). We walked along and chatted and listened to the various chanting ("Hey-hey-ho-ho-president-bush-has-got-to-go!" and "Feed the hungry not the war!" and, of course, "Not my president! Not my war!") I'm not a chanter. I'm a quiet walker. So I just walked along through Portland's streets watching people and enjoying the weather and hoping just the sheer size of the demonstration would mean something to someone, and wondering if there would be any civil disobedience. I remembered three years ago, at the first march after the war started, a splinter group sat down in the intersection on Burnside and blocked it (effectively blocking access to the Burnside bridge) for hours until the cops slowly picked them off one by one. I wasn't in that group. By the time they "took Burnside," I was on the other side of the river with all my little friends drinking 22oz. "pints" of PBR at Billy Ray's and watching it all on TV.
True to form, I started suggesting early on that we might just pop into a pub along the way for a nice, afternoon beer. Thank god Hoot was stalwart and he insisted we at least march through the business district before we bailed and went to the bar. We marched for a really long time, then all pulled over and stood on the sidewalk, watching the rest of the march go by. We'd been very near the front the whole time and we had no concept of how many people were behind us. It was awesome. In addition, we accidentally chose to stop right in front of some performing arts center and within a few minutes of our standing there, a gorgeous man in a dashiki, with his bald head glowing in the sun, had set up some drums on a balcony above us and was beating out an awesome rhythm for the marchers. That was pretty sweet.
As the march slid past us we had a chance to see all the creative ways people chose to protest -- homemade shirts and signs were popular, of course. There were a couple of people on stilts and a guy on a unicycle -- and I thought what a pain in the ass it would be to do that whole, long march on *stilts*! Jesus. There was also this really moving and a little creepy bit of performance art near the end -- a line of people in big paper mache masks to look like forlorn women's faces -- simple and painted white, draped with white hoods and white robes, carried in their outstretched arms limp, stuffed figures in the shape of people, colored black-ish gray, so they almost looked burnt. Looked like a line of grotesquely huge mothers, forlornly carrying their dead children. Behind them, a group was singing an eery, ethereal melody to underscore the image. And then, behind *them*, was another row of people in paper mache masks -- these were men, wearing black suits and paper mache fedora hats on their huge paper mache heads -- they walked with their hands up, palms out -- and their palms were dripping red. We have blood on our hands. On every block, the row of these men would stop and slowly turn from one side to the other, showing everyone their hands, seeming to look at everyone, to hammer home the message of our complicity in this war. That was sobering.
Finally we were let loose. It was me and my old Portland friends along with a snowball of other acquaintances and people I'd only heard about (like Hoot's friend Smack. And D-Jay's annoying friend with the bad sunglasses). We walked along and chatted and listened to the various chanting ("Hey-hey-ho-ho-president-bush-has-got-to-go!" and "Feed the hungry not the war!" and, of course, "Not my president! Not my war!") I'm not a chanter. I'm a quiet walker. So I just walked along through Portland's streets watching people and enjoying the weather and hoping just the sheer size of the demonstration would mean something to someone, and wondering if there would be any civil disobedience. I remembered three years ago, at the first march after the war started, a splinter group sat down in the intersection on Burnside and blocked it (effectively blocking access to the Burnside bridge) for hours until the cops slowly picked them off one by one. I wasn't in that group. By the time they "took Burnside," I was on the other side of the river with all my little friends drinking 22oz. "pints" of PBR at Billy Ray's and watching it all on TV.
True to form, I started suggesting early on that we might just pop into a pub along the way for a nice, afternoon beer. Thank god Hoot was stalwart and he insisted we at least march through the business district before we bailed and went to the bar. We marched for a really long time, then all pulled over and stood on the sidewalk, watching the rest of the march go by. We'd been very near the front the whole time and we had no concept of how many people were behind us. It was awesome. In addition, we accidentally chose to stop right in front of some performing arts center and within a few minutes of our standing there, a gorgeous man in a dashiki, with his bald head glowing in the sun, had set up some drums on a balcony above us and was beating out an awesome rhythm for the marchers. That was pretty sweet.
As the march slid past us we had a chance to see all the creative ways people chose to protest -- homemade shirts and signs were popular, of course. There were a couple of people on stilts and a guy on a unicycle -- and I thought what a pain in the ass it would be to do that whole, long march on *stilts*! Jesus. There was also this really moving and a little creepy bit of performance art near the end -- a line of people in big paper mache masks to look like forlorn women's faces -- simple and painted white, draped with white hoods and white robes, carried in their outstretched arms limp, stuffed figures in the shape of people, colored black-ish gray, so they almost looked burnt. Looked like a line of grotesquely huge mothers, forlornly carrying their dead children. Behind them, a group was singing an eery, ethereal melody to underscore the image. And then, behind *them*, was another row of people in paper mache masks -- these were men, wearing black suits and paper mache fedora hats on their huge paper mache heads -- they walked with their hands up, palms out -- and their palms were dripping red. We have blood on our hands. On every block, the row of these men would stop and slowly turn from one side to the other, showing everyone their hands, seeming to look at everyone, to hammer home the message of our complicity in this war. That was sobering.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 7:46 AM
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