STEVE BALDWIN BELIEVES THERE ARE WITCHES IN THE U.S. AIR FORCE... HE BELIEVES IN WITCHES, HE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION... HE IS A LUNATIC! HE SAYS WE DON'T WANT EXTREME, WE WANT MAINSTREAM. CACKLE CACKLE, HEH HEH HEH HEH!San Diegans for Honest Government - the first group in the first time-slot on the first day of "free speech" - is preaching to the wide-open parking lot. Through stubby trees you can almost count five or six on the stage. Someone up there has a bass drum, and beats it to accentuate the speaker's lines.
I AM APPALLED AT THE VIOLATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (boom boom boom)...
A dozen other people cluster on asphalt nearby the stage, listening.
THERE NEEDS TO BE A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION (boom)...
Eight or nine cops stand around the perimeter of the protest zone, watching the empty lot, partly listening to the loudspeakers.
JUDGE ADAMS, A VILE, CORRUPT JUDGE (boom)... JUDGE GREER...
What they hear, what continues to echo over the open space even when they stop listening....
CORRUPTION IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM (boom boom)... CASES DISMISSED (boom)... IT'S TIME FOR A GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION OF THE COURT SYSTEM....
Chain-link security
fencing surrounds parking lot
with nine foot high cage.
Flushed against the tall fence,
protest stage turns backside to
trolley and railroad tracks.
Beyond rails, across Harbor Drive
(closed to traffic this week), San
Diego Convention Center dominates
the scene. Diagonal ribs raise up
roof-top sails. Monster of modernity
watches quietly from banks of green
glass eyes, beige concrete shoulders.
It sees, but does not listen. At
high-tech convention, there are no
sound-WAV files from Free Speech Zone.
Nor are there sound files here. For
your ordinary you pay with what your
eyes eat only. Earlier this year,
Republican National Committee voted down
request for free debate, pleading a most
touching offense at the insulting notion
that there was no free debate, already.
But that's okay, their candidate-to-be
has not read the Platform, either, and
does not feel bound by it.
{E-Mail xanadu@gastown.com, tell us what you heard. We'll give you a page.}
So much for introductions. But will anyone come down to listen?
On this first morning, the volunteer host - your writer - has been shown around the zone and introduced to the officers. Now he sits in the open-air sign-in tent, reading the newspaper and writing this journal. He looks up when he hears the theme song to Bewitched come bouncing over the loudspeakers. Doo-doo doo doo-doo, doo doo doo-doo deedle deedle deedle dee....
"Samantha" takes the microphone, hurls vitriol against a certain California legislator:
STEVE BALDWIN BELIEVES THERE ARE WITCHES IN THE U.S. AIR FORCE... HE BELIEVES IN WITCHES, HE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION... HE IS A LUNATIC! HE SAYS WE DON'T WANT EXTREME, WE WANT MAINSTREAM. CACKLE CACKLE, HEH HEH HEH HEH!
Danial, your host - betraying his sit-com weaning - hurries forward with camera, to snap a pic of the witch, after she comes off stage. "I'm calling from the Free Speech Site at the Republican National Convention." She is trying to call Steve Baldwin? - host wonders.... Echoing in empty air around her, the next speaker presses home the group's chief point:
HONEST GOVERNMENT IS NOT TO BE HAD IN SAN DIEGO! (Et cetera ad repetitiam.)
Dear Reader: This Warning will only be given once, but it's truth should be apparent throughout these pages: Host Danial is a tool of that same City. What he does not say should tell you that.
The group's fourth speaker, a sweet little middle-class lady, takes on the plans for our new library:
WHY DID THE CITY COUNCIL AGREE TO USE A POSTAGE STAMP SIZED LOT FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL NEW LIBRARY THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE WORLD CLASS? WHAT ABOUT PARKING? ...AND NOW... NOW WE HEAR THAT THE OLD, OUTMODED MAIN LIBRARY WILL STILL BE NEEDED!
The volunteer host has retreated to the sign-in tent, to scribble again.
I HAVE RUN SEVEN TIMES FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - SEVEN IS GOD'S NUMBER OF COMPLETION.
Three bicyclists in red shirts and beige helmets cruise through the open zone. Morning minutes slip by.
"What are you writing?"They don't know yet that you will read this at the click of a mouse.... Host D. worries. He must tell them soon. Before they begin to say things that...."A journal."
"Oh. Yeh, you're an artist, aren't you? The sarge told us that."
"Uh-huh."
"What're you writing about?"
"The protests."
"Oh. Well. Toss me the front page of the newspaper, would you?"
"Sure."
WELL, I SEE THE TRAFFIC LIGHT HAS TURNED YELLOW, AND OUR TIME IS ALMOST OVER, SO....
Every group with a permit for the free speech site (what? - a permit for free speech? - no way! - yes, way) has 55 minutes on the microphones. The last five minutes the green light turns yellow. Then, when it switches to red... the microphones will shut off for fifteen minutes. This will happen 65 times over the next five days.
A slender white man approaches the host/police table.
"Hello.""Hi. I'm the next speaker."
"Oh - could you sign in, please?"
"Sure."
"You're... the Emperor?"
"That's right."