Believe it or not, I decided it would be a good idea to wear a suit to the march -- first of all because I look real snappy in a suit, but second and third because I wanted to demonstrate that young urban professionals (such as I am, I suppose) don't like Bush and, in case trouble broke out, the media might get some pictures of police arresting a guy in a suit. Well, there didn't turn out to be any trouble, but there did turn out to be a lot of heat. We got there -- there being the corner of 16th St. and 5th Ave., a location within this protest-assembly radius -- around 11:00 AM and then just pretty much stood around until 1:00 PM. (The thing was supposed to start at noon.) So there's the first picture, which I hope will convey something of how hot it was, since it doesn't really convey much else.
Oh yeah, so on the way to the thing, though, we ran into some UFP people who were giving away free signs to carry. We hadn't thought to make any signs, so we grabbed a couple but didn't really read what they said until it was too late to give them back. It turned out they were all about ending the occupation of Palestine, and, you know, I hate every goddamn country in the Middle East as much as the next Northeastern Elite, but I wasn't really feeling fired up over the concept of subhumanoid idol-worshippers fighting each other over a pathetic stretch of scorched earth, so after a few half-hearted death-to-Israels, Tom and Ted helped me turn my sign inside out. I wrote "Quagmire Accomplished" on mine; Cuntington did the same to his but ended up writing "Girlie Men 4 Kerry" on it, as you can see in that picture where Tom's holding it. That's a sentiment I can get behind, if you know what I mean.
Here's this inflatable pig thing that doesn't like Republicans.
So it was really hot, right? And I was wearing a suit, lest you all forget. And we were going like, fucking... one block an hour, literally. So at around 27th St., Katharine and I decided to take a little breather and stepped out of the march. I had to take a piss like nothin', so I roamed around until I found a wonderful, wonderful Starbucks that let me use the pisser without any questions. While I was waiting on line for the bathroom I heard this olive drab girl with a whole bunch of olive drab shit in her hair say, "This year I'm all about anti-corporate stuff. It's so freeing!" while she sipped on some kind of icy-pricy coffee drink. Irony, people: It's what we're fighting for. Irony: Is it the new... irony?
Katharine dropped out at this point. Wuss! A block later I saw an old woman with heatstroke throwing up a popsicle.
At around 30th St., we started seeing signs of the convention. First off, this hotel is apparently real happy to host the delegates. Well, Southgate & Affinia, if I ever have to stay at a luxury hotel in my hometown across the street from one of the most hectic awful transit hubs in the world, it ain't gonna be yours!
As we were getting close to the Garden, we saw all this black smoke from around 34th St. The local news later informed us that some "anarchists" had set this papier-mache dragon on fire to get a rise out of the cops. Bad, bad anarchists. Shame on you.
No, Republican National Convention; Thank you.
As we got to the garden, people started chanting "George Bush, go home!" Here's the thing, though -- nobody wanted to shout the whole thing, they either wanted to say "George Bush" or "go home!" and really nobody wanted to shout "George Bush." So I was the one who had to do the "George Bush" part, and I did it for about 5 minutes until my voice gave out. Here's a picture of all the cops hanging out around MSG; you can't really see too well, but there were a lot of them.
I don't have a picture of it, but that gigantic Fox News sign on 34th took a lot of verbal abuse as we rounded the corner towards 5th Ave.
Going across on 34th St. is where we started to meet some of the counter-protestors. The infamous Protest Warriors were the first ones we saw; they were all standing behind the barricades holding signs, most of which were concerned with various hypocrisies of Socialism. Hey, I'm a Federalist, guys. Don't waste your breath.
There were also like half a dozen garden variety religious wackos who had the typical array of signs and banners. I told the guy with the mangled fetus pictures that we should abort more babies, and this female protester next to me yelled out, "Leave my body out of this!" I'm not sure if she was agreeing with me or not. This other guy had this crude stenciled poster of a fighter jet that said "Support Bush, Support Jesus." I tried to get a round of "Fuck Jesus" going in response, but my fellow protesters pussed out; this dwarfy girl who looked like a real pain in the neck even told me not to go there. Christ, I hate women. Abort more babies!
Okay, last pictures -- this woman had a pretty sweet costume, but nobody was giving her any props. You liberals don't know a good thing when you see it.
This sign was cute, I guess. A bit too clever for its own good, though.
Another picture of cops, this time in this alley at around 30th St. and 5th Ave. One thing that's difficult to explain without better pictures is how many cops there were, especially on the 5th, which was a little weird, since that's where the protest started thinning out, actually. There would just be these huge banks of them, standing silently in formation, waiting for something to happen. And nothing did.
Okay, that's the end of it. Afterwards Mer and I went back to my parents' house (they'd marched as well, though we hadn't met up with them) and had some red wine and hamburgers on the deck in proper limousine liberal style. Now back to boring bullshit:
I want to donate a lot of my old comics to this comics museum / archive thing, but for tax reasons, I think, they want me to figure out how much I think they're worth, so I bought a copy of Wizard yesterday and carried a box of comics home from my parents' house and looked them all up in the price guide. Turns out this one box was worth around $300! Career in philanthropy, here I come.
I also had lunch with Devin at this place called Paul's on St. Mark's. Devin can really eat a hamburger, I tell you what. That thing was like a medicine ball made of meat.
What else, what else. Oh, so I finished The Stranger and now I'm reading some Jean Cocteau plays. The Infernal Machine is the best so far. I beat that game Knights of the Old Republic, too, playing as a "Darkie" Jedi. The ending is not great for either alignment, but let me tell you, you can kick a lot more ass as a Sith than as one of those ass-sucking Jedi. Speaking of ass-sucking, have you guys seen that new building-sized Calvin Klein ad on Houston street? That slut is all over that dude's butt.
Shattered Glass is off the hook.
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