I marched in the United for Peace rally against the Bush Agenda yesterday. Word on the street was that there were approximately 500,000 marchers. Word on the news was that there were tens of thousands of marchers. here's a picture. You decide.



Two things happened that stood out. As I was walking down 6th Avenue toward the entry point to the march, I noticed a man walking toward me, wearing a green striped polo shirt, sunglasses, baseball cap, khaki shorts, sport socks that were falling down, etc. . . .anyway he was kind of generic. As he walked past me and was just beyond my peripheral vision he hissed the word "Dyke" in my ear. I was fairly stunned. My first thought was "What the. . ?" Second thought was "No." Third thought was "I can't believe that hateful little man didn't even have the balls to say that shit to my face. What the fuck does he know about me anyway? That guy is a perfect representation for every small minded, backward-thinking, anti-choice, homophobic, neo-conservative FUCK. He's hateful and a coward."

The second thing. . .oh wait there were three things. Here's the second.

We had just marched past the GOP convention headquarters at Madison Square Garden and were almost up on Macy's and 34th street. On the side of Macy's there is this gimongous jumbo-tron TV. They were broadcasting Fox News and the funny thing was that I'm out on that block with thousands of people and on Fox they are interviewing some woman about the GOP convention. The caption underneath said "No surprises at the GOP convention." I guess she was talking about what a small footprint the convention was having on the city. A guy about 3 people over from me says, "No surprises? What the fuck is this? What are we?" and then I wished I had a camera because it was a beautiful illustration of how the media will continue to down play dissent in favor of supporting this shitty administration. The crowd just started chanting "FOX NEWS SUCKS!" I will be watching Outfoxed later this week.

And another thing. . .I have a friend who is working catering events all week at the GOP con. He was in a room last night where the Speaker of the House was giving a speech. The speaker called all the protesters anarchists who don't understand what freedom means.

The third thing was a little bit scary. . .at one point in the march, some protesters lit this paper dragon on fire. The police swooped in in their helmets and riot gear and stopped the march at Hearld Square. They blocked the entire square and made some arrests but the scary part was the interim before they allowed the march to continue. I was ahead of the lock down but when I found out that they had blocked the square I turned around and went back (like an ass.) People were going toe to toe with the cops in their riot gear and had they not allowed the march to resume, I believe that riots would most definitely have broken out. As soon as the cops cleared Herald Square, people ran back and pushed back at them from all four sides, myself included. They were chanting "Whose city? Our City!" and "Whose streets? Our streets!" I put myself on the sidewalk side of the barricade so that I wouldn't get crushed by the mob if the tear gas cannisters started to fly. It didn't get that crazy but there was a definite vibe that it could have. People were pissed.

Anyways, that was day zero of the con. Only four more to go.

Oh and by the way, I saw more than a few bloated men in their navy suits and red ties. . . they were just missing their hookers and bibles.