I was on a two hour bus
ride to Washington D.C. and half way through it, I still wasn''t completely sure why I was there. I was there to support the cause, but why? Did I really, truly believe in the cause, or was I going just to cover the story? I''d find out soon enough. My notes from the bus ride read, "Chaos everywhere,
people screaming, passing through Newport now; try to pass the time by listening to Devo, Men Without Hats, and Cotton Eyed Joe". The bus ride wasn''t as productive as I thought it would be and a little bit more aggravating.
I arrived at the destination and got off the bus around eight o''clock in the morning. The air outside was brisk yet refreshing compared to the poisonous recycled air on the bus. As I stretched out and gathered my marching "gear", people shook hands and greeted each other with big grins," Are you ready to march! Are you ready to impeach that swine that we call president! I know I am! As soon as I straightened up, an over-eager geek of a man bounded over to me and introduced himself "Ken, Ken Kavitz, pleased to meet ya!" I took a few steps back and introduced myself as Kevin Katz to which he immediately pointed out the coincidence in both of our names being two K words. "I have to lose this dolt" I thought "or surely I’ll be dead by nightfall.
"
Where is this goddamn thing?" I asked searching for it. "Right here", and Ken swung me around to show me the site. "Holy shit!" I said as I dropped to my knees in awe of the
vast two acre clearing jam packed with every single protesting group imaginable. There were people walking and discussing politics, huge tents of people giving out signs, orgies in the middle of the crowd, just pure bedlam. With a daring step, I plunged myself into the squirming crown and held my breath for
fear of catching typhus. I had to excuse my way through the potheads, the acid junkies, and the feminists to get to my position for the pre-march rally. Sometime during my excursion through the sybarites, I lost Ken, and at a good time too, because I was reaching that point when I would have punched that babbling geek. I reached my destination in the crowd, and I was surrounded by tens of thousands of people and wondered what I got my self into.
Is this really what I came for, did I really believe in this? People swarming in the thousands handing out socialist newspapers, anarchist primers, feminist journals, every kind of periodical imaginable. And the buttons, oh the buttons! Millions of them in every direction with witty comments and doing everything they could to voice their opinions. People talking about the "musical guest", screaming in my ears. Running around and pushing me, tying my shoelaces together, smelling my hair, formed a circle around me and started probing around with their fingers. This became so much of a problem that I had take my bag by the shoulder strap, swing it around violently over my head, and charge at the nearest gap in the circle. I may have knocked out a few of the drug-crazed fiends, but I made my way out.
At this point, I met up with my friend Matt who came to the march. It had been a while since we last met so we caught up as best as we could in the surrounding chaos. He said that he was really excited about the march, and said, "Hey, do you want a djembe, because I do", so just like that, we went on a search for djembes. From across the clearing we saw a cart filled with djembes and other percussion instruments, so we rushed over before any of the chanting swine who surrounded me could get their hands on it. When we got there, we asked the man tending to the cart if we could purchase two djembes. To which he replied, "What are you, crazy? These are for the band. What do you want to do, sabotage us?” And then he winked and smiled so we fled in terror and returned to the crowds.
Then, blasting from the strategically placed speakers, a voice directed the crowds to the right and told us to start marching. So we were y, moving slowly but surely. I was walking peacefully and getting into things, and then I spotted the counter protesters. The incompetent freaks were everywhere, chanting, "If you don''t support the war, then you support Jihad", or some other brainless hokum. There were hundreds of them lining the streets chanting and holding signs and throwing various items into the marchers. I had to duck and weave through the
crowd and hide under people’s umbrellas to keep a safe distance from the counter protesters. Craziness everywhere...but I found a safe spot in the crowd and continued to
march and join the chants. I think I had finally got the hang of this marching thing...Selah.
We had come to the crossing of the river. The vast Potomac River spread out below us, "ye gods! Are we supposed to cross that!” I asked the nearest protester I could find grabbing him by the shirt. He replied by yelping and scurrying away with his tail between his legs. Up until this point I had been fine with the march; damn you bridge. I have a slight fear of heights, and the fierce torrential waters of the Potomac did nothing to ease this phobia. But I couldn''t retreat, I was surrounded by people, they forced me onto the bridge. "O my god" I believe was the phrase that I repeated over and over while on the bridge. I put my hood up and tried to think of a happier place, but all that I could think of were Moby Dick and the great white whale. I imagined the great beast jumping out of the river and straight at me. "Well this is nothing to be imagining now,” I said to myself, "No, definitely not, I should be thinking of sitting on a nice warm beach somewhere". But no such luck, ah look at me putting my fate in the hands of luck, how can you take me seriously if I can do something like that. Luck is a funny thing, eh?
We finally reached the end of that rotten bridge. I found my self breathing easier now that we had left the confines of it. The front of the vast crowd immediately made a quick skilled maneuver between the columns of a large wrought iron gate. Had they not made that beautiful maneuver, we would have been dashed against the jagged metal fence surrounding the compound that we were entering. Was it a park; was it some sort of government property? I had no way of knowing, I just followed the crowd. What a mistake.
At this point, the ruckus was dying down. I associated this with the immediate vanishing of those counter-protesting Nazis. I felt someone stepping on my shoes from behind, so I turned to see who it was, and to my surprise, it was Matt. “My god man, where have you been? I was almost killed on that bridge, did you see that beast that jumped from the depths of the Potomac?”, “I didn’t know that there were whales in the Potomac”, said Matt. “Neither did I.” I said. “That’s why I was so rattled, it wasn’t The Fear, it was just that damn whale”. So now, with at least one person I knew, I was already feeling a little bit more comfortable with my surroundings. The protesting march is usually a comfortable place, but not this one; this one was weird, bad craziness.
As we turned the corner, the sun shone through the clouds and provided a cliché, yet oddly moving view of the vast hill that rose out of the suburban surroundings of the Pentagon. And at that moment, I realized a great equilibrium that was present in Washington. How close people lived in proximity to that vile building and the scum that scurry along in its corridors. How easily it could be overtaken, but isn’t because of Mr. Bush’s gang and their ability to instill fear and loathing in the heart’s of a whole nation. The money and oil whores can roll in their decadence while just outside their windows a nation suffers. The fat’s in the fire and we just have to ride this terrible storm out until the end.
“We have to climb that hill!” I screamed as my surrounding protesters informed me. This was beginning to be an ugly adventure, vicious ups and downs in the temperature. I
More summaries about the March On The Pentagon: Part One