Chapter 9

May Day—M1

May 2012

A week in Hawaii had done me good. Sure, I’d felt guilty to be eating coq au vin, drinking aged rum, swilling mai tais, dancing the hula, and boogie boarding with the stars, but I had to admit, living like the 1% in the lap of luxury certainly had its charms. Our ten-year-old daughter, Kristy, was losing her mind every morning as she sprang out of bed and screamed, “Oh my gawd, we’re in Hawaii.” We were staying in a condo that our celebrity attorney pal, Paula, had rented for us. In fact, the whole pampered vacation was being picked up by Paula, who had magnanimously invited us to come to Kauai for her partner, Woody’s, sixtieth birthday bash. Never one to skimp, she had treated us to frequent forays to stunningly spectacular snorkeling beaches during the day, followed by lavish dinners, fireside luaus, pu pu platters, and nonstop island entertainment in the evenings. I did it all. I swam with impossibly gorgeous tropical fish, played in the waves, broke open a ripe coconut with a sharp rock and ate it, saw wild pigs in the brush, and even found myself floating close enough to caress a friendly sea turtle as she cavorted balletically in the warm Pacific ocean surf. Our time there was filled with laughter and the excitement of communing with the other friends our host couple had invited. There wasn’t a jerk in the bunch and we all got along beautifully—though we were all from wildly disparate backgrounds. One of us was a renowned breast cancer surgeon, another, an upper echelon career military specialist who was also an advisor to the Pentagon on matters of national security and cyber intelligence, another a sought after wedding photographer, yet another a San Francisco city planner, and so on. Ostensibly, the only thing we had in common was our friendship with Paula and Woody, yet I’d been pleasantly surprised and relieved to discover our shared love of nature, and humanity in general. We all agreed that our planet was in dire straits and that corporations, corruption, banks, and bought politicians were primarily responsible for the awful state of affairs. All were open and tolerant, some even enthusiastic, about my passion for the Occupy Movement. I had a deep discussion with one of the few men among us, the military adviser, about the power of nonviolence and the importance of listening to the perspective of those we most disagree with. His name was Dan and he spoke candidly, respectfully, even tenderly about his interactions with Muslims in the Middle East. He outlined his commitment to influencing the American military to rethink its mission and adjust its attitudes toward other cultures, who many Americans now see as “enemies.” He openly referred to himself as a dedicated pacifist, which fascinated me given his extensive military background. All in all the week in Kauai was lovely. Were it not for a late-night visitation by a walnut-sized cockroach in close proximity to my bed, I’d have to say that it was a perfect vacation. Even the giant bug had done little to dampen my spirits, as I envisioned the darling geckos (which were running around on the ceiling, making kissy sounds to one another) plotting an ambush on the insect and all its creepy crawly buddies, wherever they may have been.

Before we left for Hawaii, I feared I’d be champing at the bit to hit the streets and get back to the revolution—sitting on my hands the whole vacation, trying not to rock and pace back and forth like a caged animal, but thankfully, that had not been the case. However, as soon as Mary, Pam, Kristy, and I landed in Seattle, I felt a surge of restlessness overtake me—I wanted to be underway fighting the powers that be in Oakland and San Francisco. The three of them were going to drive home as I flew out the next morning to board a plane for the Bay Area. In the three months since I’d left Oakland, after the debacle of Move In Day, I spent much time following the Occupy Movement by smartphone, with much interest and concern. I’d seen police in cities like New York and Chicago ignoring and making up laws as they went, in order to brutalize and arrest protesters who were beginning to show up everywhere to oppose bank foreclosures, wage/benefit cuts, unemployment, environmental crimes, and the like all over America. Cops were arresting Occupiers for filming them, for sitting or lying down in public places, for attending corporate shareholder meetings, asking for their badge numbers, and all manner of other legal activities. They’d even resorted to planting marijuana and cocaine on arrestees to pile on more charges. I’d read accounts of big city mayors up-armoring police forces and buying millions of dollars of military grade weaponry to thwart Occupiers. In Chicago, Rahm Emanuel was reported to have been quietly negotiating with the state of Wisconsin to evacuate the entire city in the event of a full scale riot on May Day 2012, or the ensuing NATO summit later that month. In addition to Oakfosho, I received much of my Bay Area activism updates from a fellow whose Twitter handle was, “PunkBoyinSF.” PunkBoy, who was also known as J’Tao, struck me, just as Oakfosho had, with his brazen, in your face, unrepentant coverage of tense confrontations with police during Occupy events. PunkBoy in San Francisco had somehow remained unfazed and above the fray during an expanding backlash against streamers, many of whom had fallen out of favor among Occupiers, who contended that their feeds had incriminated them in charges filed against them by the police. They complained loudly that the ubiquitous coverage was being combed through by Bay Area cops looking for suspects. Petty jealousies began to sprout up everywhere as some indie journos were accused of losing political focus as their popularity soared. Some activists cried foul as people like Spencer Mills (Oakfosho) and Tim Pool (Timcast) in New York City were achieving rock star status and getting job offers, while putting them in jeopardy by exposing details of their activities and whereabouts. PunkBoy, in addition to being highly intelligent, had many endearing qualities, as well as a general ability to break bad in a heartbeat and boldly go forward where others feared to tread. From my point of view, it appeared that Bay Area police were intimidated by him, as they failed to arrest him when he called them out or pushed back against their aggressive tactics. On numerous occasions, I’d seen him holding his camera phone high, while leaning into throngs of police officers actively engaged in cudgeling groups of demonstrators at direct actions in front of banks, CEO’s houses, or corporate offices. Not once did I see the cops turn their focus onto him. It was as if they had a hands-off policy with regard to harming J’Tao, even though his live-streams were punctuated with his own brand of color commentary and dotted with expletives like, “Whatssamatter, Pig … why’d you cover up your badge? Scared of getting doxed? … cuz that’s what’s gonna happen if you keep fuckin’ with Occupy … You ever heard of the Internet, motherfucker? … Do you know how the Internet works? … you know who Anonymous is moron? … you know how to work a computer asshole?” His bravado and unrelenting style was impressive for sure, so I established a friendship with him by joining his chat line whenever I saw that he was on air.

After several months of tweeting back and forth, I direct messaged PunkBoy to tell him I was coming back to the Bay Area for May Day and asked him where he would be that day. He’d tweeted back that he would be dashing all over the place, covering the event, and asked if I’d like to join him for a drink when I got to town. After I checked with my friend Laura, we agreed to meet with PB after visiting “Occupy the Farm” in Albany, just outside of Oakland, that afternoon. Laura met me at Southwest Airlines baggage claim around 1:00 p.m., and off we drove to the “Farm,” which I’d been keeping tabs on by way of a tweeter named Courtney, who enthusiastically took it upon herself to keep folks up to date on a brassy move by activists, who had taken over an unused ten-acre parcel of land, owned by UC Berkeley, to create an organic garden commune to raise food and provide housing for their members.

As we pulled into Albany we were greeted by typical city noise; cars whizzing by every which way and horns blaring to make sure you stepped on it as soon as the light changed. Then, I looked forward, and saw a huge expanse of rare, green, open space, populated by three or four dozen dusty, parched people pushing wheelbarrows, kneeling before neat, newly tilled rows of soil, spreading straw, and carefully planting each seedling from the many flats spread out on the ground around them. The sun beat down on their reddening skin as they hand watered each transplant from two plastic, 275 gallon containers parked on the center path. Opposite the main entrance was a large banner that said, WHOLE FOOD, NOT WHOLE FOODS, which pointedly referred to UC Berkeley’s intentions to sell the “Gill Tract” to the controversy-plagued, mega-grocer (Whole Foods), which was headquartered in Austin, Texas. The chain’s purported plan was to pave over the parcel and build another “healthy” food outlet on this land. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey had recently found himself in a shit storm of his own making by voicing such beliefs as, “Climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily a bad thing,” and also contending that health care is “not an intrinsic right,” in interviews he granted to magazines such as Mother Jones. To make matters worse, he was considered on some fronts to be ethically challenged, as he was known to promote and sell sugar- and preservative-laced GMO-laden foods as healthy choices to his largely liberal, educated, diet-conscious, clients across the nation. Then, there was that brief, but noteworthy phase in 2009, when Tea Party members found so much to like about Mackey’s public political pronouncements, that they vociferously encouraged their members in places like Dallas, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona to purchase a week’s worth of groceries from Whole Foods, in what they called a “Buycott” of support for their newly anointed kindred spirit.

However precarious its future, the Gill Tract was, at that moment, ten acres of organic beans, peppers, carrots, onions, lettuce, greens, peas, potatoes, herbs, and all manner of edible offerings. One of the first things I did was ask a farmer in overalls and a straw hat where they’d procured their water. “Well, till Friday we had running water from the University, but they cut it off a couple of hours before we were supposed to meet with them to ask if we could stay till the crop was in. Then, when we all went to our scheduled meeting to discuss things, they never showed up. Now, we just been filling these containers up from friends’ garden hoses.” That sounded like a lot of work to me. I couldn’t even imagine keeping up with a ten-by-ten-foot plot that way, without putting myself in the hospital, let alone ten acres. As I walked through the grounds, I was delighted to see kids running around naked, or nearly so, as they fed, watered, and played with dwarf goats and chickens in moveable “tractors,” which furnished fertilizer to the rows. There was also a plethora of dogs and puppies who were allowed to roam in certain nonplanted areas of the joyful environment. A child artist had crayoned a sign asking us not to disturb the nesting turkeys, who were making themselves scarce to get a little peace and quiet while they sat and waited for their brood to hatch. Overhead were gaily decorated archways announcing areas such as “Ladybug Patch” and the “Library.” An enthralling marriage of industry and fellowship rewarded me wherever I cast my eyes. There was a small, canvas-covered stage that protected musicians from the hot sun as they played to entertain workers and planners. A young woman was giving a free “herbal health for female-bodied people” clinic from a circle of straw bales, which provided seating for me, my friend Laura, and the other people attending, one of whom was an inquisitive man who listened intently as homemade tinctures and remedies were passed around for all to sample, along with free instructional printouts. I learned lots of fascinating stuff about the abundance of easily grown, readily available herbs that can alleviate a whole host of issues we women have around our unique physiology. Just as we were leaving, four ominous looking uniformed police officers strode in officiously and singled out a man to corner for questioning. I stood within four feet of them as I filmed them talking gruffly to the man with their clipboards out. One stern-faced officer lowered his clipboard in exasperation as he turned sharply to face me and spoke sternly, “Look, could you just step back and give us some privacy here. We’re trying to investigate a crime scene and we need you to get back, okay. We need you to cut the camera off too.” “Oh, okay,” I said, wondering what sort of crime this tousle-haired, Norman Rockwell–looking farmer had been involved in, besides transporting lady bugs without a permit and watering vegetables.

After being told to back off and stop filming, Laura and I reluctantly departed the “crime scene” in order to convene with PunkBoy at his apartment in the Haight so we could share a drink or two before our big day in the Bay. Just before we got to his place, I called to say we were nearby and asked if could we bring anything to his flat. “Nope, I’m good,” he said. “I got a houseful of people and just bought beer and food for them, so just come on by.” So that’s what we did. We practically had to turn sideways to get into his small apartment, since nearly every flat surface was overtaken by visiting guerilla journalists from all across the nation. Some had even taken the time to construct laminated press badges with their Twitter handles on them. “Oh, you’re Korgasm,” or, “Hey, that’s Hicksphilosopher,” I exclaimed, starstruck. There were bodies sprawled out everywhere, heads bent over computer screens—fingers flying, as occasional bouts of conversation broke out between tweeters, who were sitting so close together their skin touched. J’Tao had laid out a large large, foamy mattress on the floor of the unit’s only bedroom, which was almost entirely obscured by visitors from places as far flung as New York City and Chicago. A chubby, pimply, black-garbed teenager who was sitting against the bedroom wall began rocking back and forth as he excitedly repeated, “I can’t believe I’m in Oakland!” until someone close by glanced up from his computer and said, “Well, no, actually dude, you’re in San Francisco.”

“Well yeah, but that’s almost Oakland,” retorted the manic kid, who appeared to be slightly off-plumb in some way. “I knew it was gonna be awesome in Oakland on May Day,” he continued, “so I took a bus and hitchhiked all the way out here from Kansas to get here. Do ya think the cops’re gonna shoot tear gas at us like I saw on Oakfosho’s channel? I bought a gas mask, just in case. Is Oakfosho gonna be there? How close is the Golden Gate Bridge to Oakland? Where do you think the most action’s gonna be tomorrow?”

His rapidfire ejaculations did nothing to dispel my feeling that he needed guidance, or supervision of some sort, so I faced him, with some misgivings, and asked him if he was here by himself.

“Let’s just say … when Georgie wants to go somewhere, Georgie takes off and goes somewhere … no matter what his retarded parents say,” he answered, obliquely.

Oh Lord have mercy, that’s not what I wanted to hear.

“So, Georgie,”I began.

“No! It’s George,” he violently corrected, clutching his head in his hands and clawing at his temples as if to stop it from exploding off his shoulders.

“My parents call me Georgie, but my name is George! I’m eighteen and I can do whatever the fuck I want now.”

I felt a hand pressing lightly against my back, so I turned slowly to face PunkBoy, who began gently tugging me to the overcrowded living room.

“So, I see you’ve met George,” he said, painstakingly pronouncing every letter of the name, almost converting it into a four syllable word.

“Yes, it seems so,” I replied, cautiously.

“He just showed up on my doorstep this morning, saying he was an Occupier that needed a place to stay for the ‘May Day riot’, so what could I do. He’s just a kid, so I couldn’t tell him no, but I think we need to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble. He’s totally broke. He says he spent his last dime on food and a gas mask, so I’m hoping he doesn’t think he lives here now. I wonder if his parents even know where he is.”

“Well, he’s got a cell phone,” I offered. “He could probably call them if he gets totally stuck.” Then, I recognized Courtney from her Gill Tract, OccupyTheFarm coverage, so I excused myself and squeezed over to her to say how appreciative I was for all the up-to-the-minute news from Albany.

This was an electric, alive, hope-filled, convergence—infused with passion and purpose—ground zero for the revolution that we would kick into high gear the next day. We were going to hit the streets, shut down the Golden Gate Bridge, and “raise a ruckus,” just as Robert Reich had urged us to do when he delivered that dynamic speech on the Berkeley campus back in November. From there we were going to keep on rolling forward, gathering momentum wherever we went—to the ports and legislative houses, to Oakland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Omaha, Chicago, Saint Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Tampa, DC, New York … every square inch of the planet earth was going to hear us roar and jump aboard our freedom train. We were going to end corporate rule—to right the ship to create the world that we all knew was ultimately achievable. They may have been able to raid our encampments and shut down our demonstrations, but we were convinced that they couldn’t evict an idea whose time had come. And that time was now. Looking into that packed room, filled with smart, motivated, visionary young people who were reaching out and touching each other, gave me a sense that anything was possible. We had attained critical mass and were, at that point, unstoppable. To spur us further, PunkBoy began to play a new PBS Frontline episode documenting the Occupy Movement’s meteoric rise to the forefront of the conversation in America about social justice and income inequality. I watched the video from a cot that had been placed in the living room for PunkBoy and his husband, Tim, to sleep on while their bedroom was occupied by Occupiers. My face was inches away from the television screen as I heard excited voices proclaiming from behind me that they had been here, or there, as scenes of unrest from coast to coast played out. “I know that person,” or, “That’s me,” or, “I was right there,” were phrases that kept bouncing off my ears every so often as the documentary unfolded.

Just as the show was ending, someone shouted out, “Hey, you guys, listen—I just picked up a tweet from OSF [Occupy San Francisco] that said they’re calling off the bridge shutdown tomorrow.” What! I thought. What is he talking about. That can’t be right. There’s a whole apartment full of people here, (and presumably throughout the Bay Area) that came out specifically to do just that. The next day’s plans were so openly discussed that even the mainstream local news stations, like KRON and KTVU, had warned commuters to avoid the anticipated mess if they could. How now, could a message of such magnitude, ordering us to call off a major uprising, be reaching us by way of a flippant, eleventh-hour, 140-character tweet. Why not just tweet everything. Hey how about tweeting your best friend that his parents just died in a car crash. Why even bother with the formality of an email when you’ve got important news … that’s two steps more than you need. And direct messaging is time consuming. Just put it all out there on your feed. Let’s litter the airwaves with tweets like, “Dr. Mason frm Oncology @Mayo—Yup u got cancer. smh. Btw its pretty fast moving so u shld get up to date on wills, DNRs, powr of attorney etc”

I mean, what in Sam Hill was going on here? The room quickly erupted into a state of confusion as bewildered people, like me, hastily logged onto their accounts to make some sense out of the announcement. Speculation about the trustworthiness of the source began to abound as folks tried to glean who the person(s) behind OSF tweet was, and we wondered aloud amongst ourselves if we could reach him or her. It was baffling to me that no one in that room full of insiders seemed to be able to identify the real-life human being that had pushed the buttons to send that tweet. Someone else clicked onto a link sent in the body of a tweet that led us to a statement that had come, supposedly, from OSF, outlining the reasons why they (whoever they were) had decided to call off the bridge closure. The main reason cited was that the Port of San Francisco had just put out a press release announcing their own plan to preemptively close the Port of San Francisco the next day in order to encourage Occupiers to call off their action. Since the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the main routes in and out of the Port, OSF was now claiming victory, in the form of a one-day disruption of service in the commercial operations at the Port of San Francisco. It occurred to me momentarily that I may have been letting my frustration get the better of me when I vented, “I just flew here from fucking Hawaii to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge and now some voice from the clouds is saying we’ve won and it’s off? I mean … how can anyone call a one-day port closure “victory?” We gotta get out there tomorrow to show the world that We are the ones who decide when, how, and if business gets done in this country!” Some nearby heads nodded in approval, while others seemed anxious to distance themselves from my rant. Perhaps revealing that I’d just been vacationing in Hawaii hadn’t been the best strategy to win the hearts and minds of my mostly impoverished companions, some of whom were eating Top Ramen in styrofoam bowls as they sat on the floor. As I searched the room for consensus, I heard PunkBoy’s calm, rational voice in my ear, “Well, Sweetie, it is a victory of sorts that they’re freaked out enough to go as far as to shut themselves down for a day and I just don’t think we’d have the numbers to pull it off anyway. SFPD’s been saying they’ve got an army waiting to shut us down if we try to shut the bridge down, and we all know what that means. They’ll probably bring out the paddy wagons and the heavy artillery and if we don’t have thousands and thousands of protesters out, we’ll get creamed. We’d probably get creamed either way.” The only one in the room who seemed as crushed as I was Georgie, who seemed on the verge of tears. As the news sank in, he dejectedly offered, “Well, maybe Oakland’s got something big up it’s sleeve, or Blac Bloc, or something.” Laura Koch and I ended the night by making a plan to meet up with PunkBoy early in the morning to decide what to do.

We arrived back at his apartment at 6:00 a.m. May Day morning. We walked the many stairs to his door and knocked. No response. After a few more knocks, J’Tao’s face emerged, bed-headed bleary-eyed, from the cracked door. “Oh hey guys. Yeah, c’mon in … no one’s quite up yet.” We hung out as some began to stir within their sleeping bags or under bedding on the floor. An hour later, he and two other streamers crammed into Laura’s car to make an exploratory run across the Golden Gate Bridge. A block before we reached it, we saw a group of police standing around in their uniforms with their helmets on and their batons showing. At the entrance to the bridge stood dozens of riot cops, standing at the ready—waiting for our arrival. Very few cars crossed with us as we stared out at the hundreds of officers stationed along the entire span of the bridge. “Yup, they’re here …” observed PunkBoy,” there’s no sense in trying something cute.”

I agreed that it would be unwise to try to resurrect the plan, particularly since there was hardly any traffic on the route anyway, so we returned to PB’s place and gave the news to the others. Most everyone seemed to take it in stride, as they hopped onto their social media and began checking in with others to formulate a Plan B. After breakfast, Laura dropped me off in downtown San Francisco at Market Street before heading home to put in some billable hours, as a lawyer, for her employer. A large, friendly gathering of performance artists, dancers, musicians, and peaceful protesters was amassed there. Thousands of people mingled about on the blocked intersection, some with small children, others with signs, chalk, and washable paint, to decorate the entire area with temporary installments of colorful scenes bearing inspirational, revolutionary slogans. The sun shone brightly on us all as we cavorted under the watchful eye of the police, who were maintaining a fairly low profile while patrolling the perimeter. As disappointed as I was that we weren’t forcing the issue on the bridge, it was gratifying to see everyone enjoying themselves, unmolested, on that beautiful day. An hour or so in, I picked up a tweet from Occupy Oakland 3 saying that there was a skirmish at City Hall, and some had broken out windows and were engaged in a struggle with the OPD. I squinted to locate the nearest BART train to head over there quickly. Georgie, who was hovering near me, had just picked up the same tweet, and instantly recruited me to help him navigate the complexities of taking the BART to Oakland … and to pay his way there. “Is Oakfosho gonna be there? Are they going to arrest us? I left my gas mask at PunkBoy’s house … I’m hungry,” came the ceaseless prattle of poor, confused, curious, George, who never seemed bothered that I only occasionally answered his infinite array of questions. We got off the train at Twelfth and Broadway, just outside City Hall, and hit the ground running. Indeed, there was a smattering of broken glass evident on the front of the building, as well as a dozen or so police pacing the grounds, but other than that, nothing particularly urgent was afoot. If there had been a confrontation, it had all been resolved by the looks of it, and either the participants had fled or been arrested and were clean out of sight by then. George wailed piteously at my side as he took it all in. Not wanting to witness his disappointment bloom into a tantrum, I put on a brave face, hoping to mask my own feelings of doubt and despair. It looked as if the revolution I’d invested so much hope into might be dying. “Let’s get you something to eat. I bet that’ll cheer you up,” I proposed gaily to my forlorn little buddy with the hangdog face. His mood brightened considerably as he jumped up and down and pointed excitedly to a big fat corporate Burger King he’d been eyeing for awhile, right across the street. Minutes later we were sitting opposite each other, inhaling our Whoppers and fries, as I wondered where the revolution had gone.