ponderings on non-violence, protests and police responses

I just read this blog post--http://ricksturningpoint.blogspot.com/2010/06/strong-enough-for-non-violent-protest.html--and it hit me right where it counts, bringing up a flood of memories about the 2000 DNC protest in Los Angeles. Truth be told, I went for the music: Rage Against the Machine and Ozomatli were playing and I love both bands. I'd never seen Rage live before (or since) and there's something inexplicably satisfying about screaming "F*@& YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME" with a few thousand other people directly at the obvious symbols of authority immediately to our left: The Staples Center full of political delegates and surrounded by a police presence I'd never seen before. Rage finished playing without any incident, although there were a small group of anarchists camped out on top of the fence which defined the "free speech zone." (And here I'd thought the whole country was supposed to be a free speech zone...) Police were literally showering the anarchists with tear gas, but there was little sign this shower even phased the anarchists. This detente continued while the stage was being changed over from Rage to Ozo, although since the crowd had lost their distraction there was more attention being paid to the stand being made by the anarchists and the complete inability of the police to remove them. Well, inability isn't the right word, it's unwillingness. I gather the police, understandably, didn't want to get into a violent confrontation at that point. Occasionally a police spokesman would come out on stage and warn us that if those guys didn't get off the fence, we'd all have to leave. I can't speak for the whole crowd, but I don't remember a big rush to try to talk them into getting down.

Ozomatli started playing. For those of you who don't know their music, it's all about love and joy and the positive power within us. In many ways, it's just as revolutionary as Rage Against the Machine, but it's not violent and dark and brooding about it; it's happy and celebratory and uplifting. It's probably a coincidence based solely on timing and a perceived escalation of the protest, but the police choose this time to declare us an unlawful assembly and turn off the power to the stage. I say it's probably coincidence, but it provides an important symbol: the positive power of people is more threatening than the negative impulses of the violent and disaffected. Another important thing about Ozomatli: they all play (or can play) acoustic instruments and routinely end their concerts by parading an acoustic jam through the crowd. So when you turn off the power on an Ozomatli concert and call them and their fans "unlawful," it's not surprising they picked up their acoustic instruments and started the parade. The police officer who had declared us unlawful had told us which exit to use on our way out, and the parade started working in that direction. Before we could all get out through the designated exit, the police charged the crowd on horseback, tear gas and beanbags a-blazing. It was at this point I came closest to being tear gassed myself, although I escaped through the other exit--the one we were not suppose to use, but which was not being blocked by any police.

Today, looking at the protests surrounding the G20 & G8 conferences, the police reaction to those protests, and the media reporting on both, I wish I could get the real story. Rick's blog has provided me with the clearest picture of what it was like. NPR this morning sorely disappointed me by leading their story with the protests (if it bleeds, it leads) but not even talking about the protests or the police response at all in the body of their story. The media seems unwilling to report on the nature of these protests and the ways in which the protesters may be representing billions more people than the delegates inside. I'm pretty sure Rick has a point: if the protests were strictly nonviolent in nature, the media would have a harder time dismissing the protesters and the underlying message of their protest. It's sad for me to think, though, in remembering my DNC experience, that the anarchists started with a non-violent action and it was lost completely in the reporting of the event. The local news in LA practically bent over backwards to kiss the police department's collective behind in saving us from an obviously dangerous riot which was destined to start had the LAPD not been there. They clearly were not reporting on the same incident I witnessed.

Well, this is awkward.

Awkward. Seriously, the word itself is awkward. Who came up with that word anyway?

Frankly, I'd rather not be dialog editing

I used to think dialog editors were a little crazy. I think I'm right, too--as a general rule, they are a little crazy. I know this better now because I do a lot more dialog editing than I did when I first formed this opinion. I know I go a little crazy when I'm editing dialog--often more than a little.

Dialog editors spend hours on end wearing headphones and staring at a computer screen. (Alright, they don't always wear headphones. I can't like wearing headphones for very long. I prefer to do the majority of my work on speakers and occasionally check something really tricky on headphones. Maybe that means I'm less crazy then some, but I doubt it.) They listen to the same thing over and over ad nauseum. The old school cats listen to things backwards half the time as they roll back and forth over it. (I'm not even sure how to do that in Pro Tools. Pity.) All the while, they're making subtle changes which few people would notice one by one but which make a huge difference when put together.

Watching (and especially listening) to them work can drive just about anyone crazy. Actually doing the work often seems perfectly normal as I'm doing it, but things get surreal when I take a break and snap out of the trance of minutia. Either the whole exercise seems to have been entirely ludicrous, or I find myself micromanaging the sound of the world around me. Or both. Usually both. On other occasions, I can't concentrate enough on the task at hand and I just want to have a good, old fashioned, "terrible two" style temper tantrum. Today is one of those days. I listen to my inner monologue and it sounds like George Costanza impersonating Jerry Seinfeld: "What's the deal with the background noise at this location? And why can't we get a decent lav on this guy? What? Is he wearing a sandpaper shirt?"

Well, this dialog isn't going to edit itself, so I'd better get back to work.

I guess I'm a blogger now

I guess the way to start these things is to start writing. I never really thought of myself as having anything to say really worthy of creating my own blog, and yet I like to think of myself as a writer. Not an author, barely a wordsmith, but a writer. One who writes. One with fondness and respect for the written word. So, I guess, if I'm going to call myself a writer, even using such a broad and low-pressure definition, I'd better write something aside from email. I mean, I spend an inordinate amount of time writing and rewriting emails before I send them. I compose tweets in my head when I'm doing something else. I write haiku to occupy my mind. It's about time I start putting some of it in a more formal location. I don't know who will read it, or even if I'll tell anyone about it. I probably will, but for now the exercise is to write. I even started writing this blog post (in my head) more than a year ago while I was on a long walk with Sorren (then just over 1 year old) in his stroller.

So that's that. A writers journal. A blog. A bunch of random synaptic firing which corresponds to time I put in front of a keyboard. Whatever you call it, here it is.