Notes from Zuccotti Park #4

I’m wondering about what people outside New York are taking from this. Not the media coverage, but just what ideas are catching people’s eyes … surely they can’t be attracted to the radical cultural, intellectual and life-style ideas on parade at Zucotti …. What is resonating with them ? A generalized complaint about economic inequality ? Their own anger, just made flesh ? I wonder, I wonder.

…. I’m still wet from Thursday, but I saw Joe Hill last night …. tell you about it ….

The Kitchen

The kitchen. Well that’s a bit of a stretch, as a description. It would have to clean up a bit to qualify for “makeshift”. There’s prep (a small table), serving area (one of the park’s long stone benches, covered in plastic), dishwashing (another bench with three tubs of water, the last of which is clean water and lots of bleach). Then there’s inventory, a tiny section with everything mindful thinking people, and everything well-meaning  goofballs, would donate (cliff bars from the former, 10 pound open bags of  Kandy Korn from the latter).

I work a lot in inventory. Think of a small beach; waves periodically wash over it -  we are covered to our necks (quite literally) in bread, we dig out, organize, make nice – then a wave of cleaning supplies; a wave of bottled water and so forth.

There is no hot water and no power. Water for dishes is carried in.

The donations are so varied as to be comical. 200 hard bagels. A bag of soft, fragrant fresh loaves from, uhm, let’s just say one of best gourmet bakeries in the city. Underneath a bin of sliced white bread I find five carefully wrapped packages of obviously home-baked brownies (went fast, those).

An effort is made to supply not just vegetarian, but vegan food, and gluten-free food. A girl came up to me one night, said kind of pleadingly, “do you have anything with meat in it ?”.

A large amount of the food is prepared food from off-site. The first weeks, they apparently lived on pizza. OWS (“Occupy Wall Street”) recently found a large off-site kitchen where they prepare food. A great deal also comes from restaurants, quite randomly. (“more hamburgers, guys”, “hey, check out the Chinese food”, “holy shit, Jerk Chicken !”). Pizzas trickle in like a slow leak, if leaks were tasty and had pepperoni (I’ve even heard rumors of the “Occu-pie”, a pizza with pepperoni people lined up against sausage police, but I haven’t seen it).

Food is assembled in the on-site kitchen (salads, maybe tuna), but nothing is really cooked.

The place is wildly disorganized. Each day I come, it is set up differently. Each day the procedures are different. There’s not much in the way of hierarchy, one point person if you’re lucky … someone asks you to step in for them on the line, in you go, or you see some trash to go out, bingo, you have a job.

It’s all a big mess, expected – after all, it’s just a little space with no resources on some stones in the middle of a park, in the middle of hundreds of people. It seems to put out hundreds, if not thousands, of meals a day, God knows how.

Tonight the mess is epic. Been raining, hard, for many hours. I am standing, doing dishes, well past caring whether I’m wet. A Japanese woman comes over to me, “Come here”, she says. “Here”, she fits a plastic hood over my head, ties it under my chin. “There, ok” and walks away.

… So into this mess walks …. this guy. Big Irish fellow, broad, handsome, curly dark hair, wire-rim glasses. A big, friendly New England accent. Everyone seems to know him, he takes charge. Someone says “It’s 11:00 pm, let’s close down”. He replies “People hungry, right, I’m serving ‘till all the food’s gone” …. everybody else is hunkering down in tents, he’s jumping around, saying, “damn rain’s gotta stop, can’t get done what needs to get done here”. He spends the rest of the night, not just braving the rain, but cleaning and re-organizing the whole kitchen. I’m thinking, this guy’s right out of a 1930’s union movie. And then it hits me - Dear God, it’s him. It’s Joe Hill. These Occupy Wall Street people have so much mojo, they have actually conjured up Joe Hill himself.

(if you have no idea what I’m on about, try googling Joan Baez singing Joe Hill ….)

Yes sir, Jesse Jackson, Alec Baldwin and …. Joe Hill. Some place, this.

Small personal addendum … I walked in the next day and this fella, (he’s got a good Irish name,  let’s just call him Seamus, close enough), he points to me and says, “This is Bill. He can organize ANYTHING”. Guess I made my bones, now ….. oh and Joe Hill was actually Svenske, Swedish, not Irish, just to be accurate.

Notes from Zuccotti Park # 3

So many people - who’s at this party, anyway ?

There’s so many different  types. ‘Course, I don’t see much of the daytime crowd – apparently lots of wall street types and regular people just hanging out, talking and arguing – a big out-door debate society.

But I’m there at night, different crew - (or as one guy so aptly shouted it last night, while flapping his arms and making woo-woo sounds, “the freaks come out at night, the freaks at night !”). 

Sanitation Guy - Cleaning up the kitchen area, I meet this tall, thin, slow fella with a (very) big cart and lots of separated trash. He’s from “Sanitation” (one of the occupiers’ committees -“Sanitation” takes care of clean-up at the Park). I ask him what the process is, what I should do with kitchen trash. Wow, this guy couldn’t string a sentence together. I listened as best I could; he explained how I should take the wax paper out of the pizza boxes, put it in its’ own place. He turns to me, nods very gravely, “Zero Waste, man. Zero Waste”, and trundles his cart away. Wow – I think about reducing trash, but I don’t practice “Zero Waste”. He does, just like that. If I saw this guy on my block, I’d think about giving him a dollar – but who has a clearer vision of how to save resources, him or me ? Who is more sophisticated, him or me ? As a practical matter, who is doing more, him or me ? Is this what this whole thing is about ?

Kid - There’s a kid hanging out back of the kitchen. He’s articulate, friendly and clearly having a good time.  I see he’s got a bottle in a bag. I can smell it, Jim Beam or some cheap whiskey (absolutely verboten – the occupiers have adopted a “Good Neighbor Policy” that prohibits alcohol or drugs on the site). But he’s a kid, he’s there and I’m not like, surprised or anything. I’m just wondering what it means to be speaking out, caring, compassionate …. and drunk. It’s messy, his intentions are messy – is that part of this too ? We like our heroes neat, our villains too – but that’s not happening here. How much of that is what this whole thing is about ?

Alec - Later on, quite late, there’s a sudden crowd in the kitchen, with camera lights and everything. It’s not the cops, it’s …. Alec Baldwin. Hey, I don’t know, he was just there, promised to buy 20 people breakfast and split. So this whole thing is about that, too.

Happy Holidays  - And even later, 9 Hassidic jews come into the park, walk around asking questions and talking, friendly but with that insistent Chassidic inquiring voice “Vat are you doing ? Vat’s this ? Vat’s dat ?”. It being New York, some tall black guy walks up and says “where’s your tent, where’s your tent, guys ?”. “Vat ? Vat ?” they say. “It’s Sukkos, man, SUKKOS, where’s your tent ?”. Lot of laughter from everybody at that one. Come to think of it, I remember (some) Hassidim party and drink at Sukkos. No wonder they were in the park, having fun at 1:00 am. Maybe they should get together with the Kid.

   

… and it IS Sukkot. One of the tent’s up here is a ‘Pop up sukkah”. Wow, good idea.

Another Sanitation Guy – Late night, I see another guy pushing a broom. I thank him, “That’s really great of you to be doing that”. He says “Well, if I don’t do it, somebody else will. I love that”. I walk away, thinking, oh that’s neat. Then I realize – he didn’t say “Well, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done”. He said “…if I don’t do it, somebody else will…”. He’s doing it because …. He’s in a group where he can count on everyone and they can count on him ?? Is THIS what this whole thing is about ? I don’t know, but I’ll thinking about that one for a while.

Gotta go, gotta go see what the rain has brought to the site …

Notes from Zuccotti Park # 2

Day 2 at Zucotti Park for me … and 30 days for Occupy Wall Street. Very strange that this protest exists at all. The City has swept much bigger actions away with ease … and the ideas and actions swirling around are hardly conventional, hardly accessible to the average Joe. I’m surprised at all of it.

Anyway, saw all kinds of things yesterday, here’s just one observation ….  

Rock – there’s this one fellow, hangs around the kitchen. He’s big, thick, not young. His jaw is square, his shoulders are square, he looks like nothing so much as a big, immovable rock. Nice enough fellow, but he speaks slowly, in a deep drawl, is kind of boring and tonight is taking up a lot of room in a found chair in the kitchen area.

Fair enough, I work around him, silently nick-naming him “The Rock”. The evening goes on – then suddenly, as these things do, there’s yelling and running and general rushing about – the police have advanced on the medical tent, apparently intending to dismantle it. I work my way to where I can see – there is a tense line of police, staring down a line of protestors. And there, between the protestors and the police, is “The Rock”. Just standing there, like a giant Buddha, with his hands open, saying “No Violence …. No Violence … No Violence” over and over, apparently calming the lines.

That’s the important part of the story, but it got completely surreal after that, so I’ll continue … out of nowhere appears … Jesse Jackson !?!?! (for real, I couldn’t make this stuff up). The police are clutching their nightsticks, the crowd is chanting and Reverend Jesse Jackson appears between them, next to Rock. What’s this ?! A Halloween ghost of the activist past ? Some bizarre liberal cavalry from the 60’s ?  No, it was really him, Jesse Jackson. He just stood there, staring at the officers one by one (hypnotizing them, one guy said later). Soon enough he cooled the beef and everybody backed down.     

Now, it was cool to be 18 feet from Jesse Jackson, but the confrontation, the drama of it, I find pretty trivial as far as understanding this experience. What really caught my attention was Rock. He ain’t pretty – not an intellect, not charismatic, not hip – and nobody is going to shake his hand, the way they shook Jesse Jackson’s. I’ve gotta say, I probably wouldn’t strike up a conversation with him, probably wouldn’t listen much if he spoke … I don’t even remember his name. So I’m wondering, does his voice get heard ? Do institutions hear him when he speaks ? Do we ? Bet not … but at a crucial moment, he made his voice heard, with courage and calm and grace. Is that what this whole thing is about ?

                                                                      

I don’t know, but it’s something to think about, surely.

Notes from Zuccotti Park # 1

So, about Occupy Wall Street ….

So many of my friends have said to me, “I don’t know what to think about all this. What really is Occupy Wall Street ? What do they want ? Who are “they” ? … and I’ve been asking the same things.

As of last night, I’m volunteering in the make-shift kitchen they have, and planning on spending time there for the next few days. I thought it would worthwhile (or at least fun) to jot down a few my impressions, and send them to you. (with apologies to Jack, who was hanging out with them ages ago).

Funniest scene – definitely LegoLand. Someone had set up a little diorama on a piece of cardboard, with little lego protestors, little lego policemen, little lego people sleeping in tiny sleeping bags. One of the little protestors held a little sign saying “Occupy LegoLand”. Brilliant.

                Tell you the truth, if you want to know what’s going on there but want to skip the rhetoric, go to Occupy Legoland on facebook (just google “Occupy LegoLand”, you’ll find it). It’s hilarious, and portrays events pretty accurately.

Most interesting  process – the “Human Mic”. When someone has something to say to a group of people, he/she says a sentence – then the people around the person repeat the sentence in unison, so everybody can hear. It’s quite odd – a bit like political argument by opera. Or Greek chorus. Aside from being practical, its’ implicit message – “every voice must be heard” – gives me the chills (the good kind).

Are these people angels ? Or goof-balls ?  - the answer is “Yes”. I watched a kid volunteer to wash dishes, decide he was being turned away because he had a dog and spend the next few minutes yelling at the “fascist” food people. (although in his defense, he seemed more like a kid with too much anger, too easily hurt, too mistrustful, than a jerk). Then there was the woman patiently, patiently, patiently talking to the hot dog vendor (it’s New York, they’re there too), explaining the protestors, answering his questions, assuring him that no one would burn down his cart ….

There are all kinds of people here, with all kinds of opinions. Way too many ideas here – they can’t all fit together, express some coherent platform. But as I watch this, I must say that my impression is, that’s the point. In an age when each individual, group and movement is insistent on its’ own view, to the exclusion of all others, this mass of ideas is its’ own  message – that people can think and feel radically different things and still talk and listen and respect each other. Sometimes. (there’s plenty of non-listening here too). Still, that’s as radical an idea for 2011 as I can imagine.

Food ? What kind of Food ? – hey, it’s New York, right ? I see somebody dropping off a big bag of hard bagels … then there’s something that looks suspiciously like the Salmon Almondine at Daniel Bouluds new restaurant. Hmmmm.

All for now, gotta go make peanut butter sandwiches, talk to you soon,

Best wishes