More from the little red pocket notebook
It was STENCH.
Today was a day of smells. The city smelled of garbage, of wrist-watch batteries, of bullets and burnt leather and Swiss Chalet. My shoes were made in China so I burned them in the backyard. I saw bullet holes outside my front door. They had somehow found out I was heading to the protest. My nose wouldn't stop running.
There seemed to be a lot of happy people on the train. At St. George Station a mob of people came at me down the stairs. It freaked me out. "Hey man, you going to the protest?"
Steel barricades and a crowd of a few hundred people gathered on the front lawn of Queen's Park. Drums echoed... banners everywhere. 'Free Trade Kills'. 'Jobs, Earth, Health, Democracy'. 'www.mob4glob.com'. 'The earth is not for sale'. There was a fat lady handing out issues of 'People's Voice'. Some dude yelled "People first! No sixty-hour workweek! Decrease militarization! The right to unionize! Human rights! We have a right to protest!" into a megaphone. Ran into an old cameraman buddy from my New VR days. He said, "What's a rich guy like you doing here? You should be holding a sign saying 'Capitalism Rules'! That could cause a scuffle and give me something to shoot!"
There was a line of cops on mountain bikes dressed in yellow and black. A couple of hippies went over and handed them flowers.
The march started at 5:10pm down Queen's Park circle. Whistles blew, drums drummed and the police tailed. I walked alone behind them. Traffic was stopped dead. Queen's Park becomes Avenue Rd. at Bloor. The crowd began chanting "The people united will never be defeated". So many cops. In pink chalk a woman in a black leather coat wrote, 'This is what fascism looks like'. In yellow chalk, 'Resistance is futile' and 'Capitalism kills kids'. A native dressed in blue denim started yelling at the police. He tried climbing over the barrier and they pushed him back. He called them assholes and pushed up one of the cops protective visors. 5 or 6 cops grabbed him.
None of this will make a difference. So why do they do it?
Today was a day of smells. The city smelled of garbage, of wrist-watch batteries, of bullets and burnt leather and Swiss Chalet. My shoes were made in China so I burned them in the backyard. I saw bullet holes outside my front door. They had somehow found out I was heading to the protest. My nose wouldn't stop running.
There seemed to be a lot of happy people on the train. At St. George Station a mob of people came at me down the stairs. It freaked me out. "Hey man, you going to the protest?"
Steel barricades and a crowd of a few hundred people gathered on the front lawn of Queen's Park. Drums echoed... banners everywhere. 'Free Trade Kills'. 'Jobs, Earth, Health, Democracy'. 'www.mob4glob.com'. 'The earth is not for sale'. There was a fat lady handing out issues of 'People's Voice'. Some dude yelled "People first! No sixty-hour workweek! Decrease militarization! The right to unionize! Human rights! We have a right to protest!" into a megaphone. Ran into an old cameraman buddy from my New VR days. He said, "What's a rich guy like you doing here? You should be holding a sign saying 'Capitalism Rules'! That could cause a scuffle and give me something to shoot!"
There was a line of cops on mountain bikes dressed in yellow and black. A couple of hippies went over and handed them flowers.
The march started at 5:10pm down Queen's Park circle. Whistles blew, drums drummed and the police tailed. I walked alone behind them. Traffic was stopped dead. Queen's Park becomes Avenue Rd. at Bloor. The crowd began chanting "The people united will never be defeated". So many cops. In pink chalk a woman in a black leather coat wrote, 'This is what fascism looks like'. In yellow chalk, 'Resistance is futile' and 'Capitalism kills kids'. A native dressed in blue denim started yelling at the police. He tried climbing over the barrier and they pushed him back. He called them assholes and pushed up one of the cops protective visors. 5 or 6 cops grabbed him.
None of this will make a difference. So why do they do it?
posted by C. A. Jackson at 8:30 AM
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