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Notes from the Underground - Volume 1 Number 2 - Lock 'til you drop Hey y'all - it's the man behind the madness, the vegan-atheist-socialist you've all grown to love, Crazy Pete. How's it goin'? Happy new year, huzzah and woo-hoo to all, and an extra-special shout out to all my survivalist buds who are still barricaded underground with enough freeze-dried pinto beans to fill Yankee Stadium. By the way, you can come out now. That means you, Crowbar. I haven't forgotten about the ten bucks you owe me. I was happy to kick in to your generator-and-canned-corn fund, but now that Armageddon has been momentarily staved off, I could really use a few greenbacks myself. Plus, I think you have my spare apartment keys. This week's been kinda slow here at the La Casa de Loco Pete, but that's okay: it just means that the FBI goons assigned to keeping my file fattened up have to work that much harder, digging around to unearth evidence of my covert activities like pigs rooting out truffles. Must be something extra-juicy for them to be out of Crazy Pete's follicles for this long. I'll let you know when the men in black come a knockin'. (By the way, Mr. Agent Man, it's no secret to me that you've tapped my phone. Even though I put a piece of duct tape over where the cats chewed through, it still makes clicking and scratching sounds, so it must be tapped. Anyone wanting to relay a message to me on the QT, you can call me at the Citgo around the corner and give me the lowdown.) Truth be told, though, I've sort of enjoyed this little lull in activity. Last week was kind of a bummer, so I'm using this time to recuperate. Did ya hear what happened? No? Then gather around, kiddies, cause Uncle Pete's got a little yarn to spin for you. Okay, so it all began when Phoenix, Owl, Freedom and I were hanging out at the Wheatgrass Palace, sort of brainstorming ideas for our first action with the new group we formed in the wake of the WTO protest, the Campaign Against Corporations, Conspicuous Consumption and Capitalist Chicanery (CACCCCC). An hour into the meeting a few things were clear: Owl wanted to consult an astrologer as to the best date to have our protest, Phoenix thought a numerologist would be better, and Freedom was on a water-cayenne pepper fast, so she was kind of out there, if you know what I mean. As usual, it was up to reliable ol' Crazy Pete to keep things on track, so I said, "First things first! What are we protesting?" Phoenix wanted our first action to be in support of labor rights, Owl thought we should go up against corporate homogenization, and Freedom kept talking about a green, prancing gnome she swore was juicing carrots. Anyway, I had to be the taskmaster, and finally we threw a bunch of pieces of paper with corporate bottom-feeding bastards written on them into a hat, and the Gap won. ( McDonald's, Starbucks and the Disney Store: You're going to have to wait your turn!) Next we had to decide on what kind of action should to do... Candlelight vigil? Leafletting? Banner hanging? What's an anarchist gadfly to do? After a shot of spirulina, our whole Gap campaign hit me: "Everybody in U-Locks." We decided that a demonstration centered around a lockdown would be just the boost we needed to send us onto the 10:00 news and catapult us into 501c-3 status. Yee-hah! All our plans were set, which is good because Freedom had become convinced that the little Turinado packets on the table contained powdered alien universes, so she wouldn't get out from under the table. Crazy Pete doesn't need a watch to tell him when it's time to go. Well, it turned out that both the astrologer and numerologist thought that the best day for the CACCCCC inaugural event would be in just a couple of days, so there was no time to lose. We made a bunch of flyers, wheat-pasted them all around town and pooled our supplies of u-locks, bullhorns, and other activist miscellanea together for the big event. We rehearsed our chants, sent out a press release and made signs. Everything was all set. Anyway, the day of the protest, I got off on the wrong foot. I was supposed to pick everyone up at 11:30 in my ‘73 Cutlass (which I'd finally got working again), but my electricity got turned off sometime during the night - thank you Com Ed, you parasites - so my alarm didn't go off. I overslept and was dreaming about Butterfly Hill, the love of my life (though she doesn't know it yet), when the next thing I know Muhammed from Citgo is chucking rocks at my window, his way of telling me that I've got a phone call. Anyway, I throw on some clothes, run to Citgo, and it's Owl, wondering where the hell I am. It was already 11:45! All right, so I run to my car - no time for coffee - and dash off to pick up the rest of CACCCCC, and they're all bustin' my chops the whole time, except Freedom, who is sleeping with this big, goofy smile on her face. We go to the Gap, and there's a crowd of maybe ten other activists, and a couple of reporters. We wake Freedom up, park, wake Freedom up again, run across the street to let everyone know that we're ready to get started, and I go back to the car to get all of our stuff - signs, bullhorns, u-locks - out of the trunk. Guess what? The damn lock is frozen shut! (Did I mention that it was freezing out?) So, okay, I've had this car for more than fifteen years, I know how it works. I start kicking and punching the trunk, because I know from experience that if I do this long enough, eventually it'll spring open. There I am, kicking the trunk, and all of the sudden, everyone runs across the street screaming at me. I was concentrating on getting the trunk open, so it went in one ear and out the other. So I'm standing there, kicking the car, and this guy I know named Woodstock kind of pulls me away and says, "Dude, what're you doing? This was supposed to be non-violent, man!" I kind of look at him blankly because I have no idea what he's talking about (Woodstock's kind of a wild card and he's been known to have had nonsensical outbursts in the past) , and I go back to the car. For some reason unbeknownst to me at the time, the news crews are filming while I'm kicking the car, but I didn't pay them any mind. I thought they were filming filler material. All of the sudden, everyone gathers around me and starts chanting, " No more violence... No more violence..." I turn around, like "What???" and they continue. All of the sudden, it downs on me: They think that I'm trying to destroy property! I try to show them that I'm not by telling them that the lock's frozen, but they're all shouting me down. I look to the rest of CACCCCC to defend me, but there's Owl, Phoenix and Freedom all chanting too! Then, I get what I thought was a good idea: I'll melt the ice on the lock. So I take out my Bic and that's where my troubles really began. I hold up the flame to the lock, and then the reporters start talking in front of the cameras, making like I was trying to set fire to this car in protest of the Gap! So I go up to this one reporter, my Bic still lit, and I say, "Lady, I'm not setting fire to the car! It's my car - I'm trying to melt -" She starts screaming like I was threatening her (note to self: never approach a reporter with any kind of flame) and the next thing I know, a cop - out of nowhere - has grabbed me, cuffed me, and thrown me into a police car. Anyway, I was in lockdown for sixteen hours, and then finally I get out on a signature bond. As soon as I get out, I go to the Citgo to call Owl, but Muhammed won't let me in because he saw me on the news and now thinks that I'm a terrorist of some sort. So I have to go home and call Owl from my tapped phone. Anyway, I call him and say, "Dude, what happened back there? Why didn't you defend me?!?" And Owl says, "Hey man, we thought it was supposed to be non-violent and the next thing we know, you're kicking you car and trying to set it on fire! I want out of CACCCCC. In fact, we voted to dissolve CACCCCC unless we can all take a vow of non-violence. The only one who seems to have any problem with upholding this vow would be you." Can you believe this nonsense? Anyway, that was how my week went. I'm being charged with destruction of property and trying to incite a riot, which is kind of a bummer. At least the reporter's not pressing charges against me. It's good things are pretty quiet around here this week. Power to the Revolution -pete
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