....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I decided to ride the Red Line down to Pershing Square on Sunday to get a look at the demonstrators gathered there, thinking I was going to experience some echo of my own anti-war activities during the 1960's. But wandering amongst those clean and intent faces brought back few memories. Oh, they seemed eager to protest poverty, the death penalty and political prisoners but I don't remember the 60's being as sober as these folks were. Pershing Square probably hasn't been this drug free in the last 50 years.
My favorite part of the demonstration on Sunday was the larger than life papier mache figures created to draw the news camera's attention. I especially liked a pig with Mayor Riordan's and Chief Park's names printed on its behind. It was the best made papier mache pig I have ever seen. Somebody amongst the anarchists has a wonderful career ahead of them at some huge multinational graphics design firm.
It was clear the demonstrators were from out of town as none of them were armed with cell phones. All the phones in the square were glued to ears of the fourth estate who were there in force, their hungry eyes desperately searching the crowd for somebody who was about to do or say something dramatic and, hopefully, photogenically violent.
Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg was also present, wearing a very fetching straw sun hat, standing in the shade with five video cameras pointing at her and she never looked happier. I assume she has learned her lesson and has no intention of being arrested this week.
Everybody behaved themselves until just after two o'clock (on time for the East Coast news deadlines) when the entire orderly sweaty mob burst out of the square and started to march toward Staples Center. That was when I decided to leave. It was too hot to run the risk of being tear gassed.
About four hours later the Shadow Convention opened it's doors down on Figueroa, hungry for press coverage but with a serious image problem. The Shadow folks want to be seen as more raucous than the Democrats inside Staples Center but not as dangerous as the demonstrators outside. But that marks them in the media's mind as trouble makers who don't want to actually cause any trouble.
Arianna Huffington, the public face of the Shadow, is Ms. Inside/Outside these days. She's plugged into the Washington party circuit, but she only managed to corral a couple of small fry Democrats for her convention. What she needed on Sunday was a headliner to make the evening news, as John McCain did in Philadelphia. The nearest she could get was ex-reprobate Gary Hart but he spoke about campaign finance reform and that was like watching Pamela Anderson reading Shakespeare. With her clothes on.
Arianna is supposedly "negotiating" with Jesse Ventura to join her list of speakers, indicating she knows what is needed to end the news blackout: a good visual. Jesse doing three falls out of five with a couple of big campaign donors would certainly draw the cameras but what could Arianna possibly offer him in return? He's got championship belts, a lovely wife and an entire state to play with. What more could he want? I can't wait to find out.
On Monday the Shadows surrendered all hope of national coverage by focusing on poverty, a ratings killer as any news director will tell you. The Tuesday schedule is better with Jesse Jackson, Tom Campbell (R-San Jose) and Maxine Waters (D-California), trading ideas on drug abuse. Gore Vidal will also be speaking but it's been years since anybody cared about his cat fights.
The problem is, none of it is good television. The Shadow folks have got statistics and graphs and charts in depth to support their arguments that the criminalization of drug use is a waste of lives and money, that the rich are getting more powerful and that without campaign finance reform we don't stand a chance of solving those or a host of other problems. But charts and graphs are boring on TV. The electronic journalists will stay in the shallow end of the press pool, covering the coronation in Staples Center or any violence out on the street not because they want to but because it is the most visual image they've got.
The perfect image for them would be a high speed chase involving grand theft papier mache pig. To tell you the truth, I'd watch that myself.
Kimit Muston is a writer living in North Hollywood. He can be contacted about his column at Inditer dot com.