Rock 'n Rollers Don't Bathe

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Occupy Update (October 10th and 11th)
I went down to Liberty Park on Monday afternoon for the afternoon general assembly. I picked up a copy of the Occupy Wall Street Journal. It has articles by Naomi Klein and Chris Hedges. You can check it out through Facebook: HERE!The amount of people had noticeably grown since the last time I was there about a week ago. The section of Broadway just outside of the park has been blocked off. There were about twice as many food carts and street vendors. The afternoon General Assembly was a bit more chaotic. I ran into a friend, Dave, who had spent the past few nights in the park. He said that there had been a rise in thefts perpetrated on the people sleeping there and that more of the general NYC homeless population was starting to show up. This was making stuff like sanitation and the general "No Drug" policy of the group a bit harder to control. I think this is an interesting issue that could be addressed and used as some kind of case study on how a society, literally, deals with their homeless population and how much that populations is connected to how we deal with stuff like mental illness and drug addiction. The Medical Working Group spoke out extensively about helping people who might be struggling with addiction. There was also a guy, who I recognized as an early organizer, speaking out about having been robbed in his sleep for the past 3 nights in a row. I thought about the irony of this considering the amount of 24 hour police presence encircling the camp. I spent a little time sitting around the library working on lyrics for a song. I manged to come up with a couple of more lines.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a text from Deenah that said she was going down there in the evening and wanted to know if I was interested in coming. I hadn't planned on it but I managed to get a lot of work done so I figured why not? I got there a bit early and it felt like there were even more people there than I had seen the day before. It was about 7pm. As I walked by the kitchen, a lady behind the counter made a spontaneous announcement for help with a food pick up from a car across the street. I raised my hand. A tall man in a button down shirt and slacks lead me over the trunk of a nice car about a half a block up Broadway. He had a couple large containers of water and various shopping bags of food. He seems like a nice man who just wanted to do something. It felt good to help.

The drum circle had moved to the west end of the park and an enormous paper mache megaphone had been constructed with the phrase "The People's Microphone" printed on it. I also noticed a larger "spiritual" contingent had formed around a tree at the west end as well: Lots of meditating and incense burning. The evening's general assembly now included a large screen that displayed the dictated words of the particular person speaking in real time. This was a great because it enabled people hard of hearing to take part while at the same time serving as instant minutes for the meeting. Some highlights of the meeting were: An announcement of an occupy Central Park movement for November 11th, a phone number that you could call in and hear the GA on your cellphone (I called it and only got some weird hold guitar music but I think this would be an amazing service if they get it up and running. I'll post the number when it appears to be working), There was also a small solidarity march around the park by a group of about 50 to 75 people carrying a banner that read "Street Vendors of NYC." I met up with Deenah, Austin, Neil and Matt. We watched the rest of the General Assembly and then Neil and I went to Burger King to pee and get a coffee. I felt kind of bad walking around with a Burger King cup but I felt obligated to buy something since I used the bathroom. We hung out a little bit more and talked. I kept throwing out the idea of forming our own little General Assembly amongst our friend/music community but no one was really biting. If this sounds like an interesting idea to anyone please let me know. There comes the continued urge to want to do more with a slight anxiety of committing to doing too much. I think this is common. I'm sure there will be a time when just showing up will no longer be enough for me. But for now I think it has to be. I would continue to encourage people in the NYC area to go down there or to go to the closest OWS group near you. Just being there means something. Really! I don't even think it's just to support the movement. There is a real healing energy there. People want to talk about things. I think this could be a whole new form of participatory government. One of the original GA facilitators, Justin Wedes, was on Brain Lehrer this morning and he did a good job of explaining the idea behind what's going on. You can listen to the Podcast Here: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2011/oct/12/ask-occupier/

We The People Have Found Our Voice (Occupy Wall Street) from ivarad on Vimeo.