Rock 'n Rollers Don't Bathe

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OWS Tent City, Daniel B-Day, Subway Benches
After a morning jog and a little work on my latest video I decided to go down to Liberty park and check up on the Occupy Wall Street scene. It had been a while since I'd been down there. About a block away from the park I was swept up by an Occupy Oakland Anti- Police Brutality solidarity march. The march went past City Hall and down in front of the police station and then back to Liberty Park. It was a little scary because they had barricades in front of the station that they could have easily pinned us into similar to the mass arrest round up that took place on the Brooklyn Bridge march. Luckily everything went pretty smoothly. Aside from the massive amounts of them, the cops seemed pretty chill. I even had one officer politely request to pass in front of me as he went to cross the street and then thanked me after. I'm sad to say there were a handful of nuts, marching with the crowd, that were shouting obscenities at the cops and taunting them by waving flags and banners at them. Luckily, nothing got out of hand. But like I said, the police presence was really massive and just the site of this many cops and cop cars and scooters seemed to heighten the tension a bit.

Here are my pics. I'm still trying to navigate shooting at night and using the flash. But there are a couple decent ones.





Bodies
It's funny how after a while, to me, the police and the protesters we were just bodies there trying to make a point. The difference is the police are getting paid and they have weapons.



Beyond Thunderdome
I made it back to the park just in time for the evening GA. Lot's more people. Lot's more tents. As I took a circle around the park I noticed a distinct difference from the last time I was was there. The media space was now covered in a permanent makeshift tarp structure. With the advent of tents, the place was starting to take on even more of a "Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome" vibe. It gave me hope that they could make it through the winter but I couldn't help but think to myself that if this thing ever gets broken up it's really not going to be pretty.



Adversity is the mother of invention
Coincidentally, the day before the big snow that we had in NYC last weekend the NY Fire Department confiscated many jugs of gasoline from the park that was used to run generators for powering computer and cooking devices. Well, they figured out a way around that too. (bicycle powered generators)



Happy Birthday Daniel
Later I went to my friend Daniel's birthday party in Williamsburg at a really cool sound art gallery called Splatterpool. This is a picture of Daniel looking at his camera.

Subway Benches
While I was waiting on the train home I got inspired for a photo project. Most subway stations have these sturdy, divided wooden benches that have been heavily shellacked. Through the years from millions of butts scooting across them, the shellac and wood gets kind of worn and cut up. The seats start to reveal some interesting looking scenes. Since the bench is divided into individual seats, each seat develops it's own distinct frame. This is the bench just to the left of the turnstiles on the Manhattan bound L Train at the Graham stop.