September 02, 2004
A Political Werewolf
The RNC has turned me into the kind of person who yells at strangers.
I’m not proud of this; I usually hate confrontation. I’ve always considered screaming at strangers to be the sort of thing only assholes and crazy people did. Even as a protester I prefer a silent, dignified vigil to a loud and angry demonstration. Nevertheless, this week, again and again I found myself gravitating to Midtown, to Times Square, where the delegates were staying, to yell at strangers.
The proximity of all of the major networks in New York City sometimes leads people believe that they themselves are part of the show. It's worst in Times Square, where the jumbo-trons and morning-shows broadcast images of celebrities and passersby alike, turning the whole place into a TV carnival where people can step in and out of the video screen like atoms flickering between dimensions. It’s confusing to everyone, not just the lunatics and tourists, and this week, like the paranoids on 42nd street and the screaming teenagers outside the TRL studio, I fell into the psychological trap of believing that the people on the television were actually talking to me.
On Monday, for example, when Rudy Giuliani said: “Thank God George W. Bush was our President on 9/11!” for some crazy reason I thought he was insulting my faith. And the next night, when Arnold Schwarzenegger stood in front of a giant flag and called the struggling middle-class girlie-men, I must have gone a little crazy because I thought he was talking about my friends. And last night, when Dick Cheney questioned the patriotism of democrats, I felt like he was actually questioning my family's patriotism.
Clearly I was going insane; the television was talking to me, and every night I ended up in Times Square screaming at old people from Utah.
Take Tuesday night. Normally, after watching the convention, I would have called up some like-minded friends, found a quiet bar, ordered a few drinks, and politely bitched about the rightist takeover of America. But this week is different. This week they are here, in New York – Christ, they’re wearing identification badges! Forgive me, Bloomberg, forgive me, mom, I couldn't help it. I found myself in Times Square ferreting out the guy with the sign that read: “Welcome California Republicans.” There was a crowd of delegates behind him on a red carpet and I was yelling: “Hey! You! My father didn’t fight the motherfucking Germans so that the son of a motherfucking Nazi Storm Trooper could get on stage and call him a girlie-man you motherfucking bastards!” And they looked at me with blank, stunned, disbelief, as if in the presence of a werewolf, and for the first time all week I actually felt a little better.
Yesterday I was hanging around at home with my roommate Ron. Ron is a Gulf War vet, and an economic girlie-man who just had his VA Benefits cut by the Bush administration. He too has spent most of the week out in the streets demonstrating, and he’s lost his voice from all the yelling. We exchanged hellos and he handed me my mail, which included a stack of medical bills that I can’t pay. I made a cup of tea and sat-down with Ron and we watched highlights of the speeches the night before. Suddenly, I felt the change coming over me; my muscles started aching, my throat clenched up, my hair stood on end.
“Did he really just credit George Bush with improving health care for all Americans?”
Ron looked at me and croaked, “Yes.”
And I was back off to Times Square again, an addict looking for his angry fix.
To make myself feel more in control of my madness, I’ve gone ahead and made some rules: I leave families with kids alone, of course; I try not to curse unless cursed at, prayed to, or in the presence of an “Arnold” sign; I only confront delegates who are wearing their ID badges and are carrying at least one additional symbol of support for the GOP; I’m not indiscriminate about my belligerence, I’m careful to target my badgering and customize my rhetoric. Still, even with my rules of street engagement, I know what I’m doing is totally obnoxious and unhelpful.
On Thursday, I dropped in the office to check my mail, and on the way out I spotted a hastily constructed storefront selling republican national convention merchandise. Inside, there were delegates milling around buying Kerry flip-flop t-shirts, scarves embroidered with the twin towers, and RNC baseball caps. A well-dressed man with a neat gray beard entered the store, set his bag on the ground, and snarled: “You are a bunch of fucking carpetbaggers. You weren’t here last week, you won’t be here next week, so do us all a favor and go the fuck home!” After the man stormed off, a middle-aged woman with silver-hair and the tell-tale ID badge looked at me sympathetically and shrugged. I smiled and shrugged back, as if to say, "I know, it’s terrible, none of us have been ourselves this week." Then I told her to go to hell.
