I don’t know what it was officially called. I heard it a bunch of times but it just didn’t stick with me. It was the afternoon one. Evidently the morning one was anti-abortion. They both started and stopped in the same places. Anyway, Rose and Jane and Julian and Julian’s girlfriend Lisa went. All the demonstrations going on this weekend around the inaugural and I’ve been in SoundBox. I’ll try to do a post about that but for now I’ll just post (lightly edited) my impressions from last night.
left home at 5:15 for a 7 pm call. Daly City BART. The train was from Millbrae and packed – I was lucky to get a spot by the door. Being at the door at Civic Center, I didn’t wait around to see how many got off, but there were lines of people waiting to get on a la 5pm on a weekday. Many people coming down the stairs and many, many people in the ‘foyer’ lined up to buy tickets. Really, folks? Did you think you’d never come back?
Up the stairs to the street, lots of people coming down, many with umbrellas as it was raining lightly. Up on the sidewalk, tho’, it was jammed. Just like the BART car shoulder to shoulder but slowly moving towards downtown. I got to the edge and went up Hyde to the other side of the library. Hardly anyone was there. A crew was taking down the sound system for a stage there. I didn’t go over.
By the time I got to the front of the library, Grove was practically deserted. I guess I had seen the tail end of the parade. It had a really good vibe tho’. I did some musing on people and their hopes and dreams and their tendency to fuck them up. [By the time I was writing this last paragraph inside at S/B, people were talking to me about work and this doesn’t seem very coherent. It’s a theme I hope to expand on someday.]
7 pm time to start work