Tuesday Home

Page updated 10-Dec-1999

Assuming the march wouldn't start till late morning, I sleep in. At 10am, just before I left, checked the newspaper site (www.seattletimes.com). Find out things had started up early, around 6am, in the rain, with a march and some breakage. I catch a bus downtown at 10:20. We meet a solid wall of protesters on Eastlake Avenue who had marched down from the University. Since the bus can't go anywhere, the driver lets off those of us who want to join the march. I get out, but walk on the sidewalk to show I'm a hanger-on rather than a protester.

[I am personally neither pro- nor anti-WTO. My concern is for maximum personal freedom and minimum government regulation. If WTO sticks to its ostensible goal of reducing tariffs, good. If it proposes stranglehold intellecual property laws, bad. I'd rather see government eliminated, but if it chooses this particular structure on its way down, who cares. I am a libertarian-anarchist. Ironertarian in the American sense; anarchy in the anarcho-capitalist sense, which I doubt you've ever heard of, with a few anarcho-socialist tendencies. The now-famous anarchists this week are actually (a certain type of) anarcho-socialists. This is not the place to describe what all this means, so I'll just leave it that my beliefs are rather different from theirs. If you care about this stuff, email me.]

The monorail dumps me off at Westlake Park, our lame excuse for a town square. Surrounding it are a 3-story mall, The Bon Marché and Nordstrom department stores, other fancy shops, the Old Navy which moved in a year ago and got hit a week or two ago, and the McDonald's which has figured prominently in all sorts of action over the years. The rain has stopped, and the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds.

The first thing I notice is the street preachers, telling people they're going to hell if they don't repent. Shopperz. Even if nothing happens, it's much more interesting than the lefty political speeches I had left.

I realize I had way underestimated how much film I needed: one roll just isn't going to cut it. I stop at Cameras West a few blocks away and get a pack of film. Three to four other people are doing the same thing. Then I go back to Westlake.

Some punkers dressed in black-hooded sweatshirts with black bandanas and ski masks across their face march down Fourth or Fifth Avenue. I get a good picture of them just before a few of them start shouting, "No pictures, please!" Too late, ha ha. Not that mine is the only camera around; shutters are snapping right and left today. The reason for their request soon becomes apparent as they turn the corner and a few of them smash a Nordstrom window, another place and then Starbucks. I honor their request and don't take pictures of the smashing, but do get some of the aftermath. Starbucks is especially, er, beautiful with a broken window and an anarchy "A" on the wall next to it.

I wonder who the punks in black are, and whether they're the anarchists from Eugene, Oregon, who said they were coming. The bandanas or ski masks over their nose and mouth so that people can't tell who's doing the damage (just a few of them) and who isn't. A kind of solidarity, so to speak. Some on the periphery wear different color bandanas.

I'm out of $$ now, so head to the bank machine, in case I get hungry later on and the machines are out of order. There are two on Third Avenue a few blocks away that don't charge a fee. I go south on Fourth Avenue from the brick-floored Westlake Park, through a solid mass of people, till I run into a wall of cops blocking the intersection of Union Street. All standing in a row, clear plastic shields in hand. A solid mass of people next to a solid wall of police. One guy climbs up a streetlight pole and takes down the WTO-celebrating banner that's attached to a crosspiece on the pole. He puts up his own banner.

After a while, I remember I was going to get $$, so I go down to Third Avenue, which I assume will be open all the way down because it's the major street for buses, and the subway tunnel runs underneath. It's open; however, there's a whole row of electric buses on one side --- and a bunch of regular buses on the other --- not going anywhere, because there are too many people around them. Some dork pops the tire on one bus. FUCK THAT SHIT! I thought leftists were for government programs like transit. Apparently not always. He was a hippie-looking sort. At the bank, all is normal: middle-class people in business attire doing their, er, business. I go underground to see how the tunnel is doing, the only way through this part of town, and my ticket home. It's open; not many people down there. Apparently everyone's resigned to walking. One guy walks down the street shouting, "It worked; we shut it down. There are only 300 delegates left in the convention center. They're planning to move it someplace else." But without a radio, I can't confirm whether it's true. I should've brought my walkman.

I come back up to Fourth Avenue, on the south side of Union Street this time. There are essentially two protest groups on Fourth: the "North Group" and the "South Group" (the names will become significant later), with the closed-off Union Street between them. To get from one side to the other, you have to make a U-shape trek via Third Avenue. Why the cops feel the need to close Union Street I have no idea. I assumed it's so the limousines can pass through.

I head southeast, uphill along the side of First Hill and into Freeway Park. This a real park, with grass and trees, artistic concrete walkways, a big concrete waterfall to drown out the noise of the freeway, and a bust of George Washington's head. It is built over the freeway and spills over onto the top of the convention center and down the other side. The convention center, of course, is where the delegates are meeting. The actual freeway runs both beneath the convention center and the park. Part of the park is supposed to be a "permanent demonstration zone". (The city set up several permanent demonstration zones, along with some temporary zones for specific events.) However, that part of the park is empty, and most of the park is fenced off.

[The Stranger counts the total number of AFL-CIO protesters at 20,000, and the other protesters at "10,000 of them, if you believe the numbers in the American press; 30,000-40,000 if you prefer the estimates of the European press and activists on the scene". Another report said the number peaked at 100,000. I'm no good at counting people, so I'll take it at their word.]

I wander back down, and some time later see two skinheads. I stare at them, wondering if they'll return the look and come over. Sure enough they do. I say hi, we exchange names, they say they're from Monroe (30 miles northeast, just before the mountains). Actually, one of them --- the bigger one --- does most of the talking. (I'll call them B and E, since I don't know if they'd want their names published.) We start reeling off the names of people we know, seeing if the other knows them. B is a relative of a skin whose roommate is a skin I know. E I might have seen at a show. They've met some other skins about town in the past, but then never see them again. Similar to my experience. I ask if they come to the City often. B say all the time. They ask where I hang out; I say the Vogue on Fridays. I ask where they go; he says to Thunderbirds (hockey) games. B says it's better than the NHL because there are more fights. There are two or three of them that go to every game and some others that go occasionally. He'd like to get some more people there and form a crew. Why? So that if there are any die-hard fans of the opposing team they can fight them. So they're that kind of skinhead.

I make a bit of a faux pas when I talked about how most of the skins I see are at punk shows and they're mostly under 20; at the last all-ages show I was at, I was about the only person over 20. But why don't you ever see those people anywhere else? He says he's in high school. Oops. I can never judge ages right.

We wander around as a trio and end up on Fourth Avenue on the south side of Union Street, a half-block from the police wall. There B starts talking with some people in black --- apparently one of the girls (short) is a friend of his. I am curious who they are and what they're about, so I listen. Of course I don't ask too many questions, so that if I get arrested I can truthfully say, like the guy in Hogan's Heroes, "I know nuthink!" Most still have their black bandanas, though a few have taken theirs off.

I ask the girl B knows whether they're part of some organized punk group, or if it was just, "Everybody who wants to, bring a bandana!" Of course, what I mean is, are they directly involved with the Eugene anarchists. She says they're a loose coalition of a lot of punk groups. Somebody organized it, yes, then just invited other groups to participate.

The rest is just typical punk talk, nothing special. It's around 2 or 2:30pm. One of the girls in black, a taller girl with a walkie-talkie, says Niketown is going to get hit at 4pm, if we want to be there to watch. Nothing is happening now, though, and eventually the two skins wander off towards the front. It's like at a concert when you're standing in the fourth or fifth row: a solid mass of people in rows in front, and behind us little groups of less-dense gatherings. Only in this case the "front" is not a stage, but a wall of cops shoulder-to-shoulder blocking the intersection.

At 2:50pm, I tell the skins I'm going to the toilets at Pike Place and are they going to be around for 20 minutes? (Estimating how long it will take to get to the Market and back.) B says they'll prob'ly leave around 3. I don't expect to be back by then so I say, see you around. I run downhill 3 blocks past the Art Museum to First Avenue along to Pike Place Market. What a contrast! You wouldn't know there are blocks full of people demonstrating just three blocks away. The only sign of WTO among the shopperz and bus-waiters is a couple signs here and there, but not up on display: people are just carrying them to or from the protest. The men's room has a line all the way out the door. (It's one of those rare occasions when the men's line is longer than the women's. By the way, the bathrooms at Pike Place are labelled XX and XY, if anybody cares.)

I hurry back up to Fourth, but I don't see the skinz anywhere. I ask another tall girl in black I've seen a few times whether "the other two skinheads" have left already, but she doesn't know. It still amazes me how much skin solidarity there is, that you can become instant companions of skinheads just because you're a skinhead, and you can get help from practically any punk, again just because you're a skinhead, whoever you are! It's quite remarkable.

It's clear something has changed during the time I was gone. Cops are milling up, down and about on the street between the police walls. The protesters are mad, chanting repeatedly to the cops, "We're non-violent, how 'bout you?!" Tear gas has been dropped on the "North side" demonstration, which is getting rowdy. But our South side event remains peaceful. Every time the cops do their thing with some of the protesters on the front line on the North side, our crowd shouts, "Shame! Shame!" and "Boo!" and "This isn't Waco!" and "Bad cops, no doughnuts!" (This gets repeated several times.) and "The whole world is watching!" I don't shout anything, but lots of people do.

Eventually I see the two skins up near the front and join them. I ask the talkative one what happened. I don't remember what he said, some small incident involving a few people on the North side. Soon afterwards he says, "See the smoke?" There's a fire over there, in the street near Westlake Park. I try to figure out what could possibly be flammable over there, because it's certainly not a tree burning. [It was a bonfire.] Sometimes you see the cops marching in a row on the street. It gives the weird illusion that we're all assembled to watch them, as if they were the parade.

The fire lasts quite a while. More tear gas gets dropped on the North side, and our eyes start burning on and off, but the gas stays away from us. An older guy asks me, "Do you have anything to cover your nose and mouth?" I pull out my wool headband and say I can use this if necessary. He then says to us mockingly, "You guys have never been tear-gassed before?" He was a union guy, and who knows in what demos he's been in. I try to remember what tear gas is made out of and what it does, but my mind draws a blank.

B keeps on talking about how great it must be on the North side. Ironic that he, who loves aggro so much, should end up at the peacenick demonstration rather than the rowdy one. I say, if you like it so much, why not go there? He says, "By the time we get there, something will happen on this side; this side is next."

A black guy (as in negro black, not punk black) with dreadlocks in the front row on our side turns around and starts talking loudly. A lot of people sit. He gives a speech encouraging non-violence. He says the people on the North side "are doing what they gotta do. But we here are doing what we gotta do, which is to have respect for every human being." After his speech, one of the cops in the street comes over and shakes his hand, and promises that if "you" (the protesters on the South side) stay behind your line, then "we" (the police) will stay behind our line.

I get a little frustrated at all the flimsy facts I hear out of many protesters' mouths. Surely they must be able to see through those arguments. The truth is, an organization as big as WTO cannot be all good or all bad, because it has many different goals, some of them better than others. And even if WTO goes out of existence, it's not going to bring about a workers'-paradise, environmentally-friendly utopia. A few people say this is the beginning of the revolution. I just say back, "DC is 2000 miles away, what happens here isn't going to make a bit of difference either way." [As it turns out, it did make a bigger difference than any of us expected, but not a revolution.]

At 3:30, one of the people in black standing next to us asks if we want to head over to Niketown. I'm kind of surprised how loudly s/he says it, considering a few people around must have heard, and we're only a few rows from the cops. You'd think it'd look funny, a group of people standing still, suddenly announcing they're going to Niketown (like we're going shopping?) and then walking away rather quickly. But nobody takes any notice. There are five or six of us total: three skins and 2-3 punks.

As we're leaving the block, a girl in black puts down her walkie-talkie and warns E that the cops are planning to arrest everybody in black soon, and only people in black. In other words, this skin should be concerned about his black flight jacket. The other skin has a white nylon Fred Perry jacket, and I have my burgundy flight as always. Otherwise we're dressed in standard skingear: jeans and boots. B has black Doc Martens, E and I have burgundy rub-off boots, and I have my Ascot cap (aka. my David Cheater cap :). The punks, however, have black jeans, black leather jackets, black shirts, black bandanas, but not necessarily black tennis shoes. I'm glad B has a white nylon jacket: it makes it easy to find him in the crowd.

We take the "Third Avenue detour" around the closed Union Street, around the famous McDonalds at 3rd and Pine that used to have a bus stop in the middle of the street next to it, where we used to wait for the bus to Seattle Center and Queen Anne every weekend when I was in high school, where so many past demonstrations have had a focal point. This is when I see the McDonald's is boarded up; apparently it got hit this morning or yesterday. We stop for a moment at Westlake Park, behind the North side demonstration. Things are fine here; it's only closer to the front where the bonfire mess is.

I see a guy in the square with short hair and long sideburns and a green cloth shirt. I go up and say, "Skinhead?" He says, "No, scooter boy." We exchange names and talk a bit. I want to talk longer, but I don't want to lose sight of the other skinz. With a crowd this big, if you lose somebody, you may never find them again.

We go to Niketown. Next door is Planet Hollywood and the Original Levi's Store. Warner Brothers is nearby, and there are some other buildings across the street I forget. All windows in pristine condition. The silver letters above the Niketown door are already twisted. [Ironically, one of the pictures on TV shows that one of the guys stomping on the letters was wearing Nike shoes.] A bunch of anarchy "A"'s are written on one wall. A lot of people are in the block. A few more boys in black. One of them I recognize: he had been to one of the ska+punk nights at the Vogue a month ago. He's in a punk band, although I forget the name.

After a while, B heads north, still in search of a phone to call his family in Monroe. E and I follow. We must have crossed Stewart Street or Westlake Avenue. We pass another circle of people in black; this time there's lone skinhead standing next to them. Very short hair, green jacket of some sort. I debate whether to go up and greet the skinhead, but he's talking with the others. I wait a second, then turn and follow the other two skins. But they are, er, taking a piss, so I turn back and go up to the guy and start talking with him. So the people in black are having one conversation and we are right next to them having our own. Then one of the people in black, again a girl, turns to us and says, "Could you move a bit away? This conversation is only for people in black." Apparently they're plotting a little consipracy. I'm not listening to them anyway, because I want to find out more about this skinhead. I instinctively make to move, but he isn't. The girl pleads a couple more times, saying it's nothing personal, it's just that "we've had problems with infiltrators before." Sure, we understand; you don't know us. The skin and I move off. Then the other two skins come back and I introduce them to him. B asks, "Where are you from? ---Los Angeles. ---And you came up just for this? ---Yep, just for the week. ---What's the scene like in LA? ---Not that many older skins. The scene is small, but good."

The girl in black comes back to us and asks if we want to help them with something. They need some people to walk around them while a few people do some "action". Of course, she doesn't say what the action is. I am hesitant, not sure whether the commitment would end up being something larger than just being, er, human shields, and not wanting to commit to a cause I didn't necessarily believe in. I look to the other skins to see what they think, but they're also hesitating. Eventually the girl realizes we're not going to say yes and gives up.

When I'm alone with E, the quiet skin, I ask if he's into ultra-violence like the other one. He says yes. I say I'm not. If you're being attacked or seriously beaten up, I'll be there, but other than that, I'm non-violent.

Some time later, the two skins and I go back to Niketown. Same bat time, same bat channel. Still nothing has happened. But after a while, bang, bang, bang. A few boys in black come in, hit the Niketown window with something (a crowbar, I guess) repeatedly until it shatters. Several other windows on this block are also casualties. A large crowd is around, cameras and camcorders are snapping everywhere. One immediately sees the different aggro levels among the various skins, as I move with the large crowd of non-violent punks and normals away from the buildings, and B moves towards them. Then begins the first and only struggle among protesters I see. Some want to go in and inflict more damage; others want to protect the buildings. One line of people in front of the windows (the protectors) facing us, a row in front of them (the destroyers) facing them. (Note that most of the destroyers now are not people in black, but normals.) Both sides with their hands on each others shoulders, trying to push each other out of the way. More than half the spectators are shouting, "Non-violent protest!" The struggle lasts only a couple minutes and fizzles out, and nobody is hurt. The destroyers accuse the protectors of selling out to the corporations: "What, you want to defend Nike?" I guess that's the beginning of a truce, because there are no chains of protectors after that, but neither do I see any destroyers going inside the buildings.

B, the aggro skin, wants to go steal some shoes. I say, "What would I do with a pair of Nike shoes? I wouldn't be caught dead wearing them." He makes some moves toward the open glass door. I just leave him when he does, I'm not participating in that shit. But I notice he never actually goes inside.

There are no police to be seen anywhere on this block. It's kind of eerie. This is where they should be. But I guess from what I've heard of LA it's standard technique to maintain a hands-off approach, and then go in suddenly with a show of force when you decide the time is right.

Then the two skins and I meet 2-3 other skins. These are friendly-looking ska skins from Victoria, British Columbia. One of them has a Toasters patch. Interestingly, the flight jacket and patch look similar to another ska skin I've met from east Vancouver. But this guy is much taller than the other one. I ask them if they are "the Vancouver skins" that some of my friends say they've seen at shows. They say no, they've never been to Seattle before (?). I say I have some very good skin mates in Vancouver, and we know there are other skins there, but we don't know how to contact them. The Victoria skinz warn us there's going to be a curfew downtown at 7, and everybody's who's left on the street then will be arrested. That's three hours away. For their part, they're leaving now; they want to get back to Victoria tonight. I tell them, "Feel free to come back to Seattle sometime."

A few people promise, "If you think this is bad, tomorrow will be even worse." I am skeptical. Because many people took the day off today, but they'll be back at work tomorrow. It will surely fizzle out. More talk about how the revolution has started. Yeah, right.

Just before 5pm, the two Monroe skins and I and B's friend in black and a couple other punx head out towards Westlake Park. Tear gas is more of a possibility, so I decide to admit my ignorance and ask the punx what tear gas does besides burn your eyes, and why people are saying to cover your nose. One guy says it burns your lungs too, and that he got gassed a couple times.

We join a larger circle of people in black in the middle of an intersection. One leader-girl says, "The police are moving to arrest everybody in black; they're a couple blocks away now and coming. It's not safe for us to stay here anymore." So they prepare to split up.

But then something else happens instead. At 5pm, bomb after bomb of tear gas explodes a block away from us, making a huge cloud so thick you can't see through it. Each one makes a loud pop in the air like a firecracker, there's a lightning flash, and then smoke billows out. The police have decided to clear everybody out of downtown. In group of protesters near me, one woman shouts, "We're going to Boren Park. Repeat it. ---We're going to Boren Park! ---Peacefully. ---Peacefully!" I debate following them, but they're such a small group I figure why bother. I don't even know where Boren Park is. It must be off Boren Avenue, which goes over the freeway just before Capitol Hill.

Everybody is moving away from the gas. Many people shout, "Walk! Don't run!" I take out my headband to cover my nose. Unfortunately, it steams up my glasses. I have no idea where the skins and punks are, but then, I'm not thinking about them anyway at that moment. I walk northward, the 20 minute walk to Seattle Center. People are spread out now so that you see only a few per block. I stop at a convenience store in Belltown (fortunately open) and grab some lime juice, since I have a long walk ahead.

At Denny Way, the north edge of downtown, I see a couple asking which way is Capitol Hill. I point rightwards and say, "But you got a 20-25 minute walk ahead of you, and part of it is steeply uphill." They go anyway. I look east, following Denny Way up the hill and wonder what's on the other side. Is there anybody there? I decide no, they'll be at Seattle Center; that's the natural place. The cops want to push the protesters into the Center where they won't bother anybody. I overhear somebody even say, "Meet you at the fountain." Which could mean nothing other than the International Fountain. (It looks like the top half of an asteroid, by the way, all in bronze.)

Seattle Center is mostly empty. All the tourists have gone. There's a Sonics game playing in the Coliseum. (Or Key Arena, as we're supposed to call it now.) The Mural Amphitheater, where the political speeches were, is empty. It's dark now, 5:30pm. Rain coming down slightly.

I go into the Center House to rest a bit before the walk home. My right hip is hurting, as it has occasionally for the past month or so. Back outside, the International Fountain is almost devoid of people. I head homeward, along Mercer Street. Hoping I can find a bus on Fairview or Eastlake. But it's like the snow days: you never know when, or if, a bus will come. I remember fourteen years ago, when I was working in Belltown and it snowed, and I walked home, passing a guy with ski poles, sliding the other way. This time I didn't find a bus, but I did find another guy walking from Seattle Center to the U-distrct, so at least I had somebody to talk to. Skinny guy. He's a sound engineer. We talked politics (of course). I can't remember now what we said. I ask what sound engineer means. He says he's one of the guys who mixes sounds to create songs. I ask if he ever listens to ska. He says occasionally. He then asks something about racist skinheads, I say something like, "We're not all like that." The walk is an hour and a half. A bus comes by about halfway. It sits at the stop for bit, and I'm just staring at it, thinking about how full it is. Only after a couple minutes does it occur to me, Wait, I could get on this bus!" and I run towards it. But it drives away. We walk, go across the bridge and into the U-district. I give him my URLs, saying I'll have a report and some pictures up in a few days. He splits off his own way, and I go home.

I turn on the TV news to see what they're saying. The first news I'd heard about WTO all day. Northwest Cable News (Washington, Oregon and Idaho) has continuous coverage. That's where I learn about my big mistake. Most of the protesters did not go north to Seattle Center; they went east to Capitol Hill. WTO was not moved, but the opening ceremonies were cancelled and the sessions started late. Madeline Albright couldn't get out of her hotel room. (Gee, too bad.) President Clinton is arriving at 1am. The delegates watched everything on TV; they heard the protesters' message loud and clear. The curfew has started: the 'zone covers all of downtown, from Denny way to Yesler Way, from the Sound to I-5. The mayor and governor announce the National Guard is being called in.

Mayor Schell talks about how he used to be a protester in the 60s, and how the last thing he ever wanted to do on his watch was call in the Guard.

Now the protesters are on the side of Capitol Hill, at Bellevue Avenue. The police have followed them outside the 'zone, a lot of residents are hopping mad about that. The police want to keep them away from Broadway, which is a busy street farther up the hill, but after a couple hours they finally end up there. I am frustrated, because that's my 'hood, and I wish I was there. But there's no way I'm walking back down with a sore hip, so I watch it on TV.