Wednesday Home

Page updated 10-Dec-1999

I go to work in the daytime, in Ballard. It's hard to get any in-depth news there; the radio sound-bytes are all short, so I content myself with the few Seattle Times articles on the web site.

At 4:30pm, I head to Costco in south Seattle to drop off my film. The bus driver announces the bus will go only as far as Denny Way, or maybe to Bell Street if he can. I ask if there's another curfew today. He says probably, but he doesn't know. All he knows is, the buses aren't allowed to go through downtown, and they won't give him any more information. I think this is a metro decision rather than a police thing. Everybody is asking how to get to south Seattle or the Eastside or Snohomish County; the driver knows nothink. I have my walkman, so I hear an announcement that all Snohomish County buses are leaving from a stop on Jackson Street (just south of the 'zone). People ask, how are we supposed to get there. The driver says, you'll have to walk. He suggests people go along the waterfront, where the streetcar might be running, and where the protesters and police aren't likely to be.

The bus drops us off at 3rd & Bell at 5:15pm. It's dark now. Disgruntled people walk to their transfer points. Can you imagine middle-class people walking?

Walking in LA. Walking in LA. Nobody walks in LA.
--Missing Persons, Spring Session "M"

Westlake Park looks normal.

Correction: it looks normal for November or January. Not the hoards of people you'd expect during Christmas shopping season.

I go down Fourth Avenue, and see a line of guardsmen in cams blocking the street, and three cops standing about on the sidewalk. I wonder why they're there. I guess it's the edge of the no-protest area. I remember two friends who used to be in the guard, and think, these could have been them.

A cop asks, "Where are you going. ---4th Avenue South. ---Where? ---Costco. ---You'll have to go around; they won't let you through down there. ---He says, they won't let you through down there, you'll have to go around. ---You mean Third Avenue? ---Yes. ---Is there a curfew tonight? ---Yes, at 7pm. ---Same boundaries? ---I'm not sure, but I think so."

The cop was friendly enough. Also (in answer to a certain person's assumption that skinheads always get the worst treatment from the police) they did not give me any hassle for being a skinhead. The cops around here in general don't seem to pay any attention to skinheads, except perhaps when they're investigating some right-wing incident. Black guys here have far more to complain about regarding police mistreatment than skinheads do.

In Pioneer Square, my friend Andrew sees me. He works at the courthouse. He says it's been a slow day, because all the jury trials were cancelled for the week, because the jurors wouldn't be able to get in. He lives inside the 'zone, so I ask him what he's going to do. "Just go home and stay home? ---Right."

Just outside the 'zone on the south side is the train station, so I stop to get tickets for my next Vancouver trip. But it's closed. I go by the Fenix, where there's supposed to be a ska show tonight. It's also closed. [Later I learn there had been some unrest in Pioneer Square earlier that evening.]

At Jackson Street, a lot of people are waiting for the bus. I just miss the Sea-Tac bus that goes along 4th Avenue South. So I walk to Costco and deliver my film and walk back. The Industrial District is empty; hardly any people anywhere, but that's not unusual.

I come back up to Pioneer Square. The curfew has started, so I assume I'll have to skirt all the way downtown to Broadway to get a bus home. I stop at the International District Station, where again there are a lot of people. But not as many middle-class people; these are the poorer people who live in south Seattle.

Fortunately, a bus comes that's going all the way around to Capitol Hill. Fortunate, because there's a blister forming under my left heel. The International District is normal. The bus turns up 12th Avenue into the Central District. Crusty punk house: nobody's home. Black guys standing in a circle on the corneras always, good. I get off at Madison Street and walk two blocks to the Vogue. Not to go inside, but hoping to talk to my mate the skinhead doorman Ogre. It's closed. [Although I was just too early. It was 8pm, and the place opened at 9, and he got there at 11.]

I go to Kincora, the ex-skinhead pub, five blocks away on E Pine St. I see two (ordinary) punks and an unusual number of people in cams, either a camouflage jacket or pants. But these are definitely not military people. Somehow, the presence of the guard has caused a few other people to dress military. Curious.

The pub is half-empty as usual. Fortunately there's a talkative skin at the bar talking with another guy, and an open stool on the other side of the other guy. Do you live here? ---I'm from Jersey. ---Did you just come here for the week? ---No, I've been here for six months. ---Did you see any other skins at the protests?" (I was wondering why I didn't see anybody I knew.) "---Only a few. ---That's what it's like around here. I met three, plus one scooterboy. ---Scooterboy?" He perked up to that. "I'm actually not a skinhead. I've been cutting my hair short and wearing a flight jacket for many years, and I'm big into ska, but I'm not a skinhead." I would have liked to ask him what kept him from being one, but I didn't want to ask in front of all the other people. "Have you been to any ska shows recently?" He names off a couple shows I didn't go to. He and the other guy start talking politics, and I join in occasionally. The bartender [who I later find out is one of the owners] says it was wall-to-wall full yesterday, and the guy next to me said the owner would go out and pull people in off the street when the tear-gas bombs went off. The scooter boy says, "I've never been to a place where people like to protest so much just for the sake of protesting. ---It is really liberal here. But that's only in the City. In Bellevue, Redmond and Lynnwood it's just the opposite; people are much more Republican." (I might have added, if you think this is activism, you should see California. :)

He is quite pleasant, but one thing he says irritates me. He says, "I see so many fence-walkers in this town." (A fence-walker, depending on who you talk to, is either a skinhead who is too willing to be friends with right-wing skins, or one who is a closet right-winger himself but afraid to admit it.) Something the Portland skins have been saying about the Seattle skins for years. I am mildly interested to see that this impression also exists among some East Coasters, and wonder how far else it has travelled. But I'm a bit irritated that who does this guy think he is, not even being a skinhead himself, yet still judging who is a fence-walker and who isn't? That's our business. Not only that, but completely without regard to the local culture. Everybody knows where each other stands, and just because trads and nazis don't beat each other up doesn't mean we condone their activities. I want to give him a bit of a talking-to (and find out what he'd have to say afterwards), but I don't want to discuss it in front of all these other people, because they'll jump to all sorts of horrendous conclusions if right-wing skinheads are discussed, so I keep my mouth shut.

Finally, he finishes his beer and leaves. On a scooter. A small, nice-looking scooter. White, but not ostentatious.

The bartender [who I later find out is one of the owners] says the place was standing-room-only full yesterday. The guy next to me says the owner would go out and pull people in off the street to safety.

At 9pm, I finish my cider and go out. There are guardsmen on the corner of Seattle Central College, with yellow-ish rifles. On the next block, I turn the corner north onto Broadway, but look south a block to Pike St and Union St, where the protesters were yesterday. But there's nothing; just a few cars.

However, I don't go very far north before I run into a small of protesters heading south. About 20% are anarchists in black, a much higher percentage than yesterday. But this is the Hill, one of the two centers of punkdom. Most of them and the other protesters look like local people. What I mean is, they seem to match the local culture. A culture that raises non-violence to an art form. Where certain things just aren't done, because violence is, er, unfashionable. It might have turned uglier in Oregon, or especially in California. But here I felt 100% safe, both today and yesterday.

The crowd stopped in the middle of Broadway and E Pine St. I was only there a couple minutes before the police dropped tear gas again, so I continued on northward, home. It was 9pm.

At 10:15pm, I arrived in the U-district. Normal scene on the Ave: students and Ave people wandering around. Tower Records has a note pinned on the door: all-night protest on Capitol Hill. So that's what they're planning. One lone guy in black is passing out fliers. The same flier as on the Tower Records door. Because the U-district is the other center of punkdom, where sympathetic people are most likely to be. I go home instead.

I turn on the TV. Live camera on Broadway. The protest is peaceful, and has been for the past couple hours. The usual line of police, trying to convince the protesters to disperse. Then suddenly gas bombs, and again clouds you can't see through. It's a call-in TV show, and residents call in and say, just what are the police trying to do? It's outside the 'zone. There are a few looters now, so why aren't they patrolling the streets and arresting the looters, rather than being in a standoff against the protesters who aren't hurting anybody?

Most of the people calling in are just dorks. Only the people who actually are protesters or were there make any sense. The rest have the wildest assumptions. That the people in black were the looters. That they have no political agenda; they came precisely to cause destruction and steal stuff. Go talk to them! Go talk to the other people who were there! You'll get a different story, honey.

One person calls in and says something profound. She says, the worst part of all this is, what the media is focusing on is essentially a side show. There are lots and lots of interviews with delegates, and speeches by various interest groups, and teach-ins, that could be reported on but aren't. And that's a real waste, that we have all these people here for a week and we don't even get to hear about all the presentations that are being made everywhere, both pro- and anti-.

The newscaster comes on and says there has not been one serious injury all week.

Oh, there is one pro-WTO demonstration. A small one. With appearances by Republican politicos and candidates.

I go to sleep at 11. Capitol Hill turns ugly at midnight.