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| Overpass / Oakland Fed Building Media Project |
Overpass / Oakland Federal Building Project
Wed, 27 Nov 2002
Dear Friends,
I call on you all to set aside December 10 for an all-out peace
extravaganza in Oakland City Center, at the Federal Plaza. A national
day of actions has been docketed, and at least two groups are already
planning events for the plaza already. Plan to take the day off work,
and really do it up right. Given the rumors about the weather window
for an attack on Iraq in December, this may be our last chance to speak
up before the real fireworks start.
I will be thinking and praying over the long weekend about what
contribution I want to make in terms of communicative and artistic
direction, and after that I plan to set aside virtually the entire
period from Dec. 1 to Dec 10 for planning and production.
Yours in Active Peace,
Webb Mealy
mealy8@pacbell.net
Webb's Adventures in First Amendment Land: One day's encounters with local, state and federal police.
Mon, 25 Nov 2002 11:33
Friday November 15 saw me playing hard all day with the theme of First Amendment Rights and their potential restriction in the USA. Here's a sketch of my results.
1. LOCAL POLICE ENCOUNTER.
Got up at 7:00 and went to stand next to the 580 West freeway onramp at Park Boulevard. I put up a 5 foot by 5 foot world from space graphic, a NO PUSH BUTTON WAR graphic, and a graphic that said,
Things to do today:
- 1. Punch a Wasp's Nest
- 2. Bomb Iraq
A friendly person whom I hadn't met before joined me with signs of her own. I was setting up my trusty battery-powered digital projector, laptop and screen to project on the wall of the underpass so that left turners from Park and people going straight through the intersection on MacArthur could all see it clearly. The animated sequence looked like this:
No Greed
No Hate
No War
Solar Power [with realistic sun image]
Solar Peace [with realistic sun image]
[Image of the Earth from Space]
One Earth
[cycle back to beginning]
The PowerPoint show was a loser. As the sun came up it washed out the image totally. Furthermore, I didn't have enough "throw" for the projector, and the image was only 6 feet wide. It needed to be much bigger, and the sky needed to be much darker. Lesson learned. Meanwhile, three cop cars came dashing up and stopped, lights all blinking. Turned out one of my fellow citizens had called in a 911 emergency, saying that a guy dressed in all black, with a laptop computer and what appeared to be a "rope" [the power cord for the projector], was under the bridge at Park Boulevard. They thought he intended to commit suicide. Ri.i.i.i.i.i.ght. Whoever called that in was either extremely stupid, or called with the specific intent of harrassing their fellow citizen and shutting down their First Amendment rights. I give them credit for intelligence. It sure worked. The cops held me for half an hour until their superior could come.
The sergeant told me that I was on city property and would not be allowed to stand in front of cars at rush hour because it would slow traffic and cause a hazard. Of course, it was useless to talk to a cop about the fact that this was blatantly selective enforcement. Think of the relative traffic safety hazard created by people talking on their cell phones, and by animated roadside billboards like the one a the Coliseum to take just two examples. Anyway, I had other things to do, so I wasn't in the mood to get arrested and push it at that moment. I plan to talk to the City Attorney's office about the issue.
2. FEDERAL POLICE ENCOUNTER.
At 10:00 I talked to the property manager at the Federal Towers in downtown Oakland, and we concluded a friendly negotiation over my plan to have my electric 3-wheel Corbin Sparrow out on the federal plaza along with a PowerPoint slide show and Peace Painting Party. Everything was ok'd. At 11:00 I showed up and signalled right at the pedestrian crossing, making as if to come onto the plaza with my car. A federal security cop jogged up to me, waving me to stop. He said, you can't come on here with that thing. I said, I just got permission an hour ago, and I plan to go upstairs to get the signed permit document from the property manager's office right now. The guy radio'd his boss, a Lieutenant Delisle of Federal Protective Service, who came up to me and told me in no uncertain terms that the car was not coming onto the plaza. I parked a half-block away and started making my way to the Fed building to talk to the property manager. I was stopped the minute I stepped onto the plaza by Lt. Delisle, who was literally vibrating with pent-up . . .err, shall we say, "energy", so as not to project any emotion on him. Objectively speaking, he was sweating, red in the face, visibly shaking, and his voice was quavering as he told me that my car was not coming onto the plaza, that he had just confirmed that with the property manager. There was also an issue about the fact that Lt. Delisle had called my house the previous day, denying "permission" for any of my planned activities, but not giving a reason. Maybe he got hassled for the procedural lapse of not saying why the permit was denied. I don't know. Funny thing was, I didn't consider it a big procedural lapse. I felt that everything was satisfactorily ironed out in my telephone meeting with the building manager. So anyway, Lt. Delisle finally lets me go and I go up to the property manager's office. Not to go into excessive detail, he shook his head, and said something to the effect, "Will these guys never learn?", and signed off the "permit", specifically adding in his own writing that the car could come onto the plaza. (I hate calling that thing a permit, because Constitutionally speaking, I don't need permission from the government to assemble peacably and petition it for a redress of grievances. For me to agree that I need an official "permit" to do that is a de facto waiver of my First Amendment rights.)
Anyway, so I jogged down to the plaza and showed the permit to Lt Delisle, who was joined by three or four other cop-like folks standing around with goodly supplies of zip-ties. He was very calm by then, and just wanted to know how many people I really expected. I said, between three and ten.
Well, humorously enough, nobody but me showed up. In actuality, one of my die-hard participants was sick, and another person came and couldn't find the event because I had moved to the other side of the plaza in response to the property manager's request. They were cutting the grass where we had planned to be. I spent a demanding two and a half hours (11:00 - 1:30) talking to dozens and dozens of people. I had great conversations. I had my favorite anti-war and anti-war-with-Iraq posters around the car, including "Uncle oSAMa Wants YOU to Invade Iraq", and "World Empire? No Thanks." I talked to the public about the fact that it's crazy to be fighting with countries half way around the world (well, a quarter of the way, to be more accurate) over oil that belongs to THEM, when our oil usage is killing us all, and there is an obvious solution that doesn't involve murder OR suicide: use sustainable energy. Solar, wind, hydroelectric, hydrothermic, tidal energy, and so on. All in all, I felt very satisfied with the shape of the event. I was thinking, "this is what the 1st Amendment is all about!". It remains to be seen if the property manager and the fed protective cops feel they were jerked around. I hope not. I had a good faith expectation of a minimum three participants, and the only reason why there was no PowerPoint and painting was because there weren't enough people to make it feasible.
3. STATE POLICE ENCOUNTER
4:00 pm. After a brief nap, I was up and running again. I put together a signage display on the pedestrian overpass at Grand Avenue on 580 for the evening rush hour traffic, with my friend Ron. We had an 8 foot by 12 foot NO BLOOD FOR OIL canvas sign that was legible for a quarter mile, and, when the light failed, an animated PowerPoint show for the motorists (same as the morning show). About 5:30 I started to get antsy. I just felt that we were about to get approached by the cops, and I didn't want to risk having all my electronic equipment confiscated. Because there were only two of us, not all of our stuff was free-standing. So I said, Let's wrap up!! The very moment we had gotten all packed, along the pedestrian bridge comes this enormous motorcycle, with a CHP officer on it. He said we are not allowed to affix stuff to the fence up there. He reaffirmed the CHP/Caltrans position that demonstrations on overpasses are permissible as long as nothing is affixed to Caltrans right-of-way property (such as the fence) and there is no evidence that traffic is being hindered (which would create a hazard). The guy was friendly and sympathetic.
CONCLUSION
Ironically, it was the local police who actually repressed our rights of assembly, speech and petition. Booooo! I think I'll have to follow that issue up. This past Friday (the 22nd) we reprised the rush hour 580 overpass signage and had five people, so nothing had to be affixed to the fence. Also, I added a 4' by 5' mirror made of mylar to the mix and doubled the projector's throw and quadrupled the image size. The PowerPoint was legible for over a quarter mile. The down side was that people didn't seem to react personally to the PowerPoint. Whereas when we were standing next to the big canvas sign (before dusk), people honked and waved (sometimes only one finger, of course), after dark there was no more honking except about once every five minutes. That is a problem to solve. I want people to know that we're talking to them, not just an automatic machine. If anyone wants to be added to my mailing list for further events, by all means email me.
Respectfully submitted,
Webb Mealy
mealy8@pacbell.net
Subject: Friday Evening Rush Hour Event at the Grand Avenue Pedestrian Overpass on 580
Dear Friends,
This Friday the 22nd, between 4:30 and 7:00 p.m. I'm hosting another fun
pedestrian overpass signage for the folks creeping down the hill on 580
from Harrison Street. I and my friend Ron had a great time last week and
got a whole spectrum of responses from motorists as usual. We talked
with a friendly CHP officer who emphasized that we have the right to be
there as long as:
1. No signs are affixed to the fence, and
2. Traffic doesn't show evidence of slowing because of being distracted
by us.
We do need more people to hold signs so that nothing is affixed. Also,
it is just good to have a number of people present for the ambience.
Please do not bring word-based signs unless they are the huge variety
(30" letters). I might bring along some 48" tall photos of ordinary
citizens in Baghdad. Those will work while the light holds because they
have no words. In Berkeley two weeks ago I noted that northbound traffic
was definitely slowing down in front of the pedestrian bridge we were
signing, then I realized people were trying to read someone else's sign
with undersize letters that said, "Earthquake and Water, December 7th,
Michael." Words of a prophet of doom I guess.
If you want to start a real hullaballoo, someone bring a huge "honk for
peace" banner. Email me if you want to help make one. All those folks
bored on their way home will make a din to be remembered.
As was the case last time, I plan to project a sequence of PowerPoint
images using a battery-powered digital projector. Here is an
approximation of what I hope to be projecting (other ideas are welcome).
View Power Point slides.
Please RSVP if you can; otherwise, just show up! Dress warmly. Whoever
comes, bring the biggest and brightest flashlight you have. A bunch of
you can use them to make a swirling backlight for the canvas NO BLOOD
FOR OIL sign when the light fails. I want to see if that works well.
I'll be taking photos to analyze legibility, attractiveness and overall
impression. Parking is more available if you get off at Harrison Street
and follow MacArthur Boulevard along the right hand side of the freeway
as you go east (on the side closest to Lake Merritt). Go along and down
the hill towards Grand, and you'll see the overcrossing and the spiral
ramp that connects to it.
Peace,
Webb Mealy
mealy8@pacbell.net