Grasshopper's Appeal part 10
Getting Arrested [more]... Event @ 201 Turk [debate]; also, music from Dancestors 2C , two songs for you all.... to engage your earballs too...
Greetings dear Reader. Thanks for tuning in to KGRaS, Generally Regarded As Safe … … … Grasshopper Radio Service … …don’t touch that dial !
sounds like G hoppin’ on the bass - dropping bombs on Homeward bound… & on the first cut.. one i didn’t find last night, oh well… although tis Sunday as i type, since tis a 3 day weekend for the Juneteenth Freedom Federal holiday tomorrow, we can pretend its still Saturday… night… and some spacey spacey noodles and kittens caboodles ,,,…^ ^ )} exiting the tape… this makes good background to your read…
now , back to Grasshopper’s Appeal, already in progress..
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So I am hoping that this text will be of some use to somebody upon this planet, possibly even my self, an odd unlikely hope I don’t harbour too much of. Other reasons I maintain my sanity despite those forces desiring otherwise, who may themselves be of less than sound mind or legal status, like , as it turned out, Ed Jew… I keep myself healthy by swimming in the S F Bay, that same one wherein those ballot box tops were found floating a few elections back. Imagine that. They claim the stuff inside those boxes did not take a swim as well. Just the ballot box tops. Hmmm.
Sadly I wasn’t able to do much swimming in 2007, but I’ve swum every day of July 2010. Today , I tried to feed this one seagull, before I went in , whose poor beak had a fishhook in it, it had caught itself in the fishing line and it’s mouthed was sealed shut. How awful. I felt so terrible to see this poor bird, unable to eat, fishing hook in it’s beak. But there was a beautiful baby sea lion breaching again today, I saw after the swim. The water is hovering around a lovely 59 degrees Farhenheit, often warmer than the air when the wind gets a’blowin’.
In my time in San Francisco, which has only gotten more difficult for me as I’ve progressively made efforts to improve my self and my life, I have nevertheless let go of tobacco. This was in 1999 after about 20 years of smoking , with the help of Ken Steinmitz, a hypnotherapist. Thanks Ken, for helping me succeed in that pivotal change. It sure was hard letting that tobacco go. Along with that went the coffee I used to drink all day long like water. Alcohol I found I just felt better without, it just doesn’t agree with me. I prefer not to to feel bad the next day. Of course, that doesn’t happen with pot, which I enjoy smoking. This will be legal soon, I hope. [2010…Gh, tis so now…]
Marijuana is non-toxic, and is not physically addictive. Nature has provided us with it for our health and well being. This gentle herb is what I indulge in additionally to Bay water, which I try not to swallow. It is good to rinse with in the mouth a bit. I guess I can add that music has been a useful pursuit in terms of coping with all of this madness. I have written 3 songs during or about events of this sad soliloquy; two I wrote when I was “on vaccation” in jail in San Mateo, and then one just after I got out of jail. Of course music is beneficial to me both personally , as an aspiring songwriter , and socially, in offering me a chance to do something positive for the community. There is nothing better in this world than when you’re playing music and little kids come up and start dancing and smiling, even if they don’t give ya any money.
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During the so-called election, we held weekly Mayoral Candidates forums, loosely termed “ debates,” on Fridays around 5 in front of City Hall, where Gavin Newsom could observate without being bothered to participate, which he never did do. I’d show up around 4 and play music for an hour, then when others arrived, we had a discussion in the wind for a while until everyone was too cold to talk anymore. I provided sound for these events, that’s right, the homeless guy with “no ties to the community.” Even after the Ed Jew, at the same time they were torturing me in jail, I watched on TV that Josh Wolf had indeed used my spare to pick up the sound , and my fellow candidate was able to have kept our fragile democracy going there so as not to be in total freefall collapse like WTC Buildings 1, 2, and 7, the latter which, somehow, fell down despite the lack of any airplane to hit it. That was around 5:20, just after a 5 o’clock BBC newscast where the woman is saying, WTC 7 had also fallen down, although you clearly still see it standing behind her on camera. Hmmm.
[the first link in my search brought this up, sounds a lot like what i just typed in the describe… how can that be?
this must just be a coincidence…ha ha.]
I was arrested as part of a group action aiming to shut down the Federal Building, to protest these neverending wars that are destroying our country economically and the rest of the world physically. There was one day I was blocking a door on Turk, between Larkin and Polk, by lying on the ground and resting my legs against it. I must have done that more than once, because I don’t think that actually led to my arrest On the Turk Street side.
I am sure that I was arrested another time on the Golden Gate side of that building. That was, in fact, the only time when I was arrested and read my Miranda right to remain silent, which was otherwise denied me. That Miranda is useful because that way, you know you are actually under arrest. Oddly , Lt. Daniel J. Mahoney at the Taravel Station after the Ed Jew arrest repeatedly kept denying that I was under arrest, every time I asked, even while he was recording a long confession of how I had indeed parked there in Ed Jew’s driveway, because he didn’t live in that building and all. I tried to say it was political, but they treated me like a criminal. So I guess we’re all criminals and terrorists anymore, sadly.
Now the SCOTUS has ruled that one has to state one’s desire to remain silent, else one’s silence may be used against you. This is as brilliant a ruling as that giving personhood to corporate entities, who are usually called limited liablility hangouts, because they have no liability whatsoever. [2010!] Even after
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your car has no brakes and people die. Or, like PG & E, they’ll fix those pipes after they’ve exploded. Corporations may, as persons, have unlimited influence upon elections, while we can’t know whom the money comes from, and they’re free to kill us all.
I am wishing herein to detail some of these arrests because, you know, you get into this sort of jail mentality, whereby you start to think that it is because of these arrests that I am a bad guy or something like that. Well, I’m not a bad guy, I’m not a terrorist, nor am I a criminal. In fact, I am a good individ. Yes, I’m a kind man, and I was willing to get arrested to prove it, protesting war and affirming peace. But would I do this anymore? I’m not sure, for the intimidation I’ve suffered in & around all these events of the election , and then the lovely jail time , has been quite enough to leave me in fear , for several lifetimes, to say nothing of the torture at this time.
So I was arrested at the Golden Gate side of the Federal Building, near Polk street. We were briefly detained, several hours, during which the men were handcuffed together so that we were nearly sort of forced to hold hands, even as or while one of us would pee. This {group handcuffing} left one disinclined to allow natural bodily functions. But other than that, they treated us decently and let us go after not too long of a detention. I did some community service work years later to deal with that ticket, rather than pay money I did not have. {oh yeah, getting arrested costs money, too.) For the Federal infraction, I cleaned a parking lot that wasn’t dirty for the Salvation Army for 2 days, and got sunburned, so they let me clean their kitchen too, which of course was not vegan. I more than paid for any imagined wrong to our esteemed or imagined government, thank you.
Around this time I also participated in actions that never resulted in arrest. There were the Code Pink encampments, at Dianne Feinstein’s home by the Presidio, as well as at Nancy Pelosi’s home nearby upon that very steeply sloping hill, which made it hard to sleep. These were legal actions in public places, like the display of shoes from dead soldiers, and dead children, and women and men , from Iraq. People really disliked the shoes because it was almost like having the dead bodies, with a lot of energy to disturb. This was well before the famous shoe thrower, Muntadar Al-Zayidi, forgive me if I misspell his name. My Grasshopper Taxi was a good color to compliment the code pinksters whom i was supporting with my presence.
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Oh yes, I’m told the president {Zardari} of Pakistan was gallivanting around England while Pakistan experienced record floods from global warming when someone hurled a shoe or two at him. Isn’t that interesting. That way his feet wouldn’t get wet.
Arrest at 201 Turk
There was a so-called debate and luncheon at 201 Turk for mayoral candidates. The lunch was pizza, nothing vegan. Harold Hoogasian was kind enough to get me an apple and a sliver of watermelon from a store nearby, which , as it turns out, I don’t believe I got a chance to eat. Harold told me months later about how he’d delivered bundles to Jerry Garcia. Or did he say bindles?
So this thing started at like 11, but just to waste our time hanging around for an hour with neither food nor debate. Then around noon they cough up pizza, nothing vegan. Now around 12:30, I’m getting pretty hungry, and they are finally about to start debating when, conveniently, someone pulls a fire alarm and we are all forced to leave the building. In the youtube video, you see and hear me complaining about the fake terrorist fire drill.
But once they’d forced me out (I was one of the last to go) then thereafter they wouldn’t let me back in. Luke Thomas, definitely no friend of mine, suggested that I return later, which I did. And then, got arrested, at this event I had been invited to. They basically had been trying to kick me out for complaining about their lame ass format, wasting my time, and not having any vegan food for me to eat at their so-called luncheon. When I refused to leave the event, they resorted to their phoney fire drill. That did force me to leave.
So I came back a while later. I walked in the front door of 201 Turk and into the debate area, which had actually started, finally. I was immediately asked to answer one of the questions, which I had not heard, as I was just sitting down in front of an apple and watermelon sliver. I stated that I would have to pass, because I had not heard the question. H. Brown always thought I was a Gavin Newsom patsy (what a moronic Mormon to think such a silly thought — that I would be getting paid by the man whose appointees had wrecked my business.) That “H.” , as he liked to be called, said he was gonna write about me in his book. I wonder what he’ll call it?
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So, H. Brown says to me, after passing for not hearing the question, “Who cares, just answer it anyway. Answer any question…” he says. But before i could relax and legitimately hear a question, let alone answer, I was physically picked up by some police, upon request from Michael Nultey, whom had decided after all to go ahead and uninvite me midway, midstream, midday, mid-debate. He told these cops to arrest me, but they didn’t want to do all that, they just wanted to take me out of there. They did physically take me out front, and I kept trying to get back in the door. So finally, they arrested me. There’s a youtube video of all this commotion that received at least 66,000 views, i noticed. Of course, those tens of thousands were not of the mind to cast a ballot for me upon the strength of that unpaid performance, before I had really learned how to campaign, I confess apologetically.
[I couldn’t find this, must have got pulled , if you find it send us a link —Gh…]
I imagine my jurors found great joy and intrigue from this 9 minute segment I saw years later, where I’m asking for your vote from the ground in front of 201 Turk, in handcuffs. Vote for the guy getting arrested, please. Thanks. Yaggy’s admonition notwithstanding, who could resist seeing the defendant upon his belly begging? You know, like George Lakehoff’s phrase and book title, “Don’t think of an elephant,” which puts exactly the mental image in your mind that was to be avoided. I believe the same is true of a judge telling a jury whom were no peers of mine, to not look at no Grasshoppers on the internet, when I myself didn’t even have computer access, ironically. Since then, jurors in general have admitted to illicitly consulting the internet during trials. I am pretty sure some of mine did, as well.
[ Maybe one of those jurors is reading this work now? ]
This arrest at 201 Turk was a clear violation of my freedom of speech, the core freedom from which all others derive and are based. Without this freedom to speak, it is but a short and oil—slicked slippery road to eliminate the freedom to exist. In fact, i advocate Total Amnesty for undocumented people, and that doesn’t mean corporate persons, but the flesh and blood beings.
It ain’t no piece of paper that makes us human, and the law is sadly derelict and delinquent in providing basic human rights, concerning the ability of folks to exist within nature, and within a mythos of natural, positive spirit and well-being for all. Not just so that people, but also plants, animals, birds, fishes, turtles, and others can exist, these are the sort of laws we need to be affirming and creating. Like, say, the basic human right to clean drinking water, freedom from fear and terror, freedom from war and having to kill in senseless wars for no reason, freedom and fresh air to breathe, freedom from devastating and catastrophic climate change.
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Where is the law in this continuing environmental ruin? Usually on the side of those doin’ the ruinin’ .
Yes, that’s what’s happening, sadly; these corporations act like they ain’t got no kids, since they ain’t people, as it were.
You know, its as if those in a position to influence a positive outcome for people are acting like they don’t have kids themselves, or like they ain’t part of any community, except the money makers. Imagine that! But you know, if value is only monetary, the future ought to be a debt of present currency obligation. Of course, money has no intrinsic value.
Anyway, they kept me at the Eddy + Jones station for several hours, until well after the debate was over. They charged me with a bullshit trespassing charge, but I had been invited in writing, as a mayoral candidate. Of course, they had to charge me with something, having gone through all that trouble of arresting me. But I’m sure they knew at the time that there was no way they could possibly get a conviction, so of course they ended up dropping that charge, eventually.
But not before they’d deprived me of my basic constitutional right to freedom of speech. The cops protected those nice folks who wanted to arrest me so that I could not complain that they had no vegan food. Imagine that ! They used this shit of arresting me as a tool do do exactly this sort of thing of preventing me from speaking. To shut me up. Hey, keep this guy quiet, fellars, his thoughts are dangerous, we don’t want people to start thinking for themselves and questioning, and seeking the Truth.
Although they may not have liked my words nor the tone of my voice I’d adopted, is not the freedom to speak, for a mayoral candidate at a mayoral debate, constitutionally protected? Apparently not, in the sovereign nation of Gavin Newsom’s San Francisco.
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