Notes on a Populist Uprising

This is not the former Soviet Union at the turn of the 20th century. This is not Egypt. Well, no, this is Egypt but not yet. That is what the people are saying. They are like one great mouth filled with teeth. They are calling the governor Hussein and Mubarak and Hitler. I suppose as far as surnames go, they are all the same thing. I am sleeping in the marble arms of the Capitol tonight. It was not until tonight that I understood that the wings of the building are not wings, but arms. This place has no hope for flight, and can only be half of what Kali and Durga are. Four arms instead of eight. A demi-god. We have been advised that if at some point the State Troopers, with their bleary eyes perched in every stairwell, ask us to go, to refuse would be civil disobedience. I know what this means. It means illegal. It means being still when no one else is. But I don't understand it anymore than the nineteen year-old boy sitting next to me, with his guitar and peanut butter and jelly. Civil disobedience died fifty years ago with the good doctor, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was withstanding high-powered hoses meant to sweep you off the face of the earth, like a blight, like a spreading fire. It was going to school to be taught to hate yourself because you just wouldn't learn your place. It was the Little Rock Nine. This is not where I live. This is not my home. This is not Birmingham, AL in 1963. There are two hundred bodies scattered around the marble hallways. None of them has been asked to leave. Unlike the struggle for civil rights, this time the police, most of them, are on our side. They are sympathetic. They offer us water and coffee, a listening ear and shoulder to lean on. I don't think they will ask us to leave. But it is more than sympathy. At night our numbers dwindle to a small corp of determined compatriots, but with daybreak these halls and the streets encircling the Capitol will mobbed by tens of thousands of supporters. It is not our words, the shouting and brandishing of signs that make the authorities cautious but rather the sheer number of us. We are growing everyday that they stay the same. The drum beats seem to never end. The voices never seem to end. We are living in a tyranny of fear and something has to end. I will not sleep tonight. I will watch the younger ones. They are too eager, too much like Peter Pan on a great adventure. This is their movement as much as it is mine.

I can only imagine how pissed off Ben Jonson is about no one knowing who he is anymore. Sorry Ben, you had the 16th century all to yourself. It's just cruel irony that Shakespeare's fame would only grow with time, while yours would recede into the mystic recesses of academia. But as a consolation, you should know, some of the smartest people alive think you're better than Shakespeare. Some. Most of them think Shakespeare kicked your ass.

Every day that passes I am convinced could've been saved by a steady diet of firm words and well-thought out food.

Paperback Writer

I guess I just started a novel. I'm not really sure how it happened. It feels like a one-night stand. The morning after, you are sitting in bed, alone, wondering what in the hell happened last night. There may be a vague sense of shame. There may be a sense of bewilderment. But above all, there is confusion and the undeniable fact that what just happened, just happened.