Andy Haynes Reports on the Wall Street Protests

• Andy Haynes

Hello.

My name is Andy Haynes, and I’m a stand-up comedian living in New York City. But I’m FROM Seattle.

I somehow didn’t hear about the Occupy Wall Street protests until Monday afternoon. I mean, I’m sure I heard about them. But I tend to disregard things unless I see them on the front page of the paper, or see a lot of cynical tweets disregarding them. Then I pay attention long enough to get on the disregarding train, and the next stop is “Make Light Of Serious Issue City”—which, ironically, is quite a dark and disenchanted place. Sorry.

I should add that I’m pretty cynical about politics, and while I care deeply about the state of things, I’ve suppressed any activism—besides the occasional joke, which is sometimes kind of like activism, but also kind of like my job—since the fateful day of November 5th, 2004, when about a thousand Western Washington University students and myself marched fruitlessly around Bellingham looking for some kind of solution to the second Bush win. We found weed.

I walked past the Wall Street protests on Monday afternoon with my mom and fiance. We were trying to get into the 9/11 memorial, but were turned away because we didn’t have reservations. I instantly stopped liking the 9/11 memorial, although I think it’s pretty. When we walked past Zucotti Park on our way back to the train, there were a couple hundred people milling about. They were making signs, talking about protesting and their plans to do more of it. The typical thing was happening where most people are there to protest one thing, but some people are there to shoehorn in gay dolphin rights, sell “9/11 was an inside job” snow globes, and push whatever other tangential cause is banging on their brains.

• Andy Haynes

Nebulous presentation of message is my biggest pet-peeve with activism.

My group left after a march began around the perimeter of the park. It was a collage of earnest lefty protestors: stoned kids, people playing instruments, crazy homeless people. BTW, homeless people can obviously protest legitimately, but they should not be inebriated and yelling at the other protestors like they’re dragons, ala Tom Hanks in that movie that scared kids about taking acid and playing Dungeons and Dragons. Thanks, Tom.

So I left with the typical reaction to protests: Good point, too much drugs, too many diverging side causes, and too many smells that come from organic sources, i.e. the armpit, butthole, and general human condition.

I returned yesterday to find that I had been a little quick to judge—although I don’t know if it’s quite the “revolution” that one of the stoned coordinators told me was the end point of all this. But I guess it could be. I really checked out when he started talking about revolutions. Sorry, I’m cynical.

The protests are in their 12th day, though, and the good news is they’re growing. Starting on the 17th, they have only gathered steam (some of it stinking), and the occupation waxes and wanes between 5,000 and 1,000 people from day to day. Something like 100 to 300 people sleep in the park. They have WiFi, food, “security,” and what looks likes a first aid team—but when I saw them they were just rolling free cigarettes, and then performing a huddled cheer reminiscent of the opening of a high school girls’ soccer match. I’m sure they said “revolution” at some point.

Close to a hundred uniformed cops watched from the perimeter of the park, mostly bored, but somewhat amused. The one I asked about the protests said he had no comment, but then he said it had been “pretty quiet” (which is a comment). They were being cycled in from all the precincts, but he denied being subject to involuntary overtime—which one of the organizers told me police are being forced to work. I think he enjoyed it, though: a day off from actual policing, sitting around and laughing at hippies with their wild drums.

That same organizer who told me about the overtime also told me that some cops had marched with the protesters. Which reminds me of something else I found out: The marchers start to march every day at the same time that the closing bell rings at the New York Stock Exchange, or the Nasdaq. (I don’t know things). Amy Goodman should find out the truth.

The violence that seems to have really galvanized the movement occurred Saturday when the group tried to march to Union Square from Zucotti park. When the protesters reached Union Square they were surrounded by police, and those who dispersed from the larger group were tackled/arrested. One group of women were cordoned into orange netting, and held there without being arrested. They yelled, or something, and one lone senior cop (not a cop who patrols seniors, or an old man cop, but a cop with seniority) did a sort of drive-by pepper spraying, which hurts. So they screamed a lot louder and kind of collapsed, and cried. But get this, they were yoga-doing, college-graduate white girls (they had heard of deoderant)! So it garnered some attention, and made it all over the news, which is good. Thanks white girls, you deserve a lifetime supply of Kombucha mothers. Amy Goodman, put out the word?

I’m still on the fence though, because Fox News hasn’t confirmed that they don’t have any ties to Al Qaeda, ETA, the PLO, or the Dixie Chicks.

But I’m slightly less cynical about the whole thing now. Yes, it was annoying to smell the hippies and their drums. But the whole thing appeared to be well organized, with a lot of serious and professional organizer/protesty people working to make sure that Occupy Wall Street isn’t going anywhere just yet. I was told that Russell Simmons showed up today to meditate. (He probably did a fucking headstand. We get it, Russel Simmons.) And other celebrities will surely drop in. Maybe Sean Penn on a hoverboat! Who knows? But this is good news for us, since the longer it goes on the more we’ll feel like we should get involved, and maybe something miraculous can happen like when Obama was elected, and the lizard people let him live. Fuck, that sounded sincere.

Anyway, the protests are apparently spreading, 56 cities and counting, and there seems to be a general anti-Tea-Party vibe which is bad news for Ayn Rand. I still don’t know what I’m talking about, but hopefully I’ll figure it out.

I’m going back today, deodorized and willing to change my mind.