dude, it’s been a rockstar few weeks in minnesnowta. the state fair just rolled through, the republicans had their little convention, and rage against the machine played. yeah, rage against the machine.
i
usually tell people that minneapolis and saint paul are like big cities
nobody has moved into, yet. they look like big cities, but traffic
isn’t that bad (i’m looking at you, bay bridge), and it’s mostly just
half-rich white kids getting bored and causing trouble. that safe
feeling fully eroded after seeing what the police had done to our
cities.
credit (required): http://flickr.com/photos/trevino/
since
last saturday, 422 people have been arrested in association with the
RNC, with like 280 of them happening on monday. some of those rowdy
rousers were the anarchist type, and you know how dumb breeds dumb. a
mini riot broke out on monday, and that set the tone for the rest of
the week.
the rage concert was ok. i wish i could say it
was great, but the acoustics sucked. not their fault, but at $72 a
ticket, i want my f*cking acoustics. rage played a lot from the first
album, a few less from evil empire, and even less from battle of la. i
was ok with that. single encore, then a plea from the band to “leave
peacefully, but not passively.” zach encouraged everyone to show
discipline, to show the police that we can get down in peace while
still saying “f*ck you, i won’t do whatchu tell me.” yeah, it’s ironic,
but get over it. it’s still possible.
the papers said we were
greeted outside the concert by about 50 riot police. unless they meant
“per sidewalk,” that number was a bit low. whatever. point is, unless
you’re insanely drunk (i wasn’t), there’s no way you can walk past that
many armed and armored police and feel like sneezing won’t get you your
sheat beat down.
it took about a half hour before any
half-assed protest broke out. the loudest kids didn’t like being told
they couldn’t sit in the middle of the street (me: let evolution do its
thing). the rest of us just didn’t like the idea of being told you
can’t stand on this sidewalk by police in riot gear (and now gas
masks). the police stopped us about half way down the block.
credit: http://flickr.com/photos/diversey/
after
some fat guy yelling through a loudspeaker about as clear as they do at
the airport, the police blockade broke down. someone in the group said
“walk that way” and everyone did. and we kept walking, probably about a
few blocks, in the road, mostly because it was cleared. as soon as the
block wasn’t cleared of traffic, these retired american gladiator cops
on schwinns started riding people down, shoving them to the sidewalk,
and almost getting a couple of the crowd to push back on them. dude, i
know there are good cops, but some of the cops out that night had that
look like “say what again mother f*cker.”
somewhere
between the schwinns and the cops on super horses, 3 little piggies
came riding up on one of those atv golf carts (didn’t see any segways)
with that short stubby looking thing that usually shoots tear gas.
after we heard the pop pop, we looked for the area with the least
amount of cops, ran, and gtfo. police said it wasn’t tear gas, but,
they were the ones wearing the gas masks.
hey man, there’s usually not shi*t to talk about in minnesota.
read more about the rage show post-party or the fun around the
##
matt
albiniak is a sellout that traded days in tahoe for doing interwebs
stuff for a route 29, a small candy company in minneapolis, mn. (http://www.route29.com)
www.porterstahoe.com
Add/View Comments (0)
