viva la crandan

crandan is seriously the most courageous man i've ever known and i am honored and priviledged to call him my friend. he has once again been arrested defending our rights and our freedoms, and demanding just, representative democracy. i am currently awaiting further information from legal aid to find out where he's going to be held so that we can organize solidarity. after being arrested at washington sq. north & 5th ave., he was taken to the javitz center where he was/will be transferred from a paddy wagon to a metrobus and then taken to (most likely) central booking. (after my own skirmishes w/the police, i joined a raging drum circle in the park, while unbeknownst to me, dan was participating in the sit-in that led to his arrest.)

[update 7:58 pm] crandan is being held at 1 police plaza—the same spot they had us on f15. i'll likely be heading down there shortly. COME OUT AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!

for full details of today's events go to indymedia. the coverage on the main page is completely accurate by my account. more details of our own personal experiences to come. after drumming/carrying a drum from 42nd st. to washington sq. (and then playing in the park for two hours), i'm a bit too tired to recap right now. one funky highlight—i was marching side-by-side with q-tip and he was gettin' down on my drumming! ;) bigup to throg, yarow & co., who joined us today.


this is the poster i made for the rally.
we got yelled at a lot about castro,
so after about an hour of being harangued by socialists,
we tore his picture off.
on a side note, don't believe any bullshit about crowd estimates from the corporate media... ny1 is reporting 100,000 people... it was at least 1,000,000. we left 42nd st. at 12 pm and at 4:30 the streets were still completely filled with people up to 34th st.

cnn's full of shit too: they report, "some marchers said police used pepper spray against the demonstrators." the connotation is that the marchers are untrustworthy and thus you can not believe what they said. i personally witnessed a young man get sprayed in the eyes and then crandan wash the dude's eyes out.

[update 8:12 pm] i just fucking saw ny1 report that the protesters maced the cops. what unmitigated bullshit! i myself saw—and cheered—as the wind (or what i prefer to call the hand of god) blew the mace back in the cops' own faces. fuck that noise!

[update 10/23 12:27 am] i've been standing in solidarity outside 1 police plaza with various people's law collective & anarchist black cross members waiting for cran's release. as of yet, very few individuals have been let go. i'm writing from my friend dwight's place... he lives only a few blocks away from central booking. 'bout to head back... just came to warm up real quick. it's about 41 degrees out there.

also—please ignore my sister aviva's ramblings in the comments on this post. she's a fundamentalist/fanatic. if jews blew themselves up, she'd be first in line. she says i'm a traitor and disgrace to my grandparents because i stand for what i "merely perceive to be" justice in my "uninformed" view. in her view, only religious zealotry and paranoia is relevant, and the worse is expected of the world.

[update 10/23 12:12 pm] crandan got out at around 4:10 a.m. he was rather surprised to see me standing there in the waiting penn. ;) we hung around a little longer, spoke to some of the other kids, and then headed back to brooklyn. he's currently crashed on my futon. another happy d.a.t. for a dis. con. charge.