As many of you know, Jesse (MinistryofTruth) was here this past Sunday evening and Monday. As someone who has followed his writing for a long time, I have witnessed his evolution and watched with interest his rise to internet fame and media darling of Occupy Wall Street. Having never met him I didn't have any real expectations about his visit. I wanted to share some of my observations here.
My first encounter with him was late Sunday night. I was standing at GA and for some reason I turned around and saw him standing a few feet behind me at the edge of the crowd. Obviously I recognized him immediately and went over to introduce myself. FlamingoGrrl was also there, and I introduced myself to her as well and we chatted about how things were going with the issues of sexism within the movement. It's hard to talk during GA. I was distracted. A proposal I had been fighting for, organizing for, and hoping to see passed was approved, blocked, and we failed to overturn the block by 2 votes (proposal has since passed at Monday's GA - yay! - we are moving to another location this weekend). I was running around having conversations about strategy but I kept an eye our for Jesse. It was cold and raining and miserable. He stood in the park for at least 3 hours talking with people that night. I didn't have a chance to listen in to most of his conversations but I was really happy to see so many people recognizing him and he was really accessible and friendly to all of them. Went home exhausted with a plan to meet for lunch with other Kossacks on Monday at 1 pm.
Monday I arrived for lunch late and found Jesse and several other Kossacks chatting about politics. It was a friendly and relaxed atmosphere (thank you again to Sarge in Seattle for treating us!). Finally met Lefty Coaster (he's awesome). After lunch we headed to Westlake so Jesse could do a livestream interview.
The media team member retrieved us from Westlake and we walked to his place of employment (The Icon Grill) and went upstairs to the ridiculously posh private dining room to do the interview. Questions from the livestream audience that were collected the night before, and I watched Jesse deftly answer every question without hesitation (while trying not to laugh) which I am sure he can probably do in his sleep at this point. Here is a link to that interview.
After the interview we went down to the bar for a bit. For anyone who has met Jesse you know he is loud. He uses a lot of colorful language. We were still in this posh bourgeois restaurant. I couldn't stop laughing. Seattle needs a lot more New York. People here are so damn passive. So quiet. So unassuming. Jesse told us he was asked to be quiet on the bus ride to downtown that morning. Typical Seattle. I thought that was pretty funny too. The hostess at the restaurant recognized Jesse (this happened a lot during his visit) and came up to shake his hand. She was flirting with him. It was cute - Jesse has fan girls.
We walked back to Westlake and this is when I got my first chance to watch him interact with the people who are the core occupiers here in Seattle.
Doc is a regular presence at Westlake. He lives the occupation. He is a colorful character, very radical, and always rallies the troops. He spotted Jesse and ran over, asking for an interview with him. (Mic check - we need a video camera now!) Jesse took out his video camera and sat down to talk with Doc. It was an amazing and touching experience to watch him interact with Doc. They sat close together, totally connecting, talking mad shit about New York and laughing. I realized at that moment that this was a gift - not only can he respond with rapid fire to the media, and he speaks well in groups, but he also connects one on one in a very significant and real way with the every day people who are part of this movement.
As the day went on more of the regular people who frequent Westlake were coming up to him to talk (this was prior to GA, which is when the more mainstream folks start showing up). It was interesting to watch people's reaction to him. They were excited to meet someone who is "internet famous", but in reality they were also pretty excited to find out he is just a regular guy too. He wasn't dismissive or standoffish with any of them. I thought that was pretty rad.
As the night went on I was running back and forth to meetings, but each time I returned to the GA area he was still there talking with people. I went in and out of conversations he was having. People were commenting to me about him "Wow do you know who that is?" "He's the reason I got involved in the Occupy movement!" People were taking pictures with him. I've noticed a few people changed their Facebook profile pic to the photo they took with him that night.
As it started to get really late I volunteered to take him and the young man who was assisting him that day (FlamingoGrrl's neighbor Levon) home, but first we stopped at a bar and then I decided to take them to Dick's for burgers (you can't visit Seattle without going there, and I wanted to show him the new occupy site which is a few blocks away).
It was really freaking late, but Jesse is incredibly tireless. I don't know how he does it. Well, actually I do. I never sleep anymore. This is the beginning of something big and we can sleep when we are done. The revolution needs us now.
So this is my big public thank you to Jesse for keepin' it real with the people of Seattle.