The horns start blasting immediately upon ascending the circular ramp to the crumbling overpass over I-894. Badscience is a stickler for letter spacing, so she goes about her work of fine-tuning. I have found a new appreciation for the inflections afforded by punctuation, so added a portable apostrophe for contractions and possessives. It is 8:00. Do you know where your activists are?
Thirty of them are enjoying the last weekend of summer while holding letters for the bridge-tweet REJECT RYAN'S LIES! During the next 90 minutes, an empty chair will be talked at after an empty suit spouts empty promises of jobs, jobs, jobs. That is a song we've heard before in the hot air fueled winds of Wisconsin. Jobs, jobs, jobs with happy idle pledges for bright futures never delivered, a figure/ground of positive promise and negative result. 12 million jobs ordered up on a tea-tray without hint of a menu. We are dazzled by the figure, and can't perceive the ground.
I'm standing on the winding ramp leading to the bridge. AFT has a video crew out here tonight, making some short documentary about activism. The traffic roars immediately below me, the road noise visceral. A white sheet of noise in my head is punctuated by semi-truck air horns blasting past. We can't tell if they love us, hate us, or are merely looking for diversion to break the monotony of endless trips south. Three motorcycles speed by, shouts of "Fuck You!" dissolving faster than their middle finger salutes. We are getting a lot of those tonight. As soon as we go partisan, the old time ire of the Walker Recall reemerges. A happy feeling of nostalgia snuggles around me. Even the police are friendly and hug the bridge dog.
Then karma, lovely karma under the bridge. A crapped out muscle car whizzes by. Rust patches of the once noble chariot suggest the last traces of high school hope. A young man puts his head out of the passenger window and yells, "Fuck you, you fucking assholes!" The highway wind whips his hat and sunglasses off and they land on the road shoulder as the car horn blasts its path into the halide night, rage dropped into downstream darkness.
The hat sits there on the side of the highway like a spoil of war, the sunglasses just beyond them. They are just out of reach, over a fence, too near traffic to venture. Trophies. Counting coup. We must have them!
In a deft move, a woman in black climbs the fence, crouch walks to the shoulder, grabs the hat. Who is this ninja? The sunglasses are too far away. We have the hat! A grotty hat with paint and sheetrock mud hardened into its fiber. Ahh, a working man! Our Ironworker friend points out it is a hat from a local carpenter's union. I point to the sunglasses still on the highway. "Maybe they're nice!" I say. Our Ironworker nonchalantly climbs the fence, walks out and picks up the sunglasses. Cheap. Sad. Like the car. The life lived never quite tallies with the life expected to live. Vote Republican. They'll help cognate your dissonance.
Two nights ago we did an eBay fundraiser 24 hour auction for our friend, Jenna Pope, a dedicated Wisconsin activist, Kossack and OLB member who moved to NYC and has been taking amazing pictures of the state of military excess known as security forces at the RNC. Her computer bit the dust. We put together some OLB swag, and were happy to help her with the money raised. $105 dollar bid. Not bad! It will all go to Jenna.
So last night we started our second 24 hour auction. Yes, you, too, can bid on The Hat of Hate and the Cheapshit Shades of Envy! These are guaranteed 100% pre-owned and bridge-thrown! You will also receive an archival 8" x 10" digital print of the Bridge Over Karma Highway. Act fast! You are competing with some heavy eBay pros: poachers, lurkers, snipers, quick-bid algorists. Don't miss out! There's one bid so far, but then, one bid is all you need with trophies like these!
We'll happily send our friend Jenna the entire 99 cents…