Saturday, January 24, 2009

New Thing #372

When I woke up yesterday morning I didn't know that I would spend a frantic day doing the legwork to organize a a rally for Mayor Sam Adams at City Hall (check out the video), doing things I've never done before like pulling permits, finding a generator an hour before the rally, and writing a chant, a new genre for me.

But thanks to my new bff, blogger Hollie Teal, a thousand people descended on City Hall to tell the mayor to "GET BACK TO WORK." Hollie's got a hilarious photo essay about the backstage scramblings to make this thing work, especially about the World's Tiniest Stage:


And, because this is Portland, of course people dressed up. Like this guy:


And these. Why they came as gnomes I have no idea.


I was so excited by it all I was shaking for an hour afterwards. I'm cautiously optimistic that he won't resign, that we've helped turn the tide.

A special thanks to my beloved BoBo Wilson, who gave me a crash course in Sam's 100 Day Plan so I wouldn't sound like an idiot. And, of course, Jim Brunberg of Mississippi Studios, who made sure we could be heard and all the people who were heard: rocker Storm Large, pianist James Beaton, First Amendment lawyer Charlie Hinkle, columnist Dan Savage, businessman and activist Terry Bean, Oregon Ballet Theatre artistic director Christopher Stowell, restauranteuse Lisa Schroeder of Mother's and Mamma Mia and Handsome Dave the Zoobomber, who read a message from Portland's own Gus Van Sant.

5 comments:

Colin Matthew (TheBookPirate.com) said...

Those gnomes again!

I've seen them around PSU.

David S said...

Rock on! That's awesome. You and that event are a great example of why I love this city!

Unknown said...

The Gnomes look like part of the 7 Dwarves. Wasn't their mantra "Hi ho, Hi ho it's off to work I go"

Chris 'Frog Queen' Davis said...

I have never been prouder to call you my friend. Wish I could have been there :)

Sue KuKu said...

Thank you, Marc! Thank you for your posted thoughts and musings on this whole issue, thank you for all the work you did for the rally, thank you for acting on what you believed and putting your feet on the World's Tiniest Stage.

You're right, we need to move on to more serious and pertinent issues: Are you keeping your blonde hair? Did you see Storm Large recently? :o)

Okay, I'm getting back to work!