Black Gold and Boots

At noon on Wednesday we kick off the counter-inaugural with a CodePINK orientation meeting at Café Luna. We turn the upstairs bookstore area of the Mediterranean café into a flurry of pink, a packed circle of multi-generational women eager to discuss plans for action. The debriefing includes the distribution of J20 action guides—pamphlets containing the schedule, the map, the metro routes, a list of spots for good eats, and the key digits, like numbers for the lawyer’s guild and the aclu legal rights hotline. What more could the touring activist want? After a short discussion about conversing with the media, and a little time for reporter-activist interaction role plays, a lawyer makes a presentation about legal aspects of protesting. I find this time to be really informative, since it functions as a sort-of “Everything You Always Wanted to know about Dissent in a time of Fearful, Loathsome Administrations” session. Over the months of traveling around the country, I have procured an almanac of legality questions, like what police can and can’t ask (and do to) you when you are behind the wheel, when you’re on the street, or, say, when you’re making a bright pink anti-war statement to disrupt the president’s speech… questions like that.

The orientation generates interesting conversation and questions, and I leave yearning for more. Then again, one of the aspects of CodePINK that I find to be really effective is that the grassroots structure and direct actions empower everyone who takes part; the learning happens in the process. And the process is just beginning…

As night falls, we split off to prep for the Texas Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball. Donning outrageous pink attire and pig noses, we later congregate alongside the Billionaires for Bush outside the towering Marriott hotel complex, site for the $375 a head presidential affair. As Bushites drive up to the hotel in their stretch Hummers and black windowed SUVs, we chant and throw “Hallibacon” dollars in the air. I step away from the festive protest for a moment, and when I walk back into it, the protesters, sizing up my pink formal dress, boa, petticoat, and cowgrrl boots, start jeering and poking fun at me, assuming I am a ball-goer. This gives me the idea that maybe I should be a ball-goer! I grab Tzadik, who is a styling Billionaire in a full tux, and we go up the roadway to investigate the scene. We walk into the lobby and survey the long lines of people waiting to get their wristbands and move through the security checkpoint and metal detectors. We decide to find out the details and pick a likely looking hotel worker to interrogate about the ball set-up. When we describe our dire situation (read: two enthusiastic Republicans who traveled such a long way to attend the inauguration and don’t have tix for the party), the hotel employee opens his suit jacket and fans through a stack of ball passes. Turns out, he is the executive manager of the ball. He then tells us that he might have an extra pair of tickets, since a senator had called to say that he was sick. He advises us to wait in the pub across the way. We stroll over to the pub, and once inside, I notice a gaggle of reporters, all carrying large cameras. In my haste to connect with the press, I walk through a set of glass doors with Tzadik in hand, and, unknowingly, we pass right by the security area and presto!... we’re in!

The place is packed, and we weave through the crowds, receiving little golden programs for the evening, which list the ball sponsors, and on alternating pages show the logos of the myriad of corporations behind the Bush regime. The Texas State Society's gala is arguably the most unconventional bash of inaugural week—at least in fashion terms. “It's the only party in town where the 10,000 guests are not just encouraged but expected to pair down-home duds like Stetson hats and Tony Lamas kicks with tuxedos and evening gowns,” writes an AP reporter. I am informed by the hotel employee that it is also the first inaugural ball in our country’s history to have an open bar… and boy, is it open! With the chardonnay and scotch flowing and the mink coats and elaborate gowns swishing through the crowds, I am left wondering about Christian values… whatever happened to temperance and humility, anyway? Texas-sized tables of food, floral arrangements, and corporate sponsor information, adorn each of the ballrooms we tour through.

We are ushered with the crowd down an escalator to the lower level, which contains an arts and crafts fair of Texas’s finest products, everything from “Don’t mess with Texas” baby outfits, to spicy mustards, to large trucks for auction. Against the far wall there is a large Lockeed-Martin display with two fighter jets and a large backdrop of Bush and Cheney and their wives waving to a large crowd. We are queued into a line that deposits us into this large poster, against which we pose for a free snapshot. Imagine this image: Z and I standing, all smiles, with our fingers making big peace signs, side by side with the two presidential thieves. I will try to upload this photograph, for your viewing entertainment.

Next, we begin an all-out search for a likely place where we can do an action, make some colorful statement about the unnecessary lavish, grotesquely fancy ball. These are the two actions we manage to achieve:

After Bush’s speech, during Clay Walker’s country music performance in the main ballroom, I walk up on the stage with two yellow roses. I first give one to Clay, posing as an admiring fan, and then I declare the other one to be in memory of the 1,373 troops we have lost to the war in Iraq, and I shout that we need to end the war now and bring the troops home. I am unable to hold onto the microphone, though, and am ushered off the stage as I speak, so I think that only the people up front hear me. The comment does generate some interesting conversation, and several women stare at me in disbelief, their eyes asking, “How could such a sweet young girl say such an outrageous thing? What is the meaning of it?” If only the inaugural balls included a group discussion on the future of our country event… imagine that!

Out in the main entryway area, we spy a table stuffed with trays of little deserts—torts, petit fours, and the like. I am thinking that maybe the best way to engage in dialogue with these people is if we have something to give away, so I grab one of these trays and position myself by the escalator leading to the exit. As folks are beginning to trickle out of the ball, they stop to admire my tray of sweets, and I offer them a delectable last sweet taste of the evening. As they bite into their treat, I offer up Marie Antoinette’s adage, “Let them eat cake,” and politely inform them that the budget for the (“wartime”) second inauguration of Bush is one tenth of the money we allocated for the tsunami disaster relief efforts (and equal to the original money we were willing to give to Southeast Asia). As I speak, the faces that lit up at the sugary splendors pale, and they grow uncomfortable with the remaining gooey bite at hand. Some engage in dialogue with me, and some turn away. A reporter takes great interest in our action, but his son, who is blasted, gets belligerent and offensive, and grabs my arm too firmly for my own liking.

I find Tzadik and we get ready to leave. The last woman we speak to is the wife of a military general and she gets very angry at our political pastry presentation (the PPP action ;-) and chases us out of the ball. Once I am safely outside, I turn around, but Tzadik is nowhere in sight. Fearing that he has been absconded by the secret service, I rush back into the ball, and enlist the assistance of a few Westpoint cadets, who instantly form a willing search party after I mention Z’s brother, Isaac, who is about to graduate from Westpoint. Eventually, Z turns up, and we depart, snagging a wristband, a few John Deer baseball caps and a couple “black tie and boots” inaugural ball commemorative cowboy hats.