viva that other revolution
April 24, 2002 04:23 PM

I realized something about revolution the other night.

I was sitting in this funky space, in a funky chair, next to the most movie-esqe butch/femme lesbian couple I've ever seen [Have you seen Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love? Remember the older woman the white girl was dating at the beginning? They were that woman and the white girl, except the one wasn't old. Perfectly costumed and everything. They were so movie, it was amazing.]. And people were cheering the idea of shutting down Paris by blocking a key alley way at rush hour.

This is when I realized:

I am not these people. These people being mostly older hippies. I am not these people because I would have been in that rush hour, because what that story made me think about was the Parisian workers whose mornings were ruined, whose kids were late to school, who were trapped in traffic in their tiny French cars because that was someone's idea of revolution.

That's not revolution; that's guerilla annoyance.

A real revolution would have left Parisian office workers free for three-martini breakfasts, gardening, and playing in the streets with their children. Because we (the people at large) are not the enemy of art, freedom, or anything else that old hippies might fight for. What I realized was that these people, and a vast number of artists, think that I am their enemy, though they didn't know from looking at me. And that an awful lot of the people at large feel the same way about art. And artists.

I didn't say or do anything. But. Next time, I will not stand for it. I won't let someone assume that I am them, when I am also their enemy. I am moving to the suburbs so the shorter commute from the office and the day job I actually find quite fulfilling will give me more time to incite a real revolution.

I am an artist. I am an activist. And. I am the people at large.