I watched with horror as the Los Angeles riots streamed live on TV. How could this possibly happen in the United States of America?
A few years later, we were at a festival in Reno, Nevada, having a grand time. The entire city was abuzz with both sanctioned events as well as many venues providing entertainment aimed at getting the swell of visitors through their unsanctioned doors.
There was excitement in the air. We did not sleep for two days, reveling in the good fun and the never-ending party and the outstanding music that seemed to emanate from everywhere. Upon approaching the threshold of sensory overload, the excitement was ratcheted down a bit with a Beach Boys concert held in an outdoor amphitheater, which was pure mellow gold.
Driving back to the hotel after that concert, the streets suddenly seemed ominously vacant. Upon easing up to a stoplight at an intersection with no traffic to be seen in any direction, a crowd gathered around what looked like a little hole-in-the-wall business or bodega. A man appeared to be standing his ground before the front door. Something was certainly going down.
The mob then spilled out into the street. With a quick stab of the accelerator pedal, the rental car blew through that stoplight and then a few more stoplights as well. Approaching Downtown, we were suddenly a piece of rental car flotsam trapped in the deadpool of a honking, fist-waving traffic jam that ground to a halt a half of a block from our hotel.
The sound of sirens pierced the night and there was a burning stinging stench in the air.
“I’m sorry, the hotel is on lockdown”, the security guard at the curb forcefully exclaimed when we were finally able to jockey out of the grips of the jam and onto the hotel driveway. “Nobody in, nobody out!”
“This is a rental car without the rental car insurance”, I rudely shot back, wildly waving our room key. “Let us in, or I will smash through that motherfucking sawhorse!”
Tensions were running high.
“You are a guest,” he acquiesced and then looked over his shoulder warily, no doubt hoping the manager’s attention was focused elsewhere before nervously moving the barricade aside.
A sudden wave of calm came with securing the econobox in the hotel parking lot. After a deep breath we went over to that same security guard to find out what was going on. “There’s a riot”, he replied very casually and pleasantly. He seemed to bear no grudge over me snapping at him just moments before.
Apparently, all is fair, and all is forgiven in riots.
We watched a near carnival atmosphere erupt within the traffic jam that moments before entrapped us. After witnessing an impromptu amateur strip tease act performed on the decklid of a gridlocked convertible so graphic that even the most hardened ecdysiast might blush, we had enough. The riot raged on in the distance.
We reached the safety of the hotel room and with the riot out of sight but not out of mind came a wave of second thought. One doesn’t often see a riot in Northern Wisconsin. And this being in Nevada the most Cousin Eddy thing one could do would be to grab a cold six pack of beer and head back into the streets, and I did just that.
There was a crush of bystanders surging away from the violence and the assembled line of riot police, but I pressed on against that wave. Skirmishes erupted between the rioters and other rioters, and the rioters and the line of officers that swept down the street. And then almost as quickly as it erupted, the riot was suddenly over.
Years later I learned from some witnesses and participants in other riots, such as the L.A. Riots, that Reno 1998 was not a very big deal as far as riots go. But it was a pretty big deal for me.
As a nation, we are currently sitting on a powder keg and those who we entrust to be minding the fire extinguishers are the very people boisterously strutting about carrying cans of gasoline and boxes of matches.
And there is an old saying amongst carpenters and weaponry analysts that if the only tool in one’s toolbox is a hammer, everything one sees will look like a nail.
So, along with the gas cans and matches, these cowardly bullies have also gained control of the hammers and would love nothing more than for protests to be waged against their agendas. The slightest hint of violence whether real or imagined will only grant license to use the full force of our government and military against American people.
Let us speak our minds without fear but also speak peacefully and with kindness. Let us not offer any fuel to petulant children playing with matches.
And let us not be too quick to judge our neighbors. There are many who once thought themselves to be nails who have recently perceived that they attained hammer status. It will be found out soon enough by all that the only hammers being passed out will go to a very select few and their lackeys, and the rest of us will all be the nails whether we ushered in the hammer or not.
For those who have never been in a riot, a good listen to get the feel is the LA Riots inspired Sublime song “April 29, 1992”. That song begins slowly and subdued then morphs into ominous guitar riffs before erupting into an angry crescendo, only to suddenly dissipate back into the riffs before abruptly fading. Exactly the feel and the tempo of the energy and violence of a riot.
For those who have never actually seen a riot, there is a trove of images and footage that can be viewed from a recent major riot, a shameful event that dwarfed the 1998 Reno Riot. This particular riot began with an unruly mob assaulting police officers and others from law enforcement, then forcing their way into a place they did not belong, trashing a building and destroying and vandalizing property, then threatening to hang the vice president of the United States. Exactly the feel and the tempo of the energy and violence of a riot.
Stay tuned for the continuation of this in the next blog post.
The Unexpected Minimalist 