January 31, 2005
punk is alive
I went with Matt and crew a couple nights ago to see Haram and Envy in Baltimore. it was packed and good times were had by all.
January 28, 2005
say my name, say my name...
January 23, 2005
great balls on fire... aka, i am mostly retarded.
The inauguration was this week, and i think this is a fine topic for me to get back to writing on this blog.
What a busy few days I have had.
during the inauguration, I got pepper sprayed multiple times by the Cops™.
between 14th and 15th streets along Pennsylvania Ave, the police had people standing away from the giant fences, and back on the sidewalk 10 feet away. i was walking on the street section attempting to get in front of the protesters who were standing on the street (not protesting, just standing). typically here, journalists can not only circumvent these sorts of things, but as long as we are openly displaying our credentials, we can cross police lines to get around things like this. so, i was walking on the street, inches from the sidewalk and a police officer yells through the fence, “get on the fucking sidewalk.” i held up my inauguration issued press credentials as well as all of my local credentials, and he proceeded to soak me with pepper spray.
it is simply crazy.
I stayed in that area trying to photograph protesters as the event heated up. i was sprayed repeatedly and i was near people being sprayed, most of this was to be expected, because this was the police's crowd control technique of choice, from the other side of the 8 foot high steel fence.
I kept getting protesters to flush my eyes out with water, so that helped some, but I was mostly soaked with pepper spray™. My gear was malfuntioning from being wet and so after about an hour of this, I went surrendered and headed back over to the Getty™ office.
My hands were pretty numb so, the pain wasn't bothering me much at that point, but I had to pee, so I dropped my stuff in the office and ran to the bathroom, where I proceeded to go to pee BEFORE I washed my hands.
I’m sure you can see where this is going.
A few minutes later, I was again in misery, standing next to the sink in the public bathroom with my pants around my ankles washing my privates off in the sink. i kind of wish i would have been of sound mind enough to try to make a picture of my ridiculous predicament.
My privates only hurt for 30 or 40 minutes. after flushing them with cold water, and scrubbing my goods with soap and more cold water in the the sink for 20 minutes or so, I went back into the office and I borrowed some lotion from Pierce, one of the editors working. my thinking was that it might help soothe the pain in my hands. it seemed to for a bit. but then on the ride home it only seemed to make them worse. when I got home about an hour later, my hands were still inflamed and they hurt so bad, I thought I was going to have to have someone take me to the hospital. i got online and attempted to see what sort of remedies I might find. Basically soaking cold water and waiting it out is the only real solution.
And best of all, it also said DO NOT use lotion, because it can trap the chemical in your skin and prolong the irritation.
Man, I did everything wrong.
Then I was going to get in the shower, but I didn’t want to take a cold shower, but (as Logan M-B correctly said) the hot water made everything worse.
my hands hurt so bad, so picture this, I was holding my hands out of the water, and I stuck my head in and then as the water ran down my face, my eyes started to burn again, from the pepper spray that was in my hair and was now running down my face.
I wound up turning the water to cold and freezing my balls off while I stood in there trying to rinse. i was an amazinly pathetic sight.
It was an amazing and miserable comedy of errors, and a testament to the freedoms and experiences we enjoy as americans, when our nations capitol is turned into a police state.