NOT INTO: Navy blue, bad smells, stubbing my toe, Pepsi, war.
MAKES ME HAPPY: Bonfires, thunderstorms, breakfast, loud music, bruises, personal style, healthy skin, grossing people out, fast car drives, good graffitti, nice eyebrows, black and white animals, living in the moment.
MAKES ME SAD: Music not in my ear (makes my body hurt), homophobia, children with sad faces, drama, bad graffitti, people being taken for granted, pets being treated badly š
5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Music, body jewelry, Mary Jane, tattoos, cereal (in no particular order, just all the same.
VICES: Saying too much.
I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Not worrying about the things I’m supposed to be doing.
Dirty Laundry: Sexy Santa Special A selection of the best Sexy Santa fashions that naughty and nice Suicide Girls will be putting on ā and taking off.
Really more that it possibly should. This is not good. Iām a writer, a photographer, I like to shake peopleās hands. I need my wrist functioning.
And Iām not even arrested yet.
Itās 12 oā clock and thereās maybe 100 people hereā¦and thatās including the press. #D17 is not looking to be all it was cracked up to be, like an āN Sync reunion when Justin doesnāt show up. (It was intended to be a celebration of the 3 month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its encampment at Zuccotti Park, and was supposed to be marked by a reoccupation in New York at the nearby Duarte Square, a vacant plot of land owned by Trinity Wall Street, a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of NYC.)
Itās freezing, well, maybe not that bad, but Iām underdressed for the occasion, wearing a light jacket and no gloves or a hat. An hour and a half into standing around at Duarte Park in Lower Manhattan ā I thought Iād be running after occupiers and dodging kettling nets.
I get the standard shots ā the wide above the head shot (for crowd count), the protesters children (cute sells!), the old school occupiers (who knows AARP might run a piece on #OWS), the funny signs (always good for internet reach), and then the pretty portraits (30mm f1.4 Sigma, wide open, manual focus ā shallow depth of field).
Ok. So now itās 1:30 PM. Our sources inside the OWS movement tell us that since the organizers were pre-arrested** ā one of which is some guy named Zach ā theyāre not sure anything is actually going down during the day, maybe not until 7 PM.
Fuck.
CS (still photog), Andrew (still photog), Brian (still photog), Rosie (Village Voice writer) and I (SuicideGirls photog) huddle in a group, trying to decide what to do. I hate to admit it, Iām the first one to say fuck it, letās go home ā warm up and recharge for the night.
Brian, a shooter says heās staying, has to and recommends that we all stay. Even if he didnāt have to, we all know he would anyway. Heās done Egypt and Greece already, so we kind of look to him for guidance. Heās known within his agency to be the one that will go for days without sleep just to get the shot. During the cleansing of Zuccotti he went for about 2 days without sleep, going from assignment to assignment carrying other peopleās shifts. Our motley crew decide to take Brianās advice and stick around until 3:30, and if nothing happens run home and file.
3:30 PM EST.
CS and I are chatting, talking about brunch, warm coffee, French toastā¦suddenly Brian runs by ā we immediately follow blindly.
The crowd suddenly starts to move. Where? We havenāt a fān clue ā but like the lemmings that photojournalists are ā we follow (well, actually we run to the front of the crowd and walk briskly backwards while taking photos).
Immediately I get that something else is going on. The crowd isnāt going anywhere in particular and the turns itās taking seem to be just to throw off the police that are on scooters.
And then I go around a corner to get a wide shot of the march and almost run straight into a man in purple robes. Oh, itās a diversion. Bishops only move diagonally though. Whereās the rook?
I quietly say to myself, āI see what you did there.ā Realizing that something is afoot with all these religious figures randomly hanging out watching a protest go by, I stay back for a moment allowing the protest to go by.
Like a ADD kid that hasnāt had his Ritalin, I very quickly get impatient and see a scuffle with a cop and a protester, I take one last look at the Holy figures Iām standing next to and run off chasing the pretty pictures.
Did I say fuck before? Because you see this time I really mean it. Like a crap Chess player going up against Bobby Fischer, I immediately lose the Bishop. Chasing after pretty pictures, ones I have hard drives filled with ā I lose what will very quickly become the whole point of this charade.
Fuck it, I follow the protestors back toward Duarte Square, I know I screwed up, but maybe I didnāt waste the whole day.
Slowly we turn the corner to Grand Street and to my surprise (and quiet anger) I see several hundred protestors already there ā some setting up a step ladder up against the fence that surrounds the other half of Duarte Square. A purple flash of cloth begins to ascend the wooden ladder that the protestors have propped against the fence, as if playing out some medieval storming of the castle. Except the castle is a park and the battlements are a standard wire fence.
The Bishop doesnāt wait for the other half of the stepladder ā like a boss he runs to the top and then lets himself down the other side slowly. People quickly follow behind him, nearly falling on top of him. Iām stuck in the crowd about 20 feet away from the ladder ā I look to the fence and judge correctly that thereās no way in hell I can scale it myself and then push toward the ladder ā a path opens up and suddenly as I tell OWS organizers that Iām going over theyāre all smiles and hands helping me and my gear over. Climbing over and taking blind shots from the top, I suddenly realize what a bad idea this is ā fuck it, Iām over and now officially in ācriminal trespassā territory.
About 75 people are over ā including CS and about 5 other journoās that I can point out as proās. The occupiers start pulling at the fence bringing it upward so that the rest of the crowd can rush in ā there are very few takers. This very clearly worries the people on my side of the fence ā and worries me ā any moment now the police will be here and numbers are the only thing protecting us from batons, plastic cuffs and a night in the clink. I give up on waiting for the shot of the protestors going all Steve McQueen under the fence and start grabbing every possible angle of the scene I can think of. Through the fence, the wide shot, the closeupā¦Then suddenly thereās a very large officer from the NYPD in my face yelling āGET THE FUCK OUT NOW!ā
Photojournalistās understand that as āYOU HAVE ONLY FIVE MORE SHOTS TO TAKE AND YOU NEED TO START MOVING TOWARDS THE EXIT.ā
CS flies by me yelling at me āTIME TO GO, NOW!ā For once heās being the careful one.
I begin to comply and start moving towards the stepladder, the only āexitā I know of from this fenced in park. I, of course, continue taking shots though moving towards my non-arrest, then I make it to the place where the stepladder used to be.
Oh, shit!
Itās not there.
Well, to be exact itās on its side.
Again, oh shit!
Also, on the other side of the fence, where just moments before the protestors and other journos were pushing forward, now the police are pushing them back. I looked around and couldnāt place CS, Brian or any of the rest of my crew. I also noted, with growing dread, that I was the only person that wasnāt a member of the New York Police Department who wasnāt handcuffed face down in the gravel.
āSIT DOWN, NOWā
Shit.
āIām press! Iām a freelance photojournalist.ā
āDO YOU HAVE CREDENTIALS?ā
By this, he doesnāt mean from my agency or from my paper, he means the official New York City Press Credentials issued by the New York City Police Department.
Yes, the NYPD, the boys in blue that are currently in the process of arresting me are the ones that decide whether I am a recognized member of the media. They will not of course take in account my years of work for The Guardian, the dozen or so pieces Iāve produced for BBC TV, or any number of other works of journalism that I have done.
I donāt have NYC NYPD Press credentials.
Shit.
So, I sat the fuck down. The officers went on to deal with other people ā so, I continued to take photos, from my seated position. Once I had taken everything I could from this angle I called my boss (day job) Greg Palast.
Me: āGreg, I think Iām arrested, they told me to sit down, but they havenāt cuffed me yet. I wonāt be making it into work later today.ā
Greg: [Chuckles] āOk Zach, weāll get the word out Keep me updated.?
[Above: Photo of Zach by CS Muncy]
Realizing that this whole arrest and day would be for naught if something happened to my memory cards – I (slyly as I could) removed the card from my camera and shoved it in my wrist brace.
Blanking on anything else that could be done I just sat there for a moment somewhat dazed as an old Phil Ochās song starts to run through my headā¦
Thereās nothing as cold as the freeze in your soul
At the moment when you are arrested.
Thereās nothing as real as the iron and steel
On the handcuffs when you protested.
The zip cuffs werenāt that cold, and certainly werenāt made of out steel, just heavy duty plastic that would need to be cut using utility shears. The officer that put on my cuffs was nice enough to ask about my wrist brace and put them somewhat loosely around that wrist, but made up for it on the other. I got off easy. The kid sitting next to me didnāt; very quickly his cuffs started cutting off the circulation to his hands and the cold didnāt help much either. After being helped up from the ground by the police he begged for his hat and sunglasses that had been knocked off in his takedown by the officer. Sunglasses and snowcap pulled over his head he looked like a reject from a Cheech and Chong audition. His banner and prop mannequin arm was to be left behind (I didnāt ask).
Lining us up by the exit of the park, we were taken off in threes to our respective wagons. I was with Cheech and a bearded protestor from Canada who had a sad looking guitar case ā he later confided with me that it wasnāt a guitar, but an axe (again, I didnāt ask).
It was now our turn to make the perp walk from the gated confines of the park to the paddy wagon.
Surrounded by about 40 police officers holding back protestors and photographers on both sides of us, we quickly walked to the awaiting wagon. I heard my name being yelled from both sides, on one Brian and on the other CS. Trying to give them both good shots I turned to one held a look for the moment and then to the other doing the same. I tried to look serious, but not angry ā honestly I was just dazed and somewhat confused ā still convinced at some point the police would wise up and release me, allowing me to get back to my job as a photographer.
That didnāt happen of course.
Have I ever told you the one where the Bishop, the pastor and the photographer get into a paddy wagon together?
Yeah, I think not.
Bishop Packard is a tall man, dressed in purple robes he commands attention just by his presence. Sitting aside him is a pastor, across him, luckily enough,is someone who worked out of her cuffs. Which is why we have this video. In it the Bishop breaks down why the Occupiers decided to take Duarte Square.
Even churches have a 1% and a 99%. The good Bishop is in the 99% – Trinity Churchā¦well, I think you got it.
The ride to One Police Plaza is a long one and seemingly the bumpiest ride in all of Manhattan. But weāve got the time ā based on John Knefelās reporting we have a long night ahead of us. The only problem is with each bump all of our cuffs get tighter and tighter. Cheech sitting next to me is in excruciating pain ā the Bishop tries to see what we can do, but none of us can reach his cuffs to try to help.
When we finally make it to āThe Yard,ā as the police call it, it takes them another 40 mins to process us and remove the cuffs. Paul Bunyan, the guy with the axe and beard, seems to have it the worst ā the officers canāt find a place to get the scissors between the cuffs and his skin.
Moving from the yard, finally inside I realize that they never took my cell phone ā so I quickly tweet out a couple of photos before they notice.
Inside the cell I noticed that Iām one of the first in my wagon to be processed ā though there is a priest, a minister of some kind, and about 12 other occupiers.
I decide to make an entrance by announcing loudly, āMy goodness is that a Priest on the Group W bench!?!?!ā (doing my best Arlo Guthrie voice). Everyone over 30 in the holding cell starts laughing. Then one of the younger priests startsā¦
And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there.
Then with gusto ā anyone who got the original joke starts singingā¦
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.
I think Arlo would be proud. We went on to have a good old time swapping war stories. The Bishop joined us 20 mins later and we all cheered. About a dozen other guys followed over the next couple of hours as we learned about the nightās continued actions. We held stack, talked about the future of the movement ā I held a small working group trying to explain how to get better media coverage, and prep people for questions and so on.
I wouldnāt say the time flew by, but it moved. My arresting officer processed me out in about 8 hours ā no iris scan ā just fingerprints. I was lucky ā some of the protestors coming in had some battle wounds. One 19-year old kid had a shiner from what he said was getting punched in the face by a cop. Another, a main OWS organizer of #D17, was talking to us, reporting on the nightās activities and blood started streaming from under his winter hat. He calmly patted it with toilet paper and continued his report.
Itās surreal ā 11 years Iāve been doing this shit. Years of anti-war protests, hanging with black bloc, shooting in Wasilla, Bed Stuy, and the reservations of the Southwest ā and jumping over a ladder is the thing that gets me busted.
As I stepped out into the cold, a free man, the dry cheese sandwiches that they gave us to eat still festering in my stomach ā I thought back to something that the Bishop had said. āThereās a reason weāre all here in this cell together; this is a moment and we need to keep is going.ā I agree.
Fuck, this is beginning to sound like some odd redemption story ā thereās no magical black man who can āacquire thingsā for me, and Iām not standing in the rain, covered in shit finally freeā¦just the realization that none of us are safe ā press, protestor or priest.
Welcome to Bloombergās New York.
**Yes, pre-arrested ā weāre talking Minority Report shit here. The police arrested an #OWS organizer for crimes that they assumed that he was going to commit later in the day.
***
Zach Roberts is a freelance photojournalist currently based in New York. He works with Greg Palast as his lead producer, and has edited Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast’s Steal Back York Vote illustrated book. If you’d like to support his work on the #OWS movement, cover his legal bills, or help replace the lens that got busted from a police baton during the cleansing of Zuccotti Park (see previous SG report) – you can donate to zdroberts@gmail.com via paypal.
Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes weāve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…
By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, Americaās youth have little hope of prosperity.
Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed āKillswitchā monitors and records a citizenās final moments ā up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents ā ābutton collectorsā ā are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.
When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide theyāre better off dead.
(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch ā see links below ā then continue reading after the jumpā¦)
āFor me at least, with comedy, it’s mostly about friction.ā
– Todd Strauss-Schulson
Todd Strauss-Schulson is a filmmaker whose journey to directing features is inextricably tied up in his journey into manhood; it all began when his grandpa bought him a video camera for his Bar Mitzvah. From those humble beginnings, Strauss-Schulson has gone on to nab Panavision’s New Filmmaker’s Prize, has traveled to Asia for an extended gig directing MTV’s Whatever Things, a reality show billed as “a more stylish version of Jackass with an all western cast.” His comedy shorts have played South By Southwest Film Festival and the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. Most recently, he directed his first feature, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, in which everyone’s favorite stoners are getting older and facing the responsibilities of career and fatherhood.
After a quick discussion about whether or not guys who are half-Jewish need to only be half-circumcised, SG caught up with Todd Strauss-Schulson in a bar in downtown Boston, down the street from his alma mater, Emerson College.
