In January of 2001, I took a bus to DC to protest the first inauguration of George W. Bush and to visit a friend and drink a lot of alcohol in a lame club. First, though, I planned my sign. It was a gray piece of cardboard in the shape of a tombstone, and it said:
RIP
Democracy
1776-2000
"We hardly knew ye."
We stayed out late the night before, and the next morning she didn't want to get up and go to the protest, so I decided to go alone. I walked to Dupont Circle with my sign, of which I was extremely proud. When I got there, hundreds of people were gathering, and I quickly realized that they all had the same sign as me. At least 1/4 of the signs were a slightly different, handmade version of my brilliant original democracy tombstone. In fact, of the handmade signs, I would say a good 70% were democracy tombstones. A few of them even also said "We hardly knew ye", even though that part didn't make sense. So after about fifteen minutes, I chucked my sad, pathetic sign in a trash can, went back to my friend's apartment, and went back to bed.
And that's the story of the first time I ever saw The Naked Cowboy, who was also there.
Comments