Monday, January 23, 2012

Occupella and Me

Leslie Hassberg, who invited me to participate in the human banner on Ocean Beach (Tax the 1%), more recently sent me an e-mail about a group of singers called Occupella that she co-founded. Occupella sings at protests and BART stations in the  spirit of Occupy Wall Street. That sounded like major fun to me, so I started attending three weeks ago. My main concern was that I might not know the tunes they'd be using, but it turned out that I already knew most of them, and the others weren't too hard to pick up. And now that I have ink for my printer, I have my own songbook of the words.

It's great fun, singing out my anger at the banks and profit-driven inhumanity in general, and finding harmonies that will blend with whatever chord the guitarist has chosen. Members of the public and members of the group often take video of us, including a BART policewoman the other week. Lots of folks give us a thumbs up in passing or simply join in. It's a very uplifting occupation.

We were asked to act out the words to one song by Leslie, about self-serving falsehoods the elite use to keep the rest of us quiescent, and how they make excellent manure for our gardens. That was a lot of fun, and drew me a compliment from another woman in the group. And I always enjoy singing Nancy Schimmel's version of her mother's Little Boxes that's about tax shelters in the Caymans.

I was planning to sing with them last Friday, in a daylong protest of Citizens United, but it was raining and unpleasant, and I went back to sleep  until long after the protest had concluded. Oh well.

I recently acquired some colorful signs about taxing the rich (thanks, Terry), and need to figure out a way to put them on some kind of easel or pole. I'm thinking about the collapsing cane that I bought in Hawaii when my knee was acting up.