Today's guerrilla gathering offered our first chance to check in with each other in awhile, as well as a spontaneous opportunity for a lyrical ambush that landed us on the nightly news broadcast of at least one local network affiliate. First, the notes:

• Jess is moving away in the next week: she handed off Treasurer duties to Laurie + Cesar Chavez connections to Jeff
• Jeff will help with compiling the weekly email calendar — Laurie and Jeff will be trading the responsibility every other week.
• Shahid will compile a list of ways to plug in for newcomers
• Discussed outreach to new organizers + the possibility of shifting wintertime lyrical ambushes from DuPont Circle to mobile ambushe
• Saturday, July 7, 6pm at Fire Swamp (a house) 1029 10th St.—Jeff's birthday kegger vegan straight edge (root beer and cream soda kegs and vegan hot wings)
• Next guerrilla gathering: Sunday, July 15 from 12 – 2pm at the Belmont House

Next, the low-down on a lyrical musical strike, guerrilla-style:

• Sitting on the back porch of the Belmont House, we receive word from Cesar that a group of protestors from Capitol Hill were condemning the public use of amplified sound less than a block away
• We mobilized, and proposed a dialog to learn about how their concerns would affect street musicians and protests. Rather than talk to us, they made intentionally annoying speeches and lobbied passersby to support laws that would restrict and chill the exercise of free speech
• After encountering an initially hostile respons (which, to their credit, ultimately evolved into mutual understanding and seeming respect), we set up our sound system and showed the beauty that amplified sound can bring to a neighborhood
• We played for at least 90 minutes, ultimately outlasting the anti-amplification protesters and sharing a brief chat — during which we learned of a July 9 hearing before the DC City Council at which you can make your voice heard — before they returned to Capitol Hill
• At least portions of the afternoon were broadcast on FOX News, which reportedly depicted us in favorable terms. We also did interviews with a series of print journalists who happened to pass by

Check us out next Monday, July 2 in Dupont Circle!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 7:38 pm and is filed under GPI Gathering notes, Reportbacks-Actions & Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.