Photo By John Hoff
A guy I know worked security at RNC 2008, though his heart and loyalties were somewhere else completely. He forwarded an anonymous inside account to this blog.
I'm publishing it verbatim, except for minor punctuation corrections and removing quite a few expletives.....
...
THE MOLE
What's one to do when they're down on the dime and need some quick cash? There is only so much plasma in one's body to sell. I looked to old standbys. eBay? Too complicated. Amazon? Too slow. Selling weed? Not my style. Diving dumpsters? Not enough of a guarantee. So I turned to Craig's List and once again “CL” saved my financial ass.
There it was. WANTED: SECURITY GUARD FOR RNC CONVENTION. I was set.
If I needed to, I could fall back on my social engineering skills to get the job. Fortunately they didn't do any extensive background checks. They didn't even google my name. They were desperate, they said. They had a huge influx of cash and needed to fill slots. It helped that I had previous experience and they hired me on the spot.
What follows is an account of my experiences working as a temporary security guard for the Hyatt Regency Hotel who hosted CBS News, the Kentucky, Idaho, and Maine delegations. This account is ramble tamble and if you're bored easily, skip to the end; the part about the delegate that freaked out, it gives lessons to us all. I've condensed my week long experience here. I've been in riots and protests before and wished I could have witnessed them from the pavement but one needs to pay rent and from the carpeted confines there too is value.
I've passed PDF documents onto Johnny Northside. One is a reservation list for the Oceanaire restaraunt showing Senators John Ensign and Olympia Snowe meeting with someone from Pfizer. The other, a Hyatt Room Reservation list. Everyone who made reservations at the Hyatt is on the list. Katie Couric, CBS people, congress people, etc.
I, myself have to remain anonymous, I'm a dumpster diver and though dumpsters provide the occasional diamond ring and luxury bottled wine, they tend not to provide the cash necessary to pay rent and take a girl out. Temporally the week long experience blurred into a whole. Shifts were 12 hours sometimes 16 hours. I went home and slept and then went to work.
This account starts in the lemony scented Hyatt restroom; it is my sancutary from security and the bald eyes of the cameras. Johnny Northside was on the cell line.
"John, the Target Center, the Target Center, you need to be there, they've brought in riot cops from Edina!" I whispered, my god, my god the Gestapo is near.
This was hot. I'd seen the riot cops strolling down the halls of the Hyatt. The Edina riot cops carried around long 4 foot sawed off broom sticks. I guess for whacking off dangerous protesters. They had the plastic handcuffs, tear gas masks and wore beige fatigues. Gulf War surplus? Wow, inexperienced officers combined with a riled up crowd, what could be better?!
I huddled in the stall, THEY, the riot geared cops, would come bashing down the stall door. I would (expletive) my pants. The irony. "Yes go to the Target Center."
"Who's playing?" he said.
"RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE," I said with the glee of a Montgomery Burns.
"Oooooo," he said. He saw the images I was seeing. LA. 2000. Cops were spraying tear gas as if they worked in Macy's perfume department and the 50 foot woman wanted to try a sample of their new Chanel No. 5 extra spicy. READY! AIM! FIRE! and so they would reload their gas muskets, and fire them into the air. And yes, Rage Against the Machine not only started but fueled the fire at the Democratic National Convention out in beachy California. (rally round your family, pocket full of shells)
When was the last riot in Edina anyway? I guess this is an example of trickle 'round economics. Hell trickle 'round economics from the cash infusion of national security (read payday for weapons manufacturers) almost gave the Coast Guard in LAKE SUPERIOR machine guns. Thank god that didn't go through, there wouldn't be a muskie left in the Great Lakes. But it was the Canadians, we had to worry about. Someday they would goosetep across the border and leave maple leaf bootprints in our soil. Machine guns on Superior. Those Guard stooges would have been slapping themselves silly with those guns. Canuck nuck nuck.
"But I've got a hot date," John said. John always has a hot date. Revolutionaries like John tend to have that flypaper quality except they attract pink butterflies. Hot dates, yes, I saw his point. It was a good one, worthy enough to stop any activist from stopping a bulldozer. But riot cops from Edina! Bring the date to the protests, what better to fuel passion than with collective passion?
"John, I've got to go, I've got to return to duty," I closed the phone slowly and then took a long look in the mirror. Yes to attend to serious, serious duty. Walk and stand, walk and stand. Scratch. Walk and stand. Listening to the radio as guards determined if sausage or meat lovers pizza was more strategically advantageous for protecting helpless (read wealthy) delegates.
I went back to my post. None of the levels of security suspected a thing. Not the off duty MPLS officer, the Hyatt House Security, Icon Security, the Secret Service, or the Capitol Security agents. That's right. Six levels of security (seven if you include the cameras) and none of them noticed the mole squatting in the stall making calls to a blogger.
If the hiring agency only had done a background check. They didn't. If they had done a Google. They didn't. They would’ve found they shouldn't have hired me because not only wasn't I a Republican, I wasn't even a Democrat. I was an anarchist. I was a traitor. I was a universalist. Wrench the whole system, at least I wouldn't be forced to work for the MAN.
We rotated posts. Sometimes I would be staring at the concrete of a stairwell or the glass of the skyway. I could be by the elevators or directing customers to the fashionable Oceanaire restaurant. Best Seafood by MPLS-ST. PAUL Magazine. The walls were lined with plaques. Capitol Security slept in chairs outside their doors.
I liked being outfront of the Hyatt Regency on the Nicollet Mall side the best. Some guards held open doors for delegates. I chose not to do so. What door has a delegate ever held open for me? Lucky if I, myself, didn't find doors locked tight with a tuition bill or two or three or ten. No, I walked and stood.
I saw the Chevy Hybrid SUVs drive in and drive out. Chicks with Dicks did their thrust dance across the street. Ahh, my blue haired babe. CBS correspondant Bob Schieffer and his wife came and went. A drunk laid down and made a dirt angel on the sidewalk. Politicians and lobbyists undertipped the valets, the taxi drivers and the bell boys. "Excuse me Sen. Snowe, I need to check your bag." Nothing but paper and planners. She was a bit off put by the search.
We checked everyone's bags. It didn't matter. Some raised a fuss, many thanked us for our "hard work."
"Thanks for protecting me" they said. And everytime I got a complement I thought about how these people let me intrude on their lives. I was a civilian security guard, not a cop with a warrant. Yet everyone let me check their bag. If they refused, I would call my supervisor and let him know. Then they would be allowed to pass. Security is about the appearance of security. And the reality of it was, delegates were always at risk. I could have shanked Senator Snowe. (They didn't check security guard bags.) I could have brought bombs in my bag and walked into the delegate parties. 40 dead, 129 wounded....I could have brought tools to shut down the electricity, pulled fire alarms, stolen from the luggage.
I could have clogged the toilets and overflowed them forcing delegates to walk in their own shit Tyler Durden style. Security is not really security but the mirage of it. Yes, the Hyatt was loaded with cameras and yes they had six levels of security. But there are always loopholes and I was a living, wage-earning example of one. But I am more voyeaur than violent nut job. The reality is that if someone wants to cause serious damage, they can do so. Increasing levels of security is a losing game and money spent for six levels of security could have been spent keeping libraries open.
On our radios we could listen into house security and if someone hacked it right we could have listened to the securer channels. As guards we were also given access to who was staying in which room and who was eating with whom in the swank Oceanaire. We had access to room keys, clearance to private areas, and the appearance of authority. Read anything by Kevin Mitnick.
We could eavesdrop. That's what I did out front and republican delegates from (insert name of state) are pretty boring. They talked about where the parties were and what they drank at the parties. The same pattern repeated over and over. None of the dozens I eavesdropped on talked about the Iraq, poverty, health insurance, or education. They talked about their new shoes, what car they were gong to buy, or how they wanted to bang Sarah Palin 'til her hair unwound and her glasses fell. They flirted, they networked, they got directions to parties. They never said hello or thought that rushing through the revolving doors while the little janitor lady cleaned its glass was a bad idea. Don't worry, she was okay. Most of all the delegates complained about the hippies.
Hippie this, hippie that. After the Rage Against the Machine concert some girls biked by and said "FUCK THE RNC!!!" while delegates downed their smokes outside. "Fuck you hippie!" the delegates shouted. "Take a bath!" And a hippie was anyone who didn't wear $100 clothes or wasn't sexually repressed. A hippie was anyone who thought that killing civilians in a war was wrong. Or anyone that rode a bike or showed some humility. The delegates blamed the hippies for the ills of society. Hippies were lazy and didn't work. As if forcing hippies into the work force would suddenly stop inflation and win the war.
THE CLOVE GIRL
Everyone of the delegates and press people walked in and out happy to have their societal blinders on except for the boyish young woman smoking her clove cigarettes. She sat on a bench, her eyes scanning every face for a comrade. She wore the badges of a delegate but the expression of a cool razor toting pickpocket. She was confident and didn't talk to anyone. Her eyes met mine and she knew I wasn't a straight either. And we both wanted to bite off each other's clothes. The security guard uniform and the blazer and slacks in a mangled pile. We'd make it on that bench right there, right now. Then on the sidewalk, then on the hood of the limo, then in the revolving doors with the cleaning lady safely at bay. Yes. Absolutely yes.
But that would have blown our cover. So we settled for the eyes and the grin. (A day or two later as I smoked a cigarette on Nicollet Mall I smelled the clove again. I looked up and it was her walking past me. The same coy smile greeted me. She wore a homemade "make art, not war" jacket. Clove Girl, if you happen to be reading this, send Johnny Northside an email.)
They caught one of my coworkers sleeping on the job and fired him. Sometimes there would be no shows and some posts would be covered by officers from the first shift. I worked the second shift. Security officers were working 16 hour shifts. We had a guy that worked a 24 hour shift, slept 6 hours then came back for more. His eyes looked like peas in search of a reverie. Security guards work shifts like that, they have to bank while the banking is good. But some can't take the strain and fall asleep. Most slip into a daze sucking down energy drinks and coffee, truckers with badges. They pace back and forth wearing paths in the carpet. They sneak into corners and play games on their cell phone. They count the helicopters they hear. They think about the next meal. They imagine which delegates are closet homosexuals. They look out from the skyway into the orange silhouetted windows across the street and see a couple dancing and removing their clothes, the lights go out.
THE DELEGATE FREAK OUT
They'd rotated me through every post and by now the daze had set in, the mind goes blank. I'd done standard exercise routine, the Kegels, the bun squeezes, the neck rolls. One only has so many body parts to work on a 12-24 hour shift. I'd settled on trying to zone out completely by staring at room windows at the Millenium Hotel but I couldn't even do that. I counted windows and made small talk with other guards.
Then HE showed up wearing a light brown suit wearing his delegate badges like bling around his thin neck. He talked eagerly with clear effeminateness. At first we couldn't understand him.
"Wait wait, what?" we asked coming back to first level reality, on the job again.
"Minneapolis is a horrid town, just horrid," he said. Already my partner was giving me the eye roll.
"How can we help you?"
"Minneapolis doesn't deserve to host another convention ever again if it's police officers won't even protect citizens. I've already talked to three congressmen and two senators and I'm contacting the media. Minneapolis doesn't deserve another convention!"
We waited, he was breathing fast preparing to spill all of his complaints out to anyone that showed any hint of authority.
"Someone was stalking me!" He pointed to himself. "I was walking and someone was following really close behind me and I crossed a street and he crossed so I started walking faster and he started walking faster then I crossed another street and he again crossed the street."
We took it in, giving away no repsonse.
"You don't understand. I went to a security guard and he said he could see the man following me but that he couldn't do anything unless the stalker stepped onto the property. I could see him standing there, the stalker looking at me, just staring at me. His eyes, god his eyes, it was his eyes."
He was breathing heavily again.
"I had to run across the street and a taxi almost hit me. I went to these police officers and I told them about the stalker and THEY LAUGHED AT ME. They said it was probably because I looked like a lawyer and left me. I could feel him still staring at me. And there he was, the stalker, right there, god I was so scared, my heart is palipating right now, feel it, put your hand here and feel it."
"Sir, we're not allowed to touch the customers."
"Well you can see it, just look at me, oh god I'm sweating. And the stalker, you know what he said to me?"
"No."
" 'Who’s in control now mother(expletive)!' That's what he said. His eyes, just vicious. This is a horrid town, just dangerous. Police officers laughing at me, I've never been so insulted. I've talked to three Congressmen and two senators already I'm not going to stop. "
"We're sorry about that, we hope you have a better night."
"I'll try, I won't stop I really won't. Minneapolis won't get another convention because of me."
He disappeared inside and my partner and I watched him disappear behind the revolving door. We laughed our asses off. My partner knew it was a game and I knew it was a game. We were going to take our checks to the bank. His kids were getting school clothes and I could put down a rental deposit. The stalker was a game and now some poor delegate would preoccupy himself with finding someone that would "do something!"
That was a week working at the Hyatt. For all the buildup, nothing much happened. Just paranoia and expenses that parade as necessities. I walked out everynight and went home wishing I could be where the action was, where the real people were. Broke but not so broke. The real people I did meet at the Hyatt were my coworkers, working stiffs, supporting their kids or trying to save up money to go to college. We did our jobs but when our shift was over, we talked.
"Mother(expletive) delegate babies," said one fellow officer.
"Oh thank you for protecting us," another whined in a tone that would mock the most pampered ShihTzu.
"You know what bugs me the most," said another. "They'd don't tip worth a shit. They don't say ‘hello’ to the cleaning people, they gyp the taxi drivers and you can tell, they don't give a (expletive) about the poor. You don't tip, then you don't give a (expletive) about the poor."
And I thought about that and looking back at the dollar tips the taxi drivers were getting, the non tips valet and bellboys were getting and especially talking to a bar tender that worked shifts during the convention, it rang true. They were rich and they didn't tip. They were rich because they didn't tip. Who paid my wages during the convention, really? Not the Republican Party but the taxpayers. I said goodbye to my fellow security guards. One was heading to Iraq, another to college, and others to bars.
Understanding people is the key to a large part of this world and I understood the delegates too. They were scared, a fear built up by bogeyman anarchists and inflaming media accounts. They were ignorant and separate. They were white and sheltered. Sheltered in their coach buses, in their stadiums, exclusive parties, taxis, in their hotel rooms. How many locals did they meet? And the one that did venture down into the city found himself chased and stalked. And he would go back to the others and baaaa-sheep his warnings to the others.
"'Whose in control now mother(expletive)!' That's what he said. His eyes, just vicious."
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