"Fuck the po-lice." Despite the fact that the man who once said these immortal words is now starring in a child/road trip movie entitled "Are We There Yet?", they once meant something beautifully anti-establishment. Taking such a decisive stand against the oppressive and racist nature of the Police Department was a glorious strike against the tyranny and the bullshit of our modern established vocations of power. Fuck, fuck, fuck the po-lice. I had always known of cops being racist and hard-up for beating city rapscallions, but being a non-descript, non-threatening white male I never really experienced it first-hand. Until now.
Let me set the context a little bit. First of all, the discussion topic a week or so ago was the Virgin Mary and how she got shafted by God by getting pregnant without even getting to do the fuck even once. For shame. You should be able to get a little bit of action for having to bare the son of God. That shit ain't right. So eventually we began to talk about the G-Spot, as all good conversations eventually drift towards. Through the art of combination, G-Spot and Jesus became the J-Spot. Having just snowed, it seemed like an ample opportunity to write this newly discovered noun all over in the snow, as though we were five again and had just discovered the concept. Pleased with ourselves, we moved on.
Cut to a week later. Our group was about to attend a party, as this is college and those who don't attend parties clearly are wasting their lives. At these events, it is usually wise to pre-game, ie get drunk before hand so that if the beer runs out (which it almost certainly will) you can still have fun. I'm not one for big parties because of the large mass of people who I don't like, but sometimes you need to go outside your comfort zone, or whatever the fuck excuse I feel like tacking on here. Besides, it's fun to be drunk and silly and dance and scream and piss people off. People aren't so bad if you're inebriated. So, anyway, pre-game. Cider and wine. Yummers. As we left I stuck the wine bottle in the lining of my coat so as to allow for access to it in the future. I'm not really drunk per se, but definitely enjoying my current state of mind. So much so that I decide to write J-Spot on a car. Hey, how about that. Such a simple pleasure. Such childish abandon. Amazing how such a simple thing can bring me such joy. I'll write it another, I believe.
Oops. Cop shop.
Not seeing anyone around, I felt it appropiate to write J-Spot on one of the cars parked in the police station. As soon as I had done so, the parked police car behind me flicked on it's light and six police men swarmed around me. I felt like I should run, but that's usually not a good idea. I didn't really do anything wrong, I can talk my way out of this.
"Why don't you come back and finish what you were writing?"
"No, that's ok, I'm done."
"Get back here you little shit."
Hey, language, fellah. That was PG-13, my good man.
"You wanna tell me what you were doing?"
"Uh, writing something in the snow, I suppose."
"J Spot. What the fuck does that mean?"
"Well, it's like if Jesus had a G-Spot, you know? J-Spot."
"How would you like it if someone wrote on your car, huh?"
"I don't know if that's really the question you want to ask, because I frankly wouldn't care."
"Put your hands on your head."
Were these guys joking? I was fully prepared for the policemen to break into laughter and say "Eh, we're just messing with ya." Didn't quite happen that way. I got searched, not just padded but full on pockets emptied and everything. "Looking for rock" I believe was the term they used. Oh, rock, you know the street term for drugs now? Congragulations, I applaud you on your hefty backlog of knowledge, good sir. Police training certainly got you prepared for this job. Those little videos you watched in training did you some good; when someone on the street is looking for "rock", it's not an actual stone they're looking for. It's crack! Hey, you've done good. Have a fucking cookie.
"You mean to tell me you guys don't have anything better to do than hassle me? Tax dollars at work."
"Shut the fuck up."
"Are you recording this? This would make an excellent segement for Cops."
"What was that? Do you have a tape recorder? Check him for a tape recorder."
Geez, guys. I don't have a fucking tape recorder you idiots. Cops are too fucking literal. If all of this fuss is over a simple message in the snow, maybe I could somehow show them that this message is by no means permanent. People tend to wipe the snow off their car before the drive anyway; it's not only habit but it certainly helps to be able to see out the back window. It's just safer and ultimately better for everyone that way. My little proclamation on "J-Spot", which apparantly is quite offensive despite the fact that it basically has little to no connotations, would hardly be seen nor paid attention to. But in an attempt to make this whole problem disappear I wiped the snow off for them. See, it's gone now! They didn't like the fact that I took my hands off my head for this. Some shoving occured. Hey, come on now guys. I'm trying to make things right. I figured that if this horrid message were all gone from our sights, the drove of policemen would all grow big smiles and all of a sudden the sun would start shining and we'd all hug and sway back and forth and sing "Why Can't We Be Friends?" with unicorns and shooting stars dancing in the sky. Somehow things didn't quite work out like this.
"What did I do wrong? Is it wrong to write in the snow all of a sudden?"
"What are you, a tagger who forgot his fucking pen? You can't go writing on other people's cars."
"That was a rhetorical question sir. You didn't have to answer it. Do you know what rhetorical means?"
"Yes, I fucking know what rhetorical means. I have a fucking masters, you little shit."
"What does it mean?"
Silence.
"You can answer that one; that wasn't rhetorical."
"I can't stand these intelligent types; you're a fucking MENSA moron."
MENSA moron? What? How long did it take you to come up with that? Do you run into these "intelligent types" often? Sorry if they make you and your tiny penis feel inadequate; I think a few hassle sessions ought to set things straight.
"Aha! What are these?"
"Uh, keys."
Yeah, I use them to shoot lines of coke. Oh, and maybe to open my fucking door.
"You know, I never understood why people hated cops until now."
More shoving.
The group I was with had basically scattered at this point. They were around the corner, but they didn't want to get into this shit, as most of them were drunk and that would only make things worse. Thankfully one of my sober friends stuck around.
"You're lucky your friend is watching. I'd a fucking kicked you in the groin and broken your glasses."
After being let free, I walked solemnly away. The two cops that stayed in the back said something along the lines of you shouldn't mess with the cops. Oh. Hmm.
"Support your local police!"
I had to fit in one last asshole comment before I left.
So after this little power trip was over, I profusely thanked my friend who had stuck around, because my groin is special to me, and I'd hate to see it get hurt. Actually, part of me wanted them to full on beat me up so I could have something official against them. No one will make much of this event, and any complaints from me will do nothing. This is how the system works. On a Friday night in Chicago, six cops have nothing better to do than hassle some punk kid writing on snow. How many murders went unsolved, you think? Probably none, but it was a nice little piece of overdramaticizing the situation, don't you think? I think. The cops are basically a gang with legal authority, Crips with a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. Policing the law makes you the law. We can fuck with whoever we want. I always knew cops did this to minorities and never fully comprehended it to its fullest extent.
Fuck, fuck, fuck the po-lice.
Fuck that shit, 'cuz I aint the one for a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun to be beatin' on and thrown in jail.
What if I had been black? These assholes didn't do shit to me, really, in comparison to what they easily could have done. It's a frightening thought to think that these are the fuckers who are meant to protect us and keep the peace. They love picking fights. A badge is seen as a right of passage to do whatever the fuck you please, and it's kind of scary. In a desperate attempt to display their hairy chests and manly attitudes they pick on a skinny white college kid who wants nothing more from life than to love people and have a good time. I don't want to hurt anyone, and I certainly did not that not. What would Jesus do, guys? Did you even read the bracelets? Oh, that reminds me, part of the reason they let me go, it seems, is because I attend a Catholic school. Thank god I'm not Muslim.
"Go get your jollies somewhere else."
Jollies. Yeah. My "jollies". What do you think this is, fucking Scotland Yard? I'm certainly getting my "jollies" writing on cars. Look at the rosy cheeks and portly belly I adapt as soon as I put index finger to snow. My freind Rudolph comes and I feed him berries and we prance around as I chortle happily to myself. Jollies. Come on, people. If you know the term "rock", you have to at least know some street terms for "jollies". I'm high on crack, that's the only explanation for such bizarre behavior. Fuckin' pissers.
They didn't find the wine. The only thing I technically did wrong was underage drinking, which is bullshit anyway. But they didn't find the wine, so therefore, in the eyes of the law, I was in the mother fucking clear. It's another great representation of how incompetent these police are. They focus so much on the thing that wasn't actually wrong to find the thing I actually did wrong. They threatened to put me in lock up for the night and kick me in the groin. Aren't there some supervillians you could be hashing this out on? I am a waste of time, guys, all I'm going to do is piss you off and make you more anti-intillectual than you already were. Dumb and big, that's the way to be. Puff out your chest, it gets bigger if you contract the blood flow to your brain.
Back in the Twin Cities I had multiple run-ins with the police, but it was no big thing. I never did anything wrong, rather just did things that seemed odd and warranted their attention. Usually they'd come out and talk with the group and ask why we're filming someone in a robe and staff chanting end-times apocalypse theory at 2 AM in downtown St. Paul. We of course always had a snappy comeback, and were never beligerent. You work with these guys, they'll work with you. They're more curious than anything. I'm a smooth talker, I manage to get myself in good with cops. Minnesota cops at least. I had heardfrom a friend that in small-town northern Minnesota cops would come up and hassle you for simply waving at them. I wave at cops all the time. Who knows, it might be Officer Friendly in there. I could never wrap my head around the fact that cops would actually bother to stop you if you did something so simple as wave at them. It seemed so silly. I understand now. Cops are fucked up. Something about the uniform gives them this whole new mentality of power that must be wielded. So many people used to take such a militant us versus them attitude when it came to police, and I was never one of them because I had never had trouble with cops beyond the occassional questioning. Now I understand this us versus them mentality: They are the quintessential representation of power gone wrong, of the establishment shoving their ideals and might down your throat, of THE MAN. Talking with these cops didn't seem to do much, because the first thing they did was get me up against the car. I'm glad I was drunk enough to give them shit but not so drunk that I became obviously beligerent. I'm not about to let these pigs do that shit to me for nothing. I'm a snide comment maker, from here til eternity. Sarcasm is my weapon: All it hurts is your pride, which is the driving force behind what you're doing to hurt me.
Fuckin' pigs. Fuckin' coppers. Fuck the po-lice.
