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Considering the copious amounts of anonymous quasi-junk mail that The Institute of Sociometry produces, it is surprising that our PO box is sparsely filled. All the more reason that a recent package really stood out from the usual emergency equipment catalogs. The box looked to be issued from a printing facility. It was filled with 12 nesting white boxes which perfectly filled its interior. Within each of the twelve white boxes were twelve snugly packed decks of US Regime Change playing cards - a gross of them. The first deck out of the box was given to the pregnant mail clerk who had struggled with the clearly heavy parcel. Taking a cue from The Yes Men, we donned ear pieces, sunglasses, suits, stocked a brief case with playing cards, and headed Downtown with the VIP.
W drew some stares on the pedestrian mall. There were a couple comments, "Dart-board" from a nicely dressed woman in her mid thirties, and "Burn 'em," from a sideways hat wearing skateboarder. We stopped in front of Walgreens, cracked open the case and gave a deck of cards to a wino who had approached us with pro-W commentary. Immediately a large and raucous crown surged toward us barreling out an earful of questions and comments about W. The stock of playing
cards was rapidly depleting to disaffected homeless youth - completely
unashamed to take a FREE item regardless of content. "Are those
smokes!?" Exclaimed one with reverently inquisitive tones. A
tracked up junky drew back in alarm when confronted with The
Yes Men email list and our request for "personal information."
Flashes of a future scene played out in our minds. Squatter kids huddled
around the trash can fire playing rummy and re-aquatinting themselves
with Richard Pearle, Katherine Harris and a host of 50 other better
known scions of international opinion. Though it was good and rewarding
work, the crowds were beginning to threaten W so we moved to a more
secure location.
Only exceptions
to the rule were granted access to W and a FREE deck of cards. Most
interactions were from people who passed by and looped back or those
who had initially passed from safely across the street. We asked each
recipient if they would like to subscribe to the The
Yes Men email list. Only one, a young man who asked us if we were
engaged in a "school project" opted in. All seemed to be
strongly anti-W. One woman asked us to come give away decks of cards
at a rally. A fit couple in their early forties described 46% of their
fellow Coloradans to be "Dick Heads" for being pro-W in
loud confrontational tones to other passerbys. The husband, after
his tirade, guessed correctly that Dick Cheney is indeed the ace of
spades. A strong looking African-American woman in her late forties
sauntered down the block in heels, smoking a Saratoga 120 from a cigarette
holder. She eyeballed us and threw her head back in a confident "whats-up"
gesture which immediately put us at ease. A man that looked as if
he'd just stepped out of a bowling alley approached with a confrontational
gait. He stood close, looked us up and down and demanded to know what
was going on. Anticipating an encounter with our first dyed in the
wool Republican I informed him that we were giving away FREE decks
of US regime change playing cards. He took the cards and began to
examine the packaging. "I hope you enjoy them," admittedly
a meek way to illicit his response was met with a resounding, "We'll
be playing poker with 'em tonight!" |
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