======== Subject: San Francisco Picket Report, Sunday Dec 5, 1999 From: Realpch Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 08:43:31 -0800 Message-ID: <384BE7B3.721D@aol.com> San Francisco Picket Report, Sunday Dec 5, 1999 It was bright chilly day when I left for the annual Lisa McPherson Memorial Picket at the San Francisco Scientology Org. It was a good day for it. When I got there, I circled for a half hour looking for a parking spot. I normally don't do this, but it was going to be a long day, and meters are free on Sunday. As I went round and round the same blocks, I saw familiar faces at the Org, getting ready for the picket. There was a camera set up on a tripod, and police officer was going in the Org at some point, presumably for his pre-picket briefing. Finally I saw Jour heading towards the Org, red picketing jammies flaming, signs flapping, and I gave it up and paid-parked. The official picket commenced at around 12:30 with just us two in attendence. I had the feeling that the Org may have been disappointed by this low turnout. Jour and I spent almost a half hour fiddling with picketing paraphenalia, dropping stuff, and rearranging stuff, and I guess all this was recorded for posterity by that Org video camera. It may have made disappointing and unsensational footage and our old friend "Nasty Mark" had to hang out with the camera the whole time. At one point they just took the camera in and it didn't reappear until Phil got there at 3pm. Jeff Quiros was there, and Phil had quite a long conversation with him. Phil has lots to say and doesn't pull any punches in saying it. I myself was happy to turn my share of chatting to various Scientology functionaries over to Phil. Phr turned up a little later, and that was pretty much our quorum. We had two guests who came for the vigil later, and that was it. Jour passed a lot of leaflets, and inspired by her skill, I actually passed out more than my customary paltry number. We got what seemed to me more positive acknowlegement from the public for our picketing than usual, though perhaps this was because we were there for a very long time. I got a lot of thank-you-for-picketing's from people, and one fellow brought us 4 cups of hot coffee! At dusk, we had a brief candlelight vigil, and Phil gave a short speech about the death of Lisa McPherson that was heartfelt. Then there was a comic interlude with an apparent local who inserted his person into the ceremonies. We broke for dinner across the street at the nice Thai restaurant, and were there joined by a couple of SPs who came for the vigil. The company was excellent, the conversation interesting, the food was good. And Phil sprang for the dinner (as advertised) and brought "an interesting young wine"! After dinner we went back for another short candlelight vigil for Lisa and our visiting SPs performed a waltz on the sidewalk that undoubtedly contained a good deal of personal meaning and was lovely and touching. By this time, the wool clothing which had proved too heavy for the warming afternoon, was not enough for me in the chilly evening. I danced around until I persuaded everyone to leave, though certain parties were very interested in seeing if the lights of the Org, which had been turned off, would be turned on again once we had left. Another good picket with good friends. I hope all the pickets for Lisa this year were as peaceful and happy as ours was. Peach