Being both cheap and in a bit of a tight spot, I had thought about trying to go in and take pictures without a book, but a book was the price of admission. There was one other possibility. When I entered Wasilla's Curtis D. Menard Sports Center, I found a sign posted on the door instructing all members of the media to go to a certain room to get their credentials.
For a brief moment, I thought about it. However, as explained in yesterday's post, based on some of the reports I had read from Lower 48 book signings, I feared that showing up with my professional-looking DSLR's might in itself prevent me from gaining access. So I had come instead with the new, tiny, Canon s90 pocket camera that my daughter Melanie and her boyfriend Charlie had given to me in a gift-wrapped package, with instructions to open immediately - just so that I would have it in time for this event.
So it made no sense to go to that press room and get the credentials that might well prevent me from getting a picture of her.
Plus, one way or another, I figure this is a book I should own and read.
So I put it on a credit card. Tucked into the back was a coupon for a free coffee at Pandemonium Booksellers and Cafe - AND a free ticket to an Alaska Avalanche Jr. Hockey Game, PLUS another coupon for one free kids meal at the The Wild Olive - a new place that I have not yet tried.
I will take advantage of all these things. I will blog about them.
I had determined that I would not come like a media person, but rather just as a regular citizen of Wasilla, coming to get an autograph of the lone, non-dog musher, celebrity of his town. I would just get my book, get in line and see what happened around me. I would not get in anyone's face with questions. I would put no one on the defensive. I would just mosey through the line, take no notes, but would snap a picture now and then, just as anyone with a pocket camera or a cell phone would be expected to do at such an event.
When I drove into the parking lot, I had noticed policemen sitting here and there in cars. All seemed to study me carefully as I passed by them. While scrutiny from a cop is always slightly unsettling, this was to be expected, given what a polarizing figure Sarah Palin has turned out to be, coupled with the tendency of individuals here and there in our society to act violently.
More police officers stood about inside. I walked up to this one. "I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to take a picture of you," I said, "I might as well catch the full flavor of this event."
"Okay," he said, as I framed him in the LCD of my tiny, tiny, new pocket camera. "Don't I know you?" he then added. "You look very familiar."
"I don't think we've ever met," I answered.
"You sure do look familiar, like I've met you before. I could almost swear I have."
"I can't ever remember meeting you," I answered. "But I get around a lot. You could have seen me somewhere."
"Maybe..." he said.
Actually, looking at his picture now, he does look a little familiar - but maybe that's just because I saw him very recently, at the book signing, when I took this picture. And the fact is, when you wander around Wasilla, everybody looks a little familiar, like you've seen them all somewhere before, because you probably have.
I then saw these two, sitting at the top of the bleachers: Ellen Lockyer, a reporter for the Alaska Public Radio Network and Al Grillo, the long-time Alaska photographer for the Associated Press. I used to bump into Ellen here and there in the 1980's, but since then I have come across her very rarely.
As for Al, I can't even remember how many times I have been somewhere in Alaska, maybe out on the Iditarod Trail, in Nome, Barrow, Fairbanks... anywhere... taking pictures and there he is, taking pictures too.
I am always glad to see him. Some photographers share a sense of comradery, and that is how it is with Al. I get a good feeling of friendship from him.
He is conservative in his political leanings; I lean left. But what the hell. When did all this bullshit that liberals must hang out only with liberals and conservatives only with conservatives set so firmly in?
I was shocked to learn that Al had been laid off by the Associated Press - on the same day that they laid off over 100 photographers throughout the country.
That's what this wonderful medium that I make this blog in is doing to my profession. Kicking it to pieces, even as it opens up ever more new and exciting avenues and possibilities.
Al was here freelance on behalf of the news photo agency Zuma.
He had driven out from Anchorage at his own risk. He would only be paid for pictures that Zuma would be able to sell. His challenge was big. The sports arena is a public building, but her party had rented space on the second level for her to sign her books. They were calling that a private area. No photographers were being allowed in the private area.
Al could shoot all he wanted down on the main floor where people stood in line by the hundreds, but he could not go up to the second level to photograph Palin.
So his plan was to stay until the end, and then get photos of her after she came down the stairs into the public area.
At the very beginning, just after Palin arrived but before I arrived, media photographers had been granted a brief window of minutes to shoot photos of Palin from a distance back, but that was it. I don't believe Al was present for that part.
I visited Al and Ellen for awhile and we talked about all the changes that have come to Alaska. Ellen said that the Alaska that we had all began our work in is dying, and, in some ways, might already be dead. This could also be said about the world of American journalism, as we had known it.
Reporting has largely been replaced by screaming; people have divided into their own camps, the voices they hear and listen to are proliferating by the millions, even as these voices funnel people through the talk radio, blogs, and cable "news" networks comfortable to their philosophy into ever more narrow channels of information and opinion.
Look at me and this blog. I'm part of the proliferation - albeit a more quiet part than most, lacking the influence to funnel anyone anywhere.
Finally, I said, "see you around," and went down and stepped to the back of the line. This young woman immediately stepped up to me with a petition that she wanted me to sign.
"I'm not signing any petitions today," I told her. She took the news in good stride.
I got in line behind the woman at left, Margaret, who, upon seeing my camera, immediately asked me to take a picture of her. She has been living in Wasilla for many years now, but is thinking about moving to Anchorage. She likes the fact that Anchorage has good, well-cared for trails, parks, concert halls and such.
I shot a couple of frames. Then she noticed that everybody around her was carrying books, but she wasn't. "Do I have to have my book before I get in line?" she asked. She had thought there would be a sales table in the signing area. "Could you save my place?" she asked, then she dashed off to the Pandemonium books table to make a purchase.
She was gone for at least 15 minutes. When she finally returned with her copy of "Going Rogue," I showed her the pictures that I had taken of her on my LCD screen.
"Oh! I look like a Russian!" she said. This caused someone standing nearby to make the inevitable joke that you can see Russia from here, which put another person slightly on the defensive. That person emphasized that Sarah Palin had been right. that "you can see Russia from Alaska."
"Absolutely," I agreed. "I actually have - even through living room windows. I have looked out from Alaska and seen Russia."
"You have?" Margaret exclaimed, looking at me with wide eyes.
"Yes, from Little Diomede!"
"Little Diomede!" she gasped, clutching her heart. "Little Diomede! Oh, Little Diomede! I used to work in Nome, at the hospital. I met many people from Little Diomede - from all over the Bering Sea. I love all the places of the Bering Straits region."
This caused someone nearby to inject that he knew someone or had a relative who had been to Little Diomede and, sure enough, you can see Russia from there.
"Little Diomede is Russia!" Another authoratively piped up.
A bit later, Margaret decided that she needed a coffee. "Would you save my place again?" she asked.
"Sure," I said. She left. I never saw her again, even though I had more than an hour of standing in line still ahead of me.
I also told this lady that I was not signing petitions today, but she asked if she could tell me about the petition, anyway. It's an Alaskans for Parental Rights petition - meaning that signers seek a law change that would ensure that a minor daughter could not get an abortion without her parents consent. She said that right now, a 12 year-old girl would need parental consent to get any kind of medical care from a doctor, be it the flu, removal of a splinter, or whatever.
But not an abortion. If she got pregnant, that 12 year-old girl could go get an abortion without ever letting her parents know. That was what "Alaskans for Parental Rights" wants to change.
That's a pretty strong argument.
Yet, there is another argument to be made: What if the 12 year-old girl is pregnant because her father raped her, and now she must get his permission? What if that 12 year-old girl is so frightened of her parents concerning such matters that she would never seek their permission or let them know she is pregnant, but would instead seek out means more dangerous than a doctor's care to make certain they never found out?
This may look like people meandering about in a crowd, but everybody here is in one line - one, long, zigzagging line - the folks below in the public area, the folks above in the rented, private area - some walking beneath a quote accurately attributed to John Wooden.
And then this disciple of Lyndon LaRouche came along, moving up the line towards me, telling people that Obama's health care plan was identical to Adolph Hitler's in the 1930's, that Obama was taking us to the same place of annihilation and death that Hitler took the Nazis.
To be certain, this was a pretty conservative crowd, but most of those in line ahead of me ignored him - some recoiled when he approached - but not all.
Although I had pledged to myself that I would be the dispassionate observer this day, my blood boiled when I saw the picture of Obama with the Photoshopped Hitler mustache, when I heard the hateful and false words that the man spoke.
He must have sensed this, because he approached everyone in line ahead of me, but very deliberately stepped around me to the next person behind, the one that he shows his literature to here.
This man listened, looked and accepted his literature. After the follower of Lyndon LaRouche moved on, the man behind me held the picture of Obama up in front of the lady who appeared to be his girlfriend.
"This is classic!" he said. "This is a real classic!"
Maybe 20 people up the line, I saw a young woman take his petition and sign it.
Stick with this post to the end, and you will get the response of one conservative to this man and his message.
I had been curious as to what the people in line would be saying about Sarah Palin, but the fact was, hardly anyone within conversation distance even mentioned her as we moved toward her.
They just talked about everyday stuff, like what year they moved to Alaska, the weather, dogs, sports...
The guy motioning to the kid selling books did make one brief mention of Sarah Palin. He said that he had known her before she became famous, that he had already read the book and that it was pretty good but that, in some cases, she stretched the truth.
He cited a passage that had something to do with her and Todd, going from one building to another in Palmer. In the book, he said, they cross the street - but both the building they left and the one they went to are on the same block, on the same side of the street, so they could not have crossed the street.
This guy came along, blowing up balloons, which he then gave to children. This balloon, however, is for a man to take home to his wife. The man specifically requested a pink poodle.
A little boy chooses his balloon.
The man carried a bottle of hand sanitizer with him. He sanitized his hands and then blew the balloon up with a pump as the little boy watched.
The little boy eagerly accepts his doggie-balloon.
I saw several people carrying books by the stack. The rule was that Sarah would sign no more than three per person.
This is Tyler, 19 years old, from Palmer. He was curious about my "Kivgiq 2009" baseball cap. I told him what Kivgiq was. He was very interested. He said he didn't know much about rural, Native, Alaska, but he would like to go out there and learn more.
He said he has a brother who is three-quarters Yup'ik and he wants to know more about what that means -about Yup'ik and other Alaska Native cultures. He hopes the people out there keep hunting, keep whaling; he thought it must be something special to witness. He spoke with pride of his father, who retired after a career in the Air Force.
I thought of my own father, flying with his crew through flak and bullets in his B-24, dropping bombs on Hitler's infrastructure.
Tyler carried two books for Palin to sign - one for his mother, one for his grandmother.
I liked him; he impressed me as being intelligent and sincere. We exchanged emails today. He told me that his mom and grandmother loved the autographed books that he brought them.
Understand that the line was moving very fast. Each person had only seconds with Palin. The book signing had been scheduled to last from 11:00 to 2:00, but, according to the metadata, I took this picture at 2:09:18 PM. I had arrived at about 11:45 AM.
As Tyler stepped to the table, Palin asked, "what do you do in Wasilla?"
I figured she would ask me the same thing. I wondered what her reaction would be when I told her that I was a photographer?
Then, there she was, in my eyesight for the first time, ready to give me four or five seconds of her time.
As I have earlier recounted in this blog, during her time as Mayor, I was ambivalent toward her. My head and heart and often my body was out in Rural Alaska and I did not pay much attention to Wasilla politics. I live in the unincorporated part of Wasilla and, even though I pay the same sales taxes into the city as do those who live in the incorporated part, I cannot vote in Wasilla elections. Not yet, anyway. The current Mayor, Verne Rupright, is working to incorporate us.
I just didn't care about Wasilla politics.
Even so, I did pick a few things about her. I learned that she was against any kind of rural or Native subsistence hunting and fishing preference, nor did she support the self-government rights of Native Alaska tribes.
When she ran for governor, I voted for Tony Knowles.
But then what at first seemed to be a very amazing thing began to happen. It seemed like she was going to be a good governor. She seemed to step away from the excesses and arrogance of the Murkowski administration, she challenged corruption in her own Republican party; she seemed to be making accomplishments where Murkowski had failed.
She seemed willing to reach across the partisan aisle - and actually worked better with Democrats in the Alaska Legislature then she did with Republicans.
I began to think maybe she would turn into a pretty good governor - as did 89 percent of Alaskans, according to an Ivan Moore Research poll done in May of 2007. A couple of warning lights popped up, like when she fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, a man who I respected and who, by most accounts, was doing a good job, but who would not fire her former brother-in-law.
Then along came John McCain... Sarah Palin then stepped onto the national stage and immediately claimed to have told Congress, "thanks, but no thanks," to the "Bridge to Nowhere."
That simply wasn't true. It just kept getting worse. She began to accuse Obama of "palling around with terrorists" and did not reprimand those on fringe who, in response, rose up in hate - even to shout, "kill him!" In doing so, it seemed to me, she gave new license to the fringe, a certain respectability that they did not deserve, a respectability that no Republican who loves his party should accept.
She divided America up into those who she said loved America and those who didn't.
I love America. With all my heart and soul, I love this country.
But in her words she placed me in that "Other America," the one that she claimed does not love it like the true patriots.
Then, after she and McCain lost, she appointed Wayne Anthony Ross to be Attorney General - a man who had stood against all the basic, fundamental, aboriginal rights of Alaska's first peoples. Alaska Natives took her on on that one and the Alaska Legislature denied her appointment. Ross had to go.
After she resigned, then came the "death panels." And me, facing the ever growing misery of paying Cadillac Premiums for a clunker insurance policy that has made it extremely difficult for me to get the health care that I thought I was buying into - that I need. This one was personal.
Now, as I placed my book in front of her, she looked at my hat and asked what Kivgiq was. I told her.
"Oh," she said. She signed my book.
I had two thoughts about the matter. First, she was obviously and understandably exhausted. Yet, she had been observant enough and sharp enough to pick up on what was on my hat. She had displayed the curiosity to ask what Kivgiq was.
But... why did she have to ask? She had been governor of the State of Alaska for two-and-a-half years and of all of Alaska, it is the Arctic Slope that has been far and away the most important generator of wealth and economy for this state. The Iñupiat are the People of the Arctic Slope and Kivgiq is the big Iñupiat celebration of dance and feast like no other.
Frank Murkowski had danced at Kivgiq. Any governor of Alaska should know what Kivgiq is.
I had just enough time to get off this one snap with the pocket camera. I picked up my book and moved on.
I went down the stairs and found Al, sitting at a table, waiting for Palin to come down so that he could take some pictures of her. Al has been photographing Sarah Palin at least since 2002, when she made an unsuccessful bid for Lieutenant Governor. He covered her campaign for Governor and her Alaska activities during the 2008 Presidential campaign. He has several photos in her book. He flipped through my copy to show them to me.
As we visited, the Lyndon LaRouche disciple came by with his pamphlet. On the front, was a picture of LaRouche standing at a Podium, pointing a finger, and these words, "The People of the United States NO LONGER ACCEPT their President or Congress." On the back was the photo of President Obama with the Hitler mustache photoshopped onto his lip.
"This is wrong," Al told the LaRouche disciple. "I don't like Obama, but it is wrong to say he is a Hitler. It makes me angry, just as it made me angry when people called President Bush Hitler." He pointed out that Hitler murdered six million jews and caused the deaths of many tens of millions of people more.
People who spout such nonsense unfairly "give conservatives a bad name," Al said, as the man left.
Al pointed out a photo that he took of the Palins with their daughters, Bristol and Piper.
By now, the line had grown short. Al badly wanted to go up and take his photos. No other members of the media were left. So Al went to the stairs to see if he could go up, but the guard denied him. He would just have to wait for her to come down the stairs.
Gradually, it grew quiet. Above us, we could see only a handful of people in the area where her signing table had been. Al checked again. Sarah Palin was gone. She had left by a route that did not take her past us.
So we left - Al to drive back to Anchorage without getting any picture that he needed to pay for his gas and his time; me, to Taco Bell because I had grown very hungry.
If I were to turn right at the light ahead, I would be on Knik Road. If I were to turn left, I could drive the three block-length of Main Street and then I would be on Fishhook.
As I waited in the line of the Taco Bell drive-through, I saw the moon, almost to first quarter. I rolled down the window, reached out with my other pocket camera, the Canon G10, framed the scene in the LCD and snapped this picture.
Friday, December 25, 2009 at 4:01AM ;)
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