RUDIMENTS, pt. 150
Making Cars
In about 1994, I went to
Washington DC, to meet
with Senators and others,
for purposes of motorcycle
legislation and helmet law
hearings and testimony and
all that. It was to be a bunch
of crap, and I knew that, but,
with a few other people (in a
large van I rented) we left at
4:30am and gleefully rode with
the moon all the down to DC.
No huge trip, mind you; I make
it out to be something here for
effect. It was a cool way of scraping
the dust of home off our feet.
Once we arrived there, other
people were waiting for us, etc.
There's something down there, for
lobbying purposes, etc, called the
MRF (Motorcycle Riders Foundation),
and they keep (or kept anyway) on
office on a very low-number street, 3rd
street, to Massachusetts Ave; I can't
remember. Back then, there was a
guy running the MRF, named Wayne
Curtin, and he'd just recently become
a little notorious because of some
things he'd said in Congressional
testimony about helmets. Some
gory stuff, considered insensitive,
and which hadn't gone over too
well. You know how all that goes,
I guess; Curtin gets half a big head
over himself from it, (he'd even
been written up with a little blurb
in Time Magazine), and starts acting
more like a bigshot than he should
have. People like that wear me down
immediately; they always want to dine,
meet for breakfast, talk big, look
impressive, and eventually they just
end up undermining their cause. That
was somewhat the case here too. But he
had a nice suite of offices, and a nice
office staff - the last kind of people
on staff that you'd ever think about in
the context (then) of motorcycles, but
that's how it went. Stepping outside,
(we had three or four hours to kill),
the street was really nice, like almost
Lincolnesque, and everything was but
a near walk away - the Federal
Reserve Building, Union Station,
and the Capitol Building too. It was
to the Capitol Building that we walked,
when the time came, to get started.
Along the way, I kept having problems,
in my head, as if I continually was entering
another time and place - Civil War era
buildings, the lamplights, the little fronts.
Everything right along there, then, was
still almost all 1880 legislative. Small
and simple, Federal style architecture,
with Georgian touches. I had a real
difficult time stating within the time and
place ethos and references of those with
with whom I was walking. It became
a real problem, and I was leaving the
space. Instead, I found myself entering
hospital encampments, pitched and
rickety barracks filled with men
screaming out in pain, pails of bloods,
doctors with saws and limbs, a small
pile, in fact, of lower legs, and arms.
Pale light, flickering flames, tired
nurses in badly-stained long white
dresses. There were occasional corpses,
seen, clopping horses, slowly pacing
by, someone yelling out, nightfall
descending. Man, it was the true
experience of a lifetime, and here I was
130 years later somehow, supposing
to be testifying and visiting with Senators
and Congressmen. To make it all worse,
the people I was with were modern-day
numbskulls, going all on about their
concerns and stuff. I was having a freaking
out-of-body experience of my own, and
they're yapping about steak-lunches at
Hogarty's, and the last movie they saw.
-
Everywhere I turned, besides the
lamplights and old doorways and such,
there were weird little mementos of war,
and various quaint historical markers.
Names of the sort I'd read about. It
was momentous. (If I could have escaped
away, I would have and not come back).
We made it to the Capitol Building, and
had to wait outside a bit for some staff-aides
for Senator Bradley (NJ, Bill Bradley, the
basketball superstar guy who was then
NJ Senator). But as it worked out, we
had to start instead with the lower guys,
honestly, now I forget, Representative
This and Representative That. Frank
Pallone, and other guys. They each had
really nice, traditional Capitol Building
offices - it was really impressive. Each
of the offices have these lights in them,
visible at the desk, and the large room.
They light up and click off - whenever
there's a vote happening, like HR549L
(the bill number), 30 minutes to voting
time, and then another set of lights
come on, and it says 20 minutes; etc.
So the Representative or Senator, visting
with constituents, watches and knows
when to leave, interrupts conversation,
throws you to a staff aide, and all. We
were fortunate with one of those guys,
Representative Bob Franks, a NJ guy.
He let us go with him - there's a House
subway, and these little underground
cars you ride in, to get to the House
floor, or the Senate floor, and there's
a visitors galley and a spectator galley.
The votes are oral, after reading out, AND
there's a tally board that lights up, all
of that after no one else wishes to speak
or testify, etc. Very formal rules and
procedure, and each bill has a long trail
of hearings first, readouts, testimonies,
speeches, etc. Nothing is quick, or easy.
Lobbyists and others who've pitched
this or that, they're also in the gallery,
sometimes cheering for their bill, or
applauding a result. It's kind of crazy.
-
I pretty much just sat there mesmerized.
Everyone else was hungry, wanted to get
to that 'lunch place', etc., or thirsty, wanting
a beer, blah, blah. Fools and interlopers.
Sitting in the Senate chamber, looking
around (it was mostly empty, visitors and
some tourists milling), all I could visualize,
and again it was freaky, was how some
Senator, in the latte 1850's, Schuyler or
somebody, got beat to death or near to
death, by the cane or walking stick of
another Senator - who'd attacked him,
right there, on the Senate floor, over
some speech or something on the Slavery
issue. Man, it was a different world then,
and emotions ran high and men were
brutes. And, in that chamber, another
weird thing was how these Senators,
mostly for the folks back home, and
for re-election purposes, they come in
and, on camera, but on them only, they
give these big, fancy speeches to an
empty chamber, on whatever the issue
is - to the empty house, but it is the
Senate chambers, so the constituents
back home get to see Senator Scruncho's
speech on the Senate floor, for their
interest no less! All the while thinking
the's speaking to a packed house.
What a guy! He gets my vote!
-
When we finally got to Bill Bradley's
office (he'd never really wished to see
us, a lame group of Bikers meaning
very little to him as 'votes,' after all)
he wasn't there; so they claimed. Blaming
a mix-up, the office people said 'Sorry,'
etc. We knew he was in there somewhere,
so, (sneaky) in the corridor we went in
another direction, around to where his
offices 'rear' doors were. Yep, and we
caught him, 'sneaking out' on us as it
were. He laughed it off, was unabashed,
and gave us ten minutes, in a stairwell.
I will say this for him, he stood his
ground, didn't promise us anything,
said he wasn't exactly in favor of our
bill, gave us reasons for his opinion,
let us talk, and then said, 'Well, gotta'
go,' and he took our reference papers,
etc., and promised he'd study them
and carefully consider his vote.
Nothing ever came of it, and that's
the way things go. At least he didn't
beat us with a cane.
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