The dream factory came to a park near you (well, me) as former killer robot and current governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenengger, spent a few days in Hong Kong at the end of his trip to China. Erika Larson, in another in our series of guest authors on In The Water, talks about her up-close and personal encounter with the Governator during his appearance at a local park...
When I saw the announcement that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be appearing in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to promote California’s agricultural industry, it was never a question of whether or not I would go. It was only a question of how many people I could get to come with me, and how radical an action we could get away with. To be honest, I didn’t even care about that much—even if I was the lonely crazy lady with an angry sign, I wouldn’t care. I just wanted Schwarzenegger to see me, to know that he would have to acknowledge my existence on this planet and remember his supreme failure on November 8, when his $200 million, odd-year special election saw every one of his propositions shot down in flames.
I came prepared with three large posterboard signs, rolled up inside a large plastic bag from a local dry-cleaner’s. The “California Grown” event was clearly a disaster. The cordoned off area was almost completely empty, and nobody was waiting by the stage, where Schwarzenegger would appear. In true Hong Kong fashion, the only people there were lined up for free samples of California strawberries, grapes, and orange juice. Promoters were running through the park and through the larger area of Causeway Bay, desperately spreading the news that movie star extraordinaire Arnold Schwarzenegger would be appearing, and please tell all your friends! We were approached on several occasions by event staff who urged us into the stage area, and then prodded us until we were directly in front of the stage.
In their desperation, the organizers had given us the best place to stage our protest. We were located quite literally at the front of what would eventually, torturously, become a sizeable crowd, at the exact point Schwarzenegger would break off from shaking hands and climb the steps to the stage. He, and the photographers in the no-man’s-land between stage and audience, would see the front of my sign. The audience, and the rest of the press, located in bleachers behind the audience, would see the back. We would be about ten feet away. It was one of several serendipitous events that day.
Waiting for Arnold to show, however, was nothing less than twelve types of hell. It would seem that nobody thought to inform the heavens above Hong Kong that it was the middle of November. The sun pounded mercilessly down from a cloudless sky, and without water I grew more and more certain of an impending heat stroke. California Dreamin’ was playing on repeat. For ninety minutes. The desperate emcee tried to keep the increasingly irritable crowd placated, promising that Arnold was definitely in the Causeway Bay area and would be arriving in “ten minutes”. This promise was repeated every twenty minutes for about an hour and a half, swiftly followed by entreaties in both Cantonese and English to call your friends and family and bring them down to see Arnold. Finally, as the long wait wore to near-breaking point, the emcee let slip what we suspected all along: Arnold was waiting for a larger crowd before he made his appearance. That prima donna!
School children lined up on stage to rehearse how they would meet Schwarzenegger. Half of a picture of Napa valley came crashing off the display stage. California Dreamin’ played for the thirty-fourth time. Square-jawed, cornfed Young Republicans surveyed the stage through mirrored Ray-Bans, while delicately pressing on their earpieces as they waited for instructions. One of them took several digital photographs of the crowd.
The desperate emcee assured the audience for the third time that Schwarzenegger had, in fact, entered the Causeway Bay area. “I hear California Dreamin’ a lot, here, but there are a lot of other good songs about California, aren’t there? How about California Girls, by the Beach Boys, or maybe we have the David Lee Roth version?” There was a pause, and he was answered by the opening strains of California Dreamin’. Then he started asking around the crowd. “You’re not from here, are you? Where are you from?” He asked a woman near me. “California? Great! You’re here just to see your governor, then! What’s that? You’ve been in two of his movies? Wow! That’s—Oh, you’ve seen two movies of his. I see.” This led to a desperate recounting of movies roles, which only served to confirm that Schwarzenegger had done positively nothing of merit during his two-year-to-date term as governor. “I really liked Twins!” The emcee gushed.
One of Arnold’s entourage staged a rehearsal of… Arnold walking a straight line. Oh, wait, he’s curving a little. Now he’s on stage. The excitement was palpable. California Dreamin’ burst out of the speakers in celebration.
Finally, Arnold arrived, only about eighty minutes late. I wondered if he would pull this kind of crap on a set. I saw him on the screen mounted on the stage, and knew he would be turning the corner and into eyeshot soon. I pulled the signs out of the bag and handed them around. Kat, wearing a T shirt that read “Born to Kill, Born to Rule”, and a Terminator-esque red dot over one of her sunglasses lenses, took “Arnold Schwarzenegger is The Groper-nator, coming soon to a torso near you!” Joe and Mei took “Got US$ 300 million to spare?” and handed it to the random Chinese kid who had somehow ended up on his shoulders. The kid’s dad was too busy videoing Arnold to care that his son had just been appropriated as a political spokesperson. I hoisted my own flag of glory, the press side reading “2003 Recall election: $2 billion, 2005 special election: $300 million, Fiscal crises solved: 0. Worst. Governor. Ever.” (last bit to be said, obviously, in a comic-book-store-guy voice); the Arnold-facing side reading “this California voter says YOU WON’T BE BACK!”
Our signs in the air, I had a moment to observe this strange creature called Schwarzenegger. He was a lot shorter than I thought he’d be. Not actually short, mind you. But not hulking, as you’d expect him to be. Under six feet, for sure. I was shaking, because I couldn’t believe it was happening and I’d never done something so bold as this, and I just couldn’t believe it was going exactly as I’d dreamed it would.
Just as predicted, Arnold broke away from hand-shaking in the crowd to go up to the stage, and as he did so, saw us. And he looked. For several seconds. I realized he was actually reading the signs. His face remained frozen in a plastic politician’s grin, but I knew he was reading the signs. That was all I wanted out of today. And then our eyes met. I could think of nothing else to do but stick out my tongue at him. So I did.
Just as Arnold turned away and continued to the podium, the photographers went apeshit, forgetting all about him and snapping photos of us. I was still shaking, probably worse because I had seen him read the sign and make eye contact with me. I could tell my face was trying to twitch wildly and uncontrollably in my nervousness, and I kept it clenched in what has hopefully an intimidating glare until the cameras had had their fill.
The moment the photographers turned away, my sign was yanked violently from my hands by someone behind me. I turned around to see a beefy, crew-cut security guy pushing his way rudely through the crowd, brandishing my sign. I started to chase after him but thought better of it, and went back to hold up one side of Kat’s sign. The guy, who I later found out is named Fred Beteta, was soon back for that one too, and we leaned over the guardrail so he couldn’t reach us. He yanked Kat’s end away from her, but I held on tight to mine for a few seconds longer. As the board finally flew out of my hands, it struck me on the back of my neck. I was pushed forward so that my eye hit the lens of my glasses and smudged it, which isn’t painful, but as anybody who wears glasses knows, is really, really annoying. As a parting shot, ol’ Fred yelled over his shoulder, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Let’s consider that question for a moment. What the fuck is wrong with me? Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger is the governor of my state! What the fuck isn’t wrong with me?
That said, I was very surprised by his complete rage. He seemed to take it so personally, and the way he asked me was as if he was disappointed in me, he hadn’t expected this kind of behavior of me, and it was clear that I wasn’t to be trusted again in the future. Did he not know this kind of thing would happen when he took the job? Does he get this worked up every time somebody dares to criticize his precious fuehrer? It was as though I had committed an act so egregious that it crossed the lines of acceptable human behavior. As if, instead of exercising my democratic right to express dissatisfaction at how my taxes were being spent, I had thrown my own feces at Schwarzenegger, or bitten off a baby’s head.
I had achieved my goal, and magnificently, but Fred Beteta’s irrational anger had put me in a snit. “Let’s get out of here!” I said to my friends. “Fuck this place!” As we were leaving, I was approached by a blond woman, also from California, who congratulated me. “My husband and I are both firefighters. We’re going to yell ‘No on 75!’” She said. “So’s my dad!” I replied, and shook her hand. Then a guy with a press pass, from the L.A. Times, came up to me. He asked if I’d had a sign, and I said yes, and he kind of nodded, as if he’d just been curious on a personal, but not a professional, level.
I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t interested, but it was important to remember that I had achieved that day’s goal. “Should we leave?” I asked my friends at the periphery of the crowd. Suddenly I had two people with notepads in front of me. Five minutes later I was surrounded by even more notepads, with a microphone and two tape recorders thrust in my face, belonging to the Sacramento Bee, the Chronicle, the LA Times, KCBS San Francisco, and others. And who’s this latecomer, running over and frantically copying the notes of all the other reporters? Oh, how cute, it’s the South China Morning Post, of course!
Kat assured me that I sounded very articulate and well-informed when speaking to the reporters, but afterwards, I couldn’t help but obsess about what I’d said. What if they took things out of context? Why did I blank out on the really important things? I could have mentioned the $8 billion debt owed to California by Enron as a result of the energy ‘shortage’, which was waived by Schwarzenegger. I could have mentioned that my father is a retired firefighter and therefore came under attack from one of Schwarzenegger’s propositions in the recent special election. I could have highlighted the hypocrisy of his promotion of California’s agricultural industry, considering his vocal support for armed vigilante groups aimed at persecuting the migrant workers from Central and South America who are literally the spine of California’s agriculture.
But instead I just babbled about how poor I was and how he’d wasted taxpayers’ money and I am a third generation San Francisco native and California is my home and it means so much to me and he’s an outsider and he’s accomplished nothing in two years and it hurts me to see what he’s doing to my home.
However, as I re-enacted the day’s events in my mind, I realized that while I stood there rambling incoherently in front of the crowd of reporters, Schwarzenegger’s long-awaited speech was taking place. He kept the crowd waiting an hour and a half for five minutes of dross about eating your vegetables and growing strong muscles (Ha ha, get it? Because he used to be a bodybuilder.), and the press wasn’t even paying attention. They were talking to a Californian citizen about the reality, and not the empty promises, of Schwarzenegger’s California. While you may not be able to call that serendipity, it certainly reconfirmed my sneaking suspicion that getting out of bed had definitely been worth it that day. If not for the protest, then for the fact that they finally pulled California Dreamin' for The Beverly Hills: 90210 Theme Song.
Of the media outlets present at the "California Grown" event, only one, the San Jose Mercury News, reported that there had been any dissent.
This isn't the first time Erika has tangled with Arnold. You can read more here.
UPDATE (23 Nov): A sound file of KCBS correspondent Doug Sovern's report on the "California Grown" event has been uploaded to the KCBS website. You can listen to the report, including a short clip of Erika speaking about her reasons for protesting, by clicking here.
