It sounds official, like it has a bureaucracy and a headquarters with marble pillars. It sounds like it’s been around longer than you have. Still, when you hear it, you have absolutely no idea what it might mean. It has the effect of sounding like something but conveys no meaning.

Their broad-shouldered leader, Ammon Bundy, exuding the calm and steady manner of a high noon cowboy, announced the name on Fox news.

His heavily armed group, who up until that point had been called patriots, terrorists, activists, militia men and Y’all Qaeda, had taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in Oregon as a blow against government “tyranny” a few days earlier on January 2nd.

Their storming of the federal building, it should be noted, was clean and lightning-quick; as it being January, the charming, cottage-like structure that gave out free maps during tourist season was entirely abandoned.

Nothing much has happened since their occupation began. Bundy’s men, some of whom who are not camera ready,

have been brandishing copies of the Constitution for the cameras and making YouTube videos from their trucks for their now abandoned families.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbGdMKpHDDE

All over Oregon, wives must have been rolling their eyes, just as they did when these same husbands took off for their annual paintball weekend. It all looked very much like a Fantasy Camp for revolutionaries, and it was clear nobody was taking them seriously.

If any group other than white men had done such a thing, well, it’s reasonable to expect a different response. Imagine what would have happened if a bunch of heavily armed campus radicals took over the headquarters, or to inch closer to armageddon, black protestors or some frustrated Muslims? What would happen then?

We have a pretty good idea, I think.

No matter, what seems to be happening now is that a long-simmering and predictable feud over grazing rights has morphed into a movie-of-the-week. The white guys want the government to hand over land it owns so that they—The People—may use it as they see fit, using it for grazing, mining, logging or opening up paintball camps. As far as I know, the First Nations of America have yet to be consulted.

The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom are not impoverished. They’re not persecuted, marginalized or threatened in any sort of coherent way. Frustrated by their perception of diminishing entitlements, they want to fight back against the forces that impede their ascent, even if they have no idea who or what those forces might be.

They’re easy enough to make fun, these men. Asunder in a rapidly changing and globalized environment, they try to live as heroes in a mythic past, a place where their big sky ambitions could blossom unfettered by government, minorities or environmental regulations. 

It’s sunset in the only America these men have ever wanted to live, and so they tilt toward windmills, deserving of our pity as much as our scorn.

I am now boycotting all of Trump’s luxury properties and hotels,

and have donated my, “You’re Fired!” t-shirt to charity. I don’t just believe in talking about change, I believe in being the change, and so instead of complaining about fascism on my Facebook page, I’ve started to picket the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

This is my journal:

Day 1:

Too cold. Stayed home and watched A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix. An instant classic.

Day 2:

Still chilly, but realized that the world isn’t going to change itself, so dressed in layers and headed down to Bay Street with my picket sign.

Teenager on subway asked me what my sign said.

“You’re a Chump if you support Trump.” I said, adding, “You’ve got to fight the power, you know? You have to BE the change!”

The teenager said, “Your sign says, “You’re a Trump if you support Chump.”

I looked at the sign and saw that he was right, and then asked him, “Well, if you knew what it said in the first place, why’d you ask me?”

The teenager shrugged.

Stayed on subway until it arrived back at the stop I had started at and went home.

Day 3:

Pleasant day. Maybe 10 degrees.

Took an Uber cab to the hotel and began my protest.

The first person who walked out of the hotel was a woman wearing a beautiful sundress, a winter scarf that must have fallen from heaven and a cowboy hat. She smelled like the most impossible music and was so blindingly gorgeous that I dropped my sign.

As she stepped into a waiting limo, I cried out, “I would build a wall around all of Mexico for you, I would make America strong again!” but I think maybe she was mute, as she did not respond.

I don’t remember much else from that day

Day 4:

Woke up and meditated hoping to receive wisdom and light to become better protestor.

I then went down to hotel committed to be the best protestor I could be.

I began to pace in front of the building chanting, “Dump-Trump, Dump-Trump, Dump-Trump!” Although I got the words mixed-up quite a bit, several cars honked, which I took to be signs of support.

Had lunch.

Feeling in the zone, I began to protest again but then got a text from my wife reminding me to pick up my blood pressure medication, and so I went off to the store to make sure I got there before it closed. Took my blood pressure while waiting. 120/70.

Not bad! Got my pills and a lotto ticket and headed home.

Day 5:

Took Uber down to hotel again. Talked to the driver about fascism. He agreed about its dangers. (I feel I am changing the world one little bit at a time!)Gave him a five star rating.

Today I proved an inspiration. As I believe we have to unite as one against Trump, I was delighted when a street person joined in my protest. She might have had her difficulties, but she was a very spirited, loud and creative chanter! Said her name was Parking Lot, because that’s where she did most of her work, and that Trump was a “Fuck Roach.”

As Rachelle’s birthday is coming up, I thought I’d pick it up, refurbish it in my unique way (I like to paint primitive cowboys on things), and give it to her as a present.

At any rate, I figured the lamp would be safe until we were making our way back from the walk, but as we returned I noticed that some shady guy had picked it up and was looking at it.

Me: Hey, that’s my lamp!

Scavenger: I don’t think so.

Me: Heidi, attack! (Dog does nothing)

Scavenger: Your dog does not obey you.

Me: What exactly is it you’re trying to say by that?

Scavenger: Perhaps you are not the sort of man who commands respect?

Me: Perhaps I don’t want respect, okay?

Scavenger: Perhaps. Heidi, sit. (Dog sits) Good dog. (Now petting her on the head)

Me: Don’t touch my dog.

Scavenger: As you wish.

Me: I also wish for you to give me my lamp back.

Scavenger: It is not your lamp. It was left out with the garbage for anybody to take.

Me: Look, that lamp is a birthday gift for my wife. She’s going blind, you know, and this lamp, the symbolism of this lamp, is going to mean the world to her. It will keep her going.

Scavenger: It would be funny to play poker with you.

Me: Oh, why is that?

Scavenger: You are not a convincing liar. Your lip twitches when you are uncertain of yourself. I think that you dog sense’s that weakness, and that is why she doesn’t listen to you.

Me: I tell you, I do so much for her and she just doesn’t care. Drives me crazy.

Scavenger: Is it because you crave the love from her that you do not feel for yourself? First, you must love yourself before others can truly love you, and with animals, first you must respect yourself before they will respect you.

Me: You are an incredible buzz kill.

Scavenger: I am sorry, but it is God’s will that we are having this talk, and there is no lamp in this life that will ever be able to address your sadness.

He then put the lamp in his two-wheeled shopping cart, said something to the dog in a language I didn’t understand, and walked away.

To compound matters the girl who was instructing me on how to ride had a speech impediment. It might have been that she was deaf, or that she had so many dental apparatuses in her mouth that verbal communication was next to impossible, but the result was that I couldn’t understand a thing she was saying. It was awkward, this, because I didn’t want to draw attention to something she was certainly self-conscious about, but I also didn’t want to give the Horse Explode command by mistake, so I politely asked her to slowly go through the instructions again– something that likely happened to her quite a bit. This made her angry and frustrated, and her instructions were now a reprimand shouted quickly from underwater.

I sat on Grace, who was banging my leg against a wooden fence.

I asked another ranch hand what the original girl had tried to tell me and she said, “Oh, Cathy is alright!” telling me nothing about how to ride a horse. It was my hope that the horse had plodded the little route my group was to take a billion times and that I would be safe, as I had just seen a dozen 10 year old girls return, all giggling and smelling of strawberries and sunshine.

I shrugged, received a dirty look from Cathy, who was probably 17, and fell in line at back of our horse train.

At the front of the line, as if to get back at me, Cathy flirted with a friend of mine who is good at everything and looks like he is good at everything.

“Ah your ah chawbay?” She asked him.

I wanted to be a cowboy.

I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy.

Grace was walking me into low hanging branches and pausing to eat grass.

Up ahead, where all my friends were, they were talking about good names for horses. Now this is something that is right up my alley. I live for moments like these.

Cathy, showing off by riding sidesaddle so that she could face everybody but me—who was way back and to the left–asked, “Wha bout Bella, is ha a gawd name?” I tried to shout out, “For a Twilight geek who wants to marry a vampire” but nobody heard me except Grace, to whom this apparently meant “Detonate.”

She tore off and I stated bouncing wildly around in the saddle, my left foot shooting out of the stirrup. I was completely out of control, like a British comedian, and then the horse slipped on a rock. I did not even know that horses slipped, and as Grace went down to her knees I leapt off her like I was fucking James Bond, and rolled across the trail like I was born to roll across trails, popping up like a ninja ready for combat.

Everybody, even Grace stopped and looked at me with amazement.

Cathy, stunned and with wide-eyes, stared, “Arh ya a cawhboy, too?  Cuz ya dan look lie a cahbay, mahbe a jhockey?”