Another case in point is the Pig. Introduced fairly early in the game by Hugh Romney, spiritual leader of the Hogfarm, a commune outside Los Angeles, the Pig gravitated to the center of the myth. It took a long time, probably because of Hugh's vacillation about coming, and the fact that he was bringing the Pig probably held the myth back. During the week before the thing happened we noticed the media picking up on the Pig; with the cold-bloodedness of Madison Avenue we rammed in the Pigshit. It took only four days. When I went out to get the Pig on some American farm in Northern Illinois, the Pig had already become famous.This particular pig was finally rejected by the myth ― with a good deal of help from Jerry Rubin and Stu Albert. The meeting at which this decision was made was quite heated and actually our only "meeting" in Chicago. They wanted a meaner pig. I thought it didn't matter, sort of liked the pig we had, was worried about the technical problems of managing a large pig, and had doubts that Jerry, Stu, and Phil Ochs could find another pig in time. They were not the resource people, who were all in my gang by that time. Jerry and I had a huge fight and didn't speak to each other the rest of the time. Which upset everybody except probably Jerry and me, since we were both so determined to make our Chicago in our own style. We would not let a personal fight upset anything. Besides, we were both so dedicated that I, at least, realized that Jerry would cry at my funeral and make the right speech and that I would do the same at his. But I deliberately told my police tail and everyone else except the reporters about the fight we had. I wanted to destroy a charge of conspiracy and thought this was the best way. It fitted my pattern of Not Getting Caught. Even though we fought, we were all together.
The first blood I saw in Chicago was the blood of Stu Albert, Jerry's closest friend. It happened in the first Sunday afternoon police riot in Lincoln Park. I embraced Stu, crying and swearing — sharing his blood. I went up to the cops and shook my fist. I made a haranguing speech, standing between rows of pig cops and scared spectators of the music festival, which of course by now was over. That kind of unity that Stu and I have, even though he is a Marxist-Leninist and I am a fuck-off, is impossible to explain. We are united in our determination to smash this system by using any means at our disposal and to build a new world. In any event it didn't matter. Jerry's big Pig hit the Civic Center and Mrs. Pig was let loose in the park hours later, screaming that her thirty sons would avenge her husband's arrest. I dropped the hint that we were considering running a lion. In the end thousands of pigs were used, real pigs, pig buttons, nice pigs like Mr. and Mrs. Pig (see wonderful photo in Chicago Daily News entitled "Mr. & Mrs. Re-United in the Pokey") and bad pigs like the cops, Daley, Humphrey and the politicians. It was shades of Animal Farm and you couldn't tell the pigs from the farmers or the farmers from the pigs. On the last they, I knew we had won when I saw Humphrey and Daley on TV and in photos. Everyone could see they were coming up Pig as all hell.
― freebird manjunya (zvookster), Tuesday, 23 February 2010 15:10 (fifteen years ago)