Anyone who was brave enough to venture out to do some shopping on Black Friday in Beverly Hills would have been pleasantly surprised to find a relative lack of crowds and a general attitude of holiday conviviality, BH style. I surmised that by eleven-thirty the crowds had already gone home and that they had been standing in line at the Best Buy for the New Nintendo Wii since 5AM so Beverly Hills was a good bet. My girlfriend and I had an important mission; to find a suitable present for my best friend's 40th Birthday.
The first sign that things were not quite normal in the normally perfect world of Beverly Hills was a group of protestors on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Beverly Drive. Generally speaking, I like protestors. I don't care what they're protesting for and it doesn't really matter if I agree personally with their message. The site of bands of people gathering together to voice their expression of free speech always fills me with pride that I have emigrated to a country where this is not only tolerated but a fundamental tenant of the constitution, something I do not take for granted.
Most Fridays you can see a small, peculiarly middle-aged group of anti-war protestors at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura. I dutifully honk my Prius horn and my daughter waves at them. For a long time there were those people demonstrating outside the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I'm not really sure what their grievance was (must have been a labor dispute) and I guess it's been resolved because I haven't seen them in a while. It didn't stop me from going to the Hotel but I noticed it.
Back to the protest at hand: As we drove by I realized they were anti-fur protestors. Chanting "Fur is dead" and displaying very graphic pictures of skinned and maimed animals including dogs, which seemed odd as I've never seen a fur made of dog. They were assembled peacefully and making their point. I didn't think much of it - smart of them to choose today, I thought.
We parked at Nieman Marcus bought a few things and then walked to Rodeo Drive where we intended to check out three stores. The anti-fur pack had now moved down Rodeo drive and was much more committed. They had grown raucous and a man with a megaphone was yelling and chanting so loudly it was hard to understand what he was saying. As we came out of the first store we found ourselves in the midst of the protest. They had taken over the sidewalk and were making it very difficult to pass. I also suddenly noticed that there was an enormous Police presence. At least ten motorcycle cops and several cruisers were standing by; police men at every corner. As we tried to walk down the sidewalk the protestors thrust fliers at us and generally made a nuisance of themselves blocking the sidewalk. My girlfriend walking a few steps behind followed in my wake as I tried to create a path. A man who I'll call Crazy Vegan Guy because he was wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word "Vegan" on it and because it turns out he was CRAZY, hit her shoulder and yelled "Idiot" at her. I barely heard it behind me and didn't see her get hit. She wasn't hurt or even scared and by the time she had told me what happened we had already ducked into the next store. I was mad and I realized she was wearing a leather jacket which was what prompted him to touch her. I'm sure if I had seen it I would have done something but I'm not sure what.
While we were in the next store, Prada, the protestors made their way down. Four policemen stood at the entrance of the store creating a perimeter and keeping the protestors out. The leader bellowed loudly into the cavernous store creating a deafening noise with the megaphone. I think they were chanting "Prada has blood on its hands!" In a world where hundreds of Shiites and Sunnis die daily cutting each other down in the streets of Baghdad, not to mention our soldiers, Miuccia Prada seems fairly innocent to me. I was getting really annoyed. This seemed far beyond the right of a people to assemble peacefully and every single person without exception in the store was disgusted. The police of course have the right to break up any protest that they believe will turn into a riot, even a political one.
The irony is that I'm as anti-fur as most any average, West Side LA, liberal Jew, which means pretty anti-fur. I don't own any fur. I would never buy a fur for someone. My ex-wife wouldn't be caught dead in a fur. My girlfriend does have a fur, but it was a gift from my Mother (a groovy number form the 70's that is once again sublimely chic) but she's never bought one. My daughter is a vegetarian and as a family we are bona fide animal lovers and between us have a horse, two dogs a cat, fish a snake - you get the picture.
The onslaught at the store was too much. We left and walked through the human Police barricade and once again negotiated the protestors. The herd had now grown virulent. The leader was egging them on. I grabbed my girlfriend's hand and walked through the crowd. Suddenly, I noticed a pair of Nikes, leather and then a pair of Pumas, leather, on a protestor. I know because I happened to own both pairs. I looked at the protestor and said "Leather shoes!" And then I started counting the pairs of leather shoes as we walked through the people on either side of us yelling. I mean really. Was this not the height of hypocrisy, if not really bad planning. If you're going to protest this particular message couldn't you even bother to break out your Keds?. In truth, most of the protestors were not wearing leather shoes but I counted ten pairs and as loudly as I could let the flock of protestors know -- I was exercising my right to be heard. At the corner I asked a Police Man why there were so many cops out for this demonstration. He said that "they were cooks" and known to get violent.
We ducked into the third store, which thankfully had a door and finally found the present. We walked back to our car and on Wilshire bumped into a friend of ours who was holiday shopping with her Mom. Just as we began to chat, there they were, the rabid gaggle, waddling down Wilshire. This time Crazy Vegan Guy walked right by me and said in a weird, quasi-Cockney accent "There's the dickhead from before" and pointed at me. He walked a few more steps and I had it. "You want to come over here and say that again?" I yelled, sounding like dialogue from a bad B-movie. He turned around and started walking back towards me. Now everything moved in slow-motion as I prepared for the fight. First, I sized him up. He was about my age but smaller. I definitely outweighed him by fifty pounds: My advantage. He looked crazy: His advantage. As he approached me a few thoughts raced through my mind. He doesn't want us to hurt the minks but he is about to take a swing at his fellow human. I wondered if I should mention this to him before I throw my elbow in his face. And then I also thought, this is going to be very embarrassing for my girlfriend and she's probably scared but it was too late. And just as he came up to two of the largest (and dare I say best looking) Beverly Hills cops jumped out and got between me and Crazy Vegan Guy. One of them said, "Sir, it's not worth it. We know that guy and he doesn't care if he gets hurt. He's even messed with us..." I backed down immediately and Crazy Vegan Guy walked away shouting something in garbled cockney.
What a pity that these protestors couldn't have figured out a better way to get their message across. After all, the reason they were in Beverly Hills was to reach their prime audience of fur buyers, right? They don't have a very good sense of their brand. Most people when confronted with the brutality of the fur industry would probably think twice before buying a fur. I'm sure if these protestors had given some thought on how to conduct themselves and maybe checked their footwear they would have been much more successful. For my part, I'm thankful to the Beverly Hills Police who conducted themselves with the utmost professionalism and courtesy and mostly that I didn't hit anyone, even Crazy Vegan Guy.