Part 2 – The Few

I couldn’t even think about doing another line. We’d just finished a mass picket that made it clear to the Parc 55 we wanted recognition and a good contract. But another group of hotel workers was under attack and I was going to join the first string at an after-hours chant-fest on their behalf. I had to concentrate – If I didn’t soar, I might crash and burn.

We’d been a thousand people at the earlier picket, dancing and chanting on the polluted, profiteering street, reverbing our anger to the executive suites high above.

“I think they heard us.”, I said to Chito as we walked up Mason.

“I’m signing the contract as we speak”, he replied, miming signing the deal we wanted.

“Let’s hope”.

“Yeah, well you can lead next time”, said Clare, “I can barely move”.

“Go home. We can cover”, I told her.

“I signed up for tonight”, she said. “I’d rather get it done”.

Tired as we were, we had another hotel to picket. Its owner, A. Cal Rossi had declared bankruptcy and wanted to stiff our members, denying them their benefits and refusing any severance pay.

We couldn’t drag people up from the just completed gigantic action. They needed to go home, to recover. The staff would have to take care of it, joining the Donatello workers in front of their hotel on Post.

“Cuantos tenemos?”, I asked Chito. “Sufficiente”, he said. “Enough.”

The neighborhood changed as we moved up the hill, leaving behind the convention hotels and raw Market Street scene. Up we moved, from Class A to B territory, up to where the air is cleaner and the sidewalks more genteel, through higher and higher cost boutique hotels. Below us lay the giant properties of Union Square, to the side the teeming streets of the Tenderloin, ahead the heights of Nob Hill. Partway up, waited ten Donatello workers, fresh and ready to roll.

“Who stays here?” I asked. “It’s Class B+, the affluent business traveler”, said Clare. “They overspent on the renovation, but they’re fine other than that. The bankruptcy is just a tactic to reorder their debts.”

“They’re offering the workers nothing”, said Chito. “It’s like they never worked here.”

We rounded the corner of Mason and Post, greeted the workers and caught our breaths.

As we waited for the picket to begin, the rest of our crew arrived from the Parc, half-finished fast-food in hand. They stuffed it down as the start-time arrived two more hours and we would be done for the day.

I looked around at my fellow staffers and chant-leaders. This was the best of the best, in a union that always had a picket line going, that had been given an award for its creative protests.

“Let’s go”, said Chito, the lead this time. “These folks deserve something for their years of service.”

We dug deep and dove in, circling in front of the hotel’s entry, wielding again our most effective tool. From field hollers through Civil Rights marches to the unions – we took the call-and-response tradition and ran with it.

What do we want?
Justice!
When do we want it?
Now!

From deep down, Clare pulled out first one chant, then another, cutting through her exhaustion as the Donatello workers buoyed her up with their response, buoyed us all up, starting slow, the simple ones again:

San Francisco should beware
Donatello is unfair.

Finding our second wind:

San Francisco should beware
Donatello is unfair!

Passing on the horn to the other first-stringers, morphing into something like the blues, a bit of jazz, the spirit of improvisation creeping in across our tired bones:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi
Why are you so mean and bossy?

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi,
Why are you so mean and bossy?

Liberated from the need to keep it simple, to forge unison chanting from a thousand people, able to soar now, riffing, improvising, pushing past fatigue to make it really interesting.

And difficult to emulate.

Clare handed the bullhorn over to O’Connor. He had come from the UFW, schooled in calling the workers to come out of the fields, over the shoulders of the sheriff’s deputies, dodging their billy clubs in the 106 degree heat:

Huelga! Huelga!

Famous for his slashing, up-and-down use of the union flag, hollering at larynx-damaging levels:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi (flag up)
Why (downthrust) are you so mean and bossy?

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi (flag up)
Why (downthrust) are you so mean and bossy?

Fifteen minutes later, O’Connor handed it off to Charlie, our rock-and-roll organizer, who channeled Elvis:

A. Cal, uh, A. Cal Rossi
Why so mean and b, b, bossy?

The Donatello workers enjoying this part of the show, brought some of the king to the line, arms up, fingers pointing in time to the hotel:

Why so mean and b, b, bossy?

His turn done, Charlie passed the horn to Casey, newly elected union president, who had organized with the transport workers in Ireland. His chants had that out-from-under-the-British-boot-heel sardonic edge, as if it was a real question:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi,
Why are you so mean and bossy?

From Casey to Lisa, queen of the San Francisco homegirl, alto chant. She called as if she was A. Cal’s mother, his older sister, and she was not pleased with his behavior:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi,
Why are you so mean and bosssssy?

Security was not happy, the guests coming and going were not happy, and we were pretty sure A. Cal was having trouble digesting his dinner high above in his penthouse suite. We soldiered on.

From Lisa to the incomparable Alphonso, rank-and-file activist to field rep, king of the soul chant, the Motown-inflected vibe:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi,
Why so mean and why so bossy?

Hey Cal, hey Cal Rossi,
Why so mean and why so bossyyy?

On into the San Francisco night, the traffic headed downtown lightening, the foot-traffic quieting, our powerful, block-encompassing dome of sound capturing those still stumbling back from their after-meeting parties to their upscale digs:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi…

Bouncing off the mid-height buildings into the rooms-for rent of the Donatello:

“Shut up! Keep it down!”, a guest shouted, tossing ice at us from the tenth
floor, which we blocked with our picket signs.

“Shut it!”

At which point we knew it was working, we were driving the guests crazy and the business away.

Why so very mean and bossy?

The two hours of chant-jamming passed surprisingly quickly, until it was my turn to lead, my first at an after-hours performance alongside Local 2’s veteranos. I took the horn:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi,
Why are you so mean and bossy?

Warming to it, gathering steam:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi,
Why so mean and why so bossy?

Finding the third wind at the end of the long day, supported by the workers and my more experienced peers, overcoming doubt, digging deep, where the barrier between ego and id gives way, and a riff bubbled up, transforming into a whole new chant:

He’s a mean guy in a bowtie,
A. Cal Rossi, hunh!
He’s a mean guy in a bowtie,
A. Cal Rossi, hunh!

Running with it:

He’s a mean, mean guy in a mean, mean tie,
A. Cal Rossi, hunh!

He’s a greedy guy in a greedy tie,
A. Cal Rossi, hunh!

We were rolling now, staff and members, responding in a jazz groove, improvising to the end of a very long day.

Handling the bullhorn like an electric guitar:

He’s a bad bad, bad guy in a bad, bad tie,
A. Cal Rossi, hunh.

He’s a greedy guy in a greedy tie,
A. Cal Rossi, hunh

Dancing, Chuck Berrying, exorcising Rossi’s nastiness, sending his greedy spirit away.

High on our repetitive, rhythmic meditation, I realized – this was our afterhours club where musicians go after all the other clubs close to challenge each other, to take it higher – call-and-response like the Dead and Dark Star, Coltrane and My Favorite Things…

We were breaking new ground:

He’s a nasty guy in a nasty tie,
A. Cal Rossie, hunh.
An empty guy in an empty tie,
A. Cal Rossie, hunh.

“Shields!”

He’s a mean guy in a…

“Shields”, shouted Chito again. “It’s time to wrap.”

Startled out of my reverie, I saw Chito signaling me – we had a court order to stop at nine.

Soon, the late-night hum of the city would reassert itself, with the
Donatello workers and my colleagues giving me high-fives, letting me know I had been found worthy (Yes!).

Before that happened, though, we needed to send one more boycott driving blast the hotel’s way, leaving an echo of our presence that would carry through to our next late-night engagement on their doorstep:

A. Cal, A. Cal Rossi,
Why are you so mean and bossy?
He’s a mean guy, in a bowtie,
A. Cal Rossi, hunh!!!

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