The occasion was billed as "one last
party before we move out of our office." When I got there the place was
already a hopping scene.
The next tenant is Josh, the guy in the
white shirt. He's got some nonprofit doing work that sounds great.
Green jobs or something like that.
Susan began the focused part of the
event by naming the founding members of the Green Party in the room,
and also pointing out the elected officials. Then she explained that
the office was becoming a big financial drain, and we weren't using it
enough to justify the expense. With out that monthy bill the Green
Party would be able to put more money into election mailers and stuff
like that. She explained that meetings would be in "coffee shops and
meeting rooms" for the forseeable future.
Ross came up and talked about the
bittersweet nature of the moment. Then Susan presented him with a
biography of Che. Ross mentioned something about how his son has
several Che Guavara outfits.
Regina Dick-Endrizi, Erica and Sue all
took turns on the stage. Sue wanted us all to "give a buck to the green
party." Somebody mentioned that the silent auction would close at 9 PM,
at which time we would have a live auction of some very memorable
pieces.
Then they brought out this vegan ice
cream cake. The piece I had was very delicious.
There was lots of talk. Every time the
Greens get together there is lots of talk. Terry has a new play. Ray
has a desk in some lawyer's office now.
Among the silent auction items was this
one-of-a-kind "vote green not machine". I bid on it.
Then Susan began the live auction by
reading Matt Gonzalez's Green Manifesto. Click her picture to check
that out.
The next item was Go Matt, Go!, his
portrait, and a collection of Matt Gonzalez buttons. The bidding was
fast.
The auctioneer did a good job of moving
on to the next item when he had gotten as much from the last as he
could.
The Di-Fi mask was a souvineer of Medea
Benjamin's Senate run. Kermit, the office mascot, got three figures.
Somewhere in there I was the high bidder on an autographed copy of
Winona LaDuke's All Our Relations.
Probably the only item that was a
service was a two hour Ayurveda consultation with the woman in red.
The last item auctioned was this
painting, which the artist had created before our eyes during the
course of the evening.
Then this poet read a narative, story
like poem about his career as a world class liar. After that, there was
more talk and some dancing.
Jane Kim was there to, but I didn't get
a good picture of her.
Enrique was the high bidder on several
of the nicer auction items. I gather he is a sucessful lawyer.
A couple of days later I found out about this
SF
Weekly article about the event.
After looking at these pictures Susan King emailed me "I do have to say
that the SFGP, while office-less, is still very much alive. there was a
meeting the following night at a local Ethoipian restaurant in Ross'
district, to be followed by more meetings around the city, and maybe a
few more parties thrown in for good measure. Time to put the 'party'
back in Green Party."