Campaign Stump Speech

The Somerville Media Center is tucked off Poperzi Way, adjacent the Aeronaut Brewery, which looked sleepy as I passed a scupted robotic feature reminding me of Don Quijote facing Los Molinos, the giants he sees in the distance, despite assurance of his sidekick Sancho Panza. 

Taping this stump speech two weeks ago was to expose myself and become an illusion, an image captured for political consumption. I walked in and the Center's Board Director Joe Lynch, wearing a bermuda shirtand white pants, was seated on a sofa in the production room. 

"Come on in," he said. Another candidate was studying his phone and preparing for another take. "So how's the campaign going?" he asked. 

We last spoke in May at Henry "Hank" Henson Park on Medford Street. He signed my nomination papers and assured me the Media Center would be giving everyone a chance to make a stump speech video. 

I went and took a look at myself in the mirror. I had a stickie note with seven words and a couple numbers to guide me for the speech. My kids were at the free camp at Argenziano, the baby at home napping as my wife took her organizing meetings remotely. 

The studio green screen stretched wall to wall illuminating the polished floor. A high draped table and a chair now vacant waited for me. The other candidate was in the production room receiving assurances. You took a seat, lay an arm on the table. Joe came and offered a water. The camera, this hulking black stood poised, quiet as a monk and almost invisible on the other side of the glare. 

Then the 'film' was rolling. You were almost reading in your mind, but the giants out there are real as your neighbor. You were thinking of him and all those out beyond the screen who likewise struggle down a flight of stairs. You were thinking of all your neighbors on Trull Street, imagining vibrant block parties and restaurant crawls, furthering close ties lasting into the unwritten future. And then you were thinking of the small-business owner, a neighbor detained for 82 days in Plymouth, who you last saw on a screen piping video from the jail to the Chelmsford immigration court. He was indignant, waiving rights, but was it the jail conditions, unmedicated bipolar? Subsequently deported 4,481 air miles, accompanied by two ICE agents. When a family member met him at the airport, he had no bags and nothing to show of the Somerville small-business he had run. No dreams of returning to his country-of-origin, only nightmares, fears of persecution and the grounds of the asylum case he had 'voluntarily' abandoned, hoping only to find asylum in a third country. I wondered at the camera and at the design of this act of communication, if defiance were only futile, if my campaign could deliver any resistance to the giant tyranny putting my neighbors through the mill. 

After, Sean Eiffel, the production manager, asked how that felt. There's a hiccup, he agreed, but that's human.