Red Solidarity

This Sunday was the first of May first. While that not be explicitly interesting to the reader, he might be interested to know that Denmark and Europe at large celebrate socialism in all its glory on this date. The day is called The First of May funnily enough. It's like Earth day except with the Labor Party playing the role of Earth, and instead of people giving speeches attempting to get people to turn off the lights and taker shorter showers, people give speeches telling people to complain to their government about a lack of affordable housing and other stuff like that (I don't know Danish; I just know "arbejder" means"house").

Despite the obvious political overtones, the vast majority of those in attendance were young Danes just looking for an excuse to get drunk. There were many tents filled with people who were handing out a wide variety of propaganda. One of my favorite was a Danish organization that supported Kim Jong Il's regime in North Korea. I wanted to find out what their rationale was; perhaps it would revolve around a Western super-power conspiracy theory, since Europeans seem skeptical about many points in history I take for granted (I'm referring to the rumors of 9/11 being an inside job or that the moon landing was a video shot in Kennedy's living room). Because they couldn't speak English and there were not English translations of the literature they were handing out, I was left to develop my own theories about Kim Jong Il's true merit. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all. Maybe North Korea is actually heaven, and the reason why they need aid is to... I'll be honest, I couldn't come up with anything. But I did support them by purchasing a pack of cigarettes that managed to escape the border patrol and end up in Denmark.

Jack's Chinese, so it was only appropriate that he
posed with the NK contraband

In addition to people pushing pamphlets and pissing in bushes, there were many tents that had performers. The whole park (Fælledparken) had a music festival vibe, although in between every performance there were long-winded speeches given by people I assumed were running for some sort of office. The main stage was dominated for the majority of the day by a raspy-voiced woman in a vest who yelled horsely into the microphone to produce a screeching guttural sound that resembled feedback.


Jack, the Asian posted above, knew a girl from school who was performing in one of the tents. She played sitar in Emma Acs' back-up band. I was surprised by the professionalism of the group, and actually didn't want to leave after the first song. It helped too that the girl sitarist was a beautiful Persian adaptation of Kate Hudson's character in Almost Famous. I took a pretty shitty video of their cover of Joy Division's Transmission, but the majority of the concert was original material.

 

They sound as good as they look. Seriously, the sitarist makes the band.

It was a sunny day when I arrived at the park, but after a couple hours the sky turned gray and the wind began biting the exposed skin of my legs. I always pick the worst days to wear shorts. Jack and I took the train back and I risked not buying a pass. It started raining on the way back and a Metro controller stepped on the train a couple miles away from our stop. I saved myself an $150 fine by escaping the train, but had to bike through wind and water to arrive shivering at my apartment.