Okay, so you’re in a group that’s going to spend a couple of hours marching around and chanting. What’s a natural complement to such activity? Tambourines, right? (And shakers, hand drums, etc.) But Occupy Long Beach has never fulfilled its promise on that score, with maybe 3% of its marchers ever coming equipped.

Not that OLB’s mission has anything to do with music, but somewhere in here may be a metaphoric comment on the Long Beach side of the Occupy movement, since reactions downtown Tuesday to OLB’s part in the nationwide May Day protests against the usual suspects (big banks, corporate greed, foreclosures, Citizens United) ranged from passing curiosity to disinterest, with few bystanders humming along to OLB’s tune.

Bits and pieces:

• With a few different protest events slated to take place around the city, the Long Beach Police Department was on tactical alert. Downtown that meant a half-dozen each of motorcycle- and bicycle-mounted officers, plus a few cars. (Plus a helicopter, which right away you could see was overkill.)
• Most officers didn’t seem to have any particular feeling about OLB. “I was just told to come to work this morning and given an assignment,” said Motor Officer Darrin Neely at 12:30pm as he sat across the street from the 40+ OLBers gathered at Shoreline Dr. and Pine Ave. “[…] We’re just here to make sure things go off safe. Everybody can go ahead can utilize their First Amendment. Do it safely, and then we can go home.”

• Several police officers agreed with me that more tambourines would have been better.
• Some OLBers were prone to hiding their faces from pictures or video. The reason? “I am a modern-day terrorist, according to the government,” said one of the camera-shy.
• Several downtown employees who came outside to take a gander at what was up had no idea what the protests were about.
• When the group — 60 people, at this point — made its way to the World Trade Center, a couple of security guards came out front to see what was up. Apparently the pair asked one of the group members who they were, which the protesters answered with one of a chant: “Everywhere we go / People wanna know / Who we are / So we tell them….” Really funny!
• The security guards agreed with me about the tambourine thing.
• While walking along Ocean Blvd. from Magnolia Ave. to not even as far as Pacific Ave., I spotted no fewer than six drivers using their cell phones (three texting), while catching sight of three police cars (two unmarked) during the same trek. Too bad the two groups couldn’t have been introduced to one another.

• After the protesters marched by, I asked Evan Lightner, the 25-year-old owner of the hotdog vending cart in front of the courthouse, for his impressions of OLB: “I wouldn’t say it’s negative. I think generally I like to see people coming together and making their voices heard. I just think the message is not unified. […] Confused, not unified, and maybe misguided, possibly. […] Don’t get me wrong: there’s evil people in Wall Street and the government and the power structures that be. […] I think they’re a little misguided to be so much anti-capitalist [instead of against], like, the government bailing out the corporations, the government bailing out their cronies — crony capitalism, you know? As opposed to good old American business. Selling hotdogs out in front of the courthouse is pure capitalism, you know what I’m saying? […] I’m pretty sure [the OLBers] buy things in society. It’s not that evil to make a transaction with cash.”
• Evan agreed with me about the tambourines.
• After OLB passed through the City Hall courtyard, I overheard a fellow say something about foreclosures into his cell phone. But he wasn’t talking about the protesters: he was giving the guy on the other end advice about how to get a good deal in real estate.
• As I walked into the Main Library to get a drink, a librarian at the center desk picked up a phone: “Security, security….” I looked around to see what was happening…until I realized she’d placed the call about me. For her did my carrying a camera signal my status as protestor about to, I don’t know, protest in the library? I was tempted to hang around to see what happened, but I’d just come in for some water and wanted to catch up with the protesters, who by now were on Pine Ave.

• An OLB chant: “Don’t just watch us / Come and join us.” But spectators displayed only momentary interest, the occasional motorist horn-honking in approval.
• Like the swallows of Capistrano, the OLBers returned to their former Lincoln Park digs to have some grub. The LBPD estimated the number of protesters in the City Hall area at 110.
• It seemed to myself and others that a higher percentage of minors — particularly young children — was present at this OLB event than at any previous one. Over 10%.
• Lorna Farnum, who said she comes from a military family and “a long line of patriots” going back to the Revolutionary War — and who had a tambourine! It had these gorgeous jangly golden cymbals — was taking part in the protest “because the Far Right and the very wealthy are co-opting our courts, they’re co-opting our financial system. They’re making it exceedingly unfair. They’re co-opting Congress. What they’re doing is insane. The America we have today is not the America we had when I grew up. […] When we sent our troops out […] they usually had fairly good reason to do so. Not always, but [they usually had] a fairly good reason. […] Now we treat our soldiers like garbage. We recycle them over and over and over again in war zones.”
• An OLB speaker called for a Constitutional amendment “positively affirming that corporations and not citizens” and declared, “We get it now. We understand the plan that they have for us: […] they want us to have nothing.” The theme of her speech: “You are the rescue crew.”