I Met Arizona Quang

Prescott, AZ July 25, 2010.

I find myself in a storybook Town Square. A perfect pillared 1800’s courthouse surrounded by ancient trees and a Sound Of Music gazebo. Across the street is The Palace, a famous bar that people like Wyatt Earp haunted back in the Gold Rush days. A giant poster of Junior Bonner starring Steve McQueen proves the movie was shot in this bar. I do a handstand in front of the Old West re-enactors.

(I have a Handstand Collection: photos of me holding a handstand in every city I’ve ever visited since childhood.)

Victorian houses dot the hills and the Arizona sunset sucks me in. I am sunk. I love Prescott. They all warned me I wouldn’t want to leave.

I just did a radio show with the nicest man, Dr. Terry Lovell. I sang him my “There’s a Communist Living in the White House” song. He hadn’t heard it yet.

The Federal Government doesn’t want to protect AZ from illegal immigrants, so it’s a good thing the citizens are legally allowed to carry concealed weapons. I’m told that everyone here is “packin’.” I have a 10 a.m. appointment in the Town Square Gazebo with Quang, a Vietnamese immigrant. He has been highly recommended. I’m late and he is waiting there with his family. I want to know why he is involved with the Tea Party Movement.

The first minute you meet Quang and his family you fall in love with them. They are genuinely happy, peaceful, loving and smart.

Quang has a message. His message is that he is grateful to be an American and he is concerned with the Communism that has crept into our country. He is a legal immigrant. He is grateful to the Vietnam Vets for fighting for his freedom.

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He arrived in the U.S. at age 13 sans parents. He waited eight years to become a legal citizen. He learned English, went to college and has his own small business. He is concerned that the Communism he witnessed creeping into his homeland of Vietnam, is creeping into his new homeland of America. He lists three ways that a country is taken over by Communism; 1) De-Educate. Our present generation has no knowledge of our country’s founding fathers or the Constitution. 2) Take away guns. This 2nd Amendment right is continually being threatened by Liberals. 3) Poverty. Keep a nation hungry and they will obey the Government. Obama’s Administration has been purposefully collapsing our economy since 2008. They are succeeding. Excessive taxation destroys the middle class and creates a welfare state.

Connie and I keep checking our microphones and camera equipment hoping we are capturing this moment of truth. This 2nd American Revolution, like the first one, is operating on a shoestring budget. It is so grassroots that we do things in “one take.” We don’t get paid. Pete, the guy who brought me to Prescott, is asking for donations literally with a hat, at the event. People donated my hotel room, my food, and they threw in a free recording session at the local “Studio U.” Mark Barry made me this CD (*Available soon here) I’m just hoping they’ll give me enough to pay my dog sitter.

When this Freedom Rally, or Tea Party, whatever it is begins, fifteen hundred people appear out of nowhere. We are outside a movie theatre. A few Christians walked the outdoor mall earlier in the day and prayed for the event. We have asked God to attend. When the protesters, a handful of uninformed twenty-something’s show up with a “Racist” sign, we ignore them and two policemen on Seque’s shoo them away.

The event begins. Why are we here? What can possibly be accomplished by a guy, a guy, a blonde, a blonde, a Mexican rapper, a mixed race singer, a Vietnamese and a gospel trio talking into a microphone?

Magic.

The program builds as each person speaks truth from their heart and the climax is Quang. My eyes won’t stop tearing up as he speaks and I look at his proud wife and children in the crowd. A standing ovation. A moment I will never forget as Quang acknowledges his friend who left his leg in Vietnam so that Quang could have freedom. Quang asks all the Vietnam Vets to stand. There are several. He asks all the Veterans to stand. There are many. Waves of applause shatter the air as the Arizona sun sets and the moon rises. Russell Pearce who wrote the famous AZ Bill SB1070, stands and explains that his own son was shot by an illegal immigrant. David Saucedo a.k.a.”Politik” raps, “Fiscally responsible…that’s the Tea Party….Limited Government…that’s the Tea Party…”

As I hear Dwayne LaSassier beautifully sing the 4th stanza of the National Anthem, my heart fills with love for God and my fellow man…all of us here, flawed sinners saved by grace and leaving the comfort of our homes and our routines, to assemble in an effort to save our country from Tyranny.

Pete hands me a reimbursement check. I appreciate it. I don’t have any health insurance, I have a daughter still in school, a mortgage I can’t afford, and a dog sitter.

So what do we do with all this concern and fire and passion?

VOTE.

Your Nov. 2 vote starts now. Inform yourself on the issues and the candidates. Register by getting a form from the post office or public library. Easier still become a P.A.V., a Permanent Absentee Voter and vote from the comfort or your couch. (Forms available here, click on Tea Party Resources).

You know, people should be required to take a test before they can vote. Informed voters are what we need, not just voters.

This political stuff is getting exhausting. The check didn’t bounce. I get home and pay my dog sitter, Linda. She does a great job with Peanut, Buddy and Daisy. She feeds them, waters them, hugs them, and leaves Fox News on for them. They are Conservative Dogs.

They especially love Hannity and Beck. Woof! Woof!