THE LAST WORD
McNaughton, Terry
THE LAST WORD ^ Terry McNaughton License to Spiel The badge pinned to the man's jacket indicated thait he had some sort of official standing, but I knew a police officer wouldn't be passing out...
...I asked the guy from Alcoholics Anonymous to give me a dollar donation, and he wouldn't even do it...
...Some guy from Alcoholics Anonymous came up to me and asked how I got the Free Speech Permit...
...The player, it seemed, won the game when a cartooned prospector raped an Indian woman tied to a stake...
...She was tilted back in her chair, smoking a Marlboro, and she sported a badge that said, Free Speech Permit NYP #9...
...The holder of a permit may not "chant, dance, shout, make outcries, or use any device for voice amTerry McNaughton is the pen name of an East Coast journalist...
...I asked, glancing around the cavernous ticket area...
...I asked the man whether he really needed a license to distribute flyers in the railroad station...
...Back in the vast, semicircular area where Amtrak sells tickets, a woman sat behind a card table stacked with leaflets from Women Against Pornography...
...The permit, I learned, is good for a year but must be renewed every day a leafleter returns...
...Before I could ask her about the permit, she told me that Women Against Pornography was trying to force Atari to stop making sexist, violent video games...
...How many people try to get these permits...
...Not if you want to get arrested, you don't...
...I agreed that the game looked pretty sick, and she asked me to give a dollar for some literature...
...I know that, too, but I'm not going to access that information to anybody," she replied...
...So I read the badge: Free Speech Permit NYP #12, it said...
...No more than eighteen permits are available at a time...
...Well, if you're in school, and you think you're going to put this in some, some thesis, then you're not getting any answers from me...
...She showed me a picture of one game, since taken off the market, called Custer's Last Stand...
...I was told by my organization not to access that information to anybody because of our problem...
...exercising Free Speech rights before the public shall be done in a conversational tone...
...I picked up an application form and a set of "Regulations for Exercise of Certain Free Speech Rights...
...I gave him that information for free, and it must have been worth a thousand dollars...
...plification or use musical instruments or other devices which tend to cause a disturbance or distraction...
...Free Speech Permits for a thousand dollars...
...I'm not going to access that information to anybody," she said...
...Her eyes narrowed...
...It must have taken me four days, working five hours a day, to get that information...
...THE LAST WORD ^ Terry McNaughton License to Spiel The badge pinned to the man's jacket indicated thait he had some sort of official standing, but I knew a police officer wouldn't be passing out leaflets in New York's Penn Station...
...In fact, it sounded like a nasty joke...
...Then I found a door marked Push and I pushed it...
...Identifying myself as a Columbia University student (which I was at the time), I asked a clerk where the idea of Free Speech Permits had come from...
...Wait a minute," she said...
...You say you're in school...
...I told him, and now people from those groups like, like the Hare Krishnas and the Alcoholics Anonymous, will come in and get our spot...
...I held on to my dollar and told her that what I really wanted was some information about how she got her Free Speech badge...
...Free Speech Permit sounded like a contradiction in terms...
...On the other side were the people who issue Free Speech Permits...
...I made inquiries at the information booth and the stationmaster's office, but struck out at both...
...I was speechless...
...No, you don't need one," he said...
Vol. 48 • October 1984 • No. 12
