E-Mail This Article to a Friend Protests go out with a whimper BY ADAM REILLY

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2004, NEW YORK -- The plan was to watch a flash mob descend on American Gourmet Foods, a deli on 6th Avenue, at 11 p.m.: to mock George Bush's supporters and celebrate/protest the end of the RNC, they were going act like zombies (groaning, walking funny, attempting to eat each other) and get repeated refills of coffee for exactly five minutes. But when a man passed out by the deli's entrance and some cops arrived to tend to him, the mobsters decided to take a pass.

I left the deli and was standing on 6th Avenue, watching the police talking with their dazed-looking ward, when a cluster of people carrying cameras and microphones hustled by. After a few seconds, I realized I should probably follow them; when I caught up to the group, I asked a photographer from one of the New York dailies where everyone was going. She told me thousands of people were reportedly marching up 5th Ave. and 8th Ave. But -- unsure that the reports were correct -- she was walking instead of running. "This has been the story of my last four days," she said. "I've done it too many times, so I'm going to play it a little cooler today and conserve my energy." When we got to 8th Ave., the protesters had already passed by and massed to north, where police barricades kept them from advancing any further. There were still a few stragglers in the vicinity, though. One man was wearing a velvety, light-blue elephant costume and standing in the middle of the street, eating an apple. "I called him a bunny before," a middle-aged woman with a "No Blood for Oil" sticker said . "He was like, 'It's an elephant.'"

When the crowd to the north started cheering, I entered the fray. At 29th St., I was greeted by a five-person conga line, led by a bongo-playing woman in a Mumia Abu Jamal shirt. I started reading signs. One said, simply, "I am ashamed of my president." Another had a stylized black-and-white drawing of Bush on one side under the word "Bad"; the other side had a drawing of a headless nude woman with extra-dark pubic hair under the word "Good." Another sign, carried by a middle-aged guy who sort of looked like Chuck Woolery, offered this message:

Founded, grown, and sustained by MASS EXTERMINATION, the USA and PEACE, are a fundamental contradiction. This criminal, terrorist, government will never be reformed by VOTING! It must be abolished through REVOLUTION! Unjust, immoral and illegitimate…This government is hereby ABOLISHED! Police and military forces, do not perpetuate any further acts of bloodshed & violence against peaceful protesters! Surrender your weapons, vehicles & buildings to resistance forces immediately! Do not fight for a dying regime…It is not worth your life!

A young woman with a buzz cut in an "I say NO to the Bush Agenda" T-shirt started a chant -- "Whose world? Our world!" -- that was taken up by a handful of people around her. As the chanters inched toward the barricades, they passed a young man with a styrofoam Statue of Liberty tiara; instead of a torch, he held a gas pump handle decorated with a "No W" sticker and stuffed with plastic flowers over his head.

When a helicopter flew over the protesters, they responded with whoops and waves. A bunch of people were chanting to my right, but I couldn't make out what they were saying, so I shoved my way in that direction. The chant turned out to be this: "Ain't no power like the power of the people 'cause the power of the people don't stop!" The musical accompaniment, which was actually pretty good, came from a New Orleans-style jazz band staffed by assorted hipster types. A shirtless Gen Y-er had inserted himself into the middle of the band and was dancing manically. I looked at the cops lined up on the side of the street, holding their nightclubs and taking it all in. They looked bored.

At 11:30 p.m., when the police took down the barricades at 29th St., the crowd cheered and surged toward 30th, where they were greeted by another set of barricades. The protesters in the front responded by sitting down and chanting, "This is what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" A college-age kid standing next to me, who was recording the scene with a tiny camcorder, said, in a contemplative and sleepy voice, "I want peace. I want justice." By now, the sitters had changed their message, first to "Sit your ass down! Sit your ass down!", then to "Fox News sucks! Fox News sucks!" I was approached by a short man in a tank top who peered at my press pass and asked, "So, you had limited access? How limited was it? But I guess you're supposed to be asking the questions." I didn't love his tone, so I tried to cut him off with a terse response. But he had something else to say. "Well, I live here, it was the best week of my life, and I feel really good about it." I asked him why. "Because I live here, and I went through 9/11," he responded cryptically. Then he walked away.

At 11:50 p.m., the sitters tried yet another chant: "The people / united / will never be defeated! The people / united / will never be defeated!" A couple minutes later, after that chant petered out, another dancing Gen Y-er got the crowd going by taking them back to the'80s: "We're gonna rock Bush back to Crawford Avenue, and then we'll take it higher!" I glanced at the row of cops lined up on 30th St. One of them yawned deeply. I caught sight of the photographer I'd talked to earlier. She was yawning, too. A tall, thin man in a shirt that read "Stop and Smell the Rosenblum" stood up and, doing his best George Bush impression, tried to get more people to plant their butts on the pavement. "I want to thank you, my fellow citizens, for sitting down," he drawled. No one paid any attention. Suddenly, I was very, very tired. It was time to go home.