I Met The Greatest Living Legend You've Probably Never Heard Of

Gary Francione.  I met Gary Francione.  I told you you haven't ever heard of him.  Or maybe you remember the name vaguely because you are the one person who reads this and one of the people I live with and has to constantly hear about my rants and raves about animal rights.  Or maybe you've heard this name because you are one of my online vegan friends.  Or maybe you've heard the name because you are very in touch with the animal rights world.  But chances are you haven't heard this name and my excitement about meeting this person makes me an odd kind of nerd that you've never met before.  You didn't know there could be animal rights nerds, did you?  I didn't either until I discovered Gary and his following of sorts.   

An interview by The Believer.

On the first day of PAN vegan pledge, I introduced myself to the group a vegan mentor.  I told everyone that I was an abolitionist and I recommended that everyone check out the site.  The site is produced by Gary Francione who is in my opinion, the true father of the animal rights movement.  When it comes to the movement, he is my guiding star.  While I'm not a blind follower of the man, I have a hard time talking to others about veganism and related issues without echoing what I have heard Gary so many times before.  I strive to say things in my own way with new analogies and examples but truthfully, no one says things better than Gary.  No one I've discovered yet anyway.

Soon after my introduction, I mingled with the other mentees and mentors.  A young women about my age told me that Gary was coming to Philly to talk!  To Philly!  I had been dreaming of seeing him talk in real life!  Could this really be?

I found out the details and learned that Grindcore House, a South Philly Vegan coffeehouse, was going to be having Gary discuss his new book on February 5th.  I shared this news with people on the PAN Google group.  On this board, my friend and President of PAN posted that Gary would be talking to our pledge group earlier in that same day!  For real?!

I requested off of work for the entire day and eagerly waited for the day to come!

That Saturday, I was anxious.  I had been up late the night before baking cookies I had volunteered to make.  Because I wanted them to be perfect for Gary, as well as perfect for veganism, I taste tested each of the 6 trays that I baked.  This of course sounds fun, but by the end of the night I was an-overdosed-cookie-monster-mess.  I was stuffing cookies in my face with my eyes half-closed.  I was full and sleepy and I couldn't tell if the cookies would firm up properly with more time sitting or if I should put them back in the oven.  I now know letting them sit would have been better but I kept putting them back in the oven.  Some got hard, but most of them were still good, particularly when dipped in tea.

I got to the PAN meeting tired, excited, and ready to help people setup for the cooking demo.  The cooking demo came and went.  The young woman who runs Miss Rachel's Pantry was teaching us.  Miss Rachel was wonderful and completely lovable!  So knowledgeable and inspiring.  The food was mouthwatering and ready and mentees filed upstairs to eat what we had all made together.  Mentors and volunteers helped clean up.  I was more anxious.  Gary would be here at any moment.

Soon, I heard his voice at the door.  I don't remember what he said.  Probably something person-like, like "Hello! How are you?"  I just remember thinking, "It's him!  I've heard his voice a hundred times and now I'm hearing it live!"  Gary entered the church, popped his head in where we volunteers were wrapping up cleaning duty.  He said, "Hello!" and proceeded upstairs.

I brought my food up and then I got to listen to him speak.  "How lucky am I?" I thought.  Listening to him speak, I was delighted to discover how funny he was.  Despite talking about something so serious, he kept people laughing while never downplaying the seriousness of the issue.  This is such an admirable skill and accomplishment.  As I watched, I wished I had brought my camera to record this.  I feel positive, that is to say, absolutely sure that Gary will be in history books.  I couldn't be more sure of this.  At one point, vegan desserts were passed around the table.  My cookies were passed to him, but he politely turned them down saying, "No thank you.  But they look good!"  That was truly enough for me!  I know from listening to him that he isn't a big sweets person and had he actually tried one I don't think I could stand the wait for his verdict.  At the end of his talk, I had goosebumps.  He said something like, "This world would really be great if we just made up our minds to make it that way!"  I agree.

After the talk, I waited to talk to him.  When I got to talk to him, I introduced myself as my abolitionist forum name, DumbledoresAmy, because I figured he'd know me somewhat from that.  He did, and said, "Oh, that's you!" And talked about how funny it is when you are finally able to place a real face with an single thumbnail image and posts.

Then, I gave him my vegan "business" cards.  They have his website at the top, followed by my vegan blog, and then a quote by him.

He read it and said, "Oh look, that's my website!"  He read a bit further and said, "Oh, that's a quote by me!"  I felt a bit like a child showing her uncle something she had created at school.

We made our way out the door because the church would need the space very soon.  I start talking about a mutual friend we have, and he was interested in what she was up to since I talk to her more online than he has a chance to.

I walked home with my new vegan friends, gabbing incessantly.  This is something I find I do around other vegans.  I wish I could stop myself but I have so many thoughts that I withhold as an effort to not discomfort my non-vegan friends that once I get to talk to a vegan, my excitement is uncontainable and possibly, mildly annoying.

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I got to the second Gary Francione event later than intended.  The address of the coffeehouse confused me.  Directions and locations are not my strongest suit.  Gary's talk was great.  I worried that everyone there was already vegan.  I'm not sure if they were or weren't.  My hopes were that new people would be added to our 1% population.

Go to here.

In the middle of the 2-hour talk I had to pee.  Damn that tea!  The bathroom was in the same space as the discussion room and I found the idea of Gary Francione hearing me pee to be too familiar for someone I looked up to so much.  But soon, I had to face facts, and I headed to the bathroom trying to embrace the idea as a way to comfort myself.  To my relief, the bathroom light was attached to one of those loud fans and my mind was put at ease.

Once the talk was finished, Gary answered questions and then signed his books.  I had two copies.  One for our mutual friend and the other for myself.  Gary told me between the talks, he was looking at the vegan card I had given him and he had gotten teary-eyed because he was so touched.  How sweet!  This is a precious life memory for me that I will always keep safe.  Thank you Gary for coming.  Thank you PAN for making it possible.  And thank you me, for being passionate, weird, and fun and making the unusual worth living, experiencing, and writing about.  I don't think many people are this excited about this many things and it's too bad.  It's a good time! 

I was worried that searching for images of "self love" on Google would lead me to a bunch of masturbation pictures, but this is quite lovely.