James Mullen’s Reviews > The Revolt of the Cockroach People > Status Update

"I feel terrific. The party is still on at my pad when I get back, the temporary end of one battle and the beginning of another."

"If it had been another prisoner, particularly a Chicano or some other Cockroach, you can bet your boots the sheriff would not have covered the way he did."

"'Cockroach' you say, Mr. Brown?"

"Yeah, the Cockroach People... you know, the little beasts that everyone steps on."

"...Seven hours later I visit the Office of the County Registrat and give her a bank draft for the filing fees. Then the six of us drive down to another office on Spring Street, near the courthouse. To the surprise if the clerk, I file my candidacy for the office of Sheriff of Los Angeles County, population seven million."

"If you don't ask those questions, I'm walking out right now."
"Mr. Pitluck, if you permit Mr. Brown to do that I'll report it to the Bar. He's making a mockery of our procedures."
"Oh, you're full if shit, Mayer."
"Mr. Brown, if you use any more foul language..."
"Jesus Norman, get off your high horse. We're talking about a murder here."

"And then it hits me. Jesus H. Christ! While people have been laughing and singing and enjoying the spectacle of it all, I've just been playing the part of some middle-aged phony-ass mystic. Who in the shit ever said the revolution has to be a drag? Why can't one be serious and have fun at the same time? Who said you have to suffer and be depressed?"

"I stand back and observe them all. I who have been running around with my head hanging for so long. I who have been lost in my own excesses, drowned in my own personal confusion. A faded beatnik, a flower vato, an aspiring writer, a 33 year old kid full of buffalo chips is supposed to defend these bastards? With forty-five years of their lives riding? My knees feel like pillars of smoke blowing out from under me."