Feature Tue Jun 30 2015

"I Streaked Mayor Emanuel for $250,000"

By Mike Ewing

We spoke with Jackie S., who took up billionaire Alki David's $250,000 offer to anyone who streaked Mayor Emanuel. Below is her story in her own words.

I read an article in TimeOut that said this billionaire Alki David, who calls himself an "eccentric billionaire," was offering $250K to anyone who streaked in front of Rahm.

I immediately searched for Alki David and saw he had done this before, and had paid out. I saw he had re-tweeted the TimeOut article saying he would pay $250K.

I jumped in my car to try and find Rahm.

I know where he lives so I drove to see if he was home, or if he was just getting home. No luck.

I tried again the next morning. I went running in his neighborhood at 5:30am, but I didn't see him.

I figured he would be at Pride so I biked up there looking for him. I took off my bike shorts and carried them with me.

I made my way to the front of the parade right before noon. Rahm arrived five minutes later. Once he got out of his escort car, the parade started, and I just kind of joined it, marching in the parade next to him.

I kept saying in my head, "How did this happen? And why is nobody asking me who I am?" But nobody asked, so I just kept marching.

I marched the whole march with Rahm's family and a couple other people. I was carrying my shorts in my hands the whole time and no one was asking about it.

He had three personal security guards that were always next to him. They weren't in uniform but you could tell they were his security officers. There was also all the parade security and CPD there.

I did talk to a lawyer about this before so I kind of knew what I was looking at. It was a calculated risk. I figured I was going to get some sort of ticket. It would have been a couple hundred dollars or something. A good tradeoff.

At one point, Rahm's wife was talking about the Alki David bet with some woman. They had this long conversation about how this billionaire put this video out and she was like, "He's hoping no one does it."

In my head I thought, "Well, that's what I'm here to do."

I'm an activist here in Chicago. I am not a fan of Rahm Emanuel at all. So once I streaked I planned on chanting, "Yay boobs, yay butts, fuck your budget cuts."

I had friends helping me in all my other attempts but they weren't available to go with me to Pride -- so this time I had no one. I was in charge of video recording and streaking.

Towards the end of the parade, there was finally an opportunity where an older gentleman stopped Rahm and started talking to him. When I saw that happen I knew that was my moment.

I thought, "I hope this works. Alki David better pay up."

I knew I had only a couple seconds. I put my cellphone on record and took off my dress. My phone locked, so I fumbled to get it back recording.

I've never streaked before. But I do the World Naked Bike Ride every year. I don't know if that counts as streaking, but it's a lot of fun.

It felt very free in a weird way as I ran towards Rahm.

As he turned towards me he saw me totally naked. We made eye contact. He looked really pissed off that someone would be able to do it.

I forgot my chant in the moment -- I was just trying to make sure I was in the video and Rahm was in the video.

I started getting shoved around by a lot of security officers as I'm trying to film and get Rahm's attention. They bumped me up against the side of a car, trying to push him into the passenger side, and drove away. I don't even know if the rest of the family was in the car.

I thought for sure that somebody would grab me to arrest me, but they were just really concerned with getting Rahm in the car.

Nobody grabbed me. Nobody told me to stop or anything, so I just took off running.

I also broke rule number one of streaking -- don't leave your clothes behind. When I went to grab my phone, I didn't grab my dress as well.

I ran and hid in a parking garage, and I was like, "Fuck, what do I do? Do I go back out there?"

Then I heard someone say, "I think there's someone in here who needs their dress back." He didn't tell me his name, just said he saw me streak Rahm. "That was amazing," he said. I was very grateful to get my clothes back.

I wish the video was better -- it was so shaky and awful. It's 30 seconds long -- I was kind of surprised when I watched it. It was a lot longer than I thought.

Alki David hasn't contacted me at all. Chicagoist said someone working for him told them that I had to have something written on my chest. In all of his tweets and all of the articles about this that's stated nowhere. I would have written it if I would have known.

I feel like it was a dare and I completed the dare so he should stand by his word.

I was planning to give some of the money to the Chicago bail fund -- it's just getting started, but it's for bailing out protestors who get arrested. Also I wanted to donate to the National Lawyers Guild, which defends protestors pro bono who get arrested and other social justice causes.

He's a billionaire -- it's not a lot of money to him. I have student loans to pay off, and a lot of groups that are working for awesome change need a lot of money, so he needs to pay up.

~*~

Update: Alki David told Chicagoist he will not pay Jackie S. or other streakers because they didn't mention the website for the movie he's promoting.