EXPLANATION OF VIDEO

On Sunday June 1, 2025, Z-Sides Press engaged in its first protest performance at the CA Lawyers for the Arts Awards Ceremony honoring Rep. Kevin Kiley, CA-3, in Sacramento, CA.

Above, you can see a video of this event which highlights the moment of intentional disruption I created when Mr. Kiley began to speak.

I had intended to present a series of questions to Mr. Kiley before I got physically ejected from the space.

I advocate for and continue to develop a performance protest model that encourages direct confrontation with one's intended audience. 

He escaped the pressure of my questions in person but he cannot escape them forever, can he, dear reader?

I strongly encourage my fellow citizens to identify the locations in which Republican elected officials may be honored, awarded, or otherwise entertained as public speakers, and to disrupt those proceedings by peacefully exercising your first amendment right to freedom of speech.

What follows is the portion of text I read to Mr. Kiley on that day:

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

By the rights enshrined within the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, 

I, Lane Pianta, resident of California, citizen of the United States of America, and Publisher at Z-Sides Press, now take the floor.

I offer this pledge of civil discourse as I engage in my demonstration today:

At no time will I direct profanity towards you, nor will I stoop to calling you names.

But if I use profanity, or if I stoop to name-calling it will only be in the course of quoting our Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon and the scripts that she promoted and by which she enriched herself to the tune of billions, supposedly, in her role as CEO of Titan Sports, better known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

PORTION OF THE TEXT THAT I DID NOT GET TO SPEAK

Why should I bother holding myself to even that low bar when you, in your capacity as U.S. House Rep for CA-3, have employed rhetorical tactics much worse than a little off-color language?

Do you really expect your own constituents, let alone the general American public, to let you get away with your continuing assault on the English language?

I place these questions on the record in my continuing effort to hold Republicans accountable for their Know-Nothing agenda against myself and my fellow citizens, the people of these United States.

Now I will proceed with the list of my questions for you, by the book and on the record:

Questions for Kevin Kiley About Education & Professional Wrestling

• Can sport be scripted?

• Are sports truly entertainment?

• Are the scripts written in WWF meritorious as works of literature?

• Who should I look to for an answer to this question if the individuals tasked with setting the regulations are themselves too subliterate to do so?

• If wrestling is sports entertainment how can you consider that to be the appropriate professional background for a Secretary of Education?

• What about your background recommends you to stand here today and accept an award for arts education?

• Do you personally conflate the concepts of education and art with circus maximus entertainment?

• Do you also consider what you do - your role as a public servant - to be a form of entertainment, like a performer in a reality TV show?

• What should we consider the professional wrestlers employed by Linda McMahon's WWF besides foul-mouthed posey dancers?

• Should I think of those individuals as 'real people' or as characters in a play?

• Should I think of their characters as aspects of themselves heightened, the way they get talked about internally, within their (allegedly) abusive corporate bubble?

• Or perhaps consider them to be not just one individual, but as people containing within themselves all the multitudes available to man?

• Is Linda McMahon just playing a role as Secretary of Education, the way her husband played the role of Mr. McMahon, the heel?

• If she's playing the heel, Mr. Kiley, do you suppose that makes you the babyface?

• Who better to grapple with the problem of antic disposition than the writers, the dramatists, the songwriters of our time?

• Do you consider yourself a writer, a dramatist, or a songwriter, Mr. Kiley?

• Do you personally believe that professional wrestling is real or fake, Mr. Kiley?

• Do you believe that professional wrestling is a sport?

• What is meant when they refer to a scripted sport?

• Do you oppose male vs. female professional wrestling?

• Do you oppose female vs. male professional wrestling?

• Do you believe that gambling on professional wrestling should be legalized, Mr. Kiley?

• Do you believe that gambling on fake sports should be legal, Mr. Kiley?

• Do you believe that children should be taught to gamble on fake sports, Mr. Kiley?

• Does Linda McMahon believe that professional wrestling is real, Mr. Kiley?

• Do you believe that professional wrestling is theatre, Mr. Kiley and are you prepared to make the case for it academically?

• Do you believe that professional wrestling is dance, Mr. Kiley, and are you prepared to make the case for it academically?

• What will you do to get Linda McMahon to admit that professional wrestling is not a real sport but rather is a form of theatre and more likely dance?

• What do you do to remind your constituency that the whole time they watched wrestling and idolized it as children, they all just worshipped foul-mouthed posey dancers?

• Do you support the notion that America's schoolchildren should speak to their teachers like the foul-mouthed, posey dancers who perform for Linda McMahon in her theatre company, the WWE?

• Which do you believe in more, Mr. Kiley, smashmouth wrestling or loudmouth politics?

• Do you believe politics is real, Mr. Kiley, or is it all just a performance to you?

• Do you condone smashmouth politics, Mr. Kiley, or do you condone posey dancing in your office?  

• Would you support an arts education program if I described it as loudmouth, smashmouth, lewd, crude and full of attitude?

• Do you believe that school is a place where we teach students how to teach themselves, or do you believe it's a place where we enforce codes of behavior upon the child in an effort to elicit better and better performance from them?

• If a cabinet member showed confusion about whether or not wrestling was fake or real, would you consider that grounds for impeachment on the basis of mental unfitness to serve in that role?

• When will you demand of Linda McMahon that she write a report to the schoolchildren she has sworn to serve and protect that explains professional wrestling is not a real sport but rather a form of theatre or more likely dance - one of the most ancient exponents of human culture?

• If Linda McMahon deserves to be considered a teacher, should professional wrestling be considered her classroom?

• Do you support establishing cage matches between Linda McMahon and the real teachers of America so that she will finally learn her lesson and resign from office since she's the opposite of teacher?

• Would you support an effort to enforce a work requirement on Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in which she has to actually go into a real, live classroom and wrestle with the challenge of being a teacher instead of a known fraud?

• Is the potential for fraud in politics where Linda McMahon is concerned more or less likely than the potential for injury in professional wrestling?

• Is there a history of injury in professional wrestling?

• Do you condone the general rise in fraudulent behavior that we have seen in these United States to be the natural result of a 34-count felon sitting in the office of the President?

• So as far as I'm concerned, having sacrificed your honor as a public servant on the altar of private servitude to Donald Trump, why should you remain in your position?

• Why shouldn't the constituents of California District 3 arrive at the clear conclusion you have violated your oath of office?