Here’s a great post about my Vancouver travels from Chris’s point-of-view.
Friday arrived sunny and warm, making our last day here another spectacular opportunity to soak in Vancouver. Chris had been talking about riding around Stanley Park since we arrived, so we biked out there soon after eating breakfast here on 20th Ave. We chose to stay south of False Creek scooting along 10th Avenue and then biked over the Granville Street Bridge. We easily found a bike lane leading us straight through the downtown. The lane took us down to the beginning of the Stanley Park path.
We planned to ride the one-way path around the whole perimeter of the peninsula. Before we hit that path, we stopped by the totem poles. Many tourists snapped photos of the poles before they hopped back on their buses. Paying a visit to this amazing native art started the ride off right. We had a great time with sunny paths, great views and beautiful people to share it with. We rode under the Lion’s Gate Bridge, and then drove to the edge of Davie St. to have lunch at a local hamburger shack.
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Strange Ass Clown & Hippie Parade
- A flickr citizen’s description of the 2008 St. Stupid’s Parade
“It can be tremendously beneficial when dealing with difficulties to be lighthearted in one’s engagement with life so that one will not take oneself too seriously.”
- HH the Dalai Lama
It’s the fool on television
Getting paid to play the fool
- The Big Money by Rush
“We’re making fun of the huge corporations and the religion of business.”
- Ed Holmes aka Bish Joey of the FCLL
photo by Scott Beale of Laughing Squid
OK, must catch BART to Justin Herman to get there around noonish before the parade starts. Let’s see. Red and white stripped socks? Check. Green protective goggles? Yep. Samba whistle? Still in the bag from Critical Mass. Crazy pink women’s jacket? Just picked it up from the cleaners. Red pants? wearing them. Flowerpot hat? Got it, and it still has a sticker on there from the NYC GOP protests 3 years ago. The sticker says “Worst President Ever.” OK, I think I have everything for this year’s St. Stupid’s parade.
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The “friendly” SFPD escort service awaits Critical Mass on the March 28, 2008 ride. Photo by: Adam
Almost a year ago, the monthly last Friday ride Critical Mass caused a ruckus when a van met the throng of bikers in Japantown. Not knowing how to react (put the car in park and enjoy the spectacle), the driver sped up and drove through the riders, knocked one off his bike, and then tried to flee the scene. The van ended up surrounded with a smashed window, and the SF Chronicle ended up with early fodder for what seems to be a subtle campaign to unhinge the Bike Plan for the City. (more…)
6:20AM 3/19: Wow, five years ago I got up super early like I did today and headed down to Justin Herman Plaza on my bike with a group of friends. Still dark and cold right now. Oh well, big breakfast for me, pack my snacks, and get down to Sansome and Market
7:20AM: I arrive at Sansome Market to find a fairly large crowd milling about at the Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) “Info Station.” Insane Reagan is across the street doing a McCain “Bomb Iran” spoof already. the BLO is there ready to play the marching beats. Dance Dance Insurrection has arrived. All bands are dressed in pink. DASW volunteers keep telling me to plug in, take the orientation session, etc. I go over to the orientation and don’t get much out of it except a flyer with the Lawyer’s Guild phone number on it. I’m antsy this morning. Calamity bums a light off of me and then complains that the DASW has no tactics about head on confrontation with the SFPD. Ah, it’s cold. Let’s get this Snake March started!
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Just in time for the fifth anniversary of the bombs on Baghdad, and the subsequent shutdown of San Francisco’s Financial District during the next morning’s rush hour, I had to comment on some recent financial news. I’m not going to mention the current USA financial meltdown, which has trickled down (thanks for the phrase Mr. Reagan) to a huge meltdown in California’s government budget, as well as San Francisco’s own mess (and everyone else I know who is hanging on by their teeth). I want to talk about the beast that is the “reconstruction” and occupation of Iraq; a monster that Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz just said could reach $5 trillion of pain for the good ole’ red, white, and blue’s wallet. On the improbable low side, we’d maybe be out $3 trillion, states Stiglitz, who was also a former chief economist for the World Bank and now a professor at Columbia.
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Coming home for the holidays carries several pitfalls for the rusty suburbanite. Some surprises arise as well, which always helps alleviate the monotony that continues to creep into this strip-malled future. The perfect metaphor for this fell in my lap Saturday when I was flipping channels during breakfast.
CNN Headline News ran a piece on the “Year’s Best Implosions,” playing a reel (this isn’t the clip I saw, but the only one CNN posted) of about a dozen structures being systematically blown up to make way for newer, bigger structures. I had the sound on “MUDO” (for some reason, none of my parent’s remotes work well. The one for their main TV speaks Spanish, while the one for their cable box doesn’t speak to the TV.) and munched on granola in rice milk as humankind’s follies fell down one after another.
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