I heard on the radio that it was the 40th Anniversary of People's Park, one of the big battlegrounds of the early free speech movement. I'd figured out a week ago that it's now easy to get to BART from my place, so I thought I'd check it out. It was only about 2:37ish when I set out.

  

When I got to Great Mall I had to wait a few minutes for the 180 bus. I wandered around the station and decided this huge camshaft that was also a piece of furniture to sit on had to be seen by somebody else.

        

Once I got to Berkeley all I had to do was walk from Berkeley BART to People's Park, that little green square above Telegraph. This was Berkeley, so on the way I saw some sights.

  

I talked to the guy in the needle exchange van for a while. They had been a mobile clinic for the addicted crowd for something like 20 years out of that van. That conversation ended when somebody needed his services.

  

Antioqua was filling the plaza outside this bookstore on Telegraph Ave. with music. It sounded good.

  

Every block or so there was another puddle of glass on the sidewalk where yet another car had been broken into. Seems to me that Berkeley is not the place to park your car. Especially with something inside on the seat. Whomever locked this bike was obviously taking no chances. I was still thinking about those signs when I got to People's Park. Unfortunately, the afternoon was almost over. Just as I got there this woman was singing about 40 years of People's Park.

     

Food Not Bombs had a tent where they were serving birthday cake, but I was too busy picking up this flyer and eating my cake to take a picture of that.

        

The BP Bear is convinced that BP is buying UC Berkeley, (or was it naming rights to the football stadium?) and she is speaking out about it. She is also worried about the nuclear collider that is going to be retired or something like that. When they destroy it 47,000,000 tons of radioactive nuclear waste are going to be trucked from the UC campus to Nevada someplace. She explained that to dramatize the situation the city is having a contest to rename Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. (or was that University Ave.?) Anyhow, you could pick the new name for the street to vote for from the list, or even make up another one. Half of me wanted to burst into laughter. The other wanted to share her outrage. I just couldn't figure out which response was called for.

         

She is also outraged about all the feeding from the public trough that's going on. As something better she is selling shares in this Molecular Foundary. Nano YoBidness controls what goes on there. You can buy shares through Hedge Hog Fun(d). The growth projections are mouth watering.



Meanwhile, the main stage had turned into a drum circle's home. They sounded good, if a bit uneven.

        

     

Unfortunately, I missed Mr TV's show. I got there as he had just finished packing it all away. :-(

If I'd have gotten those chips in Peoria, IL, the same flavor would probably have been called "Spicy Bar-B-Q!" There was lots of hot sauce and salt in the flavor.

  

Quite a bit of the  entertainment when home on bicycles. Seeing stuff getting packed away onto bike trailers like this one gave me that "organic entertainment" feeling that I like so much.

   

It's easy to find stuff named California in Berkeley. In Palo Alto that theater would probably have "Stanford" in lights above the list of movies.  In San Jose it would be "CineArts" or something like that.



I came home the way I had gone, BART to Fremont, VTA bus (have $3.50 cash for the fare box!) to Great Mall, and then the Light Rail the rest of the way home. On the way I looked over the flyer I'd been given. Click on the COPWATCH to find out more about that.