Organizers pull plug on edgy Berkeley parade

Berkeley has finally come up with an answer to the question posed by the annual parade: How Berkeley Can You Be?

The answer is: Very Berkeley - as long as you don't sell beer off the back of floats, toss candy to kids or walk naked down University Avenue.

Those restrictions, plus some unexpected permit fees, ended the 13-year run of the How Berkeley Can You Be? parade and festival, a bacchanalian romp through downtown that featured everything from flame throwers to Nobel laureates to motorized couches.

Daunted by the new restrictions, organizers have decided to cancel the event, slated this year for Sept. 27.

"The city saw a bunch of long-haired people having fun and they said, 'Uh-oh,' " said organizer John Solomon, a retired Berkeley restaurant owner. "They city is being very controlling.

...The parade, started by Solomon and a few friends, was intended to poke fun at Berkeley's famed devotion to political correctness. One popular contingent was called PETA, People Eating Them Animals, in which participants shot Spam into the audience with bazookas, hacked at a pig's head with a chain saw and handed cigarettes to kids, Solomon said.

Another entry featured a flame thrower affixed to a chair on a hydraulic lift, "until the Fire Department freaked out," Solomon said.

Other highlights included the Piedmont Lawn Chair Brigade, a motorized couch ridden by people in bathrobes reading the Sunday newspaper, and a group called Berkeley Dykes, who performed a song and dance about "letting lesbians take over Berkeley and sending the straights to Straightsylvania," said parade organizer Karen Hester.

"It was tongue-in-cheek satire. We really liked to push the envelope," she said. "But it's getting increasingly hard to be creative and have fun in this city. Berkeley's become really kind of an uptight place."

"The city saw a bunch of long-haired people having fun and they said, 'Uh-oh,' " said organizer John Solomon, a retired Berkeley restaurant owner. "They city is being very controlling. ...The parade, started by Solomon and a few friends, was intended to poke fun at Berkeley's famed devotion to political correctness. One popular contingent was called PETA, People Eating Them Animals, in which participants shot Spam into the audience with bazookas, hacked at a pig's head with a chain saw and handed cigarettes to kids, Solomon said. Another entry featured a flame thrower affixed to a chair on a hydraulic lift, "until the Fire Department freaked out," Solomon said. Other highlights included the Piedmont Lawn Chair Brigade, a motorized couch ridden by people in bathrobes reading the Sunday newspaper, and a group called Berkeley Dykes, who performed a song and dance about "letting lesbians take over Berkeley and sending the straights to Straightsylvania," said parade organizer Karen Hester. "It was tongue-in-cheek satire. We really liked to push the envelope," she said. "But it's getting increasingly hard to be creative and have fun in this city. Berkeley's become really kind of an uptight place."

Political correctness is NOT about freedom of expression. It is about thought crime and adherence to liberal talking points.

It is not to be mocked.

Punk (at least in the early days when John Holstrom was hanging around NYC with his buddies contemplating publishing a magazine centered on the music they liked) was a COUNTERCULTURE movement to hippie political correctness. They found it very stifling and authoritarian. It's addressed in Please Kill Me.

“Berkeley’s become really kind of an uptight place.”

#####

And to those cool fascists who worship at the “edgy” altar of “hip”, nothing could possibly be worse.

Except of course being a “hypocrite”.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.