I'm heading up there in a little bit with my camera!
While you wait, here's what I think it would look like if TwistNHook were on Murphy Brown:
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Marshawn blah blah blah blah blah blah Bishop Desmond Tutu blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah Murphy blah blah blah George Stephanopoulos, Nate Longshore, and Dan Quayle in a bar blah blah blah?
Blah!
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Both trisweb and my girlfriend decided to accompany me again on today's excursion to Memorial Stadium. As we got closer we saw the cheerleader guy that has already been posted about shouting "UC BP BEARS". You will see him in photos.
***All photos were taken by me unless specifically credited.***
At the corner of Bancroft and Piedmont, we saw this sign. We were at the exact location of where the sign was telling us to be, however there was no one around.
Does it look like someone is falling OUT of the tree in the lower right?
When we reached the hippie information center, or bureau of hippieness, as I like to call it, very few people were left.
Tinsel -- the flower headband of the modern hippie.
The northbound lane of traffic had been reopened, but there were barricades along both sides of it. Nearly everyone had somehow been organized and had moved up to the intersection by Kleeburger...err...Maxwell...err...Maxburger Field.
The group moved across the street and gathered at what they thought would be the weakest part of the barricade...where it meets the large fence.
I was in the back of the gathering, so I wasn't really able to see very much, but I'm pretty sure one of the hippies (one who *doesn't* believe using tools hurts mother Earth) cut one of the zip ties between the barricades and tried to run through. What they didn't realize, of course, was that this was probably one of the easiest areas for the police to defend, as there was a very large barbed-wire fence to the left and the police officers had a barricade that they could use as a shield. Smart!
Notice the officers in the background kneeling down.
"I will not move... until everyone I know goes down the street."
Someone was arrested, people sat down on the pavement, tons of people with cameras took pictures. Hippies shouted things like "YOU'RE out of order", "That's illegal! Let him go!", and "UC BP BEARS". Everyone was yelling things like "We just want to get them water!", "You drink water right?!"
Photo courtesy of trisweb
Various people shouted that they were doing the will of the community and they were speaking for the people. I don't know about you, but this is definitely not what I would want them to do.
After the scuffle was over and all the hippies realized that two or three police officers had defeated over 100 of them, one of the leaders, Grandma Mary I believe, tried to calm everyone down, reiterating that this was supposed to be peaceful day.
People shuffled down towards their usual spot and started arguing with various police officers over why they weren't allowed to bring food to the tree-hippies.
Also about this time, they brought in a couple "doctors" wearing blue scrubs to talk to the people in the trees over a walkie-talkie. The "doctors" were quite obviously partial to the tree hippies, encouraging them to not disclose how much water they have stored in the trees with them. I'm not saying that they weren't real doctors, but I wouldn't put it past them to bring in a couple people in scrubs and claim that they're experts. They advised the tree hippies that they didn't need just water, but electrolytes from something like Gatorade, and that drinking just water (which was apparently all the gatherers had brought) could be as dangerous as dehydration.
As someone else posted previously, the tree hippies reported over the walkie talkie that their pee was "amber".
"Amber you say? Well call me back when it reaches Burnt Sienna"
It's seriously too bad that there's no building or complex around that might have a large supply of sports drinks. hmm.
Nothing was really happening, though, so I decided to go and check out something far more interesting -- Cal Football Training Camp!
I wandered back over to the love-in in the middle of the street. The police had somehow managed to get all of the blocked cars to back out of the area so they could once again block it off.
"Get up! My beard didn't get this long by sitting down!"
One police officer brought bottles of water to the officers guarding the barricades, which prompted many of the hippies to start accusing the police of stealing their water and drinking it. They were also directly targeting insults at one officer whom they thought was smiling while drinking.
Refreshing!
People were chanting "Food and Water, Food and Water" and singing "all we have to ask... is give trees a chance..."
Someone shouted that this was (I'm not kidding) "Abu Grove Prison!".
"Did he just say what I think he said?!?"
Thankfully this time I remembered that I have an iPhone and that I could take notes. Here's a list of some of the things we heard people shout:
"This is a human rights violation. You're violating their human rights, man!"
"You are violating the Geneva convention! Prisoners of war get food and water!" (Prisoners? And of war? Really?)
"Don't take this water! This is public water! You can't take community water!"
"Opression of water is opression of freedom!"
"They're denying them human rights! They're denying them cell phones!" (Are cell phones a human right?!)
(directly to police) "You're against the law! Leave!"
"LIBRA!" (I have no idea...)
I also overheard one woman say quietly to an onlooker: "We've been trying to protect trees since before the Europeans came."
Some ground hippies started trying to organize themselves into getting water bottles tied together with string ready to throw.
"This will TOTALLY work."
Photo courtesy of trisweb
As soon as the police saw what was going on, they started to move in to arrest them. Several hippies tried to run through the crowd, but, of course, there were police everywhere. They were cornered and the water fell off of them and rolled under the barricade. People started shouting again that the police were stealing water for themselves.
Later, Grandma Mary got back on her megaphone to try to talk to people. At one point, while trying to convey to the police the "medical danger" that the tree hippies were in, she had to ask the crowd over the megaphone "Does anyone remember the names of the doctors?"
At another point she said, "the human body is 96 percent water. How can you deny them water?" Someone corrected her, apparently saying 70 percent. (The truth is that it varies from person to person, averaging about 55% for adult women and 60% for adult men).
This went of for a while until someone all of a sudden decided to throw a few apples towards the oaks. What they were trying to accomplish I have no idea. If you take the first idea of the water bottles tied together with string, in principle it might work. If you can get enough of a windup to sail that thing without being noticed, you MIGHT have a chance at getting it stuck in a tree on the other side. Sounds simple enough. Of course, the problem lies in the fact that the trees were pretty far away, there are power lines blocking the optimal arc of something you would throw, and there are police everywhere. So here are your possible outcomes, starting with the most likely:
1. Get tackled by police before you even get to throw anything.
2. Manage to sail an item or two over the barricade, but fall short of the fence by a long shot, then get tackled by police.
3. Toss it too high and get it stuck in the power lines...then get tackled.
4. Manage to make it over the barricaded area, through the power lines, but your rope was so crappy and/or you have no idea how to tie knots (no Cub Scouts for you!) that your contraption breaks, falls to the ground, and is taken away by police. Oh yeah, then you are tackled.
Now that I think about it I guess the crappy construction aspect of #4 really applies to all of the options.
So, that being said, who the hell would think that they could get an apple...something round... all the way into the trees and have it stay there to be picked up by a tree hippie?!? Apparently this person did, and they fell into the #2 range...and onto the ground.
"It was sooo worth throwing those apples!"
Photo courtesy of trisweb
This was actually where I got shoved by one of the police officers. I was standing there trying to take pictures when someone from behind started pushing me a little bit. Not being a person who likes being having a hippie push or even touch them, I pushed back a little bit. Unfortunately for me it was not a hippie but a UC Police officer, who promptly shoved me out of the way. Good times! He did a very good job of shoving me, though. He didn't hurt me at all yet got me out of the way very quickly. Very professional.
Grandma Mary got back on the megaphone and tried to reiterate that "we all agreed that this was going to be a peaceful protest. If you trespass, you're on your own". Someone shouted back "F*** THAT!". Even a hippie in a nearby tree behind the fences encouraged everyone to "do whatever seems right to you".
This is apparently what he thought was the right thing to do.
By this point, though, the crowd had started to thin out a bit. Lots of hippies were occupied with protecting their tiny hoard of several gallons of water and some food. Others were trying to convince the high school football players who had finished at football camp for the day that they were good people: "We love sports! We're doing this for youuuu". The core group of hippie grandmas sat down again to "concentrate their spiritual power".
"Hey pretty lady... How YOU doin'"
Some bored younger hippies put their arms around each others shoulders and started roving the area, hugging people and trying to get them to join in their quest to find new hugs. They would come up to someone and encircle them...occasionally against that persons will. A girl wearing a UC Davis sweatshirt was captured to the horror of her parents, however she was released and didn't seem too worse for wear.
They did manage to do ONE thing right by overwhelming and absorbing a nearby USC fan.
One side effect of this was that their general semicircle shape managed to concentrate their smell, kind of like a parabolic reflector, but with odor. My girlfriend was even cornered while against the barricade, but her roving hug circle was apparently some of the less hippie-ish people and she said it wasn't too terrible.
During this time, though, Grandma Mary had not given up. She managed to get an interview with one of the police officers. Rather than try to describe what it says, my girlfriend managed to get a video!
After this, we didn't really want to stick around any more. The whole "sacred ceremony" seemed to be fading fast and it didn't look like anyone was going to risk getting tackled again.
