(Ed Note: More media from the Grove when CBKWit was up there last Wednesday, i.e. D-Day. Enjoy!)
If we here at CGB have learned anything this week, it's that Cal football fans love hippies. Our visit and comment numbers have been fine since we moved to SBN, especially for the dead summer period, but it took a bunch of hippie warriors with vaguely sexual aliases to really bring some traffic to our site. It's the Jennie Finch/Allison Stokke phenomenon, but apparently you readers are more attracted to the earthier type. 2 days of 1,000 plus visits? 4 threads with more than 100 comments? Thank you hippies! (But if you don't think half of these numbers are Twist hitting F5 every 10 seconds, you're crazy).
More eye candy for you perverted bastards.
Well, I'm pretty sure this post is going to shatter our previous records. Not only will it have lots of hot hippie pics, but we've got 4 totally uncensored videos with only the hottest, naughtiest hippies!
To answer your question: Yes, that is indeed our favorite long bo, being waved with a pair of pants (?) attached as some sort of display of solidarity/surrender. The evolution of the use of this single bamboo staff is, to me, one of the most compelling stories of this entire ordeal. It's gone from a hypothetical defensive tool to a walking stick to a sad display of hippie pride. And yes, it will become something else entirely, in a video to follow.
Things were pretty mellow when I arrived at the grove on Wednesday afternoon, so I headed over to Maxwell, where the football team was conducting a youth camp.
Ragnarok shows good leverage against the Cal coaches.
From Maxwell, I had a good view of our friend Dumpster Muffin.
A pretty dramatic scene, I must say. Presumably, DumpyMuff and her crow's nest brought out a presence I had not seen before at the grove: real journalists!
Considering how much time we at the CGB (and you, the readers!) have spent documenting hippie antics (and what little effort Ms. Jones and the Chronicle have invested), I think we need to answer the pressing question: Do we deserve a Pulitzer for our coverage? I'll leave the answer to you (but the answer is yes).
I walked up to the west stadium rim, in hopes of getting a better angle of Dumpy. Unfortunately, there were security guards and caution tape, and despite my best efforts (Can I come up there? No. Please? No.), I was unsuccessful. A bit to the south, I did get a sweet shot of the bay:
From the stadium, I listened to hippies address the UCPD on a megaphone: "You have been trying to remove us from the trees for 17 hours - you have lost." With the realization that they hadn't fully completed their mission after almost an entire day of work, the police officers and arborists vacated the area in shame. Or at least that's what the hippies seemed to be hoping. After an 18 month court battle and $125 million raised, I would doubt that the UCPD would throw in the towel after less than a day of extraction attempts, but that's just a rational, sane person's perspective.
The action started to pick up down at the grove when an impromptu hippie decided to climb a telephone pole.
My favorite part (other than high pitched squeals that seem more appropriate for a Miley Cyrus sighting) was the lanky guy with the hard hat. Earlier, he stole some juggling pins...from a ten year old.
He doesn't seem all there, as even he admits:
Please note that he recaptured the juggling pins from the ten year old. Congratulations!
Anyways, in the video he's actually trying to draw attention away from the one guy with the stones to do something besides stand around and shout. Way to band together, hippies. Of course, the martial artist must be doing what he can to help this brave climber. Surely, he too is not selfishly trying to draw attention to himself? Right?
I heard him mutter "I'm a performance artist" as he walked off. First martial artist, then mask maker, then Lord of the Rings extra, and now a performance artist. What an accomplished young man!
While martial/performance artist was dazzling all with his baton twirling skills, a hippie in the trees was trying to throw a rope to the pole climber.
He succeeded. The pole climber caught the jug of pee, and it was only leaking a little. Major Victory! Unfortunately for the hippies, the arborists used the pee play as a distraction and quickly dismantled the tree fort from whence the hippie came.
They lost this elaborate station, but at least the guy on the telephone pole got a leaking jug of pee - seems like a fair trade. At least one hippie on the ground gave the arborists their due: "You sneaky bastards," he said admiringly. Others were not so amused (NSFW audio, but you really need to hear it):
The few non-hippies in the crowd found the irony hilarious. If I were a hippie, I would find it a weeeeee bit hypocritical to yell "Get out of the fucking tree!", but I guess that's why I'm not a hippie. I was also struck by other acts of hippie inconsistency:
The ends justify the means!
Why oh why didn't hippies save me??
Well, we never said they were the brightest bunch
