Power to the peaceful

I attended Saturday afternoon's Power to the Peaceful festival in Golden Gate Park. The festival site was at 25th Avenue, which is the midpoint of GG Park. I was with my 58 year-old mother, who is in town from Portland, Oregon this weekened. I am always up for excuses to do some intensive people watching, and the Power to the Peaceful festival is a great place to find a patch of grass to sit down and gaze at the kooky passersby.

We entered the festival ground from Fulton Street, which runs along the northen edge of GG Park. From there, we followed some people with coolers and lawn chairs to the access gate. Here, you are requested to donate money or canned food. For me, donating canned food seems kind of nuts in a place like this. First of all, carrying canned food to the park is extra weight for the festival attendee. Next, when you sit down and think about it, donating canned food in CALIFORNIA to be delivered to NEW ORLEANS or MISSISSIPPI doesn't make much sense from a transportation/delivery perspective. It would make much more sense to donate money to buy canned goods for delivery in a neighboring state, like Texas or some other nearby place. Transporting canned goods 2/3 the way across the continental United States seems like a disasterous waste of resources, especially considering the cost of fuel nowadays.

So once we get into the festival grounds, mother and I head east to the skateboard halfpipe site they'd set up. We watched some local skateboarders do some amazing and not so amazing board acrobatics for about 20 minutes. Then, we headed west, towards the stage area. We listened to Woody Harrelson introduce Angela Davis, the leader of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement. Her speech first dissed the Bush adminstration. Then she also mentioned getting stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge getting over to the fair grounds. At this moment, mother and I purchased two hash brownies from some guy selling them out of a cardboard box. Mother claims she felt the effects of the confection. I myself cannot say definitively that there was any real physical effect. Since we've returned from dinner, I just consumed the second one myself. Still waiting for that high.

Several minutes after the brownie procurement, some guy stopped by to talk to me, Julian. Julian is a totally random guy! He purchased my old Gateway computer from me about five months ago that I had listed on Craigslist for $800. I was selling it to upgrade to a smaller, more portable computer. He was with what appeared to be his young son. His son had a long rat tail that was braided. Although the child was kind of grubby, he looked generally well-cared for. Julian didn't mention anything bad about the computer he bought from me, so I was relieved a bit about that.

Now I need to get serious about schoolwork. Drat.

Oh, I now have a car!