| Tuesday, May 27, 2003 |
12:22 - Greetings from Hell; wish you were here
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Well, I'm back from Arcata-- the Hippiest Place On Earth. It was every bit as ensconced in its own hindquarters as it was last year, except a lot more so. I can only imagine what it must have been like a month or two ago; but even as it is, now that the war is over, the climate is still thoroughly out of touch. I mean, just look at it:
The last few pictures are of the "Freedom Shrine" that some enterprising civic-minded locals had erected on the wall of the Longs Drugs some years ago; it had four glass cases containing replicas of some of the country's most important historical documents, such as the Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, the peace treaty from the Spanish-American War, and a bunch of other such things. And of course it had been defaced, covered with posters, scrawlings, and flyers declaring that WHEN THE BOMBING STARTS, AMERICA STOPS. I'm surprised the glass hadn't been smashed.
I lost count of the NO WAR ON IRAQ, BUSH IS AN IDIOT, and NO BLOOD FOR OIL bumper stickers. I'm sure the people putting them on their cars thought they were being clever rebels, just like whoever it was who spray-painted YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU OWN onto the sidewalk concrete a block from where I was staying. Yeah, you go, you free-thinker you. I saw Fight Club too, and I get haircuts. Anyway, I did see one truck with a couple of US flags in the back window, a religious bumper sticker, and another decal that said DON'T HASSLE ME-- I'M A LOCAL. That's the best sense of humor I saw all weekend. (No, wait-- my mistake. There was another sticker that said JUST BECAUSE NOBODY UNDERSTANDS YOU DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE AN ARTIST. That one wins. I never thought cynicism could be so refreshing.)
Arcata is just about the right size to exist in perpetuity as a self-sufficient commune, mostly because it's a college town-- Humboldt State University is right across the freeway, offering such pursuable majors as Redwood Studies, Recreational Herbology, and Vegetarianism in AmeriKKKa. Nah, okay, I kid. But the median age of the town appears to be about 19, and (as North Korea knows so well) it's easy to be self-sufficient when you've got patrons and family sending you money all the time.
For what it's worth, the two best grocery stores in town are the Co-Op and Wildberries, both of which operate on the community membership system; they leave the local Safeway in the dust when it comes to quality. But then, they don't carry any major brands, except where they absolutely have to; no Hershey's, no General Mills, no Nabisco, precious little Coke. Whether this is because of choice or price or principle isn't clear-- but it's probably not price, because the organic stuff they carry in pride of place costs twice as much as I'm used to, across the board. But then, Wildberries' deli sandwiches are awesome, and they have fresh mozzarella balls and baklava and other such neato little delicacies that I hadn't really seen in any mainstream grocery store-- not outside premium places with Italian names. I must say I'm impressed by the selection; it's anything but banal. There have been great strides made in the name of organic production and local branding. It's a far cry from the worm-eaten but self-righteous forced-smile organics of the mid-80s. Kudos to them-- but they don't carry Kudos, so never mind.
I'd say I could live quite comfortably in a town like that-- it's definitely gorgeous, and fun, and tiny (everything is within about two blocks of everything else, and a block is about three houses long, and a house is about the size of most houses' garages-- it's like a doll's city). But for the lack of Silicon Valley's teeming masses and the nearness of travel and services, there's nothing I'd really be missing. Even the communal wireless Internet link, beamed from the city center into all the hillside houses, was pretty fast (except when the guy in charge of it rebooted the routers, as he does every day at 2:00 PM to tinker with them). For a world of futons and hydroponics and surrealist sculptures of diapers hanging from ceilings and walls covered with photos of the obligatory world-traveling-disaffected-youth backpacking trips through Southeast Asia, it's not bad.
Except, of course, for the people. The ones Not In Whose Name America does anything other than roll on its back and pee on itself while the rest of the world lines up to take a good kick at it.
Ahem; anyway. The Kinetic Sculpture Race was lots of fun-- the crowds this year were bigger than they were last year, although the receding economy has resulted in a lack of sponsorship; many of the entries, lacking the money they had last year from large toolmaking companies or copy centers, weren't able to do much besides paint their sculptures a different color and come up with a new pun for the name. ("It's now... the Albino Rhino!") Whodathunk-- even wacky free-love human-powered vehicle contests require the helping hands of evil corporations in order to rock the world. Fascinating.
But that said, there were still a good many fabulous entries, even more than last year; though the energy was a little less this time, the creativity was still there. My favorite was the Mullet Bullet:
This time, too, I didn't have to drive down to Ukiah and back for the Memorial Day parade; so I stayed up in Arcata, put up with the Bush=Hitler t-shirts, and enjoyed the parts of the race that I'd missed before, such as the water entrance. It's always fun to see a giant papier-mâché horse slide gracefully into the water and glide off under the bridge, followed in short order by a guy in a business suit on a bicycle with an innertube strapped to his back, hurtling down the ramp and somersaulting with a horrific splash the moment his wheels touch water. It was a thing of beauty, I tell ya.
The finish line in Ferndale was graced with gorgeous clear sunlight, a rarity for Memorial Day Weekend in Humboldt (one of the Race rules is "In the case of sun, the Race will be held in the sun"). All the machines finished within half an hour of each other, with great gusto and energy. It seemed there was more of a focus on keeping everyone safe this year than on allowing everyone to have fun-- constant admonishments to stand back, whether in the finish-line square or on Dead Man's Drop, where we couldn't position ourselves in the shifting sands just downhill from where the large top-heavy machines would bog down and topple over on top of us. C'mon! The danger is half the fun! Plus it makes for great camera angles! ... They apparently no longer have the Slippery Slimy Slope (last year some disgruntled farmer got so sick of the throngs of spectators traipsing through his fields to get to the Slope that he piled a truckload of manure right across the dirt road they were using), and what they replaced it with wasn't spectator-accessible, but that's okay. We had plenty else to do in the area, like drive up into the Trinity River wilderness and play in the river at a secluded canyon sand bar where we barged in on a tentful of three hikers who seemed decidedly glum for the duration of our presence, contenting themselves with odd-smelling materials tossed into their campfire while we waded around in the near-ice. I'm sure they were just as happy to see us leave, so they could resume their frolicking. But hey, this land is your land, this land is my land, right? Privacy is an illusion in the Workers' Paradise. And by the way, that was poison oak.
Good weekend, all things considered. How was yours?
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