summer of (bike) love

so my stay in san francisco--which is ending in two days (!)--happened to encompass a free festival in golden gate park. a 40-year anniversary of the summer of love, the event went by the same name and featured a bunch of mediocre cover bands. it was a nice festival scene, though, and i had a good time. despite the city's exodus to burning man, crowd estimates were 100,000; i guess if you throw a free party, people will show up!

in the area of vendors, there was the usual: fried food, psychedelic art, commemorative t-shirts and posters. there were also a lot of political groups, with their buttons and magnets and bumper stickers. now, during the summer i had been collecting stickers so that i could decorate sancho (my bicycle, if you haven't caught on yet). and the bike's pretty well covered, but there's still plenty of room on the downtube, fork, and stays, so i'm always on the lookout for more bling. and what a perfect venue to get something to protest oil war! but. the thing about all these anti-war stickers, was that they were too big for sancho's delicate aluminum tubes. they were all bumper stickers, designed to slap on your oil-powered automobile. I COULD NOT FIND A WAR PROTEST STICKER THAT WAS SMALL ENOUGH TO FIT ON MY BICYCLE FRAME.

gah.

and cell phones. man, cell phones. i met up with some friends, and i met them across the street because the festival was a mob scene. but i overheard many a cell phone conversation of someone describing their location to someone who was looking for them. hilarious. "OK, i'm in front of the multi-colored bus, near a rainbow umbrella!" like that narrows it down. next you'll be telling them there's a dude in tie-dye in front of you, and it sorta smells like weed.