Festival Celebrates Answers to ‘How Berkeley Can You Be?’ http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=12887By JENNY LEE Contributing Writer Monday, September 29, 2003
Dancing lobsters, singing sea bass, naked people and grandmothers for peace—Bezerkeley came out in full force yesterday during the annual parade showcasing the city's zaniness.
About 10,000 people participated in the "How Berkeley Can You Be?" Parade and Festival, marching along California Street and University Avenue, and around Shattuck Avenue and Center Street to see their favorite cultural, ethnic and political groups.
With the smell of marijuana smoke in the air, spectators from around the country sported tie-dye T-shirts, listened to Hari Krishna music and partook in the fruit-flavored hooka tobacco located on mobile couches.
"It's kinda trippy," said an Oakland resident who declined to give his name.
As the parade passed by, parents shielded their children's eyes as the X-Plicit Players strutted by, fully naked.
A group of women representing the Pagan Lounge Ensemble, clad in leather miniskirts, fish-net stockings and sheer blouses, chanted "make martinis, not war" while playing stringed instruments.
Meanwhile, members of People for Ethical Treatment of Mosquitos (PET'M) squirted onlookers with water imitating insect repellent.
"I love the political commentary," said Bea Weicker, parade supporter of five years. "It's sophisticated."
But not everything at the parade was political.
UC Berkeley alumna Lisa Pongrace designed motorized bunny slippers, each about the size of a bumper car.
Pongrace said there was no statement to take away from her art piece.
"This is the left one and that is the right one," Pongrace said of her creation. "We're just bunny slippers."
Some traveled cross-country to participate in Berkeley's parade.
John Schroeter drove from Houston, Texas to present the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, an art car filled with singing sea animals conducted by a maestro lobster, chorusing with "Hallelujah."
The "How Berkeley Can You Be?" Parade and Festival began in 1996. It was founded by John Solomon, merchant of Caffe Venezia. According to the parade's Web site, the event was meant to build University Avenue's popularity and increase business.
Locals of all ages were showered by Berkeley's radiance on what started off as a gray and cold Sunday afternoon. Most first-timers, like Ellen Newton, said they were pleased with the event.
"It's amazing," the 15-year-old said.
Nude folks, pot smokers parade in BerkeleyIN THIS CITY, you don't need a good reason to salsa on stilts or cover a blue Volvo with plastic fish and sea crabs. "It's Berkeley," said Cara Kallen of Santa Rosa. "You want a reason?" On Sunday morning, people along University Avenue certainly didn't need one. Kallen was keeping an eye on the eighth annual "How Berkeley Can You Be?" parade and her husband Elliot -- a "foolish guy with a basket over his head," she said.
Kallen -- the one in wicker -- played the shakuhachi flute and was among a hodgepodge of nearly 100 wacky, puzzling and sometimes funny floats to stumble through town in the parade created as way to bolster business on the street.
There actually was a point to the basket-wearing shakuhachi players, as it turns out. Early Japanese Buddhist monks, who were ousted Samurai, wore the baskets in the 1600s to remain anonymous.
But purposefulness is not a prerequisite for the parade organizers who modeled this event after a Pasadena parade where the theme is irreverence.
Caffe Venezia owner John Solomon organized the first HBCYB parade and festival in 1996 to signal University Avenue's renaissance from a street with vacant storefronts and graffiti, the event's Web site says.
The irreverent bordered on the illegal Sunday as a truck full of cannabis supporters wafted past two police officers, causing one to grimace and wave a hand in front of her nose.
And, of course, naked people.
"We love the naked people," said Victoria Geldman, who has brought her son Sam, 7, to the parade for several years.
She said the adult-ish humor and content is educational for Sam because it stimulates conversations about issues -- like cannabis -- that might not otherwise come up.
But for out-of-towners Chad and Karien Chiniquy of Utah, the parade was a good reason not to live in a place where patchouli oil and bumper stickers never go out of style.
"Bunch of freaks," said Chad Chiniquy, 35, who came to watch a cousin in the parade.
His wife was little more diplomatic.
"It seems very Berkeley,' said Karien Chiniquy, who like her husband, looked very un-Berkeley in a starched white blouse, Seven brand jeans and Prada backpack.
But the parade makes Sara Pierre, 26, who comes each year with her husband Guillaume Pierre, 23, proud to live in Berkeley, she said.
"It's so anarchist."
Parading unicyclists in pink spandex, floating bedroom slippers and Raiders fans protesting circumcisions might leave her husband -- a native of France -- wondering why, they said. But she says "why not?"