UPDATE ON THE ANNUAL NAKED PUMKIN RUN!
Part II
If you read my post yesterday (Part I is below), you would know that the Boulder City government had a mountain over a mole hill-size reaction to the thought of naked pumpkin runners and college students and the rest of us celebrating Halloween on the Pearl Street Mall that might be a little too wild for their taste.
The nuns at my Catholic High School were more liberal than them.
Do you want the Good News first or the Bad News first?
Okay fine, the Bad News first:
THERE WAS NOT ONE NAKED PUMPKIN RUNNER...NOT A ONE!
Maybe this will give you a clue as to why:
There were police, police, and more police
And more...
Police in cars, on bikes, on foot...
Many were waiting with anticipation for the Annual Naked Pumpkin Runners...they never came.
A lone sign protesting...to no avail
Ooops....more police
The crowd got excited...could it be a naked pumpkin runner...NO, AN IMPOSTER, A FAKE!
Photo by Will Morgan/ For The Camera (WILL MORGAN)
Another wannabe naked pumpkin runner who didn't want to be labelled a "sex offender"
Now, the Good News:
WE, and 4000 other well-behaved but boisterous people had a Happy Halloween. We were packed onto the mall. There was one arrest and no one noticed. There were outrageous costumes, groups of ninjas running through the crowd, and a lot of kids dressed up as police and swat teams. I got fooled by one of them:
I kind of got excited at the thought of being arrested...but he was a "fake" Swat team cop...I'm so gullible
More Good News:
We took the bus to and from the Pearl Street Mall, and that was a great experience!
Happy people on the bus
"Forty police officers patrolled the Mall in pairs, and another 60 were spread out around the city. The fire department was on alert to respond quickly to any fires on University Hill, Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said.
Police estimated the crowd on the Mall at around 4,000, bigger than estimates from last year but a far cry from the 20,000 to 40,000 people who descended on downtown Boulder in the last years of the Mall Crawl, before police put an end to the rowdy event in 1991.An attempt to revive the Mall Crawl had put police on edge in the weeks leading up to the event. At a 9:30 p.m. media briefing, Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner said he believed that the police department's efforts to tame the party -- including shutting down parking garages and announcing the large presence of officers -- was working."I've heard people say, 'It's just not worth it. Let's not go down there,'" he said. "Obviously there will always be people who come down to the Mall. The police presence appeared to deter full participation in the annual Naked Pumpkin Run, where people streak down the Mall wearing nothing but carved-out pumpkins on their heads. Around 11:20 p.m., three people with jack-o-lanterns on their heads ran down Pearl Street, prompting officers to descend on the area. But the three people covered what they needed to cover to be within the law."
I do want to say something positive here about the police who were only doing their jobs as had been mandated to them by Chief Mark Beckner (the same Chief Mark Beckner who arrived unannounced at the doors of the two young men who were promoting the Mall Crawl on their Facebook pages...the same Chief Mark Beckner who was trying to intimidate these young men with threats of legal recourse until the ACLU stepped in and got them to back off.).
The police I saw joked with the crowds, took pictures of the party revelers and had smiles on their faces. They took a fair amount of guff from some of the more obnoxious revelers who'd had perhaps maybe a few too many.
The Mall Crawl made a successful comeback...and that's a good thing. The restaurants and bars were packed. People were good natured and gracious to one another, even as we were bumping and slamming into each other in the tunnel-neck places of the Mall.
Looking back at the night (I went to sleep at 3:30 AM), the scene was wild but not wicked. And that's the part that makes me feel like Chief Mark Beckner got exactly what he wanted...naked pumpkin runners may be a thing of the past.
And that just feels un-American.
PART I
Photo courtesy of nakedpumpkingrun.org
Boulder, Colorado is perceived as a liberal "it is what it is" kind of town. Images of flower children and free love come to people's mind when they think of Boulder. Forbes Magazine rated it the #1 smartest city in America and the most educated.
Apparently, none of the smart people are in charge of making the decisions for its citizens. Last year, during the Annual Pumpkin Naked Run, the local paper reported there were some 100 runners. I was there (with clothes on thank you very much) and was witness to at least 300 hundred naked pumpkin runners streaking down Pearl Street Mall.
Just some good ole fashioned family fun.
This may sound strange, but it was as American as apple pie.
The hour was late, the children had been safely tucked in their beds, the crowd was happy and supportive. Fun and good natured joking filled the air.
The humorless police dampened the spirits of 15 runners who were ticketed with indecent exposure and the threat of being listed as sex offenders. These 15 people were made up of professionals and professors, students and housewives. They may as well have been forced to walk around town with a shirt with a big orange X plastered all over it.
This year, the fascists, I mean, City of Boulder, are getting serious. I found this in the Daily Camera this morning:
In an effort to keep rowdy crowds out of downtown Boulder during Saturday night's Halloween celebration, the city will close off access to six parking garages and is even considering shutting down U.S. 36.
Boulder officials announced Friday that the city will close off its downtown parking garages from 9 p.m. Saturday until 2 a.m. Sunday.
As for the Naked Pumpkin Run, I found this:
Naked pumpkins: It's not clear whether the annual Naked Pumpkin Run will happen this year on Pearl Street, but police have threatened to arrest anyone who doesn't cover up.
Mall Crawl?: Two local men last month called, via Facebook, for a revival of the costumed event, which drew 40,000 people to the Pearl Street Mall at its peak in 1989. Police have since asked that they stop promoting the event; one of them agreed.
What the Camera failed to mention is that the two local men who were calling for a renewal of the Mall Crawl through Facebook were threatened with legal action if they did not stop promoting the event. Hmmmm, is anyone else thinking, WHAT HAPPENED TO FREE SPEECH?
I love Boulder, Colorado...a place I've called home for over 26 years. Its beauty is unmatched, its citizens conscious and aware...but I find this more than disturbing.
You know you're in trouble when the dumbing down of American involves Boulder, Colorado.
And for the first time, I have to agree with those who refer to Boulder as The People's Republic of Boulder because today it is.
Closing down taxpayer funded parking lots, threatening to shut down US 36, the only major highway between Boulder and Denver, giving out indecent exposure tickets, threatening labels as sex offenders...well, it's not only dumb, it seems unconstitutional.
When you try to get any details on this event, the source to go to is nakedpumpkinrun.org, but they've become paranoid; you have to send them a private email to get information. They're being watched and they know it.
Talk about scary.
No worries! As your loyal Open Salon Reporter, I'll be on Pearl Street tonight to report on the event...or non-event. Should there be any naked pumpkin runners who dare to defy the powers that be, I'll be on hand to investigate and report.
Should any pictures leak of this event, and should there be a picture of a naked runner that bears any resemblance to ME in any way, shape or form, the likeness will be purely coincidental.
I know that I should end this post by saying 'Happy Halloween", but given the repressive nature of the Boulder City government, all I can say is BAH HUMBUG.
SONYA LEA
CatholicGirl
Emily Conyngham
Writer to the Stars
Deborah Méndez Wilson
Heidi Banerjee
Salon.com
Comments
Will look forward to your report. Watch out for signs that say
"Fun Prohibited Zone".
;-)
Good luck Mary!
Thank you very much for this piece. I share your concern in regard to the extreme over reaction to such an event.
In my daughter’s private school education many of her teachers would not allow the students to use such worlds as, “gosh,” “shoot,” “jeez,” or “dang.” because these religiously minded educators believed such words were too close to actual swear words like “God,” “sh*t,” “Jesus,” and “damn.”
This kind of ridiculous overreaction makes a mockery of any good reason behind forbidding children to use actual swear words in a school setting.
The foolish reaction to the pumpkin run is similar in my opinion. To threaten folks like this with charges of indecent exposure or being listed as sex offenders belittles the judgments that are rightly rendered upon those who commit acts of genuine perversion.
Rated and appreciated as always.
I'll still keep my eye out for a nekked resemblance of a MaryTKelly running down Pearl street, though.
Go Pumpkin-Runners!!
The irony is that the people complaining about this are people who would blind themselves before attending. Feel free to show them this Mary. Tell 'em Bob wants to know.
Mary, I think you should go to one of those body painting artists and have your body painted up like a skeleton (camouflaging all those objectionables!)!
Have a blast tonight and stay out of jail!!!
And truth be told, I'm much more interested in getting 40,000 to show up -- costumed or not -- for anything remotely spontaneous. Because that is the signal that the people still have the power.
If trends continue (even though JK Brady is right about the cyclicality of things, we may head far farther toward totalitarianism than anyone wants to imagine before the collective comes to its senses) we're going to get to the point where millions will be required to gather spontaneously to stop humorless authorities from engaging in all kinds of atrocious behavior.
So, while I am all for getting naked at the drop of a hat, I find the pressure put on the Facebook promoters more troubling, find the closing of the garages and the possible closing of US 36 more deeply worrisome than the possible citing of a few people for indecent exposure. A good lawyer can take care of that for you.
Have fun tonight Mary and I'll look forward to your intrepid reporting!
Thanks Lonnie and BBE for such salient comments that add much more substance for a post that may appear to be pure fluff but is anything but.
And thanks to all the other commenters who find this as outrageous as I do.
http://open.salon.com/blog/trig_palin/2009/10/31/talkin_bout_a_revolution
So, in Boulder, everyone who wants to gets to come out on the streets and campus and smoke weed on April 4th at 4:20 pm for "420," and don't get busted and the smoke in town clambakes everyone who lives there, butt persons are sex offenders for a fun bun run? Common!
I am really shocked. This does not feel like Boulder.
As you know, I live up at 9,000 feet in Crested Butte and we used to have an annual streak ski day on the last day of skiing every year. And it was on Easter Sunday but the kids just didn't seem to care one way or another. Depends upon how the parents respond to it. We all laughed alot and for those who didn't like it they just went to church and skipped skiing for that one day a year.
The only thing the "Company" asked necked skiers is that they wear a scarf or something to cover up while standing in the lift lines. The cover ups or downs became quite artistic and creative -- like our annual Arts Festival.
If I were "free skiing," free of clothes that is, I would definitely want something between my frozen fanny and the steel chair lift. I mean we all see that tongue frozen to metal poles kinda thing, but my tush frozen to the chair lift and peeled off when landing at the top? OUCH!
Also, the last bus run on the last day, passengers open the windows and moon all the people on main street in town.
I've participated in both events as a grateful, and sometimes yucked out, spectator. It made me also want to get breast implants before doing it myself!
Anyway, we are a "Company Town," and when the ownership changed hands several years ago, skiers were actually arrested and hauled off in handcuffs for skiing au natural.
That created a worse problem -- with their hands shackled behind their backs they were not free to cover up their privates which caused more problems for everyone. Full Frontal Ex-poseur! Exiting squad cars in town like that actually competed with the mooning thing.
Anyway, Boulder is NOT a Company Town so what's up with that? I'm truly AGOG!!!
Thanks for reporting and I love what our sister Cathy said to do - paint your beautiful bod and join in the fun while taking copious notes and photos. Looking forward to your part deux on this.
Wish I'd known this was going on sooner. I would have come down from the mountains in a flash (or to flash).
Please don't leave us hanging. No pun intended of course.
Love, Joan
What would Crested Butte be without this fun stuff? And so harmless!!!
But the buff skiing went out with new ownership of the mountain.
To answer your question with what is "up", the following is from a local free newspaper distributed in Boulder, the Colorado Daily:
"Boulder police try to squelch comeback of Halloween Mall Crawl
Brittany Anas
Posted: 10/01/2009 04:48:31 PM MDT
Boulder police showed up at the doors of two residents who have been trying to revive the infamous Halloween “Mall Crawl," asking them to stop promoting the event.
Chief Mark Beckner says the Mall Crawl is unsafe and could cost the city $40,000. In its heyday in the 1980s, the event drew tens of thousands of revelers to the Pearl Street Mall on Halloween night.
Now, there are 730-some members of a Facebook group that calls for a rebirth of the Mall Crawl this Halloween, which falls on a Saturday.
Beckner on Wednesday met with Ryan Van Duzer, one of the administrators of the Facebook page and a frequent contributor to the Camera as "Out There Guy."
The city, in a news release, described the meeting with Van Duzer as “productive.”
“(Van Duzer) agreed that bringing back the Mall Crawl is not a good idea and promised to discourage others from coming to Pearl Street on Halloween for the purpose of participating in a Mall Crawl event.”
Van Duzer said he is more than willing to cooperate with police, but is bothered that the police chief showed up unannounced at his home, knocking loudly on the door. He said that as a public figure in the community — who typically attracts attention for positive and charitable events — he wishes authorities would have set up a meeting with him to talk about their concerns.
“I love Boulder,” Van Duzer said Thursday. “I love my town. I wanted to bring back the Mall Crawl in a better way than it ended. But I understand their concerns, and I'll stop promoting it. Game over.”
At its height, the Mall Crawl drew up to 20,000 participants, including many drunken revelers. City traffic was congested, local businesses suffered property damage and fights broke out, according to the city.
The city eventually shut the Mall Crawl down in 1991.
“The Mall Crawl posed enormous safety issues and costs to businesses and taxpayers in the past,” Beckner said in a statement. “The city has worked hard to create a safe, family-friendly environment on the Pearl Street Mall. We see no benefits, and plenty of risks, to changing our focus now.”
City agencies determined the Mall Crawl could cost $40,000, which includes law enforcement staffing, traffic control and clean-up.
The city of Boulder, the University of Colorado and Downtown Boulder Inc. signed on to the statement discouraging the Mall Crawl.
CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said the university is concerned about the safety of its students. He said the school is worried the Mall Crawl will crowd traffic between downtown and the Boulder campus, and drunk partygoers will be traveling in costume along busy streets.
“That's a prescription for a lot of little, individual bad things to happen,” Hilliard said.
Van Duzer posted a note on the Facebook page Wednesday evening that read: “Today, I got an unannounced visit by the police chief and his deputy. We chatted for about 15 minutes, they told me about the horrors of the past Mall Crawls and kindly asked me to stop promoting it.
So, I am hereby telling all of you not to come to the Mall Crawl, cause there isn't gonna be one....just thousands of people who go to the mall anyway to celebrate, like last year and the year before and the year before.....
Behave kids!”
They were going to shut down a highway. Really? Why didn't they just go straight to carpet bombing and flamethrowers on main street.
I mean, I'm all for rigid structure, inflexible rules, unforgiving brutal consequences, and some good natured jack-booting amongst friends as much as the next guy. But naked people with pumpkins on their heads are sex offenders?
As Boulder proudly joins the ranks of the: "You ain't from around here are you boy?" cities.
I wish I could write more but I promised the cat I'd teach it how to goose-step tonight.
There once was a proud town called Boulder
whose liberal status it could no longer shoulder
When people ran around in the buff
Its police force got tough
And threw them in the cooler till they started to molder.
On Hallowed's Eve an idea came to MaryT.
To venture downtown to watch a bare naked spree.
When she came shoulder to shoulder,
With the Gestapo of boulder,
And got jailed and given the 10th Degree.
Lets all get Nakie in protest!
I saw this post and was licking my chops at the sight I was going to be treated to...maybe a mixed crowd with frontal and Full Monty and what not..... yikes indeed!
Ooop! Nope. I just looked at the catalog and it's the John Denver Box Set. Mary will have that out to you in the mail Monday.
Remember the the wise words given by the Oracle of Truth, Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black: "The person is smart. People are stupid."
Sounds like they imported the Denver police of the 1970's.
or maybe it all started with 911. and the US govt RESPONSE to it. which was CHENEYAN....
sometimes I really wish there could be an Anti-911 type event. why is it our rights could all disappear in a flash, but there is no contrary "fllash" way to reinforce our rights?? the birth of the US and the freedoms associated with it is increasingly, lately looking like a historical anomaly. it is built on the model of ancient greece, which sadly also looks at times like a historical anomaly against the background/backdrop of human civilizations/governments....
Same kind of thing has happened around here in quashing some big Halloween street events, mostly in SF, that had gone on for decades. But that came after some actual violence (albeit perpetrated by "out of towners") so it made a bit more sense.
by the way, I think Berkeley is the original "People's Republic of"! Comes from all the old lefties still in city gov't. They do things like continually vote up more tenants' rights and other things that are seen as rather socialist and/or anti-capitalist.
How did I become so invested in this? :)
I tried to rate it twice and I'll FB it. It just sounds so fun and ultimately wholesome, in some weird freaky kind of way. Glad you had a great Halloween Mary.
Boulder has always seemed like a very cool place to live but this persecution of pumpkin runners must stop.
And The People had fun anyhew -- despite the Gestapo presence. It's nice to know we can all have fun -- with or wthout clothes?
Forty cops on overtime? Imported from other counties? How much did that cost the tax payers? Huh?
Last count, the magnificent, beautiful, spectacular city of Boulder had over 2,000 homeless people living on the creek under bridges and in The Mall late at night. The Homeless Shelter could have used the money.
Oops! Now I'm getting preachy.
Glad you all had FUN, FUN, FUN, even though daddy put the T-Bird away!!!
It you look at the instances of extreme property damage that have occurred in cities after sporting events, the thought of anything over a thousand people can be concerning to any size city's police department. If they don't do anything and businesses, who generally take the brunt, suffer losses, the police take the blame. A prospective crowd of 40,000 people is pretty daunting.
On the other hand there is the right to free assembly regardless of the reason. Authorities do have the threat to public safety to use in order to stop this though. The actions of the police chief are on the wrong side of borderline abuse of power. Going to someone's house or place of business with the threat of intimidation in order to obtain a desired result is abuse under the color of power. The chief is going to hide behind the immediate threat to public safety, and it might hold up in court. But he probably could have accomplished the same result by emailing or calling the guy and saying: Hey, we have some real concerns and would like to see if we can meet with you guys and get your help with this. If that didn't work, then get tougher. Maybe he just didn't feel he had the time for that, but that doesn't make him any less wrong. And really; knowing how busy a chief of police is even on a slow day, if he had the time to go to the guy's house, he had the time for a phone call or an email.
The chief's statement of people saying it just wasn't worth it being a result of his department's actions has the strong taint of institutional revelry in it's use of power. This really is a double edge sword for him, and by the facts of his responsibility towards the city, he had the right idea with piss-poor implementation.
The last part of my hijacking Mary's post is that; our origins are that of an extremely puritanical society. There were no naked pumpkin races in the 1700s. There was no tolerance of even the slightest public moral breaches. Like all societies, tolerance for more permissive behavior is something that develops over time, with each generation increasing it's list of things that are acceptable.
I sincerely apologize to all of you for the length of this comment. But I have no friends, and am lonely.
For anyone who failed to notice --- that was a description of an outspoken member of the moral majority. Carrie on, Puritans!!!!
I find this interesting "I kind of got excited at the thought of being arrested."
Nick, are you reading this dude? Just sayin'.....
: )
On another note, didn't Gypsy Rose Lee maintain that bare skin is ultimately boring? Perhaps that fellow in the red thong left enough to the imagination to make himself more 'naked' to the 4000 voyeurs than if he had merely 'buffed' it.
Brian: I appreciate your two sides to the story and very much agree with both positions. The last Mall Crawl of significance was in 1991 and 40,000 people descended on the town of Boulder, many with ill intention. I went to Chico State back in the day and every spring we would celebrate a week of Pioneer Days. It was fun, but after time, it brought in tens of thousands of outsiders and the incidence of violence and rape increased dramatically. They had to put a stop to it.
With the exception of the absence of the naked pumpkin runners, the 4000 people who turned out on the mall this year were having a blast...and from the looks of the faces of the police, so were they. This was optimal. Time will tell how all of this will evolve.
My biggest point of contention is with Chief Mark Beckner and the way he abused his powers. This cannot be tolerated.
You can "hijack" my posts anytime. The sign of a good post, IMHO, is one that throws something out there and the comments take on a life of their own. So thanks Brian! Keep writing and being involved...no one should have to be lonely.
Tom: Wise comment as always.
Bongo: Yes, call me a coward! But there was no way in hell. First, I have no burning desire to run through a crowd on a cold night naked with a pumpkin on my head. Slimy and yucky (the pumpkin). Second, the very real threat of an indecent exposure ticket that could land me a designation as a "sex offender" would have been professional suicide. I don't know many people that can afford to take those kinds of risks right now.
john: Yes!
No more San Francisco Halloween party (always better then NY's, no matter what the NY'ers say). No more nekkid pumpkin runners.
What's this country coming to?
:) Glad you had a fun Halloween!
What fun you had despite the missing naked runners. No doubt you went home, shed that heavy coat and had a go around your property with your Honey-Do Pumpkin Pie of a hubby! Now that's a visual I can get 'behind' ! ! !
john: Yes!
marytkelly
November 02, 2009 12:39 PM"
- Exactly, Mary.
Therefore, don't caption a picture that a male "just didn't have the balls to go au naturel."
It's that form of offensive comment that keeps me from enjoying the entirety of your posts, which are usually thought-provoking and fun right up until men get reduced, if only momentarily, to their sexual parts in a predicament. As a family therapist/counselor or whatever your role, is that how you engender clients, or do you keep that style of talk out of your professional voice?
Be polite - don't mention cunts or balls, deal?
BTW, the men running shirtless in the picture must not have wanted the sex offender label any more than you did.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
Have a great day.