Monday, June 13, 2011

Naked Bicycling... it's a Thing

Around here, we have an annual parade and celebration for the Summer Solstice. One of the unofficial parts of the parade is the naked cyclists. It's this group of people (a group that gets larger every year) who "crash" the parade, riding just ahead, pretty much naked and covered in paint. Sometimes there are skateboarders and rollerbladers, people in costumes, various states of undress, but most are totally free-flying.

And gang... I'm doing it this year.

I just bought my first bike since college, and I figure gravity hasn't taken a huge toll on me yet, so... now's the time. I'm not an exhibitionist. I get nervous in front of crowds, even if I know every single person in the crowd, and I'm not very good on my bike yet. Going uphill is still quite a struggle and I'm worried about crashing/falling. I do plan to go get some cheap flesh-colored undies (just bottoms) somewhere because I am not quite that brave, but otherwise... yeah. Eeek.

BUT I'M GONNA DO IT

So what I need from you guys... (OMG LIST TIME YAY)

1. encouragement!!
2. anyone else who wants to do this with me?
3. ideas for painting myself. There's a good chance I will be asking total strangers to paint my (mostly) nude self, and I don't have a lot of money for lots of paint colors, so I need something relatively simple. (I may just go all blue and wear cut-off shorts...)
4. did I mention encouragement? Because it's now less than a week away and I am getting nervous!
5. cross fingers we have lovely sunny warm weather like we did yesterday, and not yucky gray cloudy wet weather like we had this morning. I'm not exactly going to be wearing a jacket.

Ready... set... IDEAS! (also, if you're gonna be around that morning and you're artistically inclined and want to be my Painter, please let me know asap!)

6 comments:

  1. Yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy! \o/

    Ideas:
    1. You could paint yourself all yellow with a green star on your belly and yellow feathers in your hair and go as a Sneech! Or skip the star -- the fact that you can skip the star is totally the point of the book. And there's probably a significant overlap in the Venn diagram of People Who've Read The Sneeches and People Who Go to the Solstice Parade.
    2. I bet that with yellow and black/brown, you could do something recognizably C3PO-ish. The problem here is depending on some random hippie to get C3PO right.

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  2. A couple of things!

    - I love the naked ride. Mostly because I first saw it accidentally with my conservative, stoic-to-his-bones father who thought we were just at the Fremont Fair for some innocent father-daughter time. Only he could gaze abstractedly at the noodies in front of him without SEEING because that would mean ACKNOWLEDGING. I thought it was great hilariousness and he later confided to my mother that he had never been so embarrassed. I still have photos. From which you could derive inspiration!

    - I vote for concentric rainbow circles on the boobies.

    - good job wearing bottoms and not subjecting your hooha to a bike seat

    good luck! I'll be rooting for ya!

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  3. ooh, I like the rainbow idea... I'd love to see your pictures if you wouldn't mind sending me a link. I took a million in 2009, and will probably comb through them again tonight for ideas. :)

    (oh, and yes... the bottoms have many reasons for being! 1. I am not that brave. 2. protect my delicates from the seat. 3. protect my new leather seat from my delicates. 4. keep my privates private (I'd like to keep a few things just between Desk and myself...)

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  4. Girlfriend, these photos are on film!! Which is awesome. I will dig around for them. This was back in the day when the cops were still waiting at the end of the street with modesty towels and would cart off a nekkie or two to show that they didn't put up with no noodists.

    Everyone loves rainbows. Also, it addresses the awkward problem of What To Do With Your Nipples. The answer here is of course to Highlight Them To The Point of Distraction.

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  5. I like that idea! Plus you might score a few chicks, cuz you'll be sporting their flag on your bosoms.

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  6. Funny story: for the longest time, the Solstice Parade was largely left alone by local law enforcement because... well, because Fremont has always been just, y'know, so damn Fremont. Honey Badger don't give a shit, and neither do we.

    But about twenty years ago, some "family values" group got all up in arms about Naked People In Public, and they wanna bring their kids without seeing all the Sinful Naked Flesh, like going to the Solstice Parade without that expectation is even a thing.

    So they lobbied, and got together a petition, and town hall meetings and everything, and finally got the SPD to agree to turn up in force and arrest any naked person they saw.

    Come the day, the police turned up with about fifty officers, and lined the parade route with cuffs and badges and all. And when the parade started, they did a smart about face, and faced the other way.

    These people lost it.

    "You promised to stop this! You said you'd arrest these perverts right when you saw them!"

    "Yes, ma'am. But I haven't seen a single one."

    True story.

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