4-2-07 - Ha ha! I frequently do the opposite of what I say (or, in this case, what I said yesterday). It's called character. We did go to the Saint Stupid's Day Parade and it was great! (See yesterday's What's New post below)

Trinka and me that is, Clay chilled with his gang. I don't see any images of it yet on their web site, listed below, but until there are, you can go to their parades of Stupid page which, even though it appears not to have been updated in three years, is still representative of what transpired yesterday.

We did run into Sue (see below). She was carrying a noteworthy stupid sign that read I prefer confusion over delusion. She kindly held it in front of me so I could take note of it. It wasn't until later when we all gathered at Washington Square Park that I realized it was she who was holding it. I would have noticed but I was too busy looking for her.

Other signs I remember from the stupid parade:

I CAN'T AFFORD AN ACTUAL SIGN

STOP THE MARCHING!

ROBOTS AGAINST HUMANITY

THIS SIGN IS MEANINGLESS (BECAUSE IT IS SELF-REFERENTIAL)

I'M WITH STUPID [worn on the head with an arrow pointing straight down]

I kept laughing as I saw new signs of stupidity. A man with a portable PA periodically called out, "Hey stupid!" As we walked along, periodically the old familiar refrain of "NO MORE CHANTING!" would be chanted. People also called out "Voyeur!" to people standing on the sidewalk looking at us. There was a guy on a bicycle dressed like Jesus who asked me if I'd help him and I said yes and he said, "Just kidding." We passed the Church of Scientology and Larry Flynt's Hustler Club which were acknowledged in stupid ways I couldn't understand. There were two naked men in the parade - well, one - the other wore a hat and tie. The police escorting us didn't pay any attention to them. I didn't notice any pot being smoked. Wavy Gravy wasn't there or I didn't see him which surely means he wasn't there. I hope he's okay. I got a piece of paper, folded it, and wrote on it:

NSA OBSERVER

and drew an eye and an ear on it and stuck it in my shirt so it could be read.

The keynote address was given by a representative of the Church of the SubGenius.

I ran into Marc(k), a friend from Sebastopol, who said that his buddy (they had a whacky cable TV music and comedy show together) Dirk Dirkson , the great impresario of punk rock had died and that there would be a memorial concert or event for him in June. Dirk, son of the oratorically impressive Senator Everett Dirkson, used to play my record World Suicide at his club on Broadway (Mabuhay Gardens) in SF. Bye Dirk.

Bishop Joey, the high priest of the First Church of the Last Laugh whose saint is Saint Stupid, gave an inspiring talk in which he said that all you had to do to be a member of this church is be stupid and so it included all humanity. "Stupidity is the stem cell of all religion," he proclaimed. He then brought out the seating chart which detailed where each of us should be sitting on the grass - Sephardic Jews over there, Suni Moslems over there, and so forth. He passed out cards on which we were to write down why we thought there was a statue of Benjamin Franklyn in Washington Square Park. They were passed out by a church some, not a nun, cause "our nuns are gettin' some."

Trinka and I meandered off to La Trieste for a nostalgic mini-repast plus stimulating beverages, awash in the nostalgia of blissful stupidity.

Later in San Rafael, we attended a talk by Adyashanti on the inevitability of failure and how failure is the only route to awakening, failure, also, he said, called surrender. It seemed to tie in serendipitously with the lessons of Saint Stupid's day and April Fools.

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Original post in What's New on yesterday's Saint Stupid's Day Parade:

4-01-07 - It's a sad day. We have decided not to go to the Saint Stupid's Day Parade in San Francisco. Check out the Saint Stupid dot com, or, The First Church of the Last Laugh (FCLL). We're too busy doing stupid things. I'll miss seeing Suzuki student Sue Roberts (see her cuke dot com interview) who's always dresses up whacky for the event. I wonder if buddy Herb Gold will be there.  Boo hoo. I remember prior years' stupid parades. Maybe we should go anyway and let today's stupidity take care of today. That does sound like some sort of iron clad cosmic law. Hmm. - DC