September 24, 2008
Santa Cruz Drum Circle Silenced by Police, Residents Weep With Joy
There are things we miss about Santa Cruz. Adding a third coat of black nail polish while hanging at Caffe Pergolesi, wandering Pacific Avenue stoned, catching our roommates turning our Ketel One into Russian Dew, watching porn with Susie Bright, pretending we were going to change the world, and synthetic enhancements are just a few things we loved about living in the snake pit by the sea.
What we don't miss? Drum circles. Those gatherings of unwashed rats banging on drums smacked of elitism, and not the good kind. Anyway, for one reason or another, the police department in Santa Cruz recently silenced the audible terror stemming from one drum circle near the local Farmer Market. According to IndyBay:
Once again, metal stakes and green mesh fencing have been put up by the city of Santa Cruz to prevent the weekly drum circle and gathering in Parking Lot #4 next to the Santa Cruz Farmer's Market. September 24th marks the fourth week in a row that police are taking action to shut down the traditional community gathering where people play music, share food and take time to try and enjoy life.
While we can't promote the grouping on individuals into a circle to, you know, improvise their alleged percussion skills, we do think four "overpaid" cops watching a patch of dirt seems a tad unnecessary. Seriously, check out the fuzz coming down on this (jarringly homoerotic) drum circle just last week. Read more about it here.
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Drum circles and dirty hippies are elitist now?
Fuck, is someone keeping a list? I've lost track.
This definitely screws up my "do everything that's elitist" plan.
Coincidentally, I was in Santa Cruz last Thursday while the Farmer's Market was going on and I can't say it was any worse than the GGP circle. I wonder why after all these years nobody shows up (or learns how to) play anything but DONK DONK DONKDONK; DONK DONK DONKDONK (repeat ad infinitum). It's like a regional convention of "needs more cowbell" aficionados.
Being a member of the elitist club only requires a well honed superiority complex, an overdeveloped sense of entitlement and insecurity over personal sexual prowess.
This tidbit laid out for tonight's gathering does whet the appetite, though:
Jumbogumbo Joe Schultz has agreed to lift a ladle so be sure to belly up to the soup bucket for a swig of his tasty brew.
@manys: Because they're white and middle class.
Pergolesi is still around? I figured by now the waves of bad economic times and the like would have killed it off...glad to hear it's still around!
Pergolesi will never disappear!
So I used to live at the Crown-Merrill apartments when I was in college, and every damn full moon, the hippies would head up to the meadow behind the apartments and have their drum circle with hooting and whatnot, well into the early morning hours.
I don't miss that at all.
i had two classes at crown-merrill. i dropped both because of that damn hill. i commend you, thecharlie.
Can SFPD do the same for the guys drumming on Home Depot buckets at Powell Street?
Is that choke hold on the bearded guy legal?
What about Jahva House? Golden West diner? Saturn Cafe before it burned down and moved downtown?
anything done to someone with a beard should be legal
Drum circles are evil and must be destroyed.
Perhaps I can get a large stick, or even a pair of large sticks and beat on their skin?
^hork^Cracking self up.
freaking hippies ruin everything they touch.
but what do i know? i'm employed by the evil right wing media!
i don't think drum circle folk are necessarily hippies. at least not all of them.
"drum circle folk?"
hippie.