I fucking love Berkeley, Part Deux

Hello again!

Okay, so when I returned, I decided to get up close and personal, and took myself to the median of Piedmont Ave, which is as close as the police line would allow anyone. I would say here, it was about half and half hippies and anti-tree sitters. I could tell a was behind a pro-treer, but he was super nice because I accidentally bumped into him when I was bending over trying to get a look at the scaffold going up around the tree, and he let me move in front of him!!! so see, hippies aren't all that bad. I got back there just in time, because the scaffold was only a mere foot below the main platform that the sitters occupied. They got right up under it, and then built a platform right below the sitters' one. This took about another hour or so, and once they had a secure platform built, they started pulling the tree sitters' shit down and tossing it over, which led to cheers from the crowd. The sitters themselves were all clustered at the verrrrrry tip of the tree, and it was kinda scary too! Like, they have this little bucket thing at the very top (apparently they call it the crow's nest) and it's barely big enough for one person and HELLUV scary looking, but there were two guys in it and two hanging on to the tree right below them. Also, the crane holding the police chief et al. was also still circling.

So these guys are building this scaffolding around it, which was pretty crazy, and they were all wearing these white suits. I commented to my neighbor that I felt like that was a pretty bold choice, what with the propensity of the sitters to throw urine etc on anyone coming within range, but he told me they were wearing Tyvex suits for that very reason! Good job, guys. Can you imagine how pissed (pun intended) you would be if some fucking vegetarian threw his poop on you???? By the way, as they were pulling the stuff down, someone was like "what are they doing" and this other guy was like "oh just pulling all their junk down before they go get them" and some dumb bitch behind us was all "you know that's their personal belongings, show some respect, it's not just junk, yadda yadda yadda I'm so entitled to say this shit because I really and truly CARE about the environment even though I'm really ugly" and there was ALMOST a fight. I had to turn around so she would see me laughing at her, cause she was kinda big and I bet she could have put a hurt on Lil Sofs.

So THEN I hear some sobbing, and I turned around and this woman, sporting a native american type top and tons of pins and a fucking MULLET was leaning her head on some guy's shoulder and crying and moaning and literally saying things like "it's just so hard seeing it happen like this" while she looked douchey.

UPDATE: I can hear sirens. I'm in my office about 200 yards away, so maybe the ground protest got out of hand after I left?

Okay, so meanwhile the scaffolding is complete, and obviously somethings about to happen. Then the loudspeaker starts going again and someone announces that....

"GREETINGS TO ALL. OUR FOUR REMAINING HEROES IN THE TREES ARE GIVING UP THEIR PROTEST. WE'VE DONE ALL WE CAN, AND THEY ARE AGREEING TO COME DOWN BECAUSE THE UNIVERSITY HAS AGREED TO START A COMMITTEE TO INVOLVED THE COMMUNITY IN ENVIRONMENTAL DECISIONS [don't hold your breath, losers] AND SINCE THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY BEING TERRORISTS BY FORCING OUR BROTHERS OUT OF THE TREES, WE WILL BE BRINGING THEM DOWN PEACEFULLY. WE ARE TAKING THE STREETS IN SUPPORT." The cops took down all the barricades and allowed us to mill about in the middle of the street. Press people were fighting each other for position, and I thought there might be a stampede for a sec, but there wasn't. However, Lil Sofs did manage to get front and center, right behind a cameraman for Channel 4 News and in front of an AP reporter. Since I maintain this blog, I thought it very fitting.

More tears, more yelling. Oh, by the way though, the loudest cheer from the crowd came when one of the arborists fired up his chainsaw for the first time. HELL YEAH MOTHERFUCKERS.

So one by one, the sitters moved down to the platform, where several cops were waiting to frisk them, handcuff them, and escort them away. Each time one did, the guy with the mike would lead a rousing chorus of "we love you, brother, we love you!!!!" and give a little personal note like "Huck has been saving these trees for over a year, we love you brother" before they were whisked out of sight. I highly recommend you check out the pictures, because it's kinda hard to describe the perch and the scaffolds and stuff.

So anyways, game over son. Hit the showers.

I'm sure I've forgotten some key details, so keep checking back. Oh - this is good: the guys who were up there were Shem, Huck (I believe this was the infamous Huckleberry), Ernesto, and Mando (perhaps short for Armando?). Good times.