Shriveled cocks are nothing new under the sun. Shriveled cocks were the “wildest,” “craziest,” “most outrageous” sights witnessed at the finish line in the Year of the War on Fun, the 2009 version of the AEG/ING (read: Christian billionaire-owned) Bay to Breakers.
In a word: yawn.
And indeed, the neon-hatted bare-dicked gentlemen comprising Bare to Breakers have been at this for years, long before B2B became a corporatized bacchanalian shit show, when 35 tons of trash, mobile keg parties and a Panhandle scented with puke and pee were the word.
Your humble correspondent has memories of yesteryear, wading through piles of spent Bud Light and PBR cans, negotiating around, over and sometimes through puddles of wee-wee and stomach acid, and watching 30 half-blind Berkeley undergraduates attempting to push a deteriorating float up a heavily-wooded, hopefully poison oaked embankment onto Fulton somewhere in the 30s (that’s Avenues). If such revelry was to be had this year, it was not in the two or so miles from the breakers into the park — unless the real serious runners brought a real serious party, finishing both the race and a 12-pack by 8:40 a.m., when the rest of us had barely made it to Alamo Square.
Indeed — an informal survey of the finish line and the last home stretch through Golden Gate Park revealed one (!) crushed beer can, one white-hatted, barechested young dude righteously bellowing “YEAAAHH” and about a half-dozen well-behaved, registered racers passing water bottles filled with an orangey substance back and forth. Screwdrivers? Alas, we fear not: we fear Tang.
There are unconfirmed reports of shit-shows going on at 6th and Balboa, but even then it’s more a case of “whose costume is best” and “who is singing the loudest” rather than “how many different kinds of cocktails can one stomach hold”. Give us a break.
Will this be known as the year of responsibility? Was 2009 the year the levee finally broke, and level-headedness, responsible drinking and controlled urinating washed over the Hetch Hetchy Valley of Generation Y’s uncontrollable, me-first, party-at-all-costs-and-fuck-the-rest-of-you-and-your-home-owning-sensibilities zeitgeist? Or was May 20, 2009 simply the latest in a string of victories for the controllers, the corporate sanitizers who wish hell on hooting and hollering, pestilence on partying, and death to fun?
Who knows, and who cares. We’ll be at the bar, spending the last of our tax refund*.
*Next year’s tax refund**
**We hope.
Photo by the reporter, see entire photoset here.
