Saint Stupid Day Parade!

And you thought I was going to say something sacreligious about taiko or drumming, but no, my drumming was legitimately stupid last Saturday, aka, St. Stupid's Day, aka April fool's day. That's me in the middle/back in the blue wig--not bad, eh? I was going for Smurf-On-Vacation, or whatever. I looked more like a troll doll.

About a month ago, Janet asked me if I wanted to help her drum in the Saint Stupid's Day parade, which happens every April 1st, and has been happening for the past 28 years. First off, being asked to drum with her in a parade was so wonderful and exciting, but she made the idea absolutely titillating (I love that word) because as we sent emails back and forth, she would put in the subject line "St. Stupid Marching Band," and then, "Stupid Drum Corp," and then just "Stupid Drumming." Ok--so these are not my words! Stupid Drumming! It's real!

I guess the parade has various weekend and weekday routes, depending on when April 1st falls, and this year it fell on a weekend. We started out at the Transamerica Pyramid in the Financial District and headed up Columbus Avenue. As we were leaving, Janet leaned in and said, "stick to me like glue," which was easier said than done. It's hard to play a drum slung over your side--you know, George Washington style, while being surrounded by a surging crowd of crazy people dressed up like--whatever they were dressed up like. Our first stop was at the Church of Scientology, which in itself is kind of weird, and then basically the whole crowd of us, led by parade organizer Bishop Joey, gave a cheer which included "L. Ron Hubbard," and some profanity which I won't repeat here:


Then we continued up Columbus Avenue, giving a good show to the tourists in Little Italy and on the cable cars. We stopped at Cafe Trieste and sang Happy Birthday to the guy there, and then on to a park, which wasn't Washington Square Park (which was soggy from something like 6 weeks of rain, and which, I found out at this parade, is home to a statue of Benjamin Franklin) but some other park whose name eludes me and is probably not that important :



From here, there was a little concert from some goofy rock and rollers, a two-minute talent show, and also a visit by Wavy Gravy. I think that if I were 15 or 20 years older, I wouldn't consider Wavy Gravy a Ben and Jerry's ice-cream flavor, but would know him as the actual clown he is. Anyhow, he was one of the most hilarious moments for me in this whole parade experience. The old guy is 70 years old and was at Woodstock. He's kind of round and frail and brought along his own portable stool. Oh, and he also brought a rubber fish on a leash. I don't know how to describe a rubber fish on a leash to people who haven't seen rubber fishes on leashes before. Anyhow, he got up on the makeshift stage, stripped down out of his clothes into a 1920's-era red and white striped unitard thingy, and then mooned us. Then he sang us a song, and the really funny part, was that he held his fish like a ukelele, and his assistant tried to get a microphone up in the fish's mouth, and when that didn't work, Bishop Joey himself just lay down beside Wavy Gravy and held up the mic at the fish's mouth. I think he gave up when he realized that the fish wasn't actually making any noise, and when he realized there wasn't any other ukele-like noises being made either, just a whole crowd of people making rasberries with Wavy Gravy:

Anyhow, stupidity abounded on Saturday. Janet says next year she'll find the missing pieces to her spare bass drum and strap that thing on me. So until next year, stay stupid.