“Garden of Eden” for Park(ing) Day 9/17/2010
Completed art installations by definition are successes. Whether they realized the total artistic vision is another viewpoint.
Park(ing) Day is a day where parking spaces are converted into parks. A nonprofit group, Rebar, started the event in San Francisco about 5 years ago. The idea has since spread to a couple of hundred cities across the globe. The Parks are to be noncommercial enterprises.
George decided to do the “Garden of Eden” complete with snakes, nudes, a tree, and apple slices to be offered to passersby. From the very beginning, George was aware that this installation would be successful on Castro Street (San Francisco’s premier gayborhood). However, Valencia Street is in District Six where George is campaigning for Supervisor. Valencia St. is stereotyped as somewhat of a hipster neighborhood. It’s not exactly as gay, Hispanic, or wealthy as surrounding neighborhoods, but has all those elements present with some “street people” thrown into the mixture. In hind sight, a structural weakness of the installation was that there was never enough foot traffic on Valencia Street for this installation to have wide impact.
Another disappointment with the installation was that none of the “Eves” showed up. One “Eve” has had a long history of either showing up very late or not at all when working with George. Another Eve told George three times that she wanted to do this. In fact, she suggested that George not use a live snake because that would make the display too realistic. On a larger scale, the non-presence of reliable women has been an “Achilles Heel” of this campaign and the general promotion of a Free Body Culture. Interestingly, the women don’t have to be young, fit, or pretty. There just needs to be the presence of women. George once did a nude walk with a 68 year-old, overweight, retired school teacher, with a nice grandmotherly smile and she was received by the public as well as any other woman that he has walked with.
Next year, barring a very pressing schedule conflict, George plans to set up this art installation on Castro Street where a pre-Eve Adam would work just fine.
Power to the not-so Peaceful?
On September 11, 2010, Lloyd and George Davis, candidate for San Francisco Supervisor District Six, went to the Power to the Peaceful concert/festival at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park. The entry by donation event is subsidized by Michael Franti and other musicians to promote world peace. About 50,000 people eventually show up to the event.
Maybe it was auspicious that the event date was 9/11, the same date that was used by the U.S. government to engage in a couple of foreign wars and take away the rights of American citizens. Anyways, George Davis was asked by the promoter to leave the event, because some small “parents” lobby disapproved of the nudity.
There were San Francisco Police Department issues, but in the end, they arbitrated the situation neutrally. In the morning, the SFPD threatened Lloyd and George with unsustainable citations for nudity. From experience, George and Lloyd recognized a crowd that was 98% either in favor of festival nudism or doesn’t have a personal problem with it. George and Lloyd resumed their nudism. They played catch with a Frisbee and posed for photos with fairgoers, mostly women. Eventually, George just wanted to dance. At a dance area, George was surrounded and detained by eight police. George pointed out to the SFPD that nudism has historically been present at the event. In fact, a few years earlier, George had received an email reply that there was no nudity policy at Power to the Peaceful and welcoming him to enjoy the event. This was the third time that he had attended the event nude.
In the end, the SFPD and George agreed to abide by the decision of the promoter.
George was disappointed that the promoter caved-in to such a small intolerant minority, especially at a peace event. Once again, George Davis reminds people that he offers $1000 for an intelligent 500 word essay: “What harm would befall a child who sees a nude adult?” In three years, no one has written this essay. Does that mean that this essay cannot be written? If $1000 is not enough money, does someone want to add to it to get this essay written?
The bullet points of the George Davis District Six campaign are:
1. Freedom of Expression
2. Freedom from Censorship
3. Free Dental, Hearing, and Vision Care for Seniors
4. George Davis, your 1st choice for your 2nd choice vote on the ballot. (SF has ranked choice voting.)
How can there be world peace without recognition of points #1 and #2? How can there be a world peace movement dominated and censored by an intolerant minority? Don’t nude people make an event more fun and less corporate? In San Francisco, nudism is welcome at St. Stupid’s Day Parade, Gay Pride Parade and Festival, Pink Saturday Party, Bay-to-Breakers, Love Parade (LoveFest, LovEvolution), everywhere on Halloween, Folsom Street Fair, World Naked Ride and many other events. Is Power to the Peaceful a contemporary event or a Victorian relic?
Finally, if there is a relationship between peace and freedom, isn’t body acceptance and harmony the ultimate freedom and route to peace?
August 22 GoTopless Celebration and KTVU News
On Sunday, August 22 about 7 North American cities celebrated GoTopless Day, which is a call for equal breast freedom for men and women. The San Francisco venue was by the Vallaincourt Fountain in Justin Herman Plaza. SaraKay, the hostess of the tv show www.freebodyculture.blip.tv, was the primary organizer of the event. There were acoustic musicians. At the event, women went topfree and men wore bras. George Davis wore pasties because no one should wear a bra. Bras constrict the intercoastal muscles which are used for breathing.
It was a nice warm sunny day and we had a good time.
After the event; Gypsy Taub, who is the hostess for a tv show www.mynakedtruth.tv, Matt, Lloyd, Bare, and George Davis went on a campaign walk along the Embarcadero. During the walk, a KTVU news truck pulled up and asked if they could interview us. Because of the hot weather that day and an even hotter forcast for Monday, they said that they were doing a story on “Spare the Air Day” to decrease enrgy consuption and lower pollutants in the air on hot days. Bare suggested to the crew that they do a “Spare the Clothes Day” feature which they happily did. The feature was the opening news item on the 10 O’Clock news show on KTVU (channel 2, a Fox affiliate). A clip of this newsbroadcast is posted at http://www.funkytv.com/video/view/1497.
City Hall Protest August 20
Lloyd Fishback and George Davis protested in front of City Hall on a Friday afternoon over the 4 citations issued by the SFPD the previous Wednesday.
New nudist guidelines were issued by the police department shortly after this protest that conform to the California State court cases. The new nude guidelines should eliminate unjust SFPD harassment.
The protesters held a sign saying something like:
PROTEST!!!
SFPD harassment of George Davis campaign for San Francisco District Six Supervisor.
California Supreme Court has ruled in Re Smith (1973) that “Nude is not Lewd.”
That is the law.
That is the truth.
That is reality.
