Bad Planning

There was some kind of poorly thought through protest in Hollywood last night. At about 11:30pm, a couple of hundred nutcases on push irons (that's a bicycle to most of you) blocked the entrance to one of the car parks on Vine St. Their leader then climbed onto the fence (not really a good spot for a 'so called' leader) and began to whip up the mass of spandex into some kind of muted frenzy.

It was hard to hear what he or she was ranting about over the laughter from the crowd of people waiting to get into the club, the organizers had obviously not considered bringing a megaphone. It sounded something like "....try to keep us down.....won't stop pedaling.....free puncture repair kits.....happy meals....." After 5 minutes they left, some of them yelling "The power is between your legs!" as they rode away into the night or at least to the stop light at Hollywood Blvd. A fairly deep statement, true in many ways, however I'm thinking they were referring to their bikes and not their dicks or vajayjays. Their Choppers not their choppers. Hopefully I won't have to explain that last line to TOO many people.....

Who they thought they were going to convert to their cause at that time of night I don't know. They did succeed in irritating a few people who were trying to enter/exit the parking lot, probably not gaining much sympathy from them in the process. They certainly raised a few eyebrows. It's not often you see such a sight on a Friday night in this neck of the woods.

What made their protest even less effective was the lack of signs or placards. If you are going to have good protest you need some snappy placards like 'No More Protests!', 'Votes for Vegetables!!', 'Impeach Dumbledore!!!' or '¡Viva Salchichas!'. Certainly it is hard to carry a sign on a stick whilst riding a bike at the same time (not very aerodynamic unless turned sideways). Likewise, duct taping one to the bike is probably not practical and may even be a safety hazard, obstructing the view of the cyclist and distracting other road users, so T-shirts or even a song would have been the way to go in this case.

So I have to know. What the fuck were all these people doing last night? Suggestions are welcome but hopefully someone who was present, maybe the guy who had wrapped his bike in yellow faux fur, will do a Google search to try and find press coverage of the event (there is none), find this instead and be compelled to tell the tale.