How Tell You're Not In NYC?

The SF BAy Area's subway/train system know as BART is in financial straits as commuters stay away in droves. They recently announced that the brand-spanking new multi-billion dollar airport extension attracted so few riders that it may be shut down. In an effort to attract new riders BART riders will be greeted by new schedules Monday designed to boost the transit system's sagging ridership, particularly on the new Peninsula (SFO) extension.

I am not sure this is what they had in mind:

20 clowns surprise BART riders and a train becomes a fun house
Red-nosed activists turn one trip into political theater
Twenty clowns on a mission rode BART on Friday, which is usually not a funny thing to do.

Nobody told that to the clowns, however. They had a great time, and so did the perplexed passengers who made the mistake of asking what, exactly, they were doing.

"The world has become a circus,'' replied one clown. "Someone needs to pull the pants down on our leaders.''

Brenna Olivier, from underneath her red nose, said she was trying to "cultivate peace, harmony and throw the bums out of office.''

"Other forms of protest have been done to death,'' she said. "This is a way of energizing folks.''

The clowns were dressed as President Bush, as Attorney General John Ashcroft and as a porn star.

"Bush is giving clowning a bad name,'' said Lawrenzo the Clown.

The clowns, all members of a group called Clownarchy, boarded a westbound BART train at San Francisco's Embarcadero Station and rode to 16th Street. On the way, they passed out flyers urging non-clowns to put on a nose and join the troupe for a Million Clown March on Washington in October.

Trapped on a train with 20 braying jackasses? Kill me now. In the very best Leftie tradition they let us pay the bill.

The anarchist clowns realized that they could save the cost of a BART fare if they crossed the platform at 16th Street and returned on an eastbound train to Embarcadero without exiting the station. And that's what they did.

"We have to conserve our resources,'' said a clown.

Thank the gods that they weren't mimes or we might have had real anarchy.

Posted by feste at February 7, 2004 07:57 AM | TrackBack