whatever dude

Here's a picture post, if you wanna check it out:

This was outside the Oddfellows (or Elks?) hall in Woodland. Pretty cute.  Fraternal orders have been coming up a lot for me lately.  I think  my friends are of the age where we're thinking of becoming Elks or Masons or Satanists. As you age, your desire to wear a fez increases exponentially

Phil played at Time Tested on Second Saturday. Poor guy had to play in a room as bright as an operating theater.  I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of Christine. She was awesome.  Performing on SS must suck. There's a constant flood of looky-loos who leave after 30 seconds.

OK, so on to the Bok Kai Parade.  This parade has been going on in Marysville for I think 133 years.  It is a Buddhist parade, but I am too lazy to look up the history (or herstory) right now.  Now there is some Buddhist stuff and a lot of caravans of tow trucks and old timey cars, etc. Charming small town tradition.  Lots of martial arts demos! This city is crazy for martial arts. If commies ever invade Marysville the children will kick some fucking ass!

Old timey cars and old guy with one of those terrible visor wigs in the back. We refused to wave when that guy was looking at us because we didn't want to encourage him.

wan dragon

Here's a flier for a martial arts studio and the thing that was cracking me up is that this guy seems to literally be punching his way out of a paper bag, albeit one filled with exploding lava.

Zumba. Watching these people do this made me even more confident that I will never go to a Zumba class

Speaking of fraternal orders, here come the Clampers.  I kept yelling out "ECV".  They classed it up this year and did NOT have the float that's an outhouse on wheels.  There was a Clamper with a Hatchetman neck tat, however.  There is some Juggalo/Clamper overlap obviously.  One guy kind of just walked slowly with them and gave people hard looks.

Clamper in a tiny car

I became enamored of these cut glass paperweights and wanted to get one for my office.  But which to choose? Bieber? Marley? Middle finger? Pot leaf?

Alien?

big dragon

you can get in a line to go into the temply, where a mysterious (to me) ceremony is takinng place. There's  an alter filled with all kinds of goodies like whole roast suckling pigs and ducks, which is torture to have to file by and not eat.  There is a lot of incense burning and some mumbo jumbo chanting (sorry! atheist! I don't believe in any of it)

goddamn I want this chicken taxidermy! it's 255.  There are a lot of good antique stores in Marysville.

It's small, but see the lettuce hanging from the doorway? The businesses put these up and then a dragon comes by and...

dips his head and shreds the lettuce, flinging bits into the store. I think it's for prosperity. So cute

This is all out of order, but this was a heart warming formation of sanitation workers (garbage men to you and me). They were playing "taking care of business" out of their truck and dancing with the cans

Here is the classy paperweight I decided on. 1) I hate Mondays 2) I love lasagna 3) I fucking hate Odie. That dog is an idiot.

More of the formation

This dude.  It was the year of the snake so it kind of made sense.  He let me touch his snake and it felt great! There's nothing I love more than petting a snake while I watch a parade, which I never would have known except for this serendipitous coincidence. This guy was an attention whore, obvs, but he only begrudgingly let me pet it but then ran out to all the cops to let them do it.  Whatever, dude!

Overall, I would give Bok Kai this year a 6 out of ten.  There were not enough ear shattering firecrackers, the Shriners in their tiny cars weren't there (they were preparing for St Patty's Day apparently) and the dragon dancers weren't that great.  Last year was an 8.  I can't resist critiquing everything.