Boulder has a race every Halloween that runs the length of the Pearl St. Pedestrian Mall which is all of three blocks. The race is short because the participants wear a pumpkin on their head’s and running shoes. Yes folks, it’s a naked race. I think that the race organizers figure the length of the mall is about as long a race they can have before the police decide to arrest them. And get this; it was created by a bunch of drunk guys. What are the odds a bunch of drunk guys would think that running through downtown Boulder naked is a great idea?
This isn’t the only annual naked event in Boulder. There is also a naked bike ride to protest against our dependency on foreign oil. Yep, you read that right, people go for a naked bike ride to protest our dependency on foreign oil. Yeah, I don’t get the connection between cloths and oil either.
The funny part of this story isn’t that there’s going to be a group of drunken naked people running through downtown Boulder; no the funny part is that the police won’t do anything about it. In an article in the Colorado Daily, the police chief reportedly said, “we will be exposing the public to more nudity by taking 20 minutes to write a ticket rather than just letting them go.” Yeah, you couldn’t have a squad car nearby to put them in, no that would be too hard.
What is going on here is that the police are not going to bother with drunken naked people because it’s not a big deal and I couldn’t agree more. The police aren’t being inundated with calls complaining about this race. People will probably not even notice the naked runners. This is Boulder, we’re used to seeing weird things here, it’s a college town after all, there’s always something weird going on here.
The best part about this naked pumpkin run is that I am not participating. I know it seems like something I would jump right into, right? I’m not running the race because of the children and for the general safety of the public. I can’t, in good conscious, expose the general public let alone any children that might happen to be out to the horrific site of a middle age, doughy, pasty white guy running past them in the nude with a pumpkin on my head gasping for breath like I was going to have a heart attack. Nobody and I mean nobody, including me, needs to be exposed to that horrific site.
There is always plenty of streaking during a GPTRN concert. Sometimes it’s all we can do to keep the female polka enthusiasts from taking off their cloths and throwing them at the band. It’s get embarrassing at times. And then there was the time the female polka dance champion of 1963 decided to strut her stuff in the buff on stage while GPTRN was playing one of our international hits. It was bit awkward when the roadies had to take her off stage.
If you happen to be trick or treating tonight in Downtown Boulder, be warned, you may be exposed to a group of streakers with pumpkins on their heads.
