Berkeley 5 way stop

Berkeley loves signs. People out here are absolutely crazy about them. During the run-up to elections this year, there were a bunch of Berkeley-only measures that people got really invested in. Measure D was about taxing soda, and the measure’s opponents bought bus stop ads pointing out that if people wanted to they could add sugar to drinks at home and not get taxed and that this was an outrage that must be prevented at all costs blah blah blah. The horror.

Another great set of signs was for Measure R, which was very long and boring and about zoning, and which I voted against because it would make bars close earlier on week nights and that’s seriously the only real information I managed to get from anyone about it. Which isn’t to say that both supporters and opponents of the law didn’t try; all over the city were green colored signs that said “Yes on R” or “No on R” and claimed that voting their way would create a greener, more vibrant and equitable downtown. The wording was essentially the same for both Pro-R and Anti-R signs.

My favorite Berkeley signs, however, are confined to a lawn and a tennis court in my neighborhood, and put up by a profoundly misguided, possibly disturbed individual who will stop at nothing to end the environmental horror of paper cups. According to this individual, we should all carry cups wherever we go just in case, and these manifestos are scrawled semi-legibly on random cardboard trash. One night about a month ago I finally got sick of them and tore down the one on the tennis court. Another, even more incoherent one had replaced it by the next day.

This went on for a while, and I started wondering about my newfound nemesis. Looking at the back of the most recent box, I realized that its previous contained an extra-large pepperoni pizza. A few days later, I noticed that the house next door, which was the epicenter of these crazy signs, had two cars in the driveway. So factory farmed animal meat and driving everywhere are okay I guess, as long as you have a reusable cup in your cup-holder and shame pedestrians and cyclists using the path by your house! (Note, I don’t actually care if you eat meat, because it is delicious and we didn’t fight our way to the top of the food chain just so we could go vegan).

Sadly, I don’t currently have photos of any of these classy, classy signs. As a consolation prize, here are some other Berkeley signs that make varying degrees of sense.

It fogged so hard that day that it almost counted as rain, so clearly people had to be kept off the field.

Cigarette smoke is like a filthy hippy I guess, which you would think people out here would love. Go figure. Also, if you see someone smoking something that large they are probably in People’s Park, and it isn’t really a cigarette.

Does this require a further caption? I think not!

WE NEED YOUR TEARS. YOUR SWEET, SWEET TEARS. CRY FOR US.
#not_creepy