I realize that traditionally an event sponsored by a beer company is more the territory of fraternities than it is a place responsible parents take their children. Yet as Ben and I walked around Tour de Fat last Saturday, I had to admit that experiences like this make me seriously consider raising kids in San Francisco. It wasn’t that the music was wonderful and creative, or that the food court offered vegan, organic, and cultural options, or that the activities were free, fun, safe and intellectually stimulating, though all of this was true. It was that, contrary to so many other festivals I have attended, there were no radio stations blasting teeny bopper music and passing out bumper stickers. There were no “win a free trip to Hawaii” stands, or “taste our new sports drink” tables, and the “We’ll show you how to lose weight so you can look like all those emaciated movie stars” booths were no where to be found. All of that was mysteriously missing.
In case you are unfamiliar with Tour de Fat, it is a festival that goes on tour every summer, stopping at 11 or 12 cities in the western part of the United States. The focus of the tour is to encourage people to adopt a healthier lifestyle and reduce their carbon footprint by driving less and riding their bikes more. But this is not a festival run by the militant bicycle weirdos who create enormous traffic jams monthly and insinuate that it’s a “critical” part of the bicycle movement instead of just a power trip and a reason drivers hate bicyclists. The message of Tour de Fat is that we’ve all loved and relied on cars at some point in our lives, but cars are no longer an economically or ecologically viable mode of daily transportation, so it’s time to move on to the awesome bicycle! To bike the message home (haha) the festival had a New Orleans style funeral procession complete with the four horses of the “carpocalypse”. Members of a marching band carried a toy SUV, decked out with black curtains and flowers, all around Speedway Meadows while the crowd cheered. Shortly after this a dance troupe called the Sprockettes performed. As I watched these women of all ages, all shapes and all sizes dancing together and riding their tiny bicycles I realized that Tour de Fat was sending more than one message. If I wasn’t already convinced that was the best festival I’d ever been to, I was when it was announced that all beverage and food containers and utensils were compostable and further announced that the festival, as of yet, had not created ANY garbage that day (only compost and recycling). The most amazing part of the day was that, despite the fact that Tour de Fat is sponsored by Fat Tire, which in my experience is the college beer of choice, the crowd was not composed of rowdy, drunken college jocks. In fact, I barely saw any. Instead, the crowd consisted of people all ages, dressed in all sorts of ways (including costumes) and everyone seemed happy, respectful, and proud to be there.
I worry a lot about raising kids with our current culture being as weight centric, media fixated and consumer driven as it is. Even if a child doesn’t choose to go the way of cute, blond, airhead starlet or cold, tough gangster or, I don’t know, naked, abercrombie model, I don’t think our counter cultures of goths or hipsters or punks are any less limiting. I had yet to come across a cultural alternative that embraced the self confidence, thoughtfulness, freedom, health (mental and physical), humor and curiosity that I want to foster in my children. Tour de Fat gave me hope that that culture is not too far off.