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LA Urban Iditarod Update

March 1st, 2008 by Bret · 25 Comments

Iditarod pictures can be seen here.

There is a difference between Venice and Santa Monica. The Police. The Iditarod made its way from Baja Cantina through Venice along the boardwalk. As soon as the Idiotarod made it to O’Briens in Santa Monica however, the Santa Monica Police declared it an unlawful assembly and shut it down. Twenty five or so cop cars, Fire engines, cops in riot gear and BATTLE helmets and an ambulance later, the assembled crowd walked to various other Main Street bars and the police impounded the Iditarod shopping carts. Seems like the police could be doing more important things than threatening to arrest people dressed as Jogging Jesus and in Hot Dog costumes … but who are we to question their authority? The most unnecessary Police decision was to tell curious onlookers (employees of various shops on Main) that they were breaking the law by stopping to look at all the hoopla. They accused the bystanders of “impeding the flow of traffic” choosing to ignore the fact that it was their cars blocking all of Main Street, not the Iditarod participants that were behind the fence of O’Briens. We like Venice, yo!DSC_7961.JPGDSC_7931.JPGDSC_8012.JPGDSC_8170.JPGDSC_7985.JPGLA Urban IditarodDSC_8179.JPG

Tags: Neighboring Communities · Venice Beach Events · Venice Beach People · Venice Beach Pictures

25 responses so far ↓

  • 1 gabby // Mar 1, 2008 at 7:23 pm

    power to the cops. Drunken idiots be damned!

  • 2 Bret // Mar 1, 2008 at 8:11 pm

    so it be known … yovenice had one beer at the Library Alehouse with lunch, and a glass of water ;)

  • 3 gabbysanidiot // Mar 1, 2008 at 8:39 pm

    What a great use of my tax dollars! Sure L.A. is a city of millions with several legitimately serious crimes everyday, but sure am glad we could harass those mildly intoxicated people!

  • 4 tim // Mar 2, 2008 at 9:28 am

    With all due respect, west coast cops are assholes. Fuck them all, and I mean ALL. The glorious peeplz republik of santa monikkka will not tolerate such akts!

    Thank heavens for things like http://www.improveverywhere.com

  • 5 Anders // Mar 2, 2008 at 11:15 am

    Until I read about them here, I didn’t know they were Iditarod. I thought it was some kind of frat house stunt.

    I started on Hurricane in the Marina, just like they did last year and I hope they cleaned up after themselves, just like they did last year.

  • 6 Wondering // Mar 3, 2008 at 7:55 am

    Isn’t is Idiotarod?

  • 7 Bret // Mar 3, 2008 at 8:13 am

    Wondering,

    The LA Times and the “Official” websites of the event on MySpace and Facebook have it as “idatarod”.

    http://theguide.latimes.com/events-and-festivals/latcl-los-angeles-urban-idatarod-event

    http://www.myspace.com/urbaniditarodla
    http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8296877449

    Wikipedia has it as Idiotarod:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotarod

    We like Idiotarod more, so we are going to change our post to that. Thanks!

  • 8 malingering // Mar 3, 2008 at 2:21 pm

    I am so disappointed I missed this. There needs to be some “I blog about weird shit in LA” mailing list I can get on!

  • 9 Wondering // Mar 3, 2008 at 9:54 pm

    “We like Idiotarod more, so we are going to change our post to that. Thanks!”

    Well, I’m here to help. Do you answer your email?

  • 10 Bret // Mar 3, 2008 at 9:59 pm

    yup … yo (-at-) yovenice.com

  • 11 Beta Dogs // Mar 4, 2008 at 11:32 am

    It’s the Urban IDITAROD, not the Idatarod or the Idiotarod.

    Cheers,

    Beta Dogs

  • 12 Bret // Mar 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    Beta Dogs, as you are the officials, it is changed as noted! Why does Wikipedia have it as Idiotarod? Maybe you need a listing on there to clarify it!

  • 13 Marshall // Mar 4, 2008 at 2:36 pm

    I wish I had known about this too. I’ve been following these in other cities, and have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to make and ass out of myself in one.

  • 14 John // Mar 4, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    The Santa Monica police regularly try to shut down the Westside Midnight Ridazz bike rides and the Friday Night Skate by harassment and issuing ridiculously expensive tickets ($500 for skating in a parking garage). You might get the feeling that there is no real crime occuring in SM because the cops always have plenty of time to spend on shutting down fun events that decent people participate in. Although they like to pretend they are progressive, Santa Monica really is a very conservative city.

  • 15 Laure // Mar 4, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    Good thing the SMPD stopped them. Those drunken jerks were obnoxious and, quite frankly, pathetic (how about kicking a poor dog, insulting passers-by and trashing backyards?) Maybe they thought they were cool, but they only came across as way-past-teenage prankster morons.

  • 16 Bret // Mar 5, 2008 at 1:51 am

    someone kicked a dog?

  • 17 Iditarod Rules // Mar 5, 2008 at 9:45 am

    Laure’s lame and should leave LA.

    It was a fun event… no one was trashing backyards as we didn’t go to anyone’s backyards. Hurricane was spotless when we returned… I didn’t meet one person that was a jerk (although there were plenty of morons)

    80% of the passerbys I ran into thought it was amusing and fun, the others were just confused.

  • 18 Jogging Jesus // Mar 5, 2008 at 11:35 am

    Jogging Jesus says “Down with the Run”.

    All of my sons and daughters were very respectful when they left their locations, the grounds were clean, and the people had smiles. I never knew this land that I created thousands of years ago would turn into such a great place, but it has. And I thank the Beta Dogs and all sleders for making this clear to me.

    Jogging Jesus Loves the Beta Dogs (Beta Gods)

    P.S Laure#16 is not my creation.

  • 19 Rudylw // Mar 24, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    thats it, man

  • 20 late to the game // Jul 30, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    Idiotarod is so much more fitting. I was stopped in traffic while these drunks got shut down by the santa monica police. After they dispersed there were smelly, dirty drunks all over the place. Next year hopefully they will be stopped before they leave venice and not be puking all over the streets of sm. As I sat on the deck of urth cafe an hour after the shut down, this shithead “dog” tried to sit with us and almost fell on us. He smelled like shit and puke. But hey he was really effing cool, because he was dressed funny and was drinking all over town. I think those kinds of people are called bums. Rock on losers. Bravo SM Police, shut that shit down next year too!!!

  • 21 Manute Bole // Jul 30, 2008 at 6:58 pm

    Whoa! How’d I miss this event? Sounds like a killer time!

  • 22 carsln // Feb 19, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Is there an iditarod this year?

  • 23 Bret // Feb 19, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    The mushing begins on the first Saturday in March, March 7th. Plan on being there with full costume and cart. The map and start time will be sent out the week of.

  • 24 chris // Mar 7, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    Iditarod looked like lots of fun, but their folks used the alleys around Clubhouse park as toilets. Not cool.

  • 25 LA Urban Idotarod « a designed life. // Mar 7, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    [...] 7, 2009 by monialicia While out in Venice this morning, I came across the LA Urban Idotarod in full swing.  Had some rather interesting costume choices and everyone had a smile on their [...]

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