Hippies Burn Cross in Honor of Pagan Holiday

I didn't get to go to the May Day parade in Mpls this year because I had to work at the restaurant. But my roommates filled me in on some of the, well, bloopers.
For those of you who don't know about May Day, just picture huge "bread and puppet" style puppets, and hippies in masks adorned with colorful ribbons and scarves.

The parade culminates at the park with a performance about the earth. Now, the "tree of life" is a repeat puppet every year. They always show the ravages of humankind's wastefulness on the tree of life. This year they decided to burn the puppet to show global warming or something. But the puppet's sketetal support was made with a simple vertical wooden stick, crossed with a horizontal one. You know, like the kind Jesus was hung on. Oh and the kind the Ku Klux Klan used.

Burning. So once all the paper mache and ribbons and fabric burned off, the audience was faced with a near empty stage featuring a burning cross.

The next awkward little moment was not so heavy with irony, but still made me laugh. The man who played the turtle was supposed to walk into the lake, retrieve his shell, and crawl slowly out of the water wearing this big turtle shell. But when he walked into the lake, waves of murmurs could be heard throughout the audience: "ew, i wouldn't go in there.." and "ooooh, that lake is so dirty."

The next part is best told with a reenactment, but I'll try to use my words. As the tortoise was crawling out of the water, everybody's attention was on him. It was the climactic moment. (although I doubt more climactic than a burning cross.) Suddenly a big queen (man) who had just purchased some kind of fruity shish kabob and a little gift bag of something, came barreling across the stage. At first audience and performers thought maybe this guy was part of the performance. Then they realized he was some pissed off gay guy who just wanted to cut across the performance. So in this momentous tortoise scene, this guy walks across with a vengeance, saying something like "WELL IF THE PATH WASN'T BLOCKED, THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A PATH, RIGHT HERE, I'M NOT GONNA WALK AROUND THE WHOLE LAKE."