Piss Clear: Black Rock City's favorite alternative newspaper

Critical Tits - but Don't Look! 2003
by the Vacationing Sage Collins

Last year, I'm heading across the road to the Man on my way back to Xara and lo and behold, Critical Tits is pedaling right past me. A few years ago, that would've meant about 50 girls to wade through. But these days, it's in the hundreds. At first, I wanted to cut through and get back to camp, since I was low on water - but a few mouth-watering breasts later, I was content to patiently wait for them to cross. I noticed I was the only guy on the sidelines not taking photographs!

There was no bitching or whining from the girls - most of them were all too happy to scream out "I love my titties!" as they rode by ... and I loved them too. All manners of painted images were on full display, even a Wonder Woman brazier. All was happy and peaceful. Then I saw The Middle Finger.

It came from one of the riders, one who rode by gritting her teeth and aiming her middle finger at any male eyes or camera lenses that met her line of sight.

Hundreds of happy, proud, bare-breasted women... and one bitter pill. I'm really sick of this whole "These are my tits ... but don't look at them" mentality that reverberates every damn year. If it's about a state of being natural, tell me anything more natural than a man staring at a woman's breasts ... it's at the very heart of our continued existence today! If I wasn't so jilted by the sight of her, I might've taken a picture (though to be honest, she wasn't much to look at).

But it gets worse! Right after that, I made my way up to a bar called "The Lost Boys." Figuring I could at least get a tiny bit of water from them. I asked the bartender if he had any to spare.

"No water. We only have gin and tonic," he said while fumbling behind the counter.

"Very well, a gin and tonic sounds good." I offered a couple of newspapers as some form of payment, but he didn't even look up to see them.

"We're only here to support the riders."

I mumbled something about him being an ass, but he didn't catch that either. He also didn't catch my warning about refusing a simple request ... especially to a reporter.