This goes out to the one I love.

Growing up in a small town minutes east of Berkeley had its advantages. A quick hop aboard BART and my friends and I could find everything our sheltered little hearts desired.

What started as adventures inside Rasputin Records eventually led to blazed day trips straight through the heart of one of the most diverse social scenes in the west. Our personal Hotel Delmonico had it all: drugs, rock and roll, activism and outlandish displays of the ideals our country was founded on. I learned what freedom meant, first hand, strolling down the crowded streets, gazing red-eyed at the grunge rockers who would brush by me, fingers usually pinching the joint that had left their lips seconds before.

Between this cracked-out hippie donning a pink leotard, riding a unicycle in the middle of afternoon traffic and incense-burning sidewalk shaman professing their knowledge of your own palm, we developed a catalog of superfluous stories to tell our friends back home.

I never tired from the optical stimulation, and neither did my buddies, but when I almost took a nightstick to my dome one fine December day, I figured I had better watch what the hell I was doing.

The shirt said,