Yo, We're Going to D.C. for Tour de Fat
by John Shankman
There always comes a time in life when a person has to take a journey. Steve Jobs once said :
“If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, ‘Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.’ And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.”
For us here at The Awl Network publishing team, that time comes on June 1st, 2013. I’ll be traveling to Washington D.C. with The Awl’s philosophical leader and teacher, Michael Macher. A trained photographer (obviously with spacers in his ears) will also be joining us to discover and document the serendipitous joys of Washington D.C. and really, more specifically, New Belgium Brewing’s Tour de Fat.
There’s a lot in there. Let’s explore: If you didn’t already know, New Belgium Brewery is the producer of award winning brews, including their famous American take on the classic Belgian style amber ale, Fat Tire. They’ve been been kind enough — in partnership with Federated Media (shouts to @Nooch80 and the team) — to support this here web community. When thinking about how best to share the message that New Belgian wants to share with the world (and again, more specifically, indiellectuals like us) we thought sending a crack squad of content producers to check out and report back on the Tour de Fat scene would work best (and also be the most fun because, really, what is life without laughs?).
What exactly is the Tour de Fat? What exactly will we see there? The festival is all about things the Internet is passionate about: It’s a celebration of bikes (#bancars) and a fundraiser for local charities. It also features musical acts like Beats Antique and performance acts like The Moth. At some point during the day someone will pledge to give up their car for a year. This festival takes place in 10 different locations throughout the year and in D.C. it will take place on June 1 in Yards Park from 11–5 PM. You can check out the full DC schedule here.
If you are in DC (or will be in DC on June 1) and reading this post, perhaps we can share a fine NBB Fat Tire amber ale together? Tweet at Michael and me, please. If things go really swimmingly perhaps we’ll even share an appetizer whilst we drink our heady brew.
Is this a journey from which we re-emerge a little differently? We will report back.
This post is brought to you by Fat Tire. Pairs Well With People.