The man himself, leading the masses.

I was pulling out of a parking lot last Thursday in Five Points when I saw a very familiar gray pony tail. "Brett!" I yelled. "Staying out of jail?"

"Don't know," he yelled back. "I'll find out next week." The light turned green, so that was the last I saw of him.

Brett Bursey learns everything the hard way, God bless him; for the past two years he's been learning what happens when you try to wave a protest sign where King George can see it. He's Columbia's favorite pain in the ass, he's the target of John Ashcroft's jack-booted thugs -- and he once ran a hyper-leftist magazine which agreed to print book reviews by yours truly that didn't have jackshit to do with politics. And he throws cool parties.

Jonathan M. Katz in Slate updates the trials and travails of the gentlest, nicest, coolest old hippie I know