It’s an addiction. I try to look away, but it keeps drawing me back.

Like Quint at the end of Jaws, I slide inexorably down the deck of my sinking, little boat only to be chewed and then drowned in the gaping maw of some gargantuan monster of insanity…

Howz that for some purple prose?

The news is what I mean. I told myself I’d lay off, but I keep seeing stuff like this:

 

Great Bull Run coming to Chicago in July

Some mope organized a US version of the “Running with the Bulls” festival, made famous in Pamplona Spain, and is touring the country with it. For $35 you get to run with the bulls—specially mellowed versions of the ones in Spain—and then get to engage in a big tomato fight afterward.

If it’s bizarre, sensational, or the aforementioned mad, Chicago wants it here. Chicagoans will do anything and the city will let ’em if it brings in dollars or they can tax it in any way. I’m sure Streets & San claimed that their collective bargaining agreement prohibits them from cleaning up the mess, so this “event” will actually take place at Hawthorne Race Course.

While murders are down in Chicago, bovine-related fatalities will no doubt be way up next July.

To quote the late, great Troy McClure:

Don’t kid yourself Jimmy! If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and every one you care about!