Gore

photo by joeball

It’s kind of amazing when an offhand comment on an electronic bulletin board turns into about forty people dressed in all white with red sashes and bandanas showing up for a drunken bike ride and the opportunity to chase somebody else sporting horns on his helmet and terrycloth bull testicles on the back of his saddle around a city park; if that’s not evidence of the chilling power of the internetz—or that we live in the fucking end of days—I don’t know what is; I’m am sure, however, that the memory of last night’s shenanigans will provide comfort and solace as I reflect back on it from my deathbed some years hence, at least what I can recall of it, which is almost as spotty as the drops of spurted red wine on my formerly clean white shirt.



Oddly enough, dressing like a person running with the bulls at Pamplona doesn’t really solicit stares from passersby in Seattle; I got no double-takes as I rode alone to the meet-up; on the other hand, when you’ve got three or four dozen similarly-attired cyclists in a pack, people definitely tend to hoot and holler.



And when you congregate in an outdoor amphitheater and stage mock bullfights while sharing a handle of cheap whiskey, no one can resist.



Surprisingly, none of us got gored, even when we descended upon the frat-boy western-themed bar to ride the mechanical bull, an endeavor I somehow managed to eschew although I did undermine any future political ambitions by singing a Foreigner song at karaoke later in the evening.



What will stick with me longest is the delightfully random stupidity of the whole event; that’s the human condition laid bare: we do these absurd things because why the fuck not and if that means you wake up on the couch with your shoes on and wine spatters all over your one good dress shirt, so be it, the memories alone are worth it.