FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER!

(re-run)

Watching the local news tonight, I saw that it was reported that many cities in the Bay Area had sideshows going on last night. Sideshows are entertainment involving people in cars and trucks spinning doughnuts in the middle of intersections while hundreds of people watch, ride, and take videos of the chaos.  It happens mostly in poor sections of the cities, where young people see them as entertainment. It’s dangerous, and people have been hit by the cars as they run along beside them.

Years ago, as a college student studying abroad, I witnessed the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. It is a celebration of San Fermin in July.  Part of the festivities involves young people (mostly men) running in the streets ahead of a bunch of bulls. The bulls are led to the arena, where the people stand around and avoid being gored to death. Two of the guys from my study-abroad program decided to join in the fun. The thrill was being near danger and surviving to tell the tale.

I was horrified. I had gotten to know the two guys and worried for their safety. They survived the event, but every year someone was usually gored (sometimes they were injured and other times they died).

Sideshows are these people’s Running of the Bulls. These people are not likely to ever go to Spain and witness the holiday, which would involve airfare, hotels, meals in restaurants, etc., not to mention passports, which cost $157. I know this because I mistakenly applied for a new one because I had misplaced my most recent one and incorrectly believed that it had expired. In the end, the U.S. government did not give me a refund. I had renewed it in 2019, and then the pandemic killed off a bunch of my brain cells and I forgot.

But I digress.

People in poor areas of cities like Oakland, San Jose, and San Francisco don’t think about the danger, the destruction, or the disturbance it causes the neighbors of the chosen intersection. Reporters interview older citizens the next day, showing the skid marks all over the road, the trash, and the bad memories of their interrupted sleep. Yes, sideshows happen at midnight or so.

Why am I writing about this? I was going to write about Taylor Swift vs. Ringo Star since they were on the covers of the two magazines in my mailbox yesterday. But the Ringo magazine has gone AWOL, and until I dig it out of the recycle can tomorrow, I can’t really write about them, now, can I?