 I’m not a big fan of forwarded emails. Actually, quite frankly, it’s like getting a telemarketer call from someone you know – so you’re pissed at first but your decent nature as a member of civilized society quickly puts down your urge to tell your friend, like you would a telemarketer, to, in so many words, fuck off.But once in a while, however, you get a gem. Getting the gem is both good and bad. Good because your faith in the ‘emails to forward to Ben’ choice selections of your friends has been, quite suddenly, restored. Bad because that little semi-rude, yet oddly polite, email you’ve been planning to send to your friends that are notorious for forwarding, well, crap, has to sit on the back burner yet again (which sucks because you’ve put a lot of work in to that skillfully crafted letter and you really do think it, at the very least, deserves to see the light of day). I got this photo from my mother-in-law. The photo was attached to a forwarded ‘letter’ (a poor gag, really) about how someone’s looking to sell his camera. It’s used, beaten, but takes great pictures, and here’s the very last photo it ever took. Supposedly it’s a digital camera, but if it were, and this was indeed the final shot ever taken, the chances of us seeing the photo, now, would be slim. Why? Well, I’d think the horn of the bull impaling the camera, just prior to the moron who took the actual shot, would destroy the teeny weeny itty bitty hard-drive inside the camera and, with it, all the photos. And if the horn of the rampaging bull didn’t destroy the photo, the hoofs of the stampeding, one ton animal, most definitely would. And if the bull we see most clearly in the photo didn’t destroy the camera, the bull behind it would have, and if not that bull, the rush of hundreds of moronic onlookers dressed in white would spell the final fate for this camera. But that’s not what I’m writing about. What I’m writing about is the stupidity of the person who took this picture, the person who was, until recently, wearing the white shirt the bull’s now wearing on his right horn. In my mind, there was a person who thought to himself, “The running of the bulls sounds like a nice little vacation to me.” Once there, this person thought, “This is a once in a lifetime event, I’m going to bring my camera.” Once running for his life, this same person, had a mental misfiring and, for whatever reason, thought to himself, “It’s probably a fake bull, so I’m going to slow down, run backwards a bit, and take a picture of this cute and furry animal.” Enter mistake number one, slowing down. Mistake number two occurred immediately after mistake number one, turning around. Mistake number two could have easily been replaced with solution to mistake number one, speeding up to save own life. Instead, mistake number two was followed up by unfortunate incident number one, public loss of shirt, which, as you can see, was followed up by mistake number three, take picture of bull instead of, as already mentioned, solutions to mistake number one which was, just to refresh, saving own life. The photographer’s failure to adhere to, and accept, the simple, self-explanatory, well accepted, free of charge solution consisting of saving one’s own life, brought unto him unfortunate incident number two – trampling of self by physically superior bull. This photo is funny to me. Granted, the bull’s ‘expression’ is kind of funny. It has that, “this shirt doesn’t fit and my feet are going to feel a hell of a lot better taking a few steps in squishy human after all this cobblestone” look, but it also has that, “run me like a freak show through your streets, I can deal with. Antagonize me and poke me and shove me and force me to run berserk, I can deal with. But a camera flash, right in the eyes, right when I’m in the middle of running like a psychotic through your streets, leaving me with the glowing/flashing green thing that doesn’t go away for two minutes, now you’re going to pay” look. I love this photo. If I could, I’d get a poster size of it, framed, in my office. Granted, I don’t have an office, but one day, when I eventually DO get an office, I’m going to have this puppy framed. I’ll get an office one day like the photographer of my newest favorite photo is going to get a new shin, hip, and ribs. |
