On a pleasent Saturday afternoon drive, I happened to take a turn down Barry St. off of N. Clark. I had my finger on the radio dial as usual, flipping through stations until I was satisfied with what I heard. Just another uneventful day off, a rarity in my life these days...

I zoomed down the first block of Barry, but slowed to a crawl behind a tow truck towing a taxi cab. The lights atop the truck were on, as if saying, "I will be going ridiculously and unnecessarily slowly and there is nothing you assholes behind me can do about it." I grumbled a bit, knowing that my hot date with Dominick the grocery store awaited me a few blocks down and to the left. (I didn't want to be late or make it an all day thing...I love you Dominick's, but my time too is precious.)

I inched closer to this tow truck, hoping an alley would pop up somewheres, when I noticed that there was a middle-aged man hanging out of the driver's side window flailing his arms and thrashing his torso about. It looked like he was trying to squeeze himself through the driver's side window. The tow truck itself then began swerving all over the narrow road. Christ, I thought, how is that maniac driving the truck? Upon closer inspection, I realized that this man's wild shimmying was really a series of attempts to punch and kick the actual driver of the tow truck, who was flailing about just as much from the inside, trying to fend off his attacker.

Apparently, the guy clinging to the side of the truck was the taxi driver, and he was none too pleased to see his cab chained to the back of a tow truck. And instead of being diplomatic about it, he decided to become the star of his own action flick and try to hijack a moving tow truck.

At this point, there were people all over the street, running at the tow truck to stop the escalating fight. I rolled down the window to a flood of screaming and obscenity. The truck then stopped and the scene turned into something eerily reminiscent of the gang fight from Anchor Man.

And the sick part of it all is, I wanted to be right up there in the thick of things with the damn camera on my shoulder! It was such an absurd-looking situation that it was almost a crime not to document it somehow...I guess I'm doing that right now though...

You can't stage what I saw on the street today--it just wouldn't have the same effect; it wouldn't inspire as hearty and as honest a, "damn, these people are ridiculous." That's life in it's fullest, brightest. HDLIFE, or something.

Anyway, no real point to all of this aside from the fact that reporting is always more interesting when you're not actually forced to scrounge up a story idea to fill a newscast. The real drama that you can observe in life come to you when you least expect it, and less so when you are looking for it.