SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

LIGHT 'EM UP

Man. I'm busy Saturday night. Almost makes me sick to miss this event. I know how the devoted Salad readership (now in double digits) expects coverage of the freakish and abnormal. This promises to be a happening chock full of weirdness and potential for immolation:

THIS WEEKEND – HOGS, WINGS AND FUN DECEND ON PLANT CITY FOR THIRD ANNUAL BIKE FEST

PLANT CITY, FL – September 26, 2005 – This Saturday, October 1, 2005, tens-of-thousands of bikers and motorcycle fans will gather in downtown Plant City, Fla. for the Third Anniversary Plant City Bike Fest.

The event will take place Saturday from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., near the historic Plant City Train Depot. Admission is free, and more than 20,000 spectators are expected to attend to enjoy food, live entertainment and of course the allure of more than 10,000 motorcycles.

Jesse, "The Human Bomb," will set himself afire in two separate appearances that evening, and there will be biker games in the south parking lot throughout the night. The highlight of this year's Bike Fest will be when 300 lucky people get the chance to participate in a dice roll to win a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

We've become so jaded as a society that a raffle - not a guy becoming a human tiki torch - is the highlight of an event filled with 20,000 motorcyclists. Perhaps our entertainment standards are a tad askew.

As my friend Rich at work wrote in an e-mail when I sent him this information:

It takes guts to set oneself ablaze.

It takes commitment to do it twice on the same night.

I feel the urge to chase this guy with a marshmallow on a stick... make a snack of the event.

If you can't make it to Plant City, you can view Jesse's handiwork performed at Bike Week in Daytona Beach by clicking here. Apparently he's some sort of house daredevil among the motorcycle set.

As he says with no sense of irony or regret in the video clip: "My name is Jesse. I'm known as the Demon Hellfire, better known as Jesse, the Human Bomb. I've been blowing myself up for 31 years."

Posted by Jeff at September 27, 2005 05:48 AM