La Tomatina slops into Reno

By: Casey Durkin

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 12:06 AM

I was surrounded. My back was pushed up against the 50,000-pound prize that these people-turned-animals hungered for: tomatoes. I now know the struggle Olive Garden goes through each day, except I didn’t have unlimited breadsticks as my safeguard.

It was the first large-scale tomato fight the city of Reno has ever seen. Based on the La Tomatina in Bunol, Spain, hundreds upon hundreds of Participants of the La Tomatina en Reno wrestle open a T-shirt stuffed with tomatoes to throw at the rest of the crowd. people gathered to essentially look and act like zombies for an hour, covering everything in sight with tomato flesh and brain matter.

All I had to defend myself from becoming human meat sauce was my camera and reporter’s notebook, which was hardly useful against these creatures that might as well have been wetting themselves with anticipation. After giving one last nod to the other photographers, I said my goodbyes to my soft hair, clean skin and good camera health and waited.

I didn’t have to wait long. When the anticipation swelled as large as the pile of tomatoes, event staff lost their grip on the crowd and the floodgates were opened. Immediately I was swarmed, being tackled and crushed by the unforgiving swarm, making Mufasa look like he was trampled with Teacup Yorkies and butterfly kisses.

Within the first five minutes of the event, everything in sight was covered by a placenta-type membrane that surprisingly made the surrounding area smell like a sandwich shop. Even if you were on the outer rim of the action, it did not take long to get completely drenched from the thousand pieces of tomato being launched from the epicenter. The place had turned into a figurative strip club with people disrobing to avoid being weighed down with the thick paste. Only tomatoes were substituted for singles and were belligerently forced down one’s underwear and into orifices that would make angels cry.

The growing riot did not tire anytime soon. It did not help when a local Disc Jockey set up shop and fueled the fire by playing Sandstorm and periodically having “everyone scream!” The battle even turned to the nearby parking garage, with people on the ground level slinging tomato at spectators above who soon gave into their instincts and began to pugnaciously retaliate. Nothing was safe.

The local fire department finally had the bright idea of throwing H2O into the equation, which turned marinara to tomato soup. Now the battle arena turned into a sea of blood that made you wonder if we had possibly pissed off Moses again. People shamelessly began swimming in the blood-like mess that I can only imagine had turned into a cesspool of bacteria and waste. It was the kind of thing that would give Slayer a new CD idea.

Despite my best efforts, all of my equipment and I were covered in the sludge. This was actually a small price to pay because as unholy and bestial as the event was, it was the most fun I have ever had with food since being introduced to Cheerios.

As the last of the congregation dispersed, overzealous staff exclaimed through megaphones that there would be twice as many tomatoes next year. If this, in fact, is true, then you can expect to see me there, half-naked and covered in Ragu like the rest of what I can only classify as the La Tomatina cult. See you there, Reno.