Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee is calling for tourists to boycott Pamplona, Spain's "cruel" tradition of running with the bulls going.
In an op-ed for The Independent, Lee says most Spaniards no long support the tradition and only tourist participation is keeping the "cruel" event going.
"I'm no stranger to wild behavior," Lee admits atop the essay, "but there's one thing that even I wouldn't do, and that's running 'with' the bulls in Pamplona, Spain."
How can someone take any glory from "trying to stay a few steps ahead of frightened, confused bulls?" he asks, before elaborating on the treatment of the animals in the event.
Prior to each 'running,' the bulls are kept in dark enclosures, Lee says. When the event starts, the bulls are prodded with electric shocks and smacked with sticks to get them to take off down the street in terror, still slightly blind from being suddenly cast into the sun.
"This isn't a test of nerve and resolve," Lee writes. "It's a display of human idiocy and cruelty."
At the end of the event, the bulls are herded into a ring to fight to the death against eight men with spears and a matador. If the bull prevails against some unlucky matador, he get executed anyway.
"And let's be honest: if people paid to watch a man in a sparkly leotard torment and butcher a dog or cat in this way, we wouldn't dare try to excuse it as "tradition" – we'd declare him a sicko, lock him up, and throw away the key."
He makes an awfully good point.
Read the full op-ed here.
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