It's Not Even July 4th And Stores Already Have Their 'Dave Matthews Shit In My Mouth Day' Decorations On Shelves

Good morning, my fellow Americans… We are about to celebrate a historic anniversary.

On August 8th, 2004… So almost EXACTLY twenty years ago… A tour bus belonging to the Dave Matthews Band dumped 800 pounds of shit and piss from the bus's chemical toilet tank through the grated floor of Chicago’s Kinzie Street Bridge onto an open-top passenger sightseeing boat sailing in the Chicago River below.

(and peeeeeeeeiss)

That's the whole story, but I will give a couple more details since you're here.

First, there are three things you need to know as background:

1. Even though my kids have never heard of them, the Dave Matthews Band used to be fucking HUGE… They were a folksy and kinda 'roots rock' jam band that hit it BIG in the mid-90s with college kids and residual Deadheads. You may recognize their frontman (Dave Matthews, obviously) because he is friendly with Adam Sandler, and he's made a couple of cameos or played some small parts in a handful of Sandler's movies.
2. If you've never been to Chicago… Congrats!… But know that most of the city's bridges feature metal grates as their floors which allows rain and snow to pass through during Chicago's infamously brutal winters.
3. During the infamously beautiful summer months, the Chicago Architecture Center offers boat tours of the buildings along the Chicago River, and those boats have open-roof seating… Sort of like those open-top double-decker buses that shuttle confused Asian tourists around Manhattan or the car JFK chose to get a better view of Dallas.

Knowing all this, on 8/8/24, passenger boat Chicago's Little Lady was hosting the 1:00 PM Chicago Architecture Foundation tour of the Chicago River at the same time the driver of DMB’s bus emptied his septic tank while crossing over the Kenzie Street Bridge.

This Little Lady was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and received the full contents of the bus’s tank on the seats of its open-roof terrace, so two-thirds of the 120 passengers aboard were soaked with piss and shit… Including some of my least favorite people on Earth: Elderly folks, a pregnant woman, a small child, and an infant.

The boat immediately returned to its dock, and passengers were taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for testing. 

Here is how the Illinois Attorney General described the incident:

The liquid waste was brownish-yellow in color and had a foul, offensive odor. The liquid human waste went into passengers' eyes, mouths, hair, and onto clothing and personal belongings, many of which were soaked. Some of the passengers suffered nausea and vomiting as a result of exposure to the human waste.

Amazingly, the boat's deck was swabbed by its crew, and service was resumed for its scheduled 3:00 PM tour.

So what was the fallout?

The driver of the bus was sentenced to 150 hours of community service and fined $10,000. The Dave Matthews Band donated $50,000 to the Chicago Park District, $50,000 to Friends of the Chicago River, and paid the State of Illinois $200,000 in settlement, and the band agreed to keep a 'log' when its buses empty their septic tanks.

And on August 8, 2023, some historical society attached a plaque to the Kinzie Street Bridge that reads: 

On the afternoon of Aug 8. 2004. At this very location, the Dave Matthews band tour bus emptied the septic tank over the Chicago River drenching passengers on a boat tour with 800 pounds of human poop. No one died that day. But many wish they had.

So, although I am early, I would like to wish a "Happy DMB Shit Day!" to all those who celebrate… Here's my best DMB impression as a gift…

Take a report.

-Large

If you like learning about huge dumps like this, do I have a podcast for you!

The Twisted History of Dumping just dropped and it is CHOCK-FILLED with mass graves, nuclear waste, and at least one rock & roll band's shit.

TAR

-L