I know, I know, you’re probably starting to feel a little weird about standing around gawking while Shia LaBeouf has either a schizophrenic break or a drug-induced meltdown, but the headline ‘Shia Labeouf chased a bum for his food before his Cabaret meltdown’ is such a Dadaist mad-lib that it’s more art than news at this point (not intentional art, Shia, you aren’t pulling that shit again).

The New York Post has video of LaBeouf chasing down what appears to be a homeless man carrying a McDonald’s bag in Time Square, shot hours before LaBeouf was cuffed and escorted out of a Broadway performance of ‘Cabaret’ in tears.

“He really wanted whatever was in that bag. He had so much focus. … If there were French fries in the bag, maybe he really wanted to eat them, ” a witness said.

Whoa, fascinating speculation there, witness. The McDonald’s bag could have had fries, you say? What are you, a professor of logic? How fortunate we are that you just happened to be there to explain these events.

He added, “He was dodging people and and yelling, ‘Yo, come on!’ …He was on a mission. It was so bizarre.” The witness, who works in the publishing industry, was walking home from work with his girlfriend around 6:23 p.m., when they spotted the “Transformers” actor on Broadway and 49th Street, dodging pedestrians to catch up with the homeless man. “At first I thought the bum had stolen something from [LaBeouf].. But the bum was responding in almost a joking manner.” His girlfriend added, “It was like they were playing tag!”

It’d be cool if the bum tagged him and said, “Haha, now you’re homeless,” and when it comes true in 18 months Shia will wonder if he was a wizard.

The cat-and-mouse game broke out just three hours before the star was hauled away in handcuffs for smoking inside Studio 54 Theater, slapping actors’ butts — including Alan Cumming– both backstage and in the audience and talking back to cops on Thursday night. Officers tossed him in a holding cell at Midtown North, where he lashed out at officers, saying “I’m going to kick your a–. I’m going to kick your ass,” police sources said. Later, he began singing a strange, apparently made-up hip hop song, rapping, “I want to go out. I want to go out,” police sources said. [NYPost]

Sheesh. I give this three hours before the inevitable flood of self-righteous thinkpieces about how we should all be ashamed of ourselves for wanting to tear down celebrities. Yes, he’s clearly having some kind of meltdown. What’s your solution? He’s a grown adult with enough money to hire only people who agree with him who can’t be committed unless he becomes a danger to himself. The best you can do is stand around looking concerned, and even then it’ll only be for your own peace of mind.