I love people watching, and a rodeo, it turns out, is a perfect place to people watch. You could definitely tell who had come from the military base and who were locals. So many things to observe! Types of cowboy/girl attire, who had bedazzled jeans, who had tattoos, types of cowboy/girl boots, tightness of wrangler jeans, who were the pretty-boy cowboys and who were real dirt-loving ones. Perhaps most perplexing question of the night, are you a real cowgirl if while sitting in your short-shorts and cowgirl boots, you pull your white iPhone 4 from your new Coach clutch? Is this just a sign of changing times, or is she an impostor/wannabe?! I'll let that brew for a bit...We found seats in the stands and there began two and a half hours of confusing, terrifying, adorable, and impressive action. None of those words however even begins to describe my feelings towards clowns...I never, never expected there to be clowns at a rodeo. It turns out that it is normal for a few people to dress up like scary clowns in order to 1. "add humor" to the rodeo and have a "funny" dialogue with the announcer, 2. perform menial tasks out on the rodeo dirt, and 3. to distract and take on the bucking bulls after they have thrown their cowboys from their backs. It was only number 3 that allowed me to stay calm with them down there constantly in my sight. Irregardless* of the fact that they were actually humans underneath the horrible clown costumes, those humans made the conscious choice to take on these mortifying personas, in which case I was praying that the bull might actually puncture them with their horns and teach them that clowns are awful creatures from hell. I did not feel bad at all for wishing these humans harm. Anyway, focusing back on the animals....
I'm guessing that one has to first, get over the repulsive and horrifying act of lasso-ing little defenseless calves, yanking them back so hard their necks should snap, slamming them on the ground and roping all their legs together, and second, understand that it's mostly a sport of practical ranching skills, in order to enjoy most of the rodeo events. I am still wrestling with this...my eyes seem to just focus on the poor little calves that are obviously traumatized as they flee for safety after being released from their death ropes, to my surprise still alive. My guess is the Romans never had this struggle in finding the Gladiator fights enjoyable. So this first event was hard for me to swallow, but the rodeo did pick up some steam on the fun-meter. My favorite event, which was really just a time filler in between grown-up events, was called Mutton Busting. In a nut shell, a group of about 10 little kids would get onto the backs of these Mutton (sheep), the Mutton would all be released from the gate running, these kids holding on for dear life, and the winner was the one who holds on the longest. There were three heats, and each heat was equally entertaining (See video for heat #2). Besides those, there were what seemed to be the usual barrel racing on horses, father/son roping, team roping, and of course the bull riding as the grande finale. My only complaint on the bull riding at the end was that there was no big screen or pictures in the program so that I could see what the contestants looked like. How else am I supposed to decide on who to support?! No one really stayed on the bull all that long, I know 8 seconds is the goal, and the first guy was the only one remotely close to that...the only one I didn't record...they had some really raging bulls last night I guess. All in all, the rodeo was a great success! I clearly only fit in there because it was obvious I was from the military base, which the locals are very friendly to. It was over two hours of a brand new kind of entertainment for us, a real Texan rodeo,
*Irregardless is a word even though it is not featured in the usual dictionary. It means the same as "regardless" and the "ir" is added to the beginning for emphasis, which was absolutely necessary in talking about harming clowns.
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