Night of 1000 Coltons
For an extremely memorable part of my childhood, my mother was involved with a man who would introduce himself as “Cowboy” to my elementary school teachers at parent-teacher conferences. He answered the phone this way too, “Hello, this is Cowboy,” scaring some of my friends into immediately hanging up for fear of dialing our number incorrectly. When he was not self-declaring his cowboy status, he was a construction worker who’d occasionally enlist my help on jobs for a few bucks. Once, he awarded me a 50-dollar bill for successfully learning and performing the alphabet backward in under 10 seconds. Like an action figure, he had an entire bank of catchphrases (“cowboy up” at the sight of tears, and “kittywampus” to describe anything fashioned by someone else’s handiwork), but also a strange air of callousness when it came to my mere existence. I haven’t seen him in close to a decade but was reminded of him this past weekend when I attended a PBR rodeo, a world he so loved and claimed as his own. I never did witness Cowboy fly off the back of a bucking animal and into a cloud of dirt, but I sure can picture it. In a diary entry, I recounted an incident involving a board game and his unnecessary condescension when it came to its rules. I wrote, “I hope an elephant steps on his fingers.” How close that was to a true possibility.
The headlines: I went to a rodeo and left with a chilling feeling in my bones about its horrors, and a peace that no one and nothing seemed to have died in the ring. I went to a rodeo and learned that there are so many ways one can spell “Colton.” I went to a rodeo, took one sip of a Monster Energy drink (one of the event’s largest corporate sponsors) for the first time in my life, and decided its flavor profile is “fun dip powder stirred into Budweiser.”
Somehow, I was ill-prepared for the violence of the event. It sounds so ignorant in retrospect, not only because it wasn’t my first rodeo (lol) but because it’s obvious. Somehow, I convinced myself that the action of making a wild animal do something it is not meant to do would be at most silly, but from the moment it began, the night was one aggressive jump scare after another. Once seated, we watched a team pour gasoline outlines around the center platform and the letters P, B, and R, and then, out of nowhere, the explosions began. Indoor pyrotechnics. Lines in the dirt erupting in flames straight out of a Miranda Lambert music video. Lines of boys in colorful chaps and beautiful hats nodding and smiling at an oscillating camera. Roaring music, flashing lights, and an enthusiastic announcer welcoming the in-person and television audiences. Recently, I described sports as theatre. Now I come to you with a new observation from that same family: a rodeo is a drag show. Beyond the elements I’ve already mentioned, there’s lip-synching, makeup, punny names, and of course, death drops (though executed very differently). It’s a lot like RuPaul’s Drag Race in that there are too many corporate sponsors to name, but so what #DragRace, #BeCowboy.
Lip-synching and makeup were made a reality by one fascinating man: the evening’s rodeo clown, Flint Rasmussen, a truly electric personality who was able to connect with an arena full of strangers all while a fleet of men competitively attempted to stay aboard irritated bulls with names like “Hurts So Good” and “My Buddy Taco.” He hoisted his body over barriers into the crowd to give away prizes, particularly to one man who much to the delight of the Jumbotron operators, danced like an inflatable outside a car dealership. During one interlude, our clown pointed out a flag strung in honor of how many times Billy Joel has played the venue, whipped out a harmonica, and led the stadium through the entirety of “Piano Man.” Another interlude, he pressed his painted face into the belly of a brand-new sweatshirt and gifted it with a pair of tickets to a sweet looking couple a few sections over from us. If the role of the rodeo clown is to entertain, then check. If the role of the rodeo clown is to distract and lessen the blow of the violence, check check. If the role of the rodeo clown is to perform the hell out of “Jessie’s Girl,” then shantay you stay, clown.
At one point, it was announced that someone was about to win a pair of Ariat boots while an animated fighter jet dropped cowboy boots like missiles and “Highway to the Danger Zone” played on every screen in sight. Luckily, nothing steel-toed or spurred dropped from the ceiling, but trucker hats attached to yellow parachutes fell into the open palms of excited, flannelled men, with only one containing a golden ticket. The crowd surprised me by being fairly well-behaved for this interactive portion of the evening, though I cannot say that was true in total. A man seated to the right of my friend, who had been vaping in his face the entire night while fervently documenting every ride on Snapchat, asked him, “Should my girlfriend show her tits here or down there?” gesturing towards the ring. When Michael said, “I don’t know,” and laughed it off, the man said, “C’mon man, don’t give me I don’t know,” and then he gestured to me, “You can join her! You should both show your tits at the same time. Here or down there?” The girlfriend nodded innocently at me, and I said nothing, instead communicating a fusion of fear and disgust with only the slightest eye twitch. Later, the same man tried to rouse a fight in the bathroom and eventually dropped his precious vape to the depths of the row below, immediately falling onto all fours to retrieve it. You can’t make certain people up. You can’t unsee certain things.
I have no grand takeaways about the rodeo, or rather, PBR. It is an event touting deeply strange propaganda about its safety and animal welfare (their short answer: the bulls just do that!). Overall, it was equal parts thrilling and harrowing. It made me a little nauseous. It made me repent silently from inside an arena transformed by 750 tons of dirt. It made me think of my once almost-stepfather, but more importantly, reminded me of my second favorite karaoke song, “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw.
The night’s winner was a 23-year-old from Muleshoe, Texas who did not seem to enjoy New York pizza too much, but the first rider we saw fell off fast and immediately grabbed at his arm. A man seated behind me said certainly, “yup, that’s a broken wrist.” Another ride (I don’t know if “ride” is the right term, frankly the entire scoring and statistics system remains a mystery to me) resulted in the rider/cowboy being unable to successfully untie himself from the bull. He swung around the animal’s side like a lifeless doll until somehow managing to spin out hard and flat onto his back. Others narrowly missed being stepped on and crushed by centimeters. A few of those same guys opted to “re-ride” for a possibly improved score. If anyone else yelped from fear, it was drowned out by cheers and musical selections from the Beastie Boys, Hole, Jay-Z, and the Friends theme song. I turned to my friend and said, “Can you imagine dying with this many people staring? While the Friends theme song played?” Never.
You know those moments that fully yank you out of your individual teleplay and make you look at your whole life for an unexpected second? It’s never long enough to reach any hard conclusions or derail your entire day, just a nonsensical glitch that places you outside the moment. Anyone? I had one recently while traveling. I was pulled by TSA for a random pat down, and after running her gloved hands across every inch of my crotch, the agent asked me what the tattoo on my wrist meant. I couldn’t tell you why this moment was in fact one of those glitches because it’s something anyone with a visible tattoo is asked often, but it was. I stuttered out “Sylvia Plath” like I was Rory Gilmore or something, and didn’t even really mean it. Rather, that explanation was gifted to me by a poetry professor who asked the same question years before. The agent looked into my soul and said, “I hope you have a good year, sweetheart” before sending me on my way to collect my sneakers.
Anyway, for your January listening pleasure, here’s “the tsa agent asked me what the tattoo on my wrist meant after patting down my crotch.”
It features one of the only Joni Mitchell features available on Spotify (a Demo of “Our House” with Graham Nash), a ’90s country jewel, and a song I’d like to think would be fuzzy if you could touch it by Tanukichan. Listen to it the next time you’re in an airport. And if you’re in one with an Auntie Anne’s, go. It only hurts a little.
Finally, the Golden Globes were last night and gave me (and you, should you be so brave to own it) a new excuse for everything. After two actors from Yellowstone announced that Amanda Seyfried had won for The Dropout (which, yeah), they informed the audience that she was unable to accept her award because she’s “deep in the process of creating a new musical this week.” You want to go to brunch? Sorry, I’m deep in the process of creating a new musical this week. You need help with your resume? Can’t, deep in the process of creating a new musical this week. I owe you money? My bad, I’m deep in the process of creating a new musical this week. Essentially the plot of tick tick… boom!, which also happened to be the answer to a Jeopardy! clue last night.
Gorgeous, hat-tipping kismet.
Big yeehawing love,
kaylasomething
Wow! I love this, Kayla! Out of curiosity, does PBRibbon sponsor PBRiders?