Cowboy Up?

Okay, I've thought for a long time I'd like a pair of cowboy boots, but besides their being expensive, I'm not qualified to wear them. I'd be like a member of the Village People, I don't even like country music.

So imagine my surprise to find myself in the stands for bull riding.

It was kind of an accident. A couple of years ago I went to my first demolition derby at the Johnson County Fair, and I loved it. But they don’t' sell advance tickets, and the line forms about eight hours before the tickets go on sale. Seriously. I was there at 11:00 am, and tickets didn't go on sale until 6:00 pm, and there were a good twenty people ahead of me.



It's the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster's weekend with the kids, so I'm free to waste the whole day in line again, but I hired her boyfriend to fix my gutters, and after that I need to go the office Saturday. At least some. Not a ton of overtime, but I'm down considerable on the week for the flat tire trouble and other obligations. The tire turned out to be fixable. Call me crazy, but I hate to spend $70 for a new tire to put on a car CarMax only offered $50 for before the AC went out.

I thought maybe I'd play scalper. The tickets for the derby are $12, but I figure with a line like that, and a couple hundred people turned away every year, I'd get some takers at, say, $20 a ticket. Maybe the cap the sales at ten to a person, I could still make $60 in profit after my own ticket was covered. But they have an 'all events' pass you can buy in advance.

For $35. Too much, to be sure, to pay for a $12 ticket I might be able to get from a scalper for $20. But I can go to work after my gutters are fixed on Saturday, and at time-and-a-half, I'll make better money doing what I do than I would sitting in the sun with a book.

The pass also entitled me to attend the mutton busting two days ago except it was over. And the barrel racing I'd missed. I'm no rodeo fan, so I wouldn't have attended that stuff anyway, but the bull riding was about to start, and I was already paid up.



These guys are totally shot out of a cannon. I could see myself driving a demolition derby car, but what kind of crazy says, 'let's tie a strap around a bull so he'll kick like hell and see if we can stay on?'

It was also surprising the music on the PA. Cowboy shit, sure, but they also played hip-hop and metal. Go figure.

I don't understand the scoring. If you don't make eight seconds, you get no points at all. The ones that do hang on all look the same, yet one will get 66 points and another gets 72. Weird stuff.



I didn't stay for the whole thing. I got bored. I shouldn't have, these guys are risking the grave and the wheelchair every time they get on, but it's not that entertaining. I guess it must have been boring on the ranch, and there was no TV, so they started doing this and now it's a tradition.



Oh, and it was raining. And there was a garage band who hasn't heard that Foghat sucked thirty years ago. The material isn't getting better.