"...Even in his last years, time that had whitened his hair had not dimmed the piercing grey eyes nor the spirit of this old frontiersman. The year before his death he still presented a lithe, immaculate figure in buckskins and wide sombrero..."
For those of you who are regular readers of my blog, you know well my affinity for writing and photographing livestock running around in public places, so this is well-trod territory, but how could I go across the Western part of this great country of ours and not stop to take in the great American pastime that is rodeo?
I often think that Hemingway, in his later Ketchum, Idaho days, would have become a rodeo aficionado and would have learned all the best riders, wildest bulls, and prettiest barrel-riding girls, had the sport been as popular back then as it is today. But it wasn't, and it wasn't until the advent of the International Professional Rodeo Association and the Professional Bull Riders in the 1980's that rodeo started being televised and big money purses became the prize for serious riders, the way it is with bullfighting in Spain.
The other thing that I've always found so interesting about rodeo is that it is a public spectacle and a competition based on a set of tasks (calf-roping and -tying, round-ups, fast riding, breaking horses and bulls) that are part and parcel of a rural occupation, namely, being a cowboy. I can think of no other equivalent except the lumberjack games that are sometimes held in the Northeast and Northwest, which are also awesome, and also worthy of Hemingwayesque documentation, but rodeo is obviously much more prevalent.
So the question remains: Which is more awesome, bull-fighting or rodeo? Matt and I headed to the Pawnee Bill Memorial Rodeo in Pawnee, Oklahoma, to find out.
On the way, we passed the largest crucifix in the Western hemisphere, billed as "an unforgettable spiritual experience." I won't soon forget it.
And fields full of honest-to-goodness Oklahoma steers, and even a few longhorns...
We arrived about 20 minutes late and missed the bronc-riding, but we did see all of the steer-wrestling, also known as bull-dogging. What happens is, two riders start at the chute, which is the gate where the cattle is released...
And they race outta there with the steer running between them...
The rider on the left jumps off of his horse and tackles the bull (Bill Pickett, the most famous black cowboy, and the man who invented bulldogging, used to bite the bull's lip) and wrestles it to the ground like this.... (sorry it was very hard to take pics of this stuff - so fast)
It was a totally awesome domination by man over beast, not to mention a pretty sweet practical skill.
Next, the annoying rodeo clown and announcer, who had this infuriating patter routine throughout the whole show (except I thought one joke was funny... "You know what you can do with a degree from Arkansas State University? You can put that thing on your dashboard and park in any handicapped spot for free!) introduced the next, not so serious event, Wild Cow Milking...
So what happens here is, they release a bunch of these happy ladies...
into the arena, where the charge around, pursued by a chaotic pack of cowboys, who have to fill a styrofoam cup with milk from these ladies in order to score...
Up next was another novelty act, the "One Arm Bandit," who herded a bunch of friggin' enormous longhorns onto the top of trailer, a feat of bravery that involved the essential elements of redneck life: herding, longhorns, and trailers. Oh, and lout hoots from the audience...
And finally, after the barrel-racing, which was boring and impossible to capture on camera, came the main event, the bull-riding. First the guys climb into the chute, where a bull is waiting, gettin' wild...
Then they hold on. Not a single one of the riders we saw was able to hold on for the requisite 8 seconds (maybe because Oklahoma bulls are so fierce), so none of them scored, and I have no idea who won, but it was amazing...
Apparently you're only allowed to hold onto the bull with one hand, and the other hand must remain in the air, so this guy, who actually stayed on for 8, got disqualified...
The final event of the night, and possibly the most entertaining, was "Cowboy Poker," in which four volunteers from the audience sit at a card table right in front of the chute, like this (only two remain at this point)...
And then they release a couple of thees happy fellers...
Who charge around like crazy and come hairlengths away from killing the brave rednecks sitting at the poker table. But the idea is, the last guy brave or dumb enough to remain sitting at the table wins $100...
It looked scary...
So... the question... bullfighting or bulldogging? Paseos or calf-roping? Matadors or cowboys?
I'm very tempted to go with the home-grown option, but several facts remain unavoidable... Rodeo is far too commercial (lots of parading of sponsors and brand names, like NASCAR) and far too money oriented (it's a Vegas sport, so the size of the pot matters just as much as the riders in the rodeo). Also, there's none of the mystical ritual bull-sacrifice history crap that the Spanish show has. So rodeo, basically is light-hearted and funny and awesome, but it's entertainment. The correos are a way of life. It's a tough call, but bullfighting is more bad-ass.
On the way out we passed by Muskogee, home of the cultural revolution that was Merle Haggard...
And coming up next, lots of music tourism from Memphis and the Mississippi Delta. Rock on;.
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