A Cob Up Everyone's Bottom

Part 20 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

Here’s one that centers on a profession I probably should have followed, the law. I think I would’ve made a good lawyer, since I've always been so worried about doing something wrong and getting in trouble. It would pay — say I memorized everything legal and illegal and searched it for excuses why I didn’t know the difference. People would be coming to me like the legal eagle I’d be. Nobody would get away with anything because I’d be there forever suing for damages and banking the profits.

My dad said he always wanted to be a lawyer but he never got up and did anything about it. Just sat on the chair telling everyone who went by, “I wish I were a lawyer.” Since there’s a law office every other door downtown the places we lived, it was like saying he’d like to breathe. No one else was saying it, so why didn’t he just be a lawyer instead of yammering about it all the time? With the same thing going for me. Now that I’m old and out of live options it’s amazing to look back and see all the options I used to have, which at the time seemed completely impossible and far off. I might look into a lawsuit against those who beclouded my imagination and fogged my sight when everything should’ve been clear.

Here, though, we see our rodeo friend, Omar the Tent-making Clown, standing before a most dour judge -- who obviously had lemonade for breakfast -- and is now either extremely serious about the law and its so-called sanctity or has a cob wedged in a particularly personal body cavity and might actually have lost it sometime in the last day. That’d never happen to me, of course -- body cavities are for natural processes -- but if it did I dare say I wouldn’t have the clarity of mind to render a fair verdict; I would’ve gavelled the proceedings closed at least long enough to extricate it, explaining demurely that World War III was taking place in my pants, and on the off chance I failed, I'd look for a discrete physician to help, someone who thankfully didn’t go into law instead.

Omar’s trouble before the judge — and I’m not judging the judge's choice of personal toys, although something made of plastic or one of the more supple plastic-like materials is a lot better than an actual corn cob, which has a lifespan of what? A minute under ideal conditions? Let alone the heat of a cavity like that, the moisture, peristalsis. The fact that you’re in court is a problem too. You can’t be worrying about something getting lost and working its way upward — I suppose it’s possible, why restrict gravity’s self-defining choices — and making its presence known at an embarrassing point in the proceedings, just as you’ve made up your mind to hang Omar. The gales of laughter would ruin your credibility. And everyone’s appetite!

Well, as it turned out I didn’t save the day legally, but during the three or four recesses I managed to plant enough doubts about the judge’s sexuality — human, animal, or mineral — that Omar's next court date is in 10 years, probably five years past his life expectancy, going by what’s typical for rodeo clowns who've been in legal trouble.

The Championship Belt Returned

Part 19 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo 

It was good news to learn that the championship belt, secreted away in a bank vault with the rodeo having financial troubles, was quickly returned. The exact details of its return are still sketchy, but according to the little bit I know, the bank and the rodeo came to a mutually beneficial agreement.

The terms ran something like this: 1) The bank wanted to be paid back. 2) But revenues are always down when there’s something going on with the championship belt. The fans are more interested when there's a championship belt at stake. To them the whole rodeo is basically summed up in the questions, “Who’s in the running for the belt? Will the champ keep it? What is he willing to do to keep it? Isn’t he getting a little flabby? Is he ripe for someone to pick off? I will definitely pay good money to see how he manages it. But if the championship belt somehow slips away it'll be a nightmare situation, the doomsday scenario itself, the end of days. What on earth will we do if it somehow slips away?”

One year they advertised it in similar dire terms, which turned out scarier than expected. Supposed assassins were in the rafters to guard against any chicanery. Any shooting would be at their discretion. The assassins were masked, wearing atypical clothing, dresses from thrift stores, etc., so they couldn't be identified by their usual garb. If I had been consulted on the promotion I would’ve told them, “Please, no live ammo,” but I was away taking my driving test because my driver’s license had expired about a week before then -- damn the luck! -- and the corrupt police were just itching to nail me for driving without a valid license.

Well, that year showed us some of the folly in allowing live ammo in any promotion. It turned out worse than I feared. Three guys were shot, two of them winged and one guy got a hole right straight through his bicep. The doctors had to go in and restitch his muscles into place. Which worked out well for him, because before restitching it his bicep was weak as a kitten, but with the restitching he was strong as a tiger. You might remember him from a health insurance commercial, the testimonial where the rodeo guy praises his great coverage and successful bicep restitching. That was him.

Anyway, everything can have a happy ending if we help it along. Including the centerpiece of this post, the centerpiece of every competition, the championship belt. There's no substitute for it! Either it’s there or it’s not. And if it’s not, very few people want to be there either. Was there gun-play involved in getting it back? I’m not at liberty to say anything about the details. But I can reassure anyone concerned about how the operation went down, there was absolutely no call for any restitching of biceps, midsections, legs, or heads. It was a happy ending all the way.

Complaints Against The Fans

Part 18 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

This is the kind of thing we don’t put out very often as part of the history of the rodeo and more particularly from Mam & Pap’s show. About occasionally complaining about the fans, even though of course they were their bread and butter. Sometimes, though, whatever line of work you’re in, you've just had it up to here and want to get in their face and dress ‘em down good, “You don’t own me, you scrawny necked local-yokel barber, so get out of here with your stupid complaints! And by the way, the guy cutting your hair went about three inches too high in the back and the entire back side’s sun-burnt!”

Really, complaints are never welcome, and for that matter neither are suggestions. My take on suggestions is they’re just complaints with sugar on them. Any idea you have that you can do it better, either do it or shut up. They'd say, "As long as you’re coming to my rodeo and putting down 50 cents to get in, you’re paying me, I’m not paying you. So zip your lip or you’ll get a fat one and the zipper won’t work! See that horse over there kicking the crap out of its stall? Well, a mortal threat is an actionable offense, so I’m not going to tell you what’s about to happen to you!"

And, yes, there’s always been some fans who take it too far, get out of line, cross the line, get bossy, and need to be knocked down a peg or two. Some are so bad they might have an accident; I’m not saying they ever had an accident. But a few got accidentally entangled in the apparatus that ferries the saddles back to the storage wagon — even some visiting cowboys got the crap kicked out of them and their saddles needed cleaned. When someone’s entangled, naturally the apparatus doesn’t know a trapped customer from a saddle. So if you’re hooked to it there’s but the one destination. And it’s all very unceremonious, being dropped from 10 feet into the air on a pile of muck. At its cleanest there’s still enough base residue that you better not land face-down, you’d smother in 20 seconds.

I think there’s a place for suggestions. That sounds reasonable, right? You don’t think the taffy has enough genuine strawberry flavor, certainly Kindly Kate will take your mildly-suggested complaint in her usual kind way. Whereas the rest of us, you want more strawberry flavor, here you go, smart guy, choke on it! He’s so pumped up on strawberry flavor mixed with laxatives, you'll hear him sputter all the way home! Or as far as he gets before he blows up and some of the more discerning ladies even at a distance get into a free-for-all whether the air's flavored with strawberry or one of the horses is dying of encopresis, a stool issue!

And if that doesn’t soil your drawers to your liking, how about this? I don’t know, it's probably mean and childish. Try this little quiz on these Know-It-Alls: Out of A, B, and C, which one is the guy on the bucking horse? Ah, let’s just skip it, that might be getting a little too mean toward the old ignorant paying customers.

Championship Belt Mortgaged

Part 17 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

Please stay with me on this series. I know it's veering off a little beyond the heroic nature of the rodeo that I’ve sketched so far. Sometimes things got tight and a little shady, and -- I hate to say it -- in this case they had to take drastic measures to keep the rodeo solvent. The rodeo biz has various intricacies like everything — particularly when scandal’s involved — nothing any of us likes. I certainly don’t like it, with Mam & Pap’s embarrassment being my embarrassment. But sometimes you have to face a situation head-on and maybe lose face to struggle back to wholeness, regaining what you lost, then going forth stronger than ever, we hope.

The unfortunate reality of a traveling rodeo is it can hit the skids real fast. Crowds are finicky, with a lot of it being at the weather's mercy. If it’s too cold by a single degree or too hot with the same margin, the crowd will simply stay home (in part) and do … whatever … who knows? If it’s what I’m thinking, showing a Triple X movie on the bedroom wall and gettin’ funky. Just remember, folks, you can go blind doing that. And a quick aside to the ladies, Don’t you have any self-respect, letting your slug husband deny you a rodeo date for the disgusting pleasures of … forget it, it's repulsive!

Enough of that, and, well, what can you say? A rodeo needs money to grease the skids, so to speak, but it has to be hard cash — they accept gold bullion but can't easily liquefy it — and with people staying home making a date out of acts that could just as easily be performed in the morning shower, the rodeo can be running close to the margin.

My advice to Mam and Pap was you have to bank more money. Pap threw up his hands in desperation. (Anyone reading this, consider going to every rodeo more often, like every night a week for a month. It’ll help.) They needed to raise the price of the program from a quarter to 30 cents. Enough copies sold and you’re talking real money. But any solutions are always better for the future, not for the present moment of extremity. They have to make decisions for the current day.

And some of those decisions are extremely dire. As in pawning the coveted championship belt for a quick 100. It’s not much, either, not when you consider how men have worked and trained and slaved away day in and day out to even have a chance to win temporary custody of the championship belt. You see it from afar and you know it’s a beauty. You put it around your waist after a genuine win — not just trying it on surreptitiously and preening — and you’re a new man. A champion not only in name but in regal display. It takes my breath away to hear of it going into hock.

This never happened but it was always a fear that the championship belt could through some underhanded scheming be the target of competing rodeos. Imagine the outcry if they advertised, “We’ve got Mam & Pap’s championship belt in our hot little hands!” It’s too much to even think of, let alone say. Think of that, though, when you’re planning your evening activities. There's entertainers out there that depend on you. And current rodeos are also fun for all, young and old alike.

Greenhorn Cleans Animal Waste

Part 16 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

Here's one of those stories everyone likes so much, the classic coming of age story, with the guy in transition from naivete to maturity. You see a explosion of experience into wisdom, making one who possibly didn’t know his anal region from a hole in the ground suddenly able to put 2+2 together and make elementary distinctions.

Some might say it’s “Just Another Greenhorn story” — similar to hunting snipe but different in the sense that he’s doing real work, trying to make a difference. The rodeo has some work that take humility to really get in there and do it. You seek encouragement but so often it's a thankless job.

One of those jobs is mucking out stalls, that little sliver of land where an animal stands. Natural processes take over and they need tended to. A greenhorn looking to get his feet wet usually gets tabbed to get in there and be a difference-maker. And he’s encouraged occasionally but often it’s a stage in his tenure more or less transitional — today the stalls, tomorrow the main staging area! Potentially the world. If he hasn’t left the rodeo field and perhaps gone into a less honorable profession, medicine or banking.

It’s being a greenhorn that, even if the rewards aren’t immediate, they eventually come. You could get a good referral: “Jed was an excellent mucker-out of stalls, clean as a whistle.” But along the way, often — and it’s all in good fun — he might get pleasantly razzed. Because as we all know, most guys stumble-bumble in their earliest jobs. Maybe they came from a family where Dad was a banker and that was it. Privilege.

But one day he sees a sign about the rodeo, "Help Wanted," and he's soon up to his boots in it. The other guys look and see he’s got a pile mounded up pretty tall and it’s ripe. He calls to the men asking what he should do with the waste.

“Well,” one chiseled old cowpoke lazily drawls, very lazily, before spitting out the juice of a plug of tobacco the size of Texas, “If’n it ‘twere me, I’d cart it somewheres really good, east of the sun and west of the moon.” He cackles with laughter, then chokes on tobacco juice and hacks till he nearly strokes out. The others have heard the joke before yet still resonate with it, high-fiving each other.

There is then the greenhorn, repeating the east-west coordinates as outlined. He wonders where that could be. “The sun comes up in the east, but west of the moon could be anywhere. And by the time I got it either east OR west, both sun and moon will have moved and it’ll be all wrong."

Not to belabor it forever, the greenhorn carts those piles here and there, bringing in new piles, making the carting-about of it an intricate and ever-changing dance, until — I hate to say it — he was discouraged. The other rodeo helpers came and gave him the full scoop: “Over there’s the muck wagon. Put it there and the foreman will have someone pull it to the edge of town and shovel it in the ditch.

And it worked out exactly like that, a fitting place for it — a place occasionally east of the sun and west of the moon — with the greenhorn maturing and becoming a decent laborer. He earns his keep in a responsible way, like the horses and bulls themselves.

The Beloved Rodeo Clown

Part 15 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

All hail the rodeo clown! Who doesn’t love the rodeo clown? Everyone goes to the rodeo for the excitement of the animals, the buckin’ broncos, the bulls humping their way around the ring, a cowboy astride his steed leaping through a ring akin to a fiery inferno, and the little dogies, on the run, going astray in the ring and needing the secure discipline of their ropes lashed together as quickly as possible.

Then there’s the possibility you might get lucky with one of the darling rodeo queens. I've always been pretty realistic, but once in a while one messes with you like she might mean business. When generally she doesn't, or it might even have been a guy behind you she was winking at. Then, continuing our survey, naturally there’s the delicious food, a little dogie patty fried to perfection on a bun. There’s your closeness to the earth when a stomping bull stirs up the dirt and you get a full snoot of it in your lungs, one of the rodeos’ biggest health-hazards but still kind of fun. And somewhere down the list of our favorite things, rounding out the list, are the clowns.

I personally do like the clowns more than dirt in my lungs, because I think I really might choke to death. And I know in my heart that there’s someone redeemable under that patchwork of makeup that never quite makes full sense. Why do they do it? It'd be interesting to try it myself, drinking all day and then being expected to do the delicate work of assuming an entire second face. You’ve already got multiple gut-wrenching complexes, it'd be very tough to fulfill too many other expectations. But you’ve already been suspended for “the last time” for fraternizing with the audience, even cozying up to them in line to the point of satisfaction with your eyes rolled back in your head. Of course you have challenges, who doesn’t? I’ve heard of priests who’ve strayed over the line, priests! And if they can be forgiven and get a hundred chances to make restitution -- sometimes so expensive it's an international incident -- who says rodeo clowns shouldn’t get 500!

Everyone — I know it’s arguable — goes into their field of work, their vineyard of endeavor, with the best intentions. Some of these string-pullers behind the scenes were calculating how many of such and such — let’s say cooks — will we need? After a while they get all the cooks they need, who periodically die of food poisoning and need to be replaced. So even though the number needed was temporarily attained, others need to aspire to cooking to replace the fallen. It’s similar with rodeo clowning. There may be plenty today, but if a few of them go totally loco and there’s a massacre, where are you going to find a thousand new rodeo clowns in a second? You can’t just snap your fingers, it doesn’t work that way. The pipeline always has to have applicants, those ready to step in on a moment’s notice to climb in a barrel and be bruited about the ring by a completely mad bull.

It’s grunt work to that point. But once the bull has been safely dispatched back to his pen, it becomes a moment of recognition, appreciation and love for the clown. He or she pulls a flower out, leans into it and smiles, as if to say, “I saved the day, ahhhh!” Another sees him extending the curtain call a little beyond its due and blasts a big gun, a bang and confetti is spewed everywhere, the clown’s way of saying — and this is their own particular language — “Let’s get back to work, you’re hogging the stage when there’s other worthwhile acts to come!” The audience roars with laughter.

Pleasant Romp With Killer Bull

 

Part 14 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

Picture yourself in those taut moments — filled with agony, ecstasy, and expectation, “I might die in the next minute. Forgive me for the sins of my youth, which everyone does." Get securely prone and a’straddle as best you can a bull whose back is six times your senior.

The seconds tick down before the gate springs and your thoughts are a mile a minute. “I had genuine sweaty-armpits fear of this animal when I first saw him, and it’s not much better now.” You mentally juggle fear and resolve, counting the seconds till you either get up alive or they whisk your lifeless body out of the area so as to not bring everyone down.

There’s an uneasy truce, at least in your mind, because it’s tough to negotiate with a proud bull from your somewhat-dominant edge of sitting on its back. If you could sum it up, it’d be, “I’ll go easy on you, Old Bull, because each one of us is the other’s bread and butter, so to speak.” Then you try the commiseration approach: “Someday we’ll be retired together, me in a room, you in a stall, each of our quarters adjacent and opening up to a playground for us to mosey lazily around, remembering the ‘Shows of ‘98’ and all the good old days. Remember our first time together, your loco wildness and my abject terror barely concealed?”

That thought is barely filed away before the door springs open and the bull bucks and kicks like he means business, dirty business. Which he has to because no one bucks like his life depends on it just for the hell of it. Then there’s the eyes, that intent glare of death. If it weren’t for the snarl of rope around his muzzle, he’d take a bite outta everything in sight. Firearms might make an unwelcome appearance, it being always necessary to maintain life and limb of the human performers and their watchers. Especially the crowd, because they can sue.

Right now, though, the crowd is into it, their thirst for blood barely concealed. They’re so into it that they loosen the purse strings of their collective humanity and are just hoping to see some action, riproaring stuff maybe involving the bull goring the man, taking out the clowns, who knows what all is possible? Destroying the county? “Just so these bleachers are able to protect me till I’m able to escape the grounds!”

Eight seconds of glory have passed and the rider waves his arm, “I’m OK, thank you for your thoughts and prayers...” The clowns roll a few bald tires around the lot, lulling the bull back to docility, which is how bulls naturally behave with mixed signals and scattered focus. Like la la land.

So We're All Wimps, Huh?

 

Part 13 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

When you’re in the rodeo you know you’re bad to the bone. Because taking to the back of any animal the size of a horse or bull — which goes double for any that are plain loco — you’re either corrupt where the rest of us are sensitive or brave where the rest of us are sensible. I don’t know how these guys get life insurance. If I sold life insurance for a livelihood I’d avoid rodeo folk!

But selling life insurance was never the path I took. And for sure it wasn’t the rodeo, although a little of both would’ve been profitable. If I sold myself a big policy, then went into the rodeo, my relatives would’ve cashed in big-time by now and they’d be especially thankful that I died so young. A big deal for me, just another statistic for the people that follow these things.

When it came to danger I was always a guy you could count out. Then as now I’d much rather sit on the sidelines and watch someone else risk his life than do it myself. Basically any “sport” I even thought of was too dangerous to try. The scrum of basketball in that tight little nucleus of guys battling for the ball, elbows flying, giving you another black-eye or being pounded from above on jumping for the ball. The deadliness of boxing, taking another walloping blow in the eye from a guy’s fist pummeling me and going down for the count. Or probably the worst sport, being high in the air strangling a guy or, worse, being strangled. Frightening graphic!

But when the professional rodeo performer surveys all that danger and violence, and then pronounces them losers or worse — shrinking violets, wilting daisies, or chicken livers — that takes a chunk out of your ego, I don’t care who you are or how used you are to a constant barrage of insults, put-downs, or smacks. For you’re in the presence of greatness, a macho man who sees no problem kicking you when you’re down. The kind of guy we all aspire to be without actually doing what it takes.

Still, and this is just my opinion, divinely inspired, I don’t care how tough you are, there’s something wrong about calling a gym full of kids a bunch of names, slurring them. Because, frankly, it’s beyond reason that everyone should aspire to the rodeo and thereby be left to a life of insults and taunts. Look at these kids. Does it look like they'd even have the basic competence to be in the rodeo? The kid strangling the other kid, maybe. He's got tenacity, with a bent toward doing anything to win.

Most of us actually are quite content to sit out rodeo-performing. But if you feel so invulnerable and have the sort of foolish daring-do that makes you crave danger, go for it. Put yourself in a position to be kicked to death! The rest of us, thank you very much, are comfortable with our decision to live a good long life, starting out as kids in normal sports, then dropping off when we’re in our late teens and living our lives in complete safety, with good enough memories of “safe” danger from when we were young.

Lincoln Declares Rodeos Good

 

Part 12 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

All roads, when you’ve taken one, finally, inevitably converge at Abraham Lincoln. That's the magic by which he became president. He'd had his hand in the game for 4 million years, when inevitability finally won out and bore fruit sometime between 1732 and 1865. Which went double for the rodeo, because if they had anything up the yin-yang in the old days it was magical happenstance, plus, different from us, a clamoring for horses and rodeos. Horses jockeying for position, jostling one another at the starting gate or just breathing freely on the avenue.

Look more closely and what do you see? A farmer brings cattle to town. The wife’s low on pin money. But with cattle you have confusion, always grubbing somewhere for something to chew and finally needing to be content with their cud. So cattle and horses were together on the street, with a cop trotting by. From his patrol horse he surveyed his domain, the great center of democracy, the poop-strewn streets of Washington, D.C.

The Great Emancipator himself held forth in the Oval Office, “Close the window, the wind is from the streets. And you,” turning to one of his most trusted grunts, “Smegma, get me the latest data from the patent office, is there any word on key patents toward the mass-manufacture of automobiles? The day we drive horses into extinction will be a proud day in the history of breathing.”

Of course I have only limited notes on what everyone said. And though I’m one of the country’s foremost historians, even I have never been interested enough to get down in the weeds of history and grovel for everything that’s ever happened or been said. If you ever try it you’ll find you’ve given up your own life — and to me the best invention aside the fully-tilted-back saddle has to be the easy chair.

But all was not rosy that day in Washington. I hate to throw in a sad note, but it was a truth the world had to face sooner or later. Lincoln’s own assassin — and I won’t dignify his name by looking it up and reciting it here — rode a horse. Which tells me something I never thought I’d share with any living thing, that in the ambiguous weeds of existence (horse or no horse) there’s a lot of evil mixed in with the supposed good. Yes, philosophers have always been familiar with the weird juxtaposition/play of good and evil — you can’t have one without the other — but it took by surprise even them, exactly what depths could be plumbed and how long someone was willing to do it to discover the whole hideous truth: If you think horses have ideals, it’s time to look for new opinions.

Yet, even against those odds, once rodeos got going it was mixed with anguish — weepers beating their breasts, crying out, “Why! Why!” Until finally they saw the light of day breaking through, which changed their tone: “An ambiguous evil can lead to an unambiguous good.” And on that principle — tangentially related by hook or crook to Abraham Lincoln — the modern rodeo was born and pronounced good.

Babyface, Rookie Greenhorn

 

Part 11 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

There was a guy who was a real greenhorn, if that word means what I think it means. A guy green around the gills, looking forever innocent, perpetually driven but more or less incompetent, perhaps also lacking aptitude, even basic sense, taken in with the rodeo and joining it, yet still doing some good along the way.

Like I say, this guy wasn't a quality star, or even one of the lesser lights in the universe, and you might say he was even less than a fizzling firecracker — not at all like the brightest star in Earth’s darkest night — but he still had a purpose. His purpose was to inspire others to be yearn to be rodeo stars, holding on to the very good chance that they would exceed him in ability. I still call him the Rookie Cowboy, never maturing to be any good, just forever maintaining his place, his purpose, and his surprisingly good looks.

“Hey, Babyface!” they’d call out to him after a painful spill. He’d grimace, get a snarl on his face, and seem to be cussing under his breath, hoping the pain would go away, and that they'd see only the smile on his face. Someone might say, “Oh, nursing some wounds, huh? Got bucked off again? Landed on your head? Be careful, you don’t want to lose your looks!” After a bit he’d brush it off and climb back on the animal again, so he had optimism.

Mam and Pap’s rodeo got a lot of good talent over the years inspired by the Rookie Cowboy's troubles, those who’d just turned 18 (let’s say for the sake of argument) and others who might’ve actually been 18 or over. With a hunger for the life of travel, the smell of animals digesting in the morning, afternoon, and evening, and heart-stopping competition, the kind of romantic daydreaming you read about in the cheaper rodeo magazines.

Pap told him, “Babyface, everyone starts out somewhere and everyone ends up the same place, on their ass. See those impressionable young guys in the stands? Most of them have just one purpose in life. Their path has led them to the rodeo, a life they’ll love like you.” And indeed it was so, the life of the rodeo, one of life’s choices that once you’re on the road you come to tolerate more or less as an OK thing. You get to see a lot of one-horse towns, and tent living’s not bad if it’s not raining and there’s not the slightest breeze. And as long as someone pays you, you tolerate it like any other job.

So Babyface was in the rodeo! Good for him. Even though he never made the record books, and we’re even considering the fact that rodeo record books are easily forged. But he did set a record of sorts for enticing a generation of young cowpokes to excel at clowning, ride the bucking broncs, bulls and other animals, and of course maintenance. If you run into him, ask him for a bubblegum cigar. He once did a lot of good with that friendly gesture, impressing younger fans everywhere he went.

Giddyup, The Night Off

 

Part 10 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

This was the night of nights — Oh yeah, one year like Valentine's Day on steroids— when the oom-pa-pa of the rodeo’s orchestra gave way to the sultry, sexy sounds of Jerry Vale, Matt Monro, and the sexy, sultry sounds of Sarah Vaughan, who taught us in her inimitable sultry, sexy way to love again. That night no crowd’s were poking around, the smell of popcorn was down to a leftover hint, and the ever-present grating cadence of the “Getyer program!” guy was mercifully stilled. How would we know the players without a program? We’d simply have to feeeeeel our way.

Was there a rose at your door or some other personal sign that you had reason to hope, to break into a smile? And on such a beautiful, perfect night, the kind of night the gods only rarely bestow, so out of character for them — February’s usually a bastard — and the gods are normally uncaring and unwilling to give us even the slightest thing. People say we have life and breath, shouldn’t that be enough? No, life and breath's an everyday occurrence and even cockroaches get the same benefit.

Really, what we should do is pull the curtain on the whole thing and never open it to prying eyes. I am so ready to pull the curtain down, don’t think I’m not, because the things that lovers share should be private. I was there that night and there's things about it I'll never confess, even if you tried to force it out of me. "O yeah, baby, that's it, the small of the back's my biggest erogenous zone." And there with the rodeo folk, I could hear a lot of the language of love: “Oh, you can be soooo mean to little ole me. You don’t like me very much, do you? Do you even like me a little bit? Oh yeah, a lot bit?, you dirty boy!”

You know what would be fun? I probably shouldn’t say. But wouldn't it be great if I would've posted on the bulletin board all the expressions of devotion I heard and promises of love eternal? And this would've been a crazier prank, holding some of those Romeos and Juliets responsible for their words and actions with a whole non-romantic blackmail scheme. I could use some extra coin.

Believe me, I knew the ones who were guilty as sin. But, no, anyone who’d do that would be drawn and quartered and fed to a bull. The rodeo always has a way of exacting justice. One obnoxious newbie a different year got an idea like that. And it didn't work out very well. He got a semi-proper burial but that was it. Then Pap suddenly declared “Rodeo holiday,” they pulled up stakes and pressed on.

Not very sexy. And crap, now I lost my buzz, shouldn’t have sabotaged the sexy, sultry mood of that night with my scheming. But, ooooo, what a night. Probably shouldn’t even say her name. Just a hint, she sells popcorn. And like popcorn, when heated up she can realllllly jump. As in "Yowsa, giddyup! This rodeo’s goin’ places!

Volcano The Bull

No. 9 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

Somewhere I’ve heard it said, “What’s in a name? Rosy red lips would taste as sweet.” I think it was maybe something I said myself. It's certainly a truth that nails it, that battens down the hatches, with anything that hatches from here on out having to learn to fly on its own or it’ll sink like a stone, which in the long run we know it must.

Certainly a massive bull by any other name could be just as dangerous, but it took a particularly lethal name, Volcano, to start this bad bull out with a serious reputation, along with him having actually once destroyed a town. It sounds worse than it was because there are some very tiny towns, no joke. The town was incorporated by a family with a house and a bull. The bull became injured in a tender spot in its male anatomy. Then kicked the living daylights out of that house, hence, the town. And “lava-ed” all over the remains, making him … Volcano!

O boy, some of the stories from the Wild West are traumatic, but the family quickly rebuilt, then printed a line of postcards about Volcano that made the place extremely popular. It grew and grew until … Well, it’s still there. I believe you’ve heard of Wichita, Kansas? Who hasn’t heard of Wichita, Kansas? Even Glen Campbell went through there when he was stringing telephone lines. But back then it was just a one-bull town until Volcano destroyed it, then it was rebuilt by the love of a people with bitter memories who moved to the area much later than the original incident, adopting it as their own, forging their own way through the destruction and grief still felt to the core, finally creating a heritage that some believe still endures to this day.

Our bull in recent years, the one in Mam and Pap’s rodeo, was named after the original Volcano, although a lot of folks in Wichita -- still rattled from the destruction they never witnessed -- get the two mixed up. The reason is easy to understand, at least to those of us on the outside without a vested interest in conflating them: Bulls have a relatively short lifespan. And Wichita hasn’t been destroyed any other times than that once. And never by a different Volcano under different circumstances.

Anyway, Mam and Pap’s Volcano recalled those days and built on the legend, giving their Volcano a reputation that even in the years since his death he hasn’t been able to live down.  Towns on the circuit — as long as old men mutter legends and old witches nurse a grudge — say such things as “Volcano shall return!” It started as a kind of legendary longing for the old days when destruction was complete — a whole town destroyed — to become proverbial about the rodeo bull of the same name, that he would live up to his name, come what may, if people on the circuit didn’t come out to pay him tribute.

If I were living in that time, with superstitions up the yin-yang, I suppose I’d go out and pay money to see the rodeo, hopefully buying for myself insurance against my own cabin (or town) being destroyed. So far so good, knock on wood, praise the bull, I’m personally still living. Now I’m in a house that hasn’t yet been destroyed, and I’m in a town that will likely still be here tomorrow. But, praise Volcano, I'll never take anything for granted.

Rodeo Tail-Flip Beats Dinosaurs

Part 8 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

World records are a lot of fun. Of course they take various forms, the big huge official stuff, like when the first guy ran the 4-minute mile. Which is what a good laxative can do for you. Then the unofficial stuff no one thinks of, and maybe it never happens, like, say, the guy who wore his dentures the longest without taking them out. Someone had to! Just glad it wasn't my dad.

And that record could be beaten by now if we knew all the details. My dad had false teeth and put them in a container at night. So obviously he had no discipline when it came to world records, unless it would be the longest unbroken streak of putting them in a container every night. If he would’ve striven to keep them in his mouth the longest, that might've been something. But he didn't care. If you want the glory you gotta have the guts to put up with a little discomfort. In dad’s case, he was too crabby to try.

I’m probably the world-record holder in something without even knowing it. You can do dubious things and honorable things. For example, I keep my lawnmower in the dining room. I needed a place to keep it so it wouldn't be stolen and my dining room's pretty safe. But how would I find the current world's record? I could even actually push it room to room everyday, with lots of world records attainable. But it's not a great distinction. A bigger distinction would be “The longest a guy’s kept a lawn mower in the Big City without someone stealing it.” And I can’t brag about that because the thieves would show up.

Mam & Pap were always looking for unique aspects of the show to advertise to bring out sightseers to share the glory, but whenever it seemed they had something it turned out to be average. Finally, the perfect rarity jumped its way to immortality, a horse whose tail cleared an extraordinary 9+ feet, the highest such clearance reported since the time of the dinosaurs, which was the distant past. Way back before the Pilgrims, before the Model T, and predating Abraham Lincoln, incidentally my spirit animal, totally ancient compared to me.   

The tale of the tail is a great record, having been scrupulously documented, the documentation now lost. I heard some yammering naysayers were disputing Mam & Pap's claim. To which I say, Give me a break! Mam & Pap lived a good moral life. If they said something about their horse's tail, their word's good enough for me! These people were good as gold, and their word better. But because dinosaurs are no more, obviously there's no way we can show a dinosaur's pathetic vertical leap again. Think about it, though, a dinosaur tale weighed around a ton and a horse's tail is about 12 ounces. Which would be more likely to flip higher with a vertical jump?

The Trouble With Swag

Part 7 of 30

The Mam & Pap

Royal Splendid Traveling Rodeo

Forgive me if I’m a little clinical on this post. I’ve done some work over the years in the field of challenges and accomplishments, not so much with setting goals and fulfilling them but the personal ramifications of having accomplished the task. Primarily what it means in terms of pride, self-image, comparing yourself to others, and boasting.

So when I find evidence of Mam and Pap, and especially their underlings, puffed up with pride not only for what they’ve done in terms of the rodeo but the social markers of recognition for their several accomplishments — in this case, blue ribbons — I’m interested. I suppose most people who are recognized for an accomplishment can barely forego a moment of pride. What is more interesting are the ones who accumulate those tokens of recognition and see that as a greater accomplishment than the actual accomplishments themselves.

It’s one of those unconscious, subversive traps — depending on your psychology, no doubt, with parenting issues, whether you still peed your pants in your 40s, etc. — that so many of us, well-balanced and happy but not necessarily insightful as to what drives us individually, fall into. Of course it’s part of the Human Comedy, and I can be as ridiculous as the next guy, and for that reason alone it’s part of the fun. You go to someone’s house and they have bowling trophies over the course of a successful pursuit of the hobby over the decades. It’s hard not to think, “You poor deluded fool,” even while smiling two-faced, praising him for such a great game in 1965 with the evidence of the memorable victory still front row center.

Traveling rodeos of course are not a competitive thing in tournaments and contests that pass out trophies or ribbons. They’re a capitalistic enterprise that, beyond the normal interpersonal fun they have, are in it for the money. They get their money, and if they’re in management, they reinvest in the rodeo. If they’re employees they save a little, send a little to parents and kids. If they’ve crossed the line somewhere they pay off whomever’s on their case. And life goes on. But getting to the rodeo in a permanent capacity, most of the talent has gotten blue ribbons and other recognition. And to a lot of people that swag means something.

The fact that it has this whole fictitious side is what interests me. Because it’s hard to go back and contextualize the scene when you won the swag. Were you up against real talent or was it you and four halfwits? The records aren’t great on these things. You performed feats of strength. Was one of your competitors Superman? Or just a couple of PE dropout squirrels? You won honors in a cake-baking contest. How do we know you didn’t pay of the judges? So many questions, potentially meaningless.

In conclusion, your swag — be it blue ribbon, red ribbon, trophies, or a Billy Bass fish flopping back and forth on wooden plaque — ain’t worth squat. Like they say in the old religious classic, The Old Rugged Cross, “Till my trophies at last I lay down.” Or equally profound, Billy Bass himself, don’t hang him on the wall when he’s clearing saying, “Take me to the river, put me in the water.”

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I’m submitting this post to an academic/humor blog site to see how it fares in the competition. (The biggest competition I get are guys still stuck on Polish jokes.) I promise that any swag I get I'll put on a fence post and let a friend with a high-powered rifle blow it to bits.