I went to what I’m pretty certain was my lifetime’s first rodeo ever at Mansfield Park Arena in Bandera, TX on May 25. Rodeos have apparently been happening in that very venue for exactly 100 years — since 1924. At this year’s Memorial Day Weekend Stampede, competitive events included steer wrestling (steers are apparently undersized oxen which are in turn castrated bulls — who knew?), team roping (of steers again I believe), bareback riding (of bucking broncos and boy do they buck!), tie down roping (of calves), calf scramble (for kids age 10 and under), mutton bustin’ (also for kiddies who fall off sheep), breakaway roping (cowgirls whose lassos or are they lariats break off like a lizard’s tail when they catch a steer — took a while to figure out the breaking was on purpose), barrel racing (cowgirls do fast figure eights around large beer receptacles) and bull riding (which had very few participants — in fact a couple from the program seemed to have chickened out or played hooky at the last minute, perfectly understandable given how the bulls buck even badder than broncs!)
At the intermission before the final two events, the clown (or “barrelman” as the program called him — a fellow named Cody Sosebee) brought a little green suitcase out into the middle of field containing noggin decorations he needed to help him dance goofy to all different musical genres (I believe he even used that decidedly rock-criticky word — if he didn’t, the announcer guy did.) For hip-hop (for which he wore a backwards baseball cap) he picked “In Da Club,” for ’80s rock (mullety wig) he picked Ram Jam’s “Black Betty” (which is technically from the ’70s), for “modern music for the young women” (or something like that — long drag wig maybe?) he picked “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” (for which the Spanish-speaking family behind us confusingly shouted out “Michael Jackson!!” — maybe the clown moonwalked??) and for country ( dorky Hee Haw style cowboy hat) he picked, get this….”Cotton Eye Joe”! Yes, the Rednex version!! In the self-proclaimed “cowboy capitol of the world,” where the first restaurant we’d gone to — Trail Boss Steak and Grill — had at least 50% of adult males rudely (I would think) neglecting to remove their cow-punch headgear while eating inside! How authentic can you get!
Otherwise, almost no musical selections spun through the night counted as country per sé — just Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places” and whatever song they played for the Memorial Day tribute to (presumably local) soldiers who “gave all”; I only vaguely recognized it, and my wife’s Shazam came up empty. Wasn’t Billy Ray Cyrus or Montgomery Gentry or Jamey Johnson. I think it may have been by Trace Adkins, but that’s only a wild guess. Most surprising of many snippets heard through the two-hour event: About 30 seconds each of “West End Girls” and Yello’s “Oh Yeah.” The program credits James Horcasitas with “sound”; not sure if that means he was the DJ or not.
One theory I have is that “Pro Rodeo Association” is trying to expand its audience beyond white rural folks — which is what most of the audience and just about all the competitors seemed to be regardless — but maybe there’s some other reason, who knows. At least tie-down-roper Marvin Taverez had a Hispanic surname, like Bandera itself does. Also, outside of two saddle bronc riders from Queensland, Australia, every competitor listed on the program hailed from either the U.S. south or west, mostly Texas which is both and no surprise I guess.
That ecumenical objective may or may not also explain the lack of explicit right-wing messaging during the affair (despite Bandera being the home of a Trump store we visited earlier that same day), give or take the ominous U.S. Border Patrol pickup truck parked just inside the entrance (and even that one, given asshole Governor Abbott’s ongoing battle with the federal government on performative deterrence of immigration, could be chalked up as a Biden vote.) Announcer Andy Stewart asked that the crowd put aside differences, including political ones, and as far as I could tell he lived up to his own request. Also, perhaps in the interest of equestrian equity, I should note that the best horse names (Comin Un-Dun, Rock Bottum, CB, R Watson’s Walki, Maximus) were no funnier than the best human names (Carsyn Sunvision, Remey Parrot, Shiloh Napp, Kaylee Taylor, Colton Leech.)
Eliminated for Reasons of Space 