bull riding event

Saturday night was a date night.  Larry and I met our friends Kim and Don at the Railhead in Forth Worth for Barbeque.  The best barbeque I have ever put in my mouth is served at the Railhead.  But we've actually found another Railhead location- a newer version of our beloved Railhead in Fort Worth near our old house.  This one is in Hudson Oaks - and a LOT closer to us in Weatherford.  On tuesdays and saturdays you can get  a half a roasted barbequed chicken and this incredible salad that is NOT on the menu in Fort Worth.

 Me, I 'm not much on potato salad or cole slaw - unless I'm the one what made it, so this salad is right up my food combining alley.  And it has all my favorite stuff in it.  I mean, meat and potatos are just about the worst thing you can eat at the same time, but we Texans seem to eat a lot of things that way.  Steak and potatos, chicken fried steak and mashed potatos, fried chicken and potatos, hamburgars and french fries.
Yikes!

The other choice at the Railhead, of course, is their unbelievable barbeque pork  ribs.  Fall off the bone tender - you really don't ever want to get full - they are craveable, so since we discovered this new Railhead near our own neighborhood, we frequent there as often as we can.  Unless it is a tuesday or a saturday, I order a large salad with toasted pecans, feta cheese, and balsalmic dressing, with a pound of ribs and a Blue Moon.  Coldest beer anywhere, and they serve this new wheat beer my neice turned me on to - the Blue Moon - maybe it isn't new, but it is new to me - served with orange slices - my new favorite.  It's just not as good at home - I tried it, and it needs to be served to me by a nice smiling waitress in that cold frozen scooner that's almost too big for my hands.  I pick it up with two. 





So we had tickets to the Bull Riding event at the Will Rogers Coliseum.  Smelled just like you would expect a Bull Riding event to smell.  Like dirt and pee, sawdust and poop, beer and cinnamon rolls, all rolled up together to make a big ole' Bull Pie odorific one of a kind memorable you'd know exactly where you were if you had a blindfold on kind of experience.

We found our seats and they were good ones - right near the action.  Just in time, the announcer started talking though we couldn't understand a word through the speaker system in the arena.  His words were garbled and loud - every once in a while we could make one of them out.  So we just watched as each contestant tried to stay on the backs of those crotchety old bulls for the precious desired eight seconds so they could be scored.  These cowboys were named Austin and Justin, and Rigger and Roper and Tuffy and Roughy and the last names were about the same.  I mean, do you think their parents named them those perfect bull rider names or are those nicknames?   They were like movie star names or something.  And crazy.  I don't know who is crazier.  A Bull Rider, or the clowns that help refocus a furious bucking bull.

Talk about a score!  When it was over and the winner had recieved his belt buckle and his brand new saddle (Larry suggested it was weird for a bull rider to get a saddle for a prize and we all agreed)  Anyway,  Don had scored these precious "back stage" upstairs coveted go up the elevator to the famous bar for important people tickets, so we went, finding the elevator finally, past the guards that were carefully screening people that tried to go up, turning people away right and left, past these folks that were envying us for that coveted ticket Don held in his hands.  We were feeling somewhat superior having these important tickets and excited to have this "experience" and go up to the famous upstairs bar and viewing area.    I can't really describe what we found there.  Kim and I went to the bathroom and when she opened the door to go inside, there was a brick wall.  Huh, is it a practical joke or something?  We opened the door next to it and found the real bathroom.  OK, so THAT was weird.

Then the bar had these plywood covered tables with folding chairs around them - they sort of needed tablecloths or something - like they had just cleaned up after a wedding and it was time to go home sort of feeling.  The bar had lots of people all bunched up in line to order and this most peculiar painting behind it.  I  mean, tell me what you think this is?  There just has to be a  good backstory here.  Once I find out what it is, I'll be sure to share it with you.

But this is weird don't you think?   Like outer space weird.

Huh?

So,

there's no music playing, no sound at all, but there are all the superior people around us that had the same superior special upstairs passes.  There was a concert going on below, we could see it through the glass windows, but we were behind it - we could see the back of the band, and it was silent.  We could watch the people down below enjoying themselves packed up in front of the elevated stage in the middle of the arena, watching the concert.  I never did find out who was playing. 

So, we drank our fancy drink in our fancy plastic cups and with a bewildered look at each other and a few photos taken to commemorate the moment, we left, onward home to the real world and art that makes sense.

BTW, a kinda cool thing - When we got off the elevator, there was a young couple that were being turned away because they didn't have the coveted special ticket.  So, when they turned away all dejected, Don went over to them and handed them his pass upstairs and then walked away.  Hopefully they found it a stimulating experience and knew exactly why there was a painting of a two legged horse butt with an eyeball on the wall behind the bar.
Anyway, I thought it was a nice gesture.  Don't you?  We should pay it forward whenever we can.


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