Leather

Leather. While denim might be San Francisco contribution to the world of fabric, the city’s has a long history of bovine appreciation. I grew up in Cow Hollow, a neighborhood before real estate agents swallowed it into the Marina and Pacific Heights. The city has bars that specialize in hats, festivals that bring out vests, and parades that show off chaps. The stench of this cow town has long since been replaced with the scent of coffee shops and day spas, but there are the remnants of this western lifestyle. This weekend I went to one of the largest leather gatherings in the city – the annual Grand National Rodeo at, of course, the Cow Palace.

The last time I went to the Palace was for the wintertime Dickens fair with the exotic costumes, salty shanties, and quantities of mead. The Grand National rodeo harkens back to the same century but a different continent. The same percentage of folks wear hats, but the shanties are more about god, dogs, and country, and the mead tastes like Budweiser. Buckles aren’t used for shoes, but are meant to be status codpieces worn on belts. The fans’ devotion to the event remained the same.

The level of pure earnest at these festivals seeps deeply into the spectators. Most have such a strong desire to participate in a pulp genre lifestyle where the poor are dirty, villains are real estate crooks, and the women wear copious amounts of undergarments. There are times when I think everyone clings fantasy of a simpler time when there wasn’t email or downsizing, but the past that is cherished has been bleached by Disney in the same way that tomorrowland doesn’t ever have homeless. There is an absence of London’s cholera and Native American small pox at these festivals. The notion of an ambiguous past is not meant for those who need to worship it.

The real difference between the Dickens fair and the rodeo is that at the end of the day of the rodeo somebody has to ride the bull.

The rest is prelude. The show has horses being spun as if they were dogs chasing their tails, and dogs rounding cattle into corrals as if they were horses. A perky Miss Grand National dressed in a satin shirt and a bouncy hairstyle that suggested that Mane 'N Tail shampoo wasn’t only used for her steed. Quite a few events were about getting a calf to the ground either by jumping on them, having a couple of buddies lasso both the front and back legs, or a soloist lasso then tie the fallen calf. Boxers get ten counts; calves only get six. The fasting roping of the night was by the security guards who caught a drunk hopping the fence to take a short cut to the Montgomery Gentry Concert. The time remained unofficial.

There was a small laser show before the bull riding that was reminiscent of Jordan’s Chicago championship team introductions. This one was followed by real cattle. Bull riding is one of the few things that is tougher than it sounds. The sport has long been a source of metaphors. Middle management is constantly being told to grab the bull by the horns. From the standpoint of someone trying to last 8 seconds this is not a very good idea.

A better approach is clenching braided rope and kick in the opposite direction of the creature as it bobs and weaves. It might be too simple to say that a bull is an elephant injected with caffeine, but the truth is that leading rave drink isn’t called "Red Dumbo." A good bull has a variety of moves: a midair twist, a double down head fake, and a back side shimmy. Bull riding is the battle between the last two of Newton’s laws: the bull’s seeks "force is mass times acceleration" to his advantage, while the rider must counter with "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Bull riding is equal parts physics and prayer. To project their cognitive abilities, most riders now wear helmets. I don’t know if the outlaw shells come in black.

When I saw the first bull ride I thought that the show must have been sponsored by the National Chiropractor Association, but the lead sponsor of the Grand National is a workman compensation insurance company, Andreini & Company. There must have been an actuary a few booths over from me drowning his night with Budweiser and mumbling "We insured what?"

No one finishes a bull ride easily. A few can hop on a nearby horse and then bounce to the ground, but everyone limps out of the arena. The unlucky ones are stamped or speared, which I think in the variety of workplaces has to be the worst exit interview ever. All of the riders on my night made it out on their own accord, but I have no idea whether they will make it to thirty.

It takes a sport so old to crush men so young. As they hobbled they had the physique of rookie baseball players but the posture from playing football against someone twice your size. They carried not just the weight of their own rides, but the collective need of nostalgia.