And that is the book in a nutshell. Readers follow along as Luke, his brother Casey, best friend Travis Cadwell, and a colleague Marc Jensen crisscross the West to compete at dozens of rodeos.
The steer wrestling itself and the competition get almost as much attention as the long-distance rig driving, poker playing, carousing, beer drinking, junk food eating, gambling, pot smoking, cell-phone talking, and the idle conversations, story telling, boredom, practical joking, raillery, tomfoolery, and high jinks that fill the time between rodeos and rides.
![]() |
Luke Branquinho, National Rodeo Finals, 2004 |
The book is an honest effort to recreate the experience of being on the road with this fraternity of men in their twenties and thirties. Living out dreams of rodeo glory, they pit skill against luck in the arena. Meanwhile they struggle with disappointments and deal with physical ailments that range from colossal hangovers to serious injuries. Theirs is also a story of building friendships that qualify as a rough-and-ready kind of male bonding.
You won't find much padding – no history of steer wrestling, no side-trips and detours into related subjects, and very little character study or analysis of the sport itself. It's pretty much play-by-play – whether behind the scenes or out in front of the crowd.
The book ends in a 40-page account of the ten-day Finals in Las Vegas. It's a quick read, with a 16-page section of great action photos and thumbnail portraits of the cowboys featured in the book. All told, it fills in those long gaps between those rides into the arena to throw oneself bodily at a four-legged moving target.
Blacktop Cowboys is available at amazon and Abebooks.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Coming up: Baxter Black, Hey, Cowboy, Wanna Get Lucky?
My small home town of Charleston, Arkansas, population about 1500, raised the State Champion bull rider and I believe he was in the top 10 nationally. We were pretty proud of that.
ReplyDeleteI occasionally watch the bull riding on TV. The cowboys who do it are a breed unto themselves.
ReplyDeleteCharles, I believe it. There's something deeply mythic about bull riding.
ReplyDeleteOscar, Friday's post is about the PBR.
ReplyDeleteagen viagra
toko viagra
toko viagra asli
jual viagra
jual viagra asli
viagra asli
viagra jakarta
viagra asli jakarta
toko viagra jakarta
jual viagra jakarta
agen viagra jakarta
cialis asli
cialis jakarta
cialis asli jakarta
titan gel asli
titan gel jakarta
titan gel asli jakarta
viagra cod jakarta
obat viagra jakarta
obat viagra asli
viagra original
viagra usa
obat viagra
obat kuat viagra
obat cialis
obat cialis asli
obat kuat cialis
jual cialis
toko cialis
obat cialis jakarta
toko cialis jakarta
jual cialis jakarta
agen cialis jakarta
jual titan gel
toko titan gel
vimax asli
maxman asli
vitamale asli
viagra
hammer of thor
permen soloco asli