Live events leave my head spinning. The roar of the crowd, the music, the announcers, the fireworks, the giant flame throwers blazing heat right by my head, the smell of bulls and dirt, smoke and diesel fuel - these things fill the body and, in my case, chase out pretty much all thought. I'm a thinking person. I like to analyze and ponder and I learn by writing and talking and thinking. But at a bull riding there's no time to think, no time to analyze, and if I did talk, no one would be able to hear me. A bull runs toward the fence I am standing behind. There's nothing like a speeding bull to turn a thinker into an action figure.
On television, for me, much of the game is mental. I study how things happen. When did the rope come out of the hand? What does it mean, a cornering bull? Was it a slap or not? What were the scores? In real time, I don't much care about those things. I am abandoned in the moment. It takes a confetti explosion to even make me notice a score at all. Suddenly I understand what Mike Lee means when he says "bull riding is not about the brain." It's not about the brain. I understand what he means when he says that "bull riding is not about thinking, it's about freedom." I get it. I get it as much as I ever will without being on the back of a bull. Of course I will return to the brain and its thoughts. But this is better.
It makes me dizzy. It upsets the applecart of my carefully organized mind. This is a good thing. I could use more of this. Don't get me wrong: I love the analysis, the numbers, the statistics, the watching, the writing, the thinking. But when I am here, in the moment, breathing the dust, feet on the dirt, draped on the fence and then stepping away - bull riding doesn't make me think, it makes my blood sing. Here, I am not a writer or a thinker or a reporter. I am a fan on the ground, alive in the snap-crackle-pop.
