Random Notes on the Git-R-Done Invitational

1) I don’t quite get what Larry the Cable Guy’s relationship was to this event. Did he co-sponsor it? Just lend his name? Tater said he called Larry because he “needed some money,” so I suppose cash must have changed hands, but I’m hazy on who paid whom, and for what. And I'm pretty damned sure I'll never find out.
2) I have been watching the PBR a long time, and I have seen a lot of injuries, but I have never seen one that affected me as much as Paulo Crimber’s in the first round. I could have cried for him.
3) Perhaps it was because of events in the political arena last week (I won’t say another word), but I found the boys in the booth even more tiresome this week than I have in weeks past. Several things they were laughing about struck me as adolescent at best and sexist and offensive at worst. For instance:
a) Larry’s comment about Sarah Jessica Parker starting to look like Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dee_Snider_on_stage.jpg).
I am giving you guys fair warning—just get up off Ms. Parker. Not one of you are exactly Miss America material yourselves. The day any of you looks as good as she does, I’ll be happy to listen to you. Until then, like Nicole Baker in The Executioner’s Song, I don’t want to hear a goddamned word you have to say on the subject, or for that matter, on the subject of any woman’s looks.
Of course, it was pretty revealing that J.W. had absolutely no idea who Dee Snider is, but since he probably hasn’t listened to anything but Toby Keith since 1993, I guess we can cut him some slack.
b) All of the boys sniggering suggestively about Kasey Hayes’ girlfriend. Would you want somebody to talk about your sister like that? Just cut it out.
c) J.W.’s remarking that one of the riders drawing a bull owned by his girlfriend’s dad was the contractor getting revenge. That’s beyond tacky.
4) In a related matter that I can’t blame on the commentators (I don’t think), the Zantrex-3 Insta-Shot Grudge Match sounded like a good idea—till I figured out what Zantrex-3 is. I cannot believe that the PBR has stooped to taking on a sponsor that sells this kind of crap, but clearly that’s what’s happened. Did they cut a deal for free samples for the cowboys, maybe? The commercial for it, with the gal in her red negligee trying to wake her snoring lover up, led me to advise her to smack him with the champagne bottle, which led Montana Barn Cat to bark, he laughed so loud. If I were in her marabou-trimmed boudoir slippers, I’d have beaten him just about senseless.
Really, it makes me long to have Bob back, Bob who was “doing well, very well,” and proved it by carting around a wheelbarrow with a log and two boulders in it. Awful as Bob was, his commercials at least showed an occasional flash of wit. Of course, I can’t remember the name of the product he was peddling to save my life, but of course I can’t forget what it was for. All this leads me to speculate about whether a bunch of male PBR fans are suffering from this malady. As much as I am tempted to comment on that prospect, I think I will hold my tongue, just this once.
5) I also could have cried for Cord McCoy, who looked uncharacteristically solemn while he was waiting for Sean Willingham to ride, and then waiting longer while Sean challenged the judging. It would have been great to see Cord win an event.
6) And while we’re on the subject of crying, I was about in tears when Guilherme bucked off for the second time. He looked really, really tense all weekend. All in all, it was a weepy few hours around the Stockyard.
7) I am willing to concede that perhaps Sean Willingham did have a qualified ride to end the short-go, but would it be too much to ask the judges to show us what led them to reverse themselves? From the angle I (and all the rest of us) had, it looked like Sean just about slapped El Gato into next week. Maybe if the judges weren’t so damned secretive about the process, and were willing to show us whatever video they are reviewing instead of just the damned stopwatch, some of us might be a little less critical when it looks like somebody is getting shafted.