Thursday, September 12, 2013

S. Goes to Oakland - Part I - Friday

While the regular writers for the blog are slacking on their blogging duties, S. has come through to tide us over with her tale of attending the Oakland event last weekend. 

Fabiano Vieira
For some reason, the last time the PBR was in town, about four years ago, I didn't go to Oakland.   The location is ridiculously convenient for me in comparison to California’s other three events, so how could I resist this time?  Unfortunately, a Friday evening is not so convenient, especially when the event is at the Oracle Arena, and there is an A’s game taking place at the larger Coliseum right next door.

Apparently I was not alone in thinking this way. Either because of the urban area or perhaps the weekday evening and/or the economy, things were pretty sad on Friday.  They only had one concession stand open, and the cowboys doing meet and greets at sponsor booths were practically twiddling their thumbs.  The plus side of this was that there weren't really any lines or any rushing, so I was able to tell Fabiano Vieira that I was happy he was back and wish him good luck, and it's the most relaxed I've ever seen the guy with fans.  I was also able to thank Chad Berger for  his breast cancer awareness charity work and shake his hand.

J.B. Mauney gets the flame intro
The pretty sad attendance numbers certainly became entirely clear when we entered the arena.  I know people would rather see the championship night if they can only go one day, but the amount of empty seats in all levels was truly pathetic.  Although I will say, the crowd was very engaged and enthusiastic-- even Flint said something about the crowd making up for being small by having great volume.

Speaking of Flint and the entertainment in general, the Best Dressed Fan was a little girl who seemed to find him rather alarming.  During a break between the flights, they trotted out something even worse than the Stud of the Night, which I didn't even think could be possible.  It's the Kiss 8 Second Kiss Cam, where Gene Simmons et al. yell about how people should kiss for 8 seconds, and then the audience in general is forced to watch people in the crowd slurp on each other for 8 seconds, with varying degrees of cringeworthiness.  And then apparently the videos go online for people to vote on or something?  I hope the people kissing give permission prior to this occurring.  I have no desire to see any of the videos again, so I won’t be looking.  Also fairly horrifying was the video from the  “Sexiest Cowboy” photoshoot.  More on that in my next post.
 
The most enjoyable thing about this event is that the bulls were by in large decent.  I had been a little worried about this since there had been some articles about this being the last chance for some lesser-known West Coast bulls to prove themselves before the finals, and I have not had good luck with events full of lesser-known West Coast bulls.  Chad Berger and Cindy Rosser brought some pretty good ones, so that helped.  There were a few re-rides, but not an inordinate amount, for which I was extremely grateful.

A couple of the bulls were pretty squirrelly, though.  Multiple bulls refused to leave the arena without lots of prompting, reveling in a victory lap or five.  Several had to be roped.  One even ended up falling down and rolling around by the side of the exit gate while being pulled by the pickup man and his horse, who was already behind the chute area.  Eventually Julio Moreno dropped his side of the rope, since it was just banging the downed bull into the chutes and gate, and somehow this led to Shorty holding the other end of the rope and hauling on it—I have no idea how he thought that was going to end well.  Thankfully the bull seemed to tire of the game at this point and ambled out, apparently no worse for wear after his adventure.

One somewhat amusing sidebar: my seat was next to the aisle to PBR Party Barn.  The bad part of this is that there were drunken people sloshing along the aisle to and from the Party Barn all night.  The entertaining part was watching some of the cowboys who were done for the evening getting beers.  There were a few repeat customers among them; I won't name them but let's just say that none of them were from Brazil.  Another amusing sidebar: one of the in-arena announcers (I think it was Clint Adkins) said something like, “He needed that ride so he can afford diapers,” after Brendon Clark rode.  And then he said, “Wait, was I supposed to say that?" as I thought, what the heck, is Brendon Clark having a kid; we didn't know that, did we?!  No, no, we didn't.  The event was being broadcast on the Live Event Center and the radio, and immediately after this bombshell, Alli Clark's phone (she was sitting near the announcers) started to blow up with calls from friends who didn't know.  Sorry, Alli.  Everyone knows now.  The moral of the story?  Don’t tell the guys with microphones anything you don't want the whole world to know.
The face of disappointment

Thankfully it appeared that no one got too banged up at this event, although Fabiano Vieira was looking very pained after his high-step away from his bull.  I wish this guy could get a healthy season, because he’s clearly very talented.  In other cowboy news, Renato Nunes was apparently “too tired” for his usual backflip, but not too tired for a giant cheeky grin at his compatriots behind the chute.  I was really happy to see Emilio Resende and Valdiron de Oliveira start to get back into the groove, and wished Edevaldo Ferreira would have done the same. 

J.B. Mauney unexpectedly launched off his “gimme” bull earlier in the evening, so there was a lot of anticipation about his ride on the bonus bull, Stanley FatMax.  Since J.B. Mauney seems to thrive on riding the “unrideable” bulls, I wasn't surprised that he ended up riding, and it was a good, gritty ride.  I also shouldn't have been surprised that they trotted J.B. out on the shark cage to close out the event, although the ride didn't count toward the event standings.  I like J.B. in the abstract, as he is a dynamic rider, but it's very wearying the way the PBR gets so in a froth whenever he does anything (and even when he doesn't).  I'm sure Stormy Wing, who won the night, wouldn't have minded giving an interview, but oh well.

Following the event was on-the-dirt signing, which someone apparently forgot to tell the security guards about, as a fan club representative had to come over and force them to let us onto the dirt.  After that it was the usual crazy swirl of cowboys, missing some while you’re talking to others.  I was happy to catch Joao Ricardo Vieira, though, because he has a certain impish quality I enjoy and he has certainly impressed in his debut year.  While I think Silvano Alves will be very tough to catch, it would be pretty exciting if Joao could manage to win Rookie of the Year and the World Title in one year.  But if it’s either of them, history will be made and I’ll be happy.
Joao Ricardo Vieira
After this we fled quickly, trying to get out before the A’s fans flooded the area.  Alas, ball four was called as we were walking by the arena, and we ended up in the midst of them, although we met some hilarious new bullriding fans on the train whose husbands had been at the ball game while they watched bullriding, so all was not lost.

Tune in later for Saturday!  Hope this was at least marginally entertaining.

I will try to get part two up over weekend.  Or at least before too many events have passed...

3 comments:

shannon said...

I'm starting to watch the PBR again with more interest and while I'm excited about the possibility of JB (who seems to have matured quite a bit!) winning the title, I'm amusing myself with fantasies of being a fly on the wall while TPTB lose their minds trying to decide what changes to make after Silvano wins another title--back to back to back (since Threepeat has been copy-righted).

"Following the event was on-the-dirt signing, which someone apparently forgot to tell the security guards about, as a fan club representative had to come over and force them to let us onto the dirt."

I don't know who is dropping the ball here, but it happens in Anaheim, too. Either the PBR isn't talking to whoever is in charge, or whoever is in charge isn't talking to his/her staff. So frustrating!

Speaking of frustrating: Poor Alli!

Ok, I'm going to admit something here: As a warm blooded human being, a woman who may be older, but isn't dead, I like watching the photo shoot segment of The Sexiest Cowboy Alive contest. That photographer even made Pistol and Sean look great! However, I'm really ticked off that, since the book centers around the PBR (right?) why in the hell aren't riders like Guilherme or Aaron Roy in there?! I know, I know...USA!...USA! *sigh*

One final thing: I'm not hating this new Pure PBR stuff. It makes it more interesting for me than just watching them pull ropes and having whoever is announcing trying to think of something clever to say--even if a lot of it is stuff we already know.

Thanks for the report! Looking forward to the next one.

shannon said...

I'm starting to watch the PBR again with more interest and while I'm excited about the possibility of JB (who seems to have matured quite a bit!) winning the title, I'm amusing myself with fantasies of being a fly on the wall while TPTB lose their minds trying to decide what changes to make after Silvano wins another title--back to back to back (since Threepeat has been copy-righted).

"Following the event was on-the-dirt signing, which someone apparently forgot to tell the security guards about, as a fan club representative had to come over and force them to let us onto the dirt."

I don't know who is dropping the ball here, but it happens in Anaheim, too. Either the PBR isn't talking to whoever is in charge, or whoever is in charge isn't talking to his/her staff. So frustrating!

Speaking of frustrating: Poor Alli!

Ok, I'm going to admit something here: As a warm blooded human being, a woman who may be older, but isn't dead, I like watching the photo shoot segment of The Sexiest Cowboy Alive contest. That photographer even made Pistol and Sean look great! However, I'm really ticked off that, since the book centers around the PBR (right?) why in the hell aren't riders like Guilherme or Aaron Roy in there?! I know, I know...USA!...USA! *sigh*

One final thing: I'm not hating this new Pure PBR stuff. It makes it more interesting for me than just watching them pull ropes and having whoever is announcing trying to think of something clever to say--even if a lot of it is stuff we already know.

Thanks for the report! Looking forward to the next one.

Shawk said...

I have had my suspicions about the "bonus bull," but much like the 15/15 and the Final Five Chase and whatever other wacky short-lived hijinks I've forgotten, it appears to be having very little influence on the outcome. (Seriously, though, is the bonus bull based on who won the round or who won the last event, or both if it's a three day event? So unclear.)

Yes, we had a security guard yelling at us to stay where we were and treating us not so nicely, which was unpleasant, to say the least. The fan club guy was stationed by the ladies checking Posse memberships, so it took a few minutes for him to realize there was a problem. Thankfully things got straightened out but it seemed like an avoidable situation.

I personally find the Sexiest Cowboy thing sorta cheesy. It's not that none of the cowboys are sexy, it's just really weird with these semi-finalists which we have no idea how they were selected. And the exclusion of anyone from Brazil is totally obnoxious. I don't know what the main character is about, other than presumably an American PBR rider (I don't read Nicholas Sparks), but it's for a limited edition book cover, and it's not like book covers are known for extreme accuracy. And please, what does an American look like, anyway?

PurePBR has been much better recently. Still not a fan of Wired as all we ever get is air over a mic or grunting, but hearing what's going on behind the chutes and having the guys wander around and answer questions is going smoother and showing us some things that are interesting. Too bad the Leah in the crowd segments are sometimes really awkward.

And thanks! Hopefully it will be up soon.