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Mechanical Bulls! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Josh and there's Chuck. Jerry is not here. She stepped
0:16
Speaker 1: away for a minute digitally speaking, but she's still here
0:19
Speaker 1: in spirit. So this is stuff you should know. Jerry's
0:22
Speaker 1: looking for love and all the wrong places, right, that's right.
0:26
Speaker 1: And Chuck. I was not really cognizant of what was
0:32
Speaker 1: going on when all of this was happening. But there's
0:36
Speaker 1: a period of time where like country was just beyond
0:40
Speaker 1: cool in America, like it was the popular culture. Yeah,
0:45
Speaker 1: I mean I really remember it. And you're, what five
0:49
Speaker 1: years younger at least never gets old. Uh. It is
0:58
Speaker 1: a time that I remember well in the TV show
1:02
Speaker 1: Dallas and when country, you know, had these big crossover
1:07
Speaker 1: stars like Eddie Rabbit and Juice Newton and Mickey Gilly
1:11
Speaker 1: and Kenny Rogers and Kenney Rogers was making these big
1:14
Speaker 1: Hollywood movies and Dolly Parton was making big Hollywood movies.
1:18
Speaker 1: It was it was an interesting time, and it was
1:22
Speaker 1: it was sort of the beginning of the change of
1:25
Speaker 1: country music from sort of more underground outlaw cowboy Johnny Cash,
1:30
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson, Whale and Jennings stuff to the big A
1:35
Speaker 1: M A's country thing that we see today. And I
1:38
Speaker 1: think the transition was kind of happening back then in
1:42
Speaker 1: the seventies early eighties. That seems to be where it
1:45
Speaker 1: finds its roots is is in this area of this
1:49
Speaker 1: era where it turned into pop basically yeah. And the
1:52
Speaker 1: transition from um, like you were saying that kind of
1:56
Speaker 1: outlaw like hardcore country, um, you pop by way of
2:01
Speaker 1: easy listening, which is a pretty hard left turn if
2:04
Speaker 1: you think about it. But this that easy listening UM
2:07
Speaker 1: was featured prominently on the sound check for a movie
2:10
Speaker 1: called Urban Cowboy, which in one of the more surprising
2:15
Speaker 1: things I've ever come across in our research in the
2:18
Speaker 1: thirteen years we've been doing this. Happy anniversary by the way,
2:23
Speaker 1: um yeah, like right now it's right basically yeah, alright
2:27
Speaker 1: and close enough to that's worth saying happy anniversary for um.
2:31
Speaker 1: One of the more surprising things I've ever come across
2:33
Speaker 1: is that, since we're talking about mechanical bulls today, you
2:36
Speaker 1: can't tell the story of mechanical bulls without John Travolta.
2:40
Speaker 1: I know, right, who knew? Not me? Did you know
2:44
Speaker 1: that that was tied together intimately Urban Cowboy and Mechanical Bulls. Well,
2:50
Speaker 1: it was a big surprise for me, in a pleasant
2:52
Speaker 1: one too, Like I'm still on cloud nine enough for
2:54
Speaker 1: learning about that. Yeah, I mean this was I guess
2:57
Speaker 1: I was a little kid, so you would have been
2:59
Speaker 1: just a babe at the time, So it makes sense
3:02
Speaker 1: that this is more cemented in my memory. But I
3:05
Speaker 1: remember Urban Cowboy. I just remember it all being a
3:09
Speaker 1: very big deal, like people like Olivia Newton John where
3:12
Speaker 1: where people were making country albums that normally didn't because
3:16
Speaker 1: it was just the hot ticket. It was a big deal. Yeah,
3:19
Speaker 1: it really was. Um And like I like, I watched
3:22
Speaker 1: enough um ME TV and stuff to to to be
3:25
Speaker 1: able to recognize this era. It seemed weird to me.
3:29
Speaker 1: Uh it's I think it stands for memorable entertainment television.
3:32
Speaker 1: It's all like old three runs from the seventies. Is
3:35
Speaker 1: it a channel or is it like a streaming app?
3:37
Speaker 1: It's a channel. Um, we have one of those like antenna's.
3:40
Speaker 1: You can get a digital antenna and there's a lot
3:45
Speaker 1: of like really good um rerun Like, uh, what's the
3:50
Speaker 1: word I'm looking for. I guess nostalgic TV out there
3:54
Speaker 1: and me, TV is one of them. But anyway, you know,
3:57
Speaker 1: every once in a while, probably every six their seventh
4:00
Speaker 1: episode of Bionic Woman or six Million Dollar Man will
4:03
Speaker 1: suddenly have some weird country trucker lumberjack theme going on,
4:08
Speaker 1: and you can tell it's like it's because that was
4:11
Speaker 1: the cool thing, right then, you know it was. I mean,
4:14
Speaker 1: like I said, Dallas was a big TV show, and
4:17
Speaker 1: the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders was the
4:21
Speaker 1: biggest thing going, and and b J and the Bear
4:24
Speaker 1: and the Dukes of Hazard and right it was. It
4:26
Speaker 1: was this weird time in America where like the Southern
4:31
Speaker 1: and Western country western culture was at the four it's
4:36
Speaker 1: it's very strange, and it coincided with punkin new wave,
4:40
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's a very weird kind of
4:42
Speaker 1: cool time in this country, I think. But the one
4:45
Speaker 1: of the things that came out of this, one of
4:47
Speaker 1: the things that was popular at the time that really
4:50
Speaker 1: tied into this country zeitgeist that was like the basis
4:55
Speaker 1: of the pop culture at the time was mechanical bull riding,
4:58
Speaker 1: right that that is some thing you would do if
5:01
Speaker 1: you were trying to show off at some bar. It
5:04
Speaker 1: doesn't matter where the bar was in the United States,
5:07
Speaker 1: and I suspect in other parts of the Western world
5:10
Speaker 1: as well, um that that you would ride a mechanical
5:14
Speaker 1: bull wearing a cowboy shirt and tight jeans even though
5:18
Speaker 1: you were from you know, Miami or something like that. Yeah,
5:22
Speaker 1: it's funny. When I was reading this and they were saying, like,
5:24
Speaker 1: they have him in New York, and they had him
5:26
Speaker 1: in New York, in Los Angeles, and it's popular everywhere.
5:29
Speaker 1: The first thing I thought was, I bet they had
5:31
Speaker 1: him in Japan. Surely I was looking. I'm like, I
5:34
Speaker 1: wonder if it's just some like throwback retro uh like
5:38
Speaker 1: mechanical bull riding trend somewhere in the world. I couldn't
5:41
Speaker 1: find any any mention of it anywhere, but surely it
5:45
Speaker 1: is somewhere, you know. It seemed like a good fit.
5:47
Speaker 1: But the mechanical bull, if you don't know what one is,
5:52
Speaker 1: you're not under a rock. Everybody. You could be very
5:56
Speaker 1: much aware of many things in the world and not
5:58
Speaker 1: know what one is. It is. Boy, Chuck, you've really
6:01
Speaker 1: softened and Mellot in your old age, I really have
6:04
Speaker 1: h it is. It is a a simulation of bull
6:08
Speaker 1: riding the rodeo sport of bull riding. It isn't literally
6:12
Speaker 1: a mechanical bull, and we'll talk about how it's made
6:15
Speaker 1: and what it looks like, but you know it's uh,
6:18
Speaker 1: go google a picture. You sit on it and someone
6:21
Speaker 1: is in control of it on the other end, and
6:23
Speaker 1: it mimics the bucking of a bull as if a
6:27
Speaker 1: human were riding on it. And they are very popular
6:30
Speaker 1: in bars, touristy bars usually and maybe in Japan. There's
6:36
Speaker 1: one in New York City at Johnny Utahs. I have
6:40
Speaker 1: some stories about later. But um, the mechanical bull basically
6:43
Speaker 1: can be used to train a rodeo rider, although it's
6:49
Speaker 1: usually just for entertainment purposes. Yeah, it's really interesting about
6:53
Speaker 1: what you just said that it's used for training. Is
6:56
Speaker 1: it's not entirely clear if the mechanical bull was used
7:01
Speaker 1: to train rodeo riders first, or was used as an
7:05
Speaker 1: amusement at Honky Tonk bars first and then became used
7:10
Speaker 1: to train rodeo riders. It has a really hazy origin
7:15
Speaker 1: and it's possible that it evolved um in parallel and
7:20
Speaker 1: multiple places, because there there was a need for training
7:25
Speaker 1: rodeo riders on artificial bulls because part of rodeo that
7:31
Speaker 1: kind of grew out in the nineteenth century in America
7:34
Speaker 1: as um rodeo riding developed based on some of the
7:39
Speaker 1: Mexican blood sports with bulls um As they made their
7:42
Speaker 1: way up north in the United States the southwestern US,
7:46
Speaker 1: um bull riding just kind of came out of nowhere
7:49
Speaker 1: rather than you know, toreo doors um. It was. It
7:53
Speaker 1: got translated into bull riding, and if you want to
7:57
Speaker 1: train on riding a bull, your way better off finding
8:01
Speaker 1: something to simulate the bowl and learning how to ride
8:04
Speaker 1: a bull by riding a bull. You know. Yeah, although
8:07
Speaker 1: you know what it did see somewhere and I couldn't
8:09
Speaker 1: verify it in a lot of places, but I did
8:11
Speaker 1: see in the sixteenth century in Mexico they were actually
8:14
Speaker 1: riding bulls. Uh yeah, so that might have just been
8:19
Speaker 1: a part of the blood sport of bull fighting. If
8:22
Speaker 1: you're a tough guy and you see a bull, you say,
8:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ride that bull. Watch this maybe so uh.
8:29
Speaker 1: And then the nineteen thirties in the United States, the
8:31
Speaker 1: Rodeo Cowboy Association was formed, so it was a full
8:35
Speaker 1: deal by the nineteen thirties, the one thing we do
8:37
Speaker 1: know is that the precursor to the mechanics, the mechanized
8:41
Speaker 1: or mechanical bull, was the bucking barrel, which, um, if
8:46
Speaker 1: you could just do an image search for bucking barrel,
8:48
Speaker 1: you've probably seen these at some point. It is a
8:51
Speaker 1: barrel like an oil barrel, tipped on its side, with
8:55
Speaker 1: a saddle on it, and its suspended off the ground
8:57
Speaker 1: and tied at four corners with some pretty heavy duty
9:01
Speaker 1: tight rope. And um, you would go sit on that
9:04
Speaker 1: that barrel, on that saddle, and you would have four
9:07
Speaker 1: ranch hands try and throw you off of it. And
9:10
Speaker 1: imagine that was a lot of fun. Yes, which I
9:12
Speaker 1: mean it's dangerous in and of itself, especially if the
9:15
Speaker 1: ranch hands are jerks, but it's a lot safer than
9:18
Speaker 1: riding a bull. When you're practicing writing to ride a bull, Yeah,
9:21
Speaker 1: I would. I would write a bucking barrel. If I
9:23
Speaker 1: was at one of those uh city slickers like cattle
9:27
Speaker 1: rustling things and they were like, you want to get
9:29
Speaker 1: on the bucking barrel, partner, I'd say, heck yeah, but
9:33
Speaker 1: I would. You could not pay me to get on
9:34
Speaker 1: a real mechanical bull. Oh, I don't know. I was
9:39
Speaker 1: watching some um there's like mechanical bull throw compilations, people
9:45
Speaker 1: falling off mechanical bulls. I watched quite a bit of this.
9:48
Speaker 1: What's the funniest ones are the ones that happened in
9:50
Speaker 1: slow motion, Like the camera's on in slow motion, is
9:53
Speaker 1: just the person who is sliding off in slow motion. Yeah,
9:56
Speaker 1: that's usually how it works instead of really being thrown, right,
9:59
Speaker 1: it seems like legs on there. Pretty not dangerous. So
10:02
Speaker 1: I would ride a mechanical bullet I ever encountered one. Yeah,
10:05
Speaker 1: I'm not into it. That's fine, I won't yum your yuck. Well,
10:11
Speaker 1: I mean there, we'll talk injuries later on. It's uh
10:15
Speaker 1: oh yeah, pretty badly. I think we should. That's that's
10:18
Speaker 1: it's worth saying. We're like, you can really get injured
10:21
Speaker 1: on a mechanical bull maybe not live bul level, but
10:25
Speaker 1: don't ride live bulls anyway. Let's just put that one
10:27
Speaker 1: out there, and then if you're gonna ride a mechanical bull,
10:29
Speaker 1: no that it's still very dangerous and can be. That's right. So, um,
10:35
Speaker 1: should we take a break, Sure, Yeah, let's do it.
10:38
Speaker 1: I'm not we won't come to blows. It's fine, it's fine.
10:41
Speaker 1: I'll just go along one. All right, we'll take a
10:43
Speaker 1: break and then we'll talk more about this funny thing.
10:45
Speaker 1: Right after this m hm, so chuck um. I was saying, like,
11:14
Speaker 1: the origins of mechanical bulls are fairly hazy. Um. We
11:19
Speaker 1: are pretty sure that they came from the bucking barrel
11:21
Speaker 1: that that preceded them, but it's not entirely clear that
11:25
Speaker 1: the mechanical bull descended from the bucking barrel in the
11:29
Speaker 1: rodeo world or into the amusement world. First, like Ed
11:33
Speaker 1: put this together for us, and he looked high and
11:35
Speaker 1: low to find primary source but couldn't find one. But
11:39
Speaker 1: he saw a lot of like mentions of a place
11:41
Speaker 1: called Bertrand Island, an amusement park in New Jersey that
11:45
Speaker 1: supposedly had a mechanical bull back in the thirties. Yeah,
11:48
Speaker 1: this was in New Jersey, and I think this is
11:51
Speaker 1: what the deal is. I saw this referenced a lot online,
11:55
Speaker 1: and there is a coffee table book about Bertrand Island
11:59
Speaker 1: amusement Park. And I bet you dollars to donuts there's
12:03
Speaker 1: a picture of this rightem cowboy ride in that book,
12:06
Speaker 1: because they all referenced this book. But I didn't have
12:09
Speaker 1: time nor the inclination to buy this book to prove
12:12
Speaker 1: it to myself. But I have a feeling that there
12:15
Speaker 1: was a picture of this right um cowboy ride in
12:16
Speaker 1: this in this coffee table book about Bertrand Island Amusement
12:20
Speaker 1: Park in the nineteen thirties. Okay, I've got a great idea.
12:24
Speaker 1: Let's get in the way back machine and we'll go
12:26
Speaker 1: to the printing of that book and we'll look through
12:28
Speaker 1: one of the books. Are you ready? Well, why don't
12:30
Speaker 1: we just go back to the Bertrand Island Amusement Park
12:32
Speaker 1: in the thirties and ride the thing. I guess we
12:35
Speaker 1: could have done. Okay, all right, let's see that. I mean,
12:37
Speaker 1: we can go to a book branding shop. Okay, we'll
12:40
Speaker 1: go to Bertrand Island. You're ready, look at it? Okay,
12:48
Speaker 1: here we are there. It is there, it is. We
12:51
Speaker 1: have definitively proven it. There was a rightem cowboy mechanical
12:55
Speaker 1: bowl um Bertrand what year is it? Right now? Uh?
12:58
Speaker 1: While I'm looking at my uh shark surf watch and
13:02
Speaker 1: it says two. Okay, mechanical bull at Bertrand Island Amusement Park.
13:08
Speaker 1: All right, I guess we should just go back, all right, well,
13:17
Speaker 1: it's weird that we went back and we didn't ride
13:19
Speaker 1: it or getting saltwater taffy or hit the big strongman
13:22
Speaker 1: bell like could have just gone to do the printing
13:25
Speaker 1: press place. I guess we should have. Huh. Probably had
13:29
Speaker 1: a little candy dish with saltwater taffy there that we
13:31
Speaker 1: could have gramped. So if you talk mechanical bulls, you're
13:35
Speaker 1: gonna hear the name Sherwood cry or come up a lot. Uh.
13:38
Speaker 1: Some people might mistakenly say he invented the mechanical bull. Uh.
13:42
Speaker 1: Certainly is could be looked at as the sort of
13:44
Speaker 1: grandfather of the mechanical bull. But he owned a mechanical
13:48
Speaker 1: bull in his saloon in the seventies. That will get
13:51
Speaker 1: too later. But it was built by a man name
13:55
Speaker 1: Actually I don't know if he built it. Joe Turner
13:57
Speaker 1: built it. But Joe Turner and knew my scope at
14:00
Speaker 1: the very least, held a patent for this mechanical ball. Right. Um,
14:05
Speaker 1: I saw it with my own two eyes, but it's
14:06
Speaker 1: from six So Joe Turner definitely didn't invent the mechanical ball,
14:13
Speaker 1: though he was an inventor of the mechanical bull. But
14:16
Speaker 1: we can say definitively since Sherwood Cryer bought the patent
14:19
Speaker 1: from Joe Turner, that Sherwood Cryer is not the inventor
14:22
Speaker 1: of the mechanical Bull, even though I believe even um
14:24
Speaker 1: Wikipedia cites him as the inventor. Yeah, I was surprised
14:28
Speaker 1: to see that, UM, But yeah, he's very widely held
14:33
Speaker 1: to be the the the inventor. But he even said
14:36
Speaker 1: there was an interview with him in the Austin Chronicle
14:39
Speaker 1: in the late nineties where he said he talked about
14:42
Speaker 1: how he bought it off of UM Joe Turner for
14:44
Speaker 1: thirty dollars, and it will become clear why he did
14:49
Speaker 1: that and why that was actually a really good move
14:51
Speaker 1: on his part later on. That's right. But if you
14:54
Speaker 1: want to talk about the mechanics of the mechanical Bull,
14:57
Speaker 1: it is a hydraulic based machine that has a couple
15:01
Speaker 1: of motors on it. It's got a a center shaft
15:04
Speaker 1: and a main gearbox that make up the spin motor,
15:07
Speaker 1: and that's the one that's gonna spin. It's gonna turn
15:10
Speaker 1: it back and forth. That usually when you see them operated,
15:13
Speaker 1: they usually rarely even go a full three sixty before
15:16
Speaker 1: they turn back and go the other way, because that's
15:19
Speaker 1: kind of the whole object is to keep this thing
15:21
Speaker 1: moving in different directions. Right and it's turned back, and
15:24
Speaker 1: the other direction is usually very sudden and harsh. That
15:28
Speaker 1: is abrupt. There's abrupt, thank you buddy, UM. And then
15:31
Speaker 1: there's another motor usually above the bottom motor, and that
15:36
Speaker 1: that that motor has to do with UM moving pistons
15:39
Speaker 1: up and down. Like imagine a platform that that the
15:42
Speaker 1: saddle sits on that the build the bowl is built
15:45
Speaker 1: around that. The rider actually sits on this platform. It
15:48
Speaker 1: moves from side to side and up and down and
15:50
Speaker 1: left and right. So you have a you have a
15:55
Speaker 1: a lot of yaw control is what you need, UM
15:58
Speaker 1: when it comes to riding a mechanic ankle bull because
16:00
Speaker 1: there's also there's pitch yaw and what's the third one
16:04
Speaker 1: role role? You got all three of those going on
16:08
Speaker 1: in this mechanical ball. I believe right. Uh, if you
16:12
Speaker 1: see one of these in a bar, or if you
16:13
Speaker 1: rent one, I love that. Ed did the research in
16:16
Speaker 1: Ed lives in Buffalo, New York and said, and Buffalo,
16:18
Speaker 1: you can rent one for three hours for nine bucks
16:21
Speaker 1: and it comes with the operator and everything. I heard
16:24
Speaker 1: that and then I thought that might be a have
16:27
Speaker 1: been a fun fiftieth birthday party, but unfortunately quarantine to
16:31
Speaker 1: be like three or four people standing around. That's not
16:33
Speaker 1: You could ride it on zoom for all of the
16:36
Speaker 1: other party guests. But it is mounted very very securely
16:42
Speaker 1: to a big floor plate and uh, it is surrounded.
16:45
Speaker 1: I think Sherwood Choir would drive around and collect mattresses
16:47
Speaker 1: at first, but now they have this big inflatable ring
16:50
Speaker 1: basically that surrounds it. And uh, it's got a saddle.
16:54
Speaker 1: It's it's usually the horse itself is um fiberglass or
16:58
Speaker 1: or it's it's metal maybe, but it's covered in this
17:02
Speaker 1: sort of thick padding with leather and then a real
17:05
Speaker 1: deal saddle. Yeah, and um, the ones today there, you
17:09
Speaker 1: know there. There are plenty built in the seventies and
17:12
Speaker 1: eighties and even in the nineties that look like old
17:17
Speaker 1: carnival fun house rides. Basically the controllers are real like
17:21
Speaker 1: old and Yankee looking and colorful and kind of cool
17:24
Speaker 1: in retro. The ones today are um touchscreen. They have
17:28
Speaker 1: like speakers built into them. The padding around them isn't
17:32
Speaker 1: like a mattress, they're like blown air, like a bouncy castle.
17:35
Speaker 1: Kind of thing. Um. So when you get thrown, it's
17:38
Speaker 1: it's like doesn't feel like anything is actually kind of pleasant. Um.
17:42
Speaker 1: And the controllers are much more computerized and less mechanized
17:46
Speaker 1: than they used to be in times past. Yeah, and
17:48
Speaker 1: these days if you look at Urban Cowboy too, it
17:51
Speaker 1: is just sort of the body if you would of
17:54
Speaker 1: the bowl. Uh. Now, if you go to a Johnny
17:57
Speaker 1: Utah's in New York or any kind of fun house,
18:00
Speaker 1: are you getting free drinks there or something? No? I
18:02
Speaker 1: just learned of it, and I didn't know that there
18:04
Speaker 1: was still an urban cowboy type place in New York
18:07
Speaker 1: that you could go. I think it's it's got to
18:09
Speaker 1: be close to Times Square. It's in Midtown and urban
18:12
Speaker 1: urban Cowboy bar that's referential to point break. It's like
18:16
Speaker 1: man covering all the bases. Um. You they have a
18:22
Speaker 1: little fake foam bull heads and horns, and apparently you
18:24
Speaker 1: can even find them with if you want to ride
18:27
Speaker 1: a bison or or a ram like a sheep, you
18:31
Speaker 1: can get a sheep's head put on or a ram's
18:32
Speaker 1: head put on. It goes even more than that. I
18:35
Speaker 1: literally you there's a hammer head, shark, camel, hot dog,
18:41
Speaker 1: banana and then apparently there are there's like the this
18:46
Speaker 1: tawdry thread of bull riding, there's a sexual element to it.
18:50
Speaker 1: I think, uh yes, sure, I mean Ed ed found
18:54
Speaker 1: one of the settings is sexy right right on the
18:58
Speaker 1: actual operations of one machine. ED found it was like pro, intermediate,
19:03
Speaker 1: beginner and sexy. So it's definitely fair to say, okay,
19:06
Speaker 1: And also what I turned up goes way beyond a
19:11
Speaker 1: sexy setting. There's there's a penis one you can get sure,
19:15
Speaker 1: there's a one woman called Horny Hannah, and there's a
19:19
Speaker 1: guy named Randy Roger Boy. So it gets pretty um stupid. Sure,
19:27
Speaker 1: it gets pretty like dark bachelorette party really quick with
19:32
Speaker 1: when you if you if you wanted to go that way,
19:34
Speaker 1: apparently you can you can make it go that way.
19:37
Speaker 1: That's right. We were just speaking of the settings. There
19:40
Speaker 1: are those automated settings, usually that you can just hit
19:44
Speaker 1: pro or beginner or whatever, but you can also be
19:47
Speaker 1: in control. And I think the automated settings are much
19:50
Speaker 1: more common these days. I think back in the urban
19:52
Speaker 1: cowboy days was very much about a human operator trying
19:56
Speaker 1: to you know, really simulate a rodeo. For these sort
20:01
Speaker 1: of about say pseudo competitions. They were competitions in bars. Yeah,
20:06
Speaker 1: I mean there would be like you know, you could
20:08
Speaker 1: win you know, a hundred bucks or something like that. Okay, alright,
20:13
Speaker 1: so so there was like a competition, but um also
20:17
Speaker 1: like in bars, it was you know, just to show
20:19
Speaker 1: off to like that was the whole reason. That's the
20:22
Speaker 1: entire reason for mechanical bulls. If you're sitting there wondering, like,
20:25
Speaker 1: why does anybody do this, it's basically to just show
20:29
Speaker 1: off to stay on as long as you possibly can, basically,
20:34
Speaker 1: And so, like you're saying with the original operator, the
20:38
Speaker 1: operator's job was too humiliate you. That was the whole dynamic.
20:43
Speaker 1: You showing off, the operator trying to throw you off
20:46
Speaker 1: in a very humiliating fashion. And so the more you
20:49
Speaker 1: could stay on, or the longer you could stay on
20:51
Speaker 1: despite the operator's best efforts, you know, the more of
20:55
Speaker 1: a show off you are. I guess. Yeah, I mean,
20:59
Speaker 1: it's not any different. It it's not a far cry
21:01
Speaker 1: from any carnival game where it shows some sort of
21:05
Speaker 1: feet of strength, whether you're hitting the thing with a
21:08
Speaker 1: hammer to make the bell ring or the punching bag
21:11
Speaker 1: to see how hard you can punch a thing, right,
21:14
Speaker 1: and the ones that you rent today for the parties.
21:17
Speaker 1: Uh ed described as an all in one entertainment center.
21:20
Speaker 1: I mean it's got a built in p A system
21:21
Speaker 1: with speakers and a microphone and amplifier, and it's electric
21:26
Speaker 1: scoreboard and timer, and it's just this big thing now,
21:29
Speaker 1: whereas it started out as just sort of this very
21:32
Speaker 1: very rudimentary, hydraulic thing. Yeah. Um, which makes sense because
21:38
Speaker 1: again this is the kind of thing that you can
21:40
Speaker 1: rent like a bounty house, but for grown ups, although
21:43
Speaker 1: they have little kids ones too. About those. And then
21:46
Speaker 1: something else I saw is there's a um so there's
21:49
Speaker 1: like the riding the bull version, there's also a surfboard
21:52
Speaker 1: version that you stand on. And I actually saw a
21:56
Speaker 1: video of a dude who combines those two. Look up
21:59
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Man dances a mechanical bull wearing best Sunday
22:03
Speaker 1: suit and this guy is in a bar wearing a tie,
22:09
Speaker 1: not not just standing up dancing on a mechanical bull
22:13
Speaker 1: that's going at a pretty moderate rate, and it is
22:17
Speaker 1: one of the most astounding things I've ever seen in
22:19
Speaker 1: my life. Amazing. Yeah, but there's the version you can
22:23
Speaker 1: you can rent that or by I guess if you're
22:25
Speaker 1: into that kind of thing. That is, it's like a
22:27
Speaker 1: surfboard and like the bounty area around you. The padding
22:31
Speaker 1: is like a wave kind of thing. It looks pretty cool.
22:34
Speaker 1: Well that's fun. I thought so too. It looks fun
22:37
Speaker 1: at least. So if you're going to ride one of
22:39
Speaker 1: these things, I will say most of the videos I
22:42
Speaker 1: saw at Johnny Utah's among others, is they they keep
22:46
Speaker 1: it pretty tame. Although we'll talk about the dark side
22:50
Speaker 1: of that in a bit too. But um, if if
22:53
Speaker 1: you're going to get like a real ride, then you
22:55
Speaker 1: want to go is forward on that thing towards the
22:59
Speaker 1: head of the bull as much as you can. Uh,
23:02
Speaker 1: you want to grip that bull with your inner thighs
23:06
Speaker 1: and dig those heels in and keep your feet ahead
23:08
Speaker 1: of you and point those toes. Apparently you want to
23:12
Speaker 1: you know, they have a strap that you put your
23:14
Speaker 1: hand in and then you put the other arm up.
23:17
Speaker 1: They say to hang on with your non dominant hand.
23:20
Speaker 1: That's all I've seen. That's all I've seen too. I
23:22
Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like I would be stronger with
23:24
Speaker 1: my dominant hand, but I don't know. I think you're
23:27
Speaker 1: using your non dominant hand because any stupid hand can
23:31
Speaker 1: hold onto a strap. Your dominant hand is balancing. You're
23:36
Speaker 1: holding up in the air to balance, and you need
23:39
Speaker 1: a little more finesse. That is why, right, Well, that's
23:43
Speaker 1: my guess, and it makes sense to me because that's
23:46
Speaker 1: my guess. And what you want to do is you
23:49
Speaker 1: want to go opposite. That's the whole idea. If the
23:51
Speaker 1: bull bucks forward, you want to lean back. If it
23:55
Speaker 1: goes back, you want to lean forward towards its nose.
23:59
Speaker 1: You want to keep those legs tightened down as much
24:01
Speaker 1: as you can, and you want to try and keep
24:02
Speaker 1: everything from the waist up as loose as possible. But again,
24:06
Speaker 1: if you've been throwing down cowboy boot mugs full of
24:10
Speaker 1: beer uh at Jill Roy Rogers, just do whatever you
24:14
Speaker 1: want and good luck. So this this advice comes from
24:19
Speaker 1: a pro rider named Will Roberts, and um he uh.
24:26
Speaker 1: He basically says that if you take each one of
24:29
Speaker 1: these movements as like a wave that you're riding, and
24:34
Speaker 1: think of think of them um discreetly, as discreet motions,
24:39
Speaker 1: and you're just handling each one at a time, you
24:42
Speaker 1: could stay on indefinitely. He didn't say the indefinite part,
24:45
Speaker 1: and said. In fact, he said, you shouldn't stay on
24:47
Speaker 1: longer than fifteen seconds or else you're gonna get hurt,
24:50
Speaker 1: like with at full bore. But I think you could
24:53
Speaker 1: stay on indefinitely. Well, one of those videos I saw
24:57
Speaker 1: was titled something about woman rides bull for so long
25:01
Speaker 1: that video cuts out or something. How is that right? Like?
25:04
Speaker 1: She never fell off, I mean it was going really slow,
25:06
Speaker 1: but uh, you know she she hung in there hanging. Yeah,
25:12
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not sure. It depends on which
25:14
Speaker 1: one you're rented. Uh, well, if you like we said
25:17
Speaker 1: the rental price, if you want to buy one of
25:19
Speaker 1: these systems, it's about twenty grand. I saw that too,
25:22
Speaker 1: But I also saw one on eBay for the suspiciously
25:25
Speaker 1: low price of hundred, and it's possible the whole thing
25:29
Speaker 1: was used. I think if if trampolines are one of
25:33
Speaker 1: those things you buy and then end up just wanting
25:35
Speaker 1: to get rid of, a mechanical bull is probably ten
25:38
Speaker 1: x that, you know. Yeah, I don't know if I
25:41
Speaker 1: would get on a mechanical bull where someone's like, I
25:43
Speaker 1: got a really good deal on it, right, it's basically free.
25:48
Speaker 1: All right, let's take another break and we'll talk about
25:51
Speaker 1: to me what is the most interesting part of this episode,
25:54
Speaker 1: which is sort of the history of Gillies Saloon. Right
25:58
Speaker 1: after this, Sorry Josh okay, Chuck, you promised to talk
26:28
Speaker 1: about Gilly Saloon. What is that? Well, we talked about
26:33
Speaker 1: Mr Cryer. He owned a saloon. It was really kind
26:36
Speaker 1: of an oversized tent called Shelley's and Pasadena, Texas outside
26:40
Speaker 1: of Houston, and this was in the early seventies, like
26:44
Speaker 1: one and he would bring in country singers who weren't
26:47
Speaker 1: big national acts yet, but they were sort of known
26:50
Speaker 1: regionally and it was a popular bar, and it was
26:53
Speaker 1: getting bigger and bigger because that was oil country. People
26:56
Speaker 1: came in with some money and he said, you know what,
26:58
Speaker 1: I think the needs to not be at tent, but
27:02
Speaker 1: to be a real deal saloon. And he partnered up
27:04
Speaker 1: with a man named Mickey Gilly right, and I mean
27:08
Speaker 1: he gave him a pretty sweet deal. He said, look,
27:10
Speaker 1: I want to build this thing out. I'm going to
27:12
Speaker 1: build it out. We're gonna make it a more permanent
27:14
Speaker 1: structure and turned it eventually into like a forty thousand
27:18
Speaker 1: square foot bar, multiple multiple, multiple bars. Um that was
27:23
Speaker 1: basically like a real deal Texas Roadhouse and honky tonk
27:28
Speaker 1: Um you, Gilly, We're gonna name it after you and
27:31
Speaker 1: you and your house band, um are gonna play basically
27:35
Speaker 1: every night. And Gilly, did you say that that was
27:38
Speaker 1: Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin? No, but he was? He? Yes,
27:43
Speaker 1: he was Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin. Um still is possibly
27:46
Speaker 1: is he's still alive? Yeah, Mickey Gilly is eighty five
27:50
Speaker 1: and he had that big crossover hit with Looking for
27:53
Speaker 1: Love or from the soundtrack, right, Uh, I don't Yeah,
27:58
Speaker 1: it was it on the Urban Cowl Sounds. I'm pretty
27:59
Speaker 1: sure was on the Urban Cowboys soundtrack yea yeah? Or
28:02
Speaker 1: is is Buckwheat would call it? Uh booking panubub and um.
28:09
Speaker 1: He was no slouch though he had forty two top
28:12
Speaker 1: forty country singles in his career. So what's funny is
28:16
Speaker 1: if I've read an interview with him, I think in
28:18
Speaker 1: Texas Monthly on like the thirty fifth anniversary of Urban Cowboy,
28:22
Speaker 1: and he basically talks about how, you know, he was
28:25
Speaker 1: looking for love but it was an all all the
28:29
Speaker 1: wrong places um he uh he he was looking for
28:33
Speaker 1: stardom and he just could never quite get it. So
28:36
Speaker 1: I guess he was one of those unsung like highly
28:40
Speaker 1: successful people who never became a huge star. And apparently
28:44
Speaker 1: he was trading on being Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin, was
28:47
Speaker 1: doing like tribute shows, cover shows, that kind of stuff.
28:51
Speaker 1: It was doing fine. But so when Um Sherwood Cryer
28:55
Speaker 1: met up with him, informed a partnership with them, he
28:58
Speaker 1: he became the namesake of Gail Least, this incredibly popular
29:03
Speaker 1: honky talk outside of Houston. Um that that became the
29:07
Speaker 1: setting for Urban Cowboy thanks to randomly enough uh an
29:12
Speaker 1: Esquire article. Yeah, this reminded me very much. And it's
29:16
Speaker 1: weird that they're both Trivolta. But Saturday Night Fever it's
29:21
Speaker 1: tied even more closely than that. The very editor who
29:25
Speaker 1: ran that Esquire article was the same co founder of
29:28
Speaker 1: New York Magazine who ran Tribal Rights of the New
29:31
Speaker 1: Saturday Night that gave rise that was the basis of
29:34
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Fever. All right, so it all comes full circle.
29:37
Speaker 1: I have I printed that out, the Tribal Rights of
29:40
Speaker 1: Saturday Night back when we talked about it. I have
29:43
Speaker 1: not read it yet, And now I'm going to pronout
29:45
Speaker 1: the ballad of the Urban Cowboy in America's Search for
29:47
Speaker 1: True Grit. And I'm gonna have just both those articles
29:51
Speaker 1: sitting on my desk forever, probably, but I want to read.
29:54
Speaker 1: I want to read them both because they were both
29:56
Speaker 1: the basis of two sort of landmark seventies movies that
29:59
Speaker 1: became cultural touchstones, and John Travolta was in both of them. Yeah,
30:03
Speaker 1: it's really weird, but it's basically the same thing, except
30:06
Speaker 1: one is disco said at a disco nightclub. The other
30:10
Speaker 1: one is country music said at a country western bar.
30:13
Speaker 1: But it's the same exact thing, same format, love, um, fighting, rivalry, jealousy,
30:21
Speaker 1: competition on its basically on a weekend night while everybody's
30:24
Speaker 1: getting trashed at a bar. It's just and they were
30:27
Speaker 1: separated by two years. I think UM seventy six was
30:30
Speaker 1: the Saturday Night UM New York magazine article and seventy
30:33
Speaker 1: eight was the one that featured Gillies. Yeah, it's really
30:37
Speaker 1: pretty interesting time in our country's history that they're almost
30:41
Speaker 1: two sides of the same coin. And again, like I
30:44
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, this is all going on at the same
30:46
Speaker 1: time that like punk music is is saying I hate
30:50
Speaker 1: all of you people exactly and for good reason, looks
30:55
Speaker 1: so so. This guy can't remember his name. Um, Irving. No,
31:04
Speaker 1: he was one of the managers or promoters or he
31:07
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with the Eagles. Um. He
31:10
Speaker 1: bought the rights to that article for like two hundred
31:12
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, which is a lot of money to spend
31:15
Speaker 1: on a magazine article option at the time. And he
31:19
Speaker 1: he just knew that no matter what happened, he was
31:22
Speaker 1: going to have a huge soundtrack on his hands, just
31:24
Speaker 1: like Saturday Night Fever. Um. And it worked twice. It
31:29
Speaker 1: did work. He apparently wanted it to be all Eagles,
31:32
Speaker 1: and the Eagles were like, no, that's okay. We suck
31:34
Speaker 1: so terribly. We even we wouldn't want to do a
31:37
Speaker 1: whole soundtop um. But I ended up being like a
31:41
Speaker 1: really great soundtrack. I've never heard it, but I mean,
31:43
Speaker 1: just looking at the roster. Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, Bonnie
31:47
Speaker 1: rate Um and Mickey Gilly had Looking for Love on
31:51
Speaker 1: it as well. Yeah, it was. It was great. We
31:54
Speaker 1: had the record in our house. Uh. Like you said,
31:57
Speaker 1: they shot the movie, a lot of it was shot
31:59
Speaker 1: at Gilly. Uh. That was the bar scene that you
32:03
Speaker 1: know was predominant in the movie and the competition between
32:06
Speaker 1: Scott Glenn and John Travolta. As you know, they battled
32:10
Speaker 1: for for bragging rights, cash money, and Deborah Winger's heart
32:15
Speaker 1: and glory of course the well the glory men. Scott
32:19
Speaker 1: Um Scott. Yeah, I can't believe he just forgot his
32:22
Speaker 1: last name. I think he's one of the coolest actors ever. Yeah.
32:25
Speaker 1: Not a Carrodean, No, No, he's a Carredan plus yeah. He.
32:31
Speaker 1: I think Scott Glenn was one of those that was
32:32
Speaker 1: always I think he was always confused as a Carrodeine
32:36
Speaker 1: with a lot of people because he sort of has
32:37
Speaker 1: that look for sure. So it was the big success
32:40
Speaker 1: of this movie that made Crier say, I need to
32:44
Speaker 1: secure this patent because this thing is about to explode.
32:47
Speaker 1: And I think by that point, uh, the gentleman who
32:50
Speaker 1: he who held that patent, Yeah, Joe Turner said well,
32:54
Speaker 1: let's up the price a little bit to to thirty
32:56
Speaker 1: thou and criers Or still said, yeah, that's don't tell
33:00
Speaker 1: this guy. But that's still a pretty good deal. Yeah.
33:02
Speaker 1: Because the mechanical Bull is basically a third lead character
33:06
Speaker 1: in this movie. Debra Winger, John Travolta and this mechanical
33:09
Speaker 1: bull El Toro, the real mechanical bull at Gillies um
33:14
Speaker 1: and became a huge part of the pop culture. And
33:17
Speaker 1: in Sherwood Cryer was smart enough to realize how big
33:19
Speaker 1: of a deal it was going to be bought the
33:21
Speaker 1: patent for it. And now if you wanted a mechanical
33:24
Speaker 1: bull for your bar that you just converted over to
33:26
Speaker 1: a honky Tonk format, you had to go buy one
33:29
Speaker 1: from Sherwood Cryer. And he made a lot of money
33:32
Speaker 1: off of those, from what I understand he did. Uh.
33:35
Speaker 1: I think he even won lawsuits when people tried to
33:38
Speaker 1: dodge his license. And uh, yeah, he made a lot
33:42
Speaker 1: of money off of this fad and it was indeed
33:45
Speaker 1: a fad um for sure. Yeah. But like I said,
33:50
Speaker 1: you go to Johnny Utahs. There was one on the
33:54
Speaker 1: Sunset Strip to I don't know if it's still there.
33:56
Speaker 1: There was a what's the name of that place? Another
34:02
Speaker 1: canon Johnny movie I can't remember, but there was a
34:06
Speaker 1: country western bar on the on the Sunset strip that
34:08
Speaker 1: had a mechanical bull as well. Uh, I can't remember.
34:13
Speaker 1: I can't remember either. I Um, I know exactly what
34:15
Speaker 1: you're talking about and I can't remember the name of it.
34:17
Speaker 1: It's super famous, right, it was for a while, and
34:21
Speaker 1: it wasn't even that long ago, Like I think when
34:23
Speaker 1: I lived there, it was still there super cuts, No,
34:28
Speaker 1: not hogs and heifers. That was in the meatpacking district
34:31
Speaker 1: in New York. But uh, this is what genuinely kicked
34:34
Speaker 1: off that whole movement that we talked about at the beginning,
34:37
Speaker 1: with Southern culture and Western culture kind of being at
34:40
Speaker 1: the forefront and all these people doing crossover records and uh,
34:44
Speaker 1: pop music and country sort of intertwining and the lines
34:47
Speaker 1: being blurred, and the Dallas Cowboys and JR. Eu ing
34:51
Speaker 1: like this sort of all started with Urban Cowboy and
34:53
Speaker 1: this mechanical bull El Toro. I would argue that it
34:57
Speaker 1: started before that, and that or been Cowboy was was
35:02
Speaker 1: catching a wave that was developing. Yeah, yeah, and gets credit.
35:06
Speaker 1: But I mean, like if you look at Convoy, that
35:08
Speaker 1: Chris Christofferson movie, so that was a couple of years
35:13
Speaker 1: before that, but it was the same year that article
35:15
Speaker 1: was published in Esquire, So it was all kind of
35:18
Speaker 1: coming together congealing at the same time. Yeah, every we
35:21
Speaker 1: didn't kick it off, it capitalized early on on what
35:24
Speaker 1: it was coming, for sure, but it came in a
35:27
Speaker 1: like at a time when it could still be considered
35:29
Speaker 1: cool and a huge contributor to the spread of it, right, Yeah,
35:33
Speaker 1: And this was like, it's it's funny, Like I kind
35:35
Speaker 1: of looked back with some fondness, even though it's it
35:37
Speaker 1: wasn't my scene. But if you talk to any of
35:40
Speaker 1: the old timers from back then, they called him Gilly Rats.
35:43
Speaker 1: He's real. You know, these these local bar patrons that was,
35:48
Speaker 1: they were the real deal. They hated all this stuff, man, Yeah,
35:52
Speaker 1: because it brought in all the posers and the tourists
35:55
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know people people on business trips passing
35:58
Speaker 1: through Houston had to go to Gilly And I'm sure
36:01
Speaker 1: it just took something that was really sacred and special
36:03
Speaker 1: to them and and commodified it in a really sad way.
36:07
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was terrible at least for a while.
36:10
Speaker 1: And then I'm sure it went back to normal again generally,
36:13
Speaker 1: and they were still on that bar stool in the
36:15
Speaker 1: same place exactly. It's just all kind of happened around him. Um.
36:19
Speaker 1: But speaking of that kind of country chic trend, that
36:24
Speaker 1: urban cowboy was a huge part of I saw a
36:26
Speaker 1: reference to a Fantasy Island episode from called Everybody Goes
36:32
Speaker 1: to Gillies. Mickey Gilly played himself and his fantasy was
36:37
Speaker 1: to make it big in the country music scene, and
36:40
Speaker 1: I think may have gotten it. I think it was successful.
36:45
Speaker 1: I wonder if Tattoo got up on that thing. I
36:47
Speaker 1: don't know. I could not find the episode. I just
36:50
Speaker 1: was reading about it, which is kind of disappointing, right
36:53
Speaker 1: it comes to Fantasy Island. I wanted to see that movie,
36:55
Speaker 1: the Lache movie with Peter Dinklage, but I never got
36:59
Speaker 1: around to it. Did you see that? I forgot that
37:01
Speaker 1: they made that. No, I haven't seen it. So as
37:04
Speaker 1: far as Gillies goes, um, I wondered. You know, I
37:08
Speaker 1: wasn't sure the deal and I was like, surely you
37:09
Speaker 1: can still go to Gillies. But you can't because Gillies
37:12
Speaker 1: burned to the ground. It did suspiciously. Apparently it was
37:16
Speaker 1: ruled in Arson and this came after there was a
37:20
Speaker 1: dispute between Mickey Gilly and Sherwood Cryer, and apparently Mickey Gilly,
37:25
Speaker 1: who had been approached by Sherwood Crier to basically come
37:28
Speaker 1: in as a partner on his bar, came out victorious, triumphant,
37:32
Speaker 1: and UH ended up on the winning end of this
37:35
Speaker 1: this dispute and apparently walked away with most of the profits.
37:39
Speaker 1: And I guess Gilly said in at least one interview that,
37:42
Speaker 1: um he he expected that it was Sherwood Crier who
37:46
Speaker 1: had burned Gillies to the ground in n It's quite
37:49
Speaker 1: an accusation, it really is. But I was reading again
37:53
Speaker 1: that Texas Monthly article. I think it's called Urban Cowboy
37:56
Speaker 1: turns thirty five. It's like an oral history, which is
37:59
Speaker 1: the la easiest form of journalism, but it's still do Yeah. Well,
38:04
Speaker 1: then I explained why they keep making them. I thought
38:06
Speaker 1: it was just like I don't feel like actually writing today,
38:09
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna transcribe. It's them. Well, you would like this,
38:14
Speaker 1: you should read. It's very long and it's really in depth.
38:17
Speaker 1: And they talked to some of the original Gilly rats,
38:19
Speaker 1: and a couple of them who worked for Sherwood Cryer
38:23
Speaker 1: have to say like this, this guy was an amazing
38:26
Speaker 1: human being, but he was also somebody who would beat
38:29
Speaker 1: someone with a pool que if like they were causing
38:31
Speaker 1: trouble at Gillies and did do that, and like you
38:34
Speaker 1: did not want to run a foul of this guy. Um,
38:37
Speaker 1: but was also like a really fascinating, interesting, smart human
38:41
Speaker 1: being too. Yeah, shout out to Texas Monthly too, that's
38:44
Speaker 1: a really good rag. I really I read a couple
38:47
Speaker 1: of things from there for some podcasts we're developing a
38:50
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and it was really good. They
38:52
Speaker 1: did these great deep dive not not oral histories, but
38:57
Speaker 1: like you know, long form. Yeah, there's a guy named
39:01
Speaker 1: Skip something. Oh man, I can't remember Skip's name. I'll
39:04
Speaker 1: look it up. Everybody, don't worry about it. But Skip
39:07
Speaker 1: Hollandsworth or something like that. He's one of their better
39:11
Speaker 1: journalists for long form at Texas Monthly. He's great. But
39:13
Speaker 1: there's a lot of them. They have a good, good
39:15
Speaker 1: stable there. Um. And then uh, they announced that there
39:21
Speaker 1: would be a new Gillies but it's not just gonna
39:24
Speaker 1: be a bar, it's gonna be a sixteen acre multi
39:27
Speaker 1: use development. And apparently El Toro survived the fire and
39:32
Speaker 1: they're bringing the original El Toro back just to put
39:34
Speaker 1: on display. So I found one reference that El Toro
39:38
Speaker 1: survived the fire. It was in the Ocalis Star banner.
39:41
Speaker 1: What does anybody in Ocaliflorida. Now I don't know, but
39:46
Speaker 1: they said that El Toro survived fire and then it
39:49
Speaker 1: was moved to Cowboy Jack's in Woodberry, Minnesota. So it
39:54
Speaker 1: looks a Cowboy Jack's. There is a cowboy right, I
39:57
Speaker 1: thought so too. Cowboy Jack's makes no men and of
40:00
Speaker 1: having the original or El Toro at any point, that's
40:03
Speaker 1: suspicious because you would really lean into that. Oh dude,
40:05
Speaker 1: it's all I would ever talk about to anybody. But
40:08
Speaker 1: that's that's what the Ocalistar banner says. Cowboy Jack's does
40:11
Speaker 1: not back it up. So who knows exactly what happened
40:14
Speaker 1: to El Toro? That's right, Like, don't get on that
40:17
Speaker 1: bullet Johnny Utah's, you're gonna catch something. You come right,
40:20
Speaker 1: El Toro, You're gonna catch some Johnny demonic on that thing. Uh.
40:25
Speaker 1: There was there were some injuries though that we um
40:28
Speaker 1: would be remiss without mentioning there have been plenty of
40:31
Speaker 1: lawsuits over the years. There was a woman in Santa
40:33
Speaker 1: Barbara County that was left a quadriplegic when she landed
40:36
Speaker 1: on her neck. So obviously if you get thrown off something,
40:39
Speaker 1: if you land wrong, that can be bad news. Uh.
40:42
Speaker 1: A man in Bergenfield, New Jersey, in Bergen County that
40:45
Speaker 1: was left with permanent injuries. And then at Johnny Utah's,
40:50
Speaker 1: a New York woman won seventy thousand dollars because she
40:53
Speaker 1: tore her a c l at Johnny Utah's, and her
40:57
Speaker 1: lawyer said this, they just kind of throw people around
41:02
Speaker 1: while they're drunk. I think that summed up the mechanical
41:07
Speaker 1: bull about as good as anybody ever had. Yeah, that
41:09
Speaker 1: was how he described the operators. He said, they just
41:11
Speaker 1: kind of throw people around. And then I went to
41:14
Speaker 1: YouTube looked up Johnny Utahs and if you want to
41:18
Speaker 1: spend some time looking at very bad camera phone videos
41:21
Speaker 1: of drunk friends filming drunk friends writing very slowly on
41:26
Speaker 1: these mechanical bulls to bad music, you can do it.
41:29
Speaker 1: But you can sort of see and a few of
41:32
Speaker 1: these videos that would be some drunk lady or a
41:35
Speaker 1: drunk guy who was just you know, being kind of obnoxious,
41:40
Speaker 1: and you could tell that the but they weren't coming off,
41:43
Speaker 1: and you could tell that the operator was would get
41:46
Speaker 1: sick of it and they were going real slow. Then
41:48
Speaker 1: there'd be like a and just a really quick little
41:52
Speaker 1: flick of that switch and it would just like toss
41:55
Speaker 1: him off of their real fast. There's no way that
41:58
Speaker 1: there's not a term long mechanical bull operators for that move.
42:02
Speaker 1: For that move, there has to be I wonder what
42:06
Speaker 1: it is. If you know, please let us know because
42:09
Speaker 1: we have to know. We got gillid Yeah, that's right. Um,
42:16
Speaker 1: you got anything else? Thankfully? No? Okay, Well that's it
42:19
Speaker 1: for mechanical bulls. If you want to know more about
42:22
Speaker 1: mechanical bulls, then start watching throwing off mechanical bull videos. There's,
42:27
Speaker 1: like you said, a lot of them. Uh. And since
42:30
Speaker 1: I said throwing off mechanical balls, it's time for listener mail.
42:35
Speaker 1: You know what. I was just thinking this could be
42:37
Speaker 1: the jackhammers of the next generation of stuff. You should know, listeners.
42:42
Speaker 1: Mechanical bulls, I don't know. I think urban cowboys saved
42:46
Speaker 1: it without urban cowboy absolutely, I think, and to save
42:51
Speaker 1: the day again. And then it hit me, I was like,
42:53
Speaker 1: the common denominator hydraulics. We got to avoid hydraulics from
42:56
Speaker 1: here on out. I think you might be right. All right,
43:00
Speaker 1: so where are we listener mail? Yep? I think Jerry
43:03
Speaker 1: already did the China all right, I'm gonna call this
43:05
Speaker 1: c I a correction from anonymous. Oh hey, guys, have
43:11
Speaker 1: been a stuff you should not listener for years. I
43:13
Speaker 1: love the work you do. Someone who was formally employed
43:15
Speaker 1: by the CIA, I particularly enjoy the latest episode on
43:18
Speaker 1: Havana Syndrome. Have since left that job because of ethical concerns.
43:23
Speaker 1: But I've one nit to pick, and that's when you
43:25
Speaker 1: talk about people who work in the CIA. Uh, you
43:28
Speaker 1: call them agents, which is not right. They're actually officers.
43:32
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as the CIA agent. H this
43:35
Speaker 1: is this is basically ruined the entire episode for them.
43:39
Speaker 1: That one thing. No, they're nice, but I mean we
43:41
Speaker 1: always say CI agent because we're children of television and film.
43:44
Speaker 1: I didn't know if that's not even a thing. Everybody
43:46
Speaker 1: says that. Uh, they say this. I know the media
43:49
Speaker 1: gets wrong, gets this wrong a lot, so it's understandable
43:52
Speaker 1: that's the terminology that folks use. But in the interests
43:55
Speaker 1: of always learning and improving, I thought I'd passed this along. Um,
43:58
Speaker 1: Josh actually did say officer a couple of times somewhere
44:01
Speaker 1: in the middle, and that was the exception for you guys.
44:05
Speaker 1: That's great. Other than this admittedly small quibble, I love
44:08
Speaker 1: everything you guys do, and often use my favorite old
44:10
Speaker 1: episodes to calm my anxiety or to help is I
44:13
Speaker 1: fall asleep? Uh? Currently in the heavy rotation of the
44:16
Speaker 1: max setterm incident in Star Wars Holiday special episode. Those
44:20
Speaker 1: are that that will calm you down for sure. Yeah,
44:23
Speaker 1: thanks very much for reading the message. All the best,
44:25
Speaker 1: Anonymous and uh. Initially Anonymous said maybe use my initials
44:30
Speaker 1: because it might be a little paranoid about this being
44:32
Speaker 1: former CIA, but then they said, you know, how about
44:36
Speaker 1: just no initials. I think that's smart. Just go with
44:39
Speaker 1: anonymous exactly. In fact, I made this whole thing up.
44:42
Speaker 1: There is no former officer that left for ethical concerns.
44:46
Speaker 1: This listener mail will self destruct in three seconds. Two one. Well,
44:52
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, we
44:55
Speaker 1: love hearing from people, whether they are from the CIA
44:58
Speaker 1: or the n s A or the FBI. Who else,
45:04
Speaker 1: chuck oh a t F sure and that's it, no
45:09
Speaker 1: one else? Okay, Um, if you want to get in
45:11
Speaker 1: touch with us and send us some trade secrets, we
45:14
Speaker 1: would love to hear that stuff. You can wrap it up,
45:16
Speaker 1: send it in an email off to Stuff podcast at
45:19
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you should know is a
45:25
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
45:29
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
45:32
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.