OK, film class, let’s review: in the movie “Urban Cowboy,” the mechanical bull as an icon symbolized what?

A) Humankind’s insistence that the forces of nature can be overpowered.

B) Bud’s intrinsic Alpha-male need to feel superiority over his peers.

C) The struggle for dominance in relationships, as evinced by Sissy’s covert riding lessons and Buck’s subsequent outrage and machismo-inspired broken arm.

D) The probability that John Travolta, Debra Winger, and that guy with the scar on his face, all more than capable of riding the mechanical beast, are pretty good in bed.

E) All of the above.



As the DJ played 50 Cent and Sublime at JD’s Wild West Saloon and well drinks flowed, Tater Tot and I were given the rare chance to be fake rodeo stars for about eight seconds at a time. We moon-walked over the enormous air pillow that surrounds the bull to the contraption itself, which is basically a motorized rawhide rectangle dressed as a bull. The bull spun as it bucked, and I rocked back and forth and held on for dear life. I was thrown.  She wasn’t thrown. No surprise.

The mechanical bull, contrary to what the scarface in “Urban Cowboy” tried to fool us into believing, is much like pool, darts, Foosball, and other bar sports in that an increase in alcohol consumption does little to seriously endanger one’s life. We know.  We threw back $2 well drinks all night.  The bouncy air mattress cushions any blow, and the technician usually stops the machine if he sees that you’re flailing.

As the night went on and the crowd got collectively drunker, more people rode, more people fell off, and the ride lengths became shorter. By the time the last record spun, most everybody in the bar sported the slow and bowlegged gait of a cowboy. After nine runs, my legs were covered in bruises, and it hurt to walk. Tator Tot called me Sissy.

JD’s hosts an Erotic Bull Riding Contest Saturday, May 26, boasting “What happens on the bull, stays on the bull.”  I won’t tell you what I left on the bull.

[JD’s Wild West Saloon, $2 wells Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 8402 S. Hosmer St., Tacoma, 253.535.0088]