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