Here in our apartment in Scottsdale, our television watching is very seasonal in nature. During certain times of the year we watch a lot of television. Other times we watch hardly any for weeks on end. During football season, we tend to watch the games, and we have the television set playing various games on Saturday and Sunday. I hardly care who wins anymore. It's mostly just for the spectacle, and makes me feel comfortable having the games on, as if it is part of a normalcy of life that feels illusive to us lately.
When Christmas approaches, we usually catch up on various new and old releases from the Hallmark Channel. Comparing the story lines and seeing how they have evolved over the years is the last vestige of my intense movie-watching days. There is something pleasing in being able to see how the narratives are crafted in these productions, and I can do usually without being offended by the overt politics and forced "diversity and illusion" of most mainstream productions. There is something brutally refreshing about the need for women to see certain stories without being encumbered by that kind of ideological superstructure. They would tune out, which is why the Hallmark Channel feels traditional and regressive in many ways.
Without the holidays and football season over, we usually take a break, although this year we have the television on quite a bit, perhaps more than ever. It started two years ago when Ginger got somewhat hooked on professional rodeo on the Cowboy Chanel, which thankfully is carried on our cable network. We began watching the live events and I found myself excited to see the bull riding in particular. Then, right as we were getting into it, the pandemic struck and all the live events were canceled. The Cowboy Channel showed reruns of past events, but it wasn't the same. There is a magic in watching live events, which is why I watch football games.
Last year the rodeo came back a bit, so we watched a little. Finally this year everything is back to normal and we have the Cowboy Channel playing almost every evening now. We almost never change the channel. We just turn the television set on and off.
A couple weeks ago we actually went to a live rodeo--the Scottsdale Rodeo, which takes place less than a mile from us at Westworld. Westworld is an enormous equine event center on Bell Road. I have walked over to the grounds multiple times on my hikes, as the trail Scottsdale network has a trial head there (on which horses are allowed, of course). This time of year there are a constant string of horse events at Westworld, which is ironic, since my nieces are horse fanatics and it is rightfully they who should live so close to such a place.
The rodeo we attended there was marvelous, although it's not a particularly big event. The Cowboy Channel (which is headquartered in Fort Worth) had a live feed on their site, but it was not the main event on their channel, because the Scottsdale Rodeo pales in comparison to the annual one in Houston, which was going on at the same time, and thus was featured (big rodeos typically last for over week, ssometimes several weeks). We went to the Scottsdale one with Fred, who was about to turn eighty. Afterwards he said it was the best time he had had in many years.
This past weekend we watched the finals of Rodeo Austin on the Cowboy Channel. It had begun while the Houston rodeo was still in progress, and many of the cowboys went from Houston over to Austin in time to compete in various events. As Austin was winding down, they began showing the High Desert Stampede, which is a rodeo in Redmond, Oregon. If you don't know Oregon, Redmond is a small town but nevertheless one of the larger population centers in Central Oregon, which is the part east of the Cascades, and which is much drier. Central and Eastern Oregon are very "western", much more so than the slice of the state along the ocean called "Western" Oregon (which is where most people live, and the part of the state that most people think of it).
"The good side of Oregon," is how I've come to call that part of the state, although when I was college I wasn't interested in that kind of experience at all. I was the typical young person looking for a urban carefree life, which means I understand the kids who move to Portland. I was exactly one of them, once upon a time.
At times, especially when it is very hot here, Ginger and I have mused about the things we miss about Oregon (which is where we met). Then we think about how life has been for Oregonians during the shutdown. The lefties of Oregon made a special point of showing just how much they believe in the "science". No other state, even California, was going to be allowed to outdo them in their righteousness of forcing people to wear masks. Of course all of that comes from a couple counties, namely the ones containing the cities of Portland and Eugene, which can dominate the rest of the state and force the other Oregonians to do their bidding. Such is the wonderful "voluntary" nature of everything the Left gives us. Anything good is something we ought to be forced to do, and dad gum, we'll be the judge of what's good for you.
Even as all that phoniness crumbles, and the narrative shifts to other things, I couldn't help feeling sorry for the people at the rodeo in Redmond, having to live under the tyranny of the legislature in Salem. It goes without saying that there have been successive movements in the desert regions of Oregon to secede from the rest of the state and, say, join Greater Idaho.
The High Desert Stampede was founded only in 2017 as part of the professional rodeo circuit, but it has already become very popular. On Saturday night it was standing room only. I was touched watching the young people sing the national anthem (in a rodeo event, usually the lights are turned down and spot light is placed on a young woman on horseback bearing the flag while the anthem is sung).
"There are people in Oregon who will still sing that anthem, " I said, with a smile on my face. I joked with Ginger about fascist vegan Antifa miscreants from Portland driving down to Redmond and disrupting the event on animal rights grounds. But I corrected myself. Those people are rank cowards and will engage in confrontation only when they have superior numbers (like the progressive "caring bullies" on Facebook, who know hundreds of their friends will swarm to help them in an argument). No way would Antifa come to Redmond, because they would imagine that they would not make it out alive, because of all the gun-toting country folk there. In reality, they would have nothing to fear, as country folk are generally laid back until they are pressed hard. At first at least, they would probably just scratch their heads and say, well those folks are a little weird. I'm glad the cowardly fear among the Lefties keeps them out of places like Redmond. at least the miscreants. A few of them will find their way there, as I once did, and learn that the world is much different than they imagined.
No comments:
Post a Comment