Dear Friends,
If ever you are driving through Amarillo, Texas, and
you suddenly feel an overwhelming wave of nausea
come over you, don’t worry. In fact, this reaction in
a place like this is likely a sign that you are a healthy
and well-adjusted person.
Amarillo is at first look an unimpressive town at best.
But Amarillo is much less than merely unimpressive.
Amarillo is a town that vied for and secured the
National Steer Roping (also known as steer tripping
and steer busting) Finals, the most cruel and
cowardly event in an incredibly cruel rodeo industry.
Vying for such an event is tantamount to vying for
the world’s largest cesspool. Frankly, from the smell
of the town (it really does stink), the world’s largest
cesspool just might call Amarillo home, but I digress.
Last weekend, SHARK investigators arrived in
Amarillo, Texas to document the 3-day long National
Steer Roping Finals, hidden away from the rest
of the
annual National Rodeo Finals, which takes place in
Las Vegas. Steer busting is not part of the National
Finals Rodeo for a couple reasons. First, the Rodeo
Mafia doesn’t want the general public to see steer
roping; it is really just for the hardcore fans, the
ones with little brains and no hearts. Second, the
Nevada State Veterinarian is on record stating that
he will not allow steer roping because too many
animals are injured. Steer busting is such a cruel and
indefensible activity that even most rodeo people
don’t bother to attend. Although this was the
national finals, there were only a few hundred people
in attendance, and most of those were either friends
or family of the contestants.
Because even the national finals of steer busting is
so poorly attended, the event’s promoters decided to
add another event to help draw more rodeo fans. I
guess it just follows for these genetic rejects that if
you are putting on the most cruel event in rodeo,
you add calf roping, the second most cruel event, as
a way to broaden your show.
The combination of steer busting and calf roping
insure that you will gather the most concentrated
human sludge on the planet, comparable with the
class of folks you’d find at a dogfight, or maybe a
gang rape. Indeed, the more brutal the roping, the
more the crowd liked it. If an animal was injured,
there wasn’t a hint of concern. If a calf was injured
and staggering out of the arena, people made fun of
the little animal’s misery. This was an event put on
for morons by morons.
Unfortunately for the phony cowboys, SHARK
investigators braved the moral and literal stench of
Amarillo to document the steer busting finals. All
three days of abuse were documented, and the
resulting footage will be a hand around the neck of
the Rodeo Mafia from here to doomsday. Both calves
and steers were injured and killed. There were at
least three casualties the first day, at least two the
second, and at least five on the last day of
abuse. I
say “at least” because many of the victims do not go
down until later on. I attended one steer busting
event in July in which not a single animal was sledded
out. During the intermission, however, the rodeo
announcer read off the names of about a half dozen
contestants, informing them that they would
have
replacement steers in their second round because
their intended victims had already been injured during
the first round.
Speaking of the announcers, aside from watching the
abuse, maiming and killing of animals at the hands of
human garbage, listening to the incessant drone of
stupidity from rodeo announcers is so caustic; SHARK
investigators would have a case for hazard pay if
they weren’t volunteers. Not only are rodeo
announcers, irritating, repulsive and habitual liars
(they constantly cover up deaths and injuries), but
they are the biggest brown-nosers you will ever see.
They suck up to the stock contractors. They suck
up to the sponsors. And when it comes to
contestants, the amount of sucking up that goes on
is almost X-rated. He’s sooooo smoooooth,” says
one announcer. “Twisted steel and sex appeal,”
says his partner. “He’s sooooo consistent,” follows
butt-kisser #1. “He’s sooooooo clean,” follows butt-
kisser #2, not to be outdone in the brown-nosing
department. I wanted to yell out, “Just how clean is
he?!” Unfortunately, I had a job to do. I think I’m
going to wear earplugs at future rodeos, because I
just can’t take any more of it.
But the most telling portion of the steer roping finals
came on the last day, in about the last hour or so of
the event. That’s when a rodeo representative
finally realized who I was, and moved in on me. I
couldn’t believe it had taken them three days to
figure it out. I hadn’t disguised myself at all on any
of the three days.
The rodeo rep sat down next to me, called me by
name, and told me I had to sign a paper saying that I
wouldn’t use my video footage or pictures. I will say
this much, the rodeo sludge sent the right man. He
is someone who, along with his brothers and mother,
I had met before at various times. In past contacts
these people were always cordial and professional,
which is why I have never trashed them. This fellow
was still cordial on Sunday, and so we sat together
for a while, not quite friends, but not enemies, while
he tried to convince me to sign the paper, with me
explaining why I couldn’t. All the while, I continued
to film, including filming the fourth injured animal of
the day being dragged out of the arena.
This man was acting on behalf of someone of whom I
will not be so considerate, Troy Ellerman, the
commissioner of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys
Association (PRCA). I attempted to
communicate
with Ellerman in the spring, and he never even had
the professional courtesy to respond. The rodeo
announcer had earlier in the day stated that Ellerman
was in the audience, so he could have approached
me himself. The fact is, he isn’t man enough to do
that. He sent someone else to try to do his dirty
work. I would have developed some level of respect
if Ellerman had come himself, but he didn’t.
Instead, Ellerman was down near the chutes,
watching the carnage close up. In fact, he
watched
as a number of contestants committed violations of
rodeo rules, such as shocking animals in the
chute,
including face shocking, as well as jerking
down
calves, which is a life-threatening violation of the
PRCA’s supposed “humane rules” and
unnecessary
roughness in an already indefensible activity.
Ellerman watched it all and did nothing. This
man is
a coward’s coward.
Ellerman is also a criminal lawyer. This presumably
means that he has command of the English
language. I, on the other hand, am not even a
college graduate. That said, I will challenge Troy
Ellerman to a debate on the rodeo issue anytime,
anywhere, and can virtually promise that he will
never take me up on it. The reason for this, beside
the fact that he is a coward, is that he would lose
that debate so badly that it would ruin his career in
animal abuse, and perhaps shame him as a lawyer. I
will leave the subject of this coward by mentioning
that SHARK investigators had hours of laughter on
Sunday night at his expense. Ellerman was a
humorous vent for all the abuse, suffering and death
we witnessed for three days. What a sorry excuse
for a man.
I’ll end this update in somewhat the area where I
started, talking about Amarillo, in particular, Amarillo
media. I earlier mentioned the literal stink of the
town. I now believe this is quite possibly is the
result of the state of Amarillo’s journalism.
On Friday
afternoon, SHARK distributed a press release offering
our 2004 footage of the steer busting finals to the
local media. This footage was compelling enough to
play repeatedly on Las Vegas television during the
last national finals rodeo there, as well as in other
rodeo media attention. It hadn’t played yet in
Amarillo, and apparently the reporters there are
determined that it never will. During the weekend,
California activists including Lucy Shelton and Eric
Mills made efforts to cajole the Amarillo media into
doing its job, to absolutely no avail.
So what kind of stories was the Amarillo
media
reporting? The Sunday sports section of the
Amarillo
Globe-News read like a carnage report, except that
these brutal stories had nothing to do with rodeo. A
proud picture of a 7-year-old boy sitting next to his
first deer kill was the largest photo on the page.
Below that was a triumphant story about the first
bison to be killed once hunting resumed in
Yellowstone Park, after a 15-year ban was recently
reversed. Included was a photo of the fallen bison,
with his family members sadly standing by him.
Another photo in this sports section, showed men
beaming as they held up the dead results of their
crane shooting for the day.
The local media failed miserably to be journalistically
balanced, ignoring repeated offers from SHARK to
provide documentation and further information about
one of their town’s most proud events. So proud
in
fact, that some of the local media are actual
sponsors of the National Steer Roping Finals.
Hmmm, could that have anything to do with
their
lack of complete coverage? Tell the media in
Amarillo
that it is reprehensible as journalists for them to
support the abuse at the National Steer Roping Finals
either financially or with their skewed coverage.
