Grow Your Hat For Peace
Issue #4 of The High Hat came out last week. In addition to the usual collection of faboo writing by a stable of underheralded and underpaid HH staff, it also features another article by me.
Here are links to my six Hat contributions to date:
The Ties That Bind
Kings of This Island Town
The Decidedly Unfunky Buzz of Boomerang
That 90s Show
There Ain't No Doubt
Beyond Bush-League Politics
Overall I'm happy with my writings for the Hat. And I thought I read the 2004 political situation pretty well, with my take on John Kerry in my first HH article, written in the late spring of 2003:
Some say he has a patrician and hangdog look that will be offputting to swing voters; others say he looks like a cross between Jack Kennedy and Abe Lincoln and will energize a good portion of the electorate with that political mojo, particularly if he has a strong running mate. I tend to lean toward the latter, provided he can consistently show a level of energy that has thus far eluded him in the campaign.
Go Johnny go.
Friday, July 30, 2004
Rodeo Drive
Don't let the name 'rodeo clown' fool you
by Greg Thomas Hough
Part 2 of 2. Part 1 posted on 6-13-04. Article originally appeared June 1999 in Molalla (OR) Pioneer newspaper.
Mike Gotham, 42, has suffered his share of physical pain in the rodeo ring -- bruises, banged-up ribs -- but like his fellow "rodeo clown" and bullfighter Donnie Landis, he says the 'pay for play' element of each rodeo (there's no guaranteed season contracts) gives him the incentive to "grit my teeth and go out there."
Gotham's been at this game for quite awhile. He competed in bareback and bullriding in rodeos from the early 1970s (starting from the age of 13) to the late 1980s.
In 1989, Gotham suffered an injury while bullriding that began to turn him in the direction of full-time bullfighting.
"I saw some still-shot pictures of that ride," Gotham said. "There was no bullfighter in any of them. So I decided I could do a better job than what was out there."
In the years that followed, Gotham worked at his craft and has risen to the top of his profession. This past January, he worked the prestigious Columbia River Circuit finals in Yakima, WA, an honor voted him by his fellow bullfighters.
"I've been working toward this goal for a long time," Gotham said. "I can't tell you how great it feels to finally make it."
Gotham is a Washington resident who estimates he logs about 50,000 miles a year in his pickup traveling from rodeo to rodeo. This will be his second time working the Molalla Buckeroo rodeo.
The art of bullfighting, Gotham says, requires not only true grit but also strong powers of observation.
"I've ridden bulls for many years, so I can tell when a guy's starting to get in trouble, starting to tip out of there," Gotham said.
"(Riders) get leaned out away from the spin -- it's like centrifugal force. Or if they get dropped into the spin there's a kind of 'dead spot' and they drop down to the ground. Then you've got step between the cowboy and that bull, and it's a controlled chaos."
Steering bullriders through the chaos will also be Dan Newman, 26, another Washingtonian making a return trip to Molalla.
Newman's credentials are also impeccable. In 1993, he won the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association "Rookie Of The Year" award; one year earlier, he was named "Bullfighter Of The Year" in his home state of Washington, and by the National Professional Rodeo Association.
Don't let the name 'rodeo clown' fool you
by Greg Thomas Hough
Part 2 of 2. Part 1 posted on 6-13-04. Article originally appeared June 1999 in Molalla (OR) Pioneer newspaper.
Mike Gotham, 42, has suffered his share of physical pain in the rodeo ring -- bruises, banged-up ribs -- but like his fellow "rodeo clown" and bullfighter Donnie Landis, he says the 'pay for play' element of each rodeo (there's no guaranteed season contracts) gives him the incentive to "grit my teeth and go out there."
Gotham's been at this game for quite awhile. He competed in bareback and bullriding in rodeos from the early 1970s (starting from the age of 13) to the late 1980s.
In 1989, Gotham suffered an injury while bullriding that began to turn him in the direction of full-time bullfighting.
"I saw some still-shot pictures of that ride," Gotham said. "There was no bullfighter in any of them. So I decided I could do a better job than what was out there."
In the years that followed, Gotham worked at his craft and has risen to the top of his profession. This past January, he worked the prestigious Columbia River Circuit finals in Yakima, WA, an honor voted him by his fellow bullfighters.
"I've been working toward this goal for a long time," Gotham said. "I can't tell you how great it feels to finally make it."
Gotham is a Washington resident who estimates he logs about 50,000 miles a year in his pickup traveling from rodeo to rodeo. This will be his second time working the Molalla Buckeroo rodeo.
The art of bullfighting, Gotham says, requires not only true grit but also strong powers of observation.
"I've ridden bulls for many years, so I can tell when a guy's starting to get in trouble, starting to tip out of there," Gotham said.
"(Riders) get leaned out away from the spin -- it's like centrifugal force. Or if they get dropped into the spin there's a kind of 'dead spot' and they drop down to the ground. Then you've got step between the cowboy and that bull, and it's a controlled chaos."
Steering bullriders through the chaos will also be Dan Newman, 26, another Washingtonian making a return trip to Molalla.
Newman's credentials are also impeccable. In 1993, he won the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association "Rookie Of The Year" award; one year earlier, he was named "Bullfighter Of The Year" in his home state of Washington, and by the National Professional Rodeo Association.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Now Watch This Post
Fool him once, shame on you. Fool him twice, can't get fooled again. Put your hands together for Chester Magpie, underground pundit:
"Just like a popcorn piece under your seat at a Christian alligator barbeque. Him with his Captain Pike mannerisms but still ruler of this once-free world, and it doesn't matter about my Starbucks coffee anymore. The 'October surprise' won't come as a surprise and he ain't falling off his wheelchair.
Where the river used to flow is a sidewalk and bin Laden is having sex with Martha Stewart. We're fed the cheap spectre of nothing having meaning, its fascism a bling-bling pandering to mindlessness. The hordes of unknown people (even to themselves) with Jesus Christ as their rockstar tend to vote with their gypsy hearts and we are all the worse for it.
I see Bush bombing his way to victory. Too bad Americans are going to die just as Cheney's limo arrives. I've always known that the puberty stages of fantasy violence on T.V. would lead to this new Hitlerism but I never thought I'd be alive to feel it."
Fool him once, shame on you. Fool him twice, can't get fooled again. Put your hands together for Chester Magpie, underground pundit:
"Just like a popcorn piece under your seat at a Christian alligator barbeque. Him with his Captain Pike mannerisms but still ruler of this once-free world, and it doesn't matter about my Starbucks coffee anymore. The 'October surprise' won't come as a surprise and he ain't falling off his wheelchair.
Where the river used to flow is a sidewalk and bin Laden is having sex with Martha Stewart. We're fed the cheap spectre of nothing having meaning, its fascism a bling-bling pandering to mindlessness. The hordes of unknown people (even to themselves) with Jesus Christ as their rockstar tend to vote with their gypsy hearts and we are all the worse for it.
I see Bush bombing his way to victory. Too bad Americans are going to die just as Cheney's limo arrives. I've always known that the puberty stages of fantasy violence on T.V. would lead to this new Hitlerism but I never thought I'd be alive to feel it."
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Letters From America
Some good news and some bad news today, chilluns.
The good news is that John Kerry did the right thing and chose John Edwards as his running mate.
The bad news is, the Supreme Court (according to The Onion) has decided that this "participatory democracy" thing just isn't working out.
Some good news and some bad news today, chilluns.
The good news is that John Kerry did the right thing and chose John Edwards as his running mate.
The bad news is, the Supreme Court (according to The Onion) has decided that this "participatory democracy" thing just isn't working out.
Go Bro Go
My brother Chris was on the "Fan Advisory Board" for the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers this past season. A few months back, he was interviewed by Jim Beseda of The Oregonian newspaper for an article about the advisory board. By now, we figured the Big O had decided not to run the piece, perhaps in part due to the frankness of Chris' comments. But today the article finally appeared, and here's an excerpt:
"I felt that it was an opportunity," Hough said. "But I also hoped that I wasn't just being part of some public-relations maneuver or some facade that was thrown together to say, 'Hey, look at what we're doing, putting 20 random fans in a meeting and listening to what they say!' I'm happy to say that, at least in my perception, it has turned out not to be that way.
"Whether they take our input and our suggestions and throw them in the trash can and say, 'Oh, those idiots. They don't know what they're talking about' -- and that may be what's happening -- at least they're smiling to our faces as they're doing it."
My brother Chris was on the "Fan Advisory Board" for the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers this past season. A few months back, he was interviewed by Jim Beseda of The Oregonian newspaper for an article about the advisory board. By now, we figured the Big O had decided not to run the piece, perhaps in part due to the frankness of Chris' comments. But today the article finally appeared, and here's an excerpt:
"I felt that it was an opportunity," Hough said. "But I also hoped that I wasn't just being part of some public-relations maneuver or some facade that was thrown together to say, 'Hey, look at what we're doing, putting 20 random fans in a meeting and listening to what they say!' I'm happy to say that, at least in my perception, it has turned out not to be that way.
"Whether they take our input and our suggestions and throw them in the trash can and say, 'Oh, those idiots. They don't know what they're talking about' -- and that may be what's happening -- at least they're smiling to our faces as they're doing it."
