Film At 11...

"I think I'd rather be a cowboy
I think I'd rather ride the range..."

John Denver
I Think I'd Rather Be A Cowboy

Hang with me on this one...so I'm in a Texas Longhorn calf branding pen in south Kansas, never mind why, close enough to Dodge City to feel the wind off Boot Hill. The little doggies, or whatever the hell you call calves, are been roped off horseback and dragged into the pen one at a time to get their shots, get their first tattoo and, if male, get relieved of their prairie oysters. Yum!

The cowboy drags a little doggie in and his superbly trained horse spins around and sets so the cowboy can tie off the calf. The calf, which is about the size of a medium size doghouse or one of Paris Hilton's male companions, has other ideas...or would possibly like to retain his nads a little longer. He shakes loose of the other branders and, with a rope still attached to one hoof, breaks to my left; the horse and rider with the other end of the rope attached to them, move to my right.

Directly in front of me is one of our $150,000 high-def video cameras on a tripod; the rope, pulling taunt between horse and rider and pissed-off baby Longhorn, moves like a striking rattlesnake toward the tripod, which is going to topple like a New York City drag queen with her Manolo caught in a subway grate.

My ass or the camera? Who am I kidding? Just as the rope hits the tripod I jump forward and grab the camera. The rope snags the tripod, pops up and hits me on the chest and, breaking the camera's fall, I go into a full-blown World Wrestling Federation back body slam into the cow dookey.

Now, in more than a decade of time in dojos, I have hit the ground more than once. In fact, I fancy that I fall rather well. I didn't even attempt to break my fall...just went limp. In all that time in the dojo, however, I never once did a full-speed fall with a small metal camera in my back pocket.

I now have a bruise the size of Pittsburg imprinted with the "SONY" logo on my ass, and I swear if I squeeze my butt cheeks just so I can take a digital picture...

PS: No no, don't worry...both the hi-def camera and the pocket Sony were unscathed...