Afterparty Aftertaste

In the aftermath of the 2008 PBR event in Glendale, Arizona, my wife and I debated going to the PBR after-party. It never seemed like a good idea, necessarily, but the more we thought about it, the more like an interesting idea it seemed. Soon we were off, crawling through downtown Litchfield Park (such as it is) at 15 miles per hour looking for the Wigwam Resort.

Understand that my formative years were spent in the dusty environs of Avondale, Arizona, and we’d certainly heard of the Wigwam. It was supposed to be so ritzy and luxurious that it didn’t quite belong on planet Earth any more; we thought maybe it floated six inches above the ground and was patrolled by elves and cherubs. None of us had actually been to the Wigwam, but everyone knew the friend of a second cousin who’d been there and had seen – whoa, check it out! – people wearing tennis bracelets therein. It was so ritzy that I was quite sure that the moment I, a mere dust-encrusted scion of blue-collar roots, tried to step onto the Wigwam property, bat-wielding mooks would emerge from the impeccably trimmed undergrowth and instruct me on the fundamental error of attempting to rise above my social station.

On the off chance that the Wigwam’s attorneys are reading this, permit me to point out that the Wigwam is doubtless a fine and upstanding establishment which has never engaged in any kind of exclusionary behavior at all.

We eventually found it, or what we presumed to be it, in that we found a parking lot that offered valet parking. You don’t see offers for valet parking in someone’s driveway, so we were pretty sure we were on the grounds of some sort of resort. Then my wife saw people with cowboy hats walking across the parking lot. It had to be the place. Nobody but PBR fans would show up at the Wigwam wearing the official Arizona summer-issue white straw cowboy hat, after all.

The Wigwam seemed… Well, it turned out it didn’t float six inches above the ground and I didn’t see any cherubs, so I was a little disappointed. It’s nice, sure, but not that nice, not nice enough to justify bat-wielding mooks. We wandered around for a while, seeking both a handicapped access ramp (the Wigwam, for whatever it’s worth, possesses more steps per capita than any other building in west-central Arizona) and the PBR after-party itself. The place seemed deserted and the only sound I could hear was my own torturous, wheezing breathing as I pushed my wife’s wheelchair across what seemed like several furlongs of deep, practically impassable carpet. Then, just as it seemed that I must surely perish from overwork, we spotted a PBR sign, and were quickly vetted by the Deputy Sheriff and banded by the guy who looked like Dr. Kevorkian, and we were in.

In what?

It was a large rectangular room. Scattered around the room were about three sit-down tables and about five stand-up tables (and what, really, is the purpose of the stand-up table? Everybody knows that “Let’s get a table” is a euphemism for “Damn! My feet hurt! Let’s go sit down” The table is more or less irrelevant; it is the chair that is the primary operational element). Scattered around the outside were three bars. The whole effect was decidedly underwhelming, and my attention was quickly drawn to the big-screen TV in the corner that appeared to be showing Versus coverage of some PBR event (it was the event where Robson Palermo got helicoptered and bludgeoned silly, but I leave it to those with better memories to figure out which event it was).

Now, I don’t know how much money the PBR spends on promotions and whatnot in the course of a year. Nor do I have any idea how much the Wigwam charges for the use of a large, barren banquet room. But it just seems to me that somehow the two could have come up with something a little more inviting – a few more chairs and a six-foot party sub would have been a good start. I bet the PBR spends more on propane each week (to fuel the FBHs, or Flaming Bull Heads) than it does on the afterparty.

The first cowboy spotting was Cord McCoy, who was easily recognized by his Enterprise shirt and the fact that he couldn’t go anywhere without an official bevy of young women. Most men don’t travel the world with bevies, so when one sees such a procession, one can only assume that it’s a Big Cheese of some sort. I don’t know that they were buckle bunnies in the traditional sense of the word, but I do know that they were young and not at all the sorts of women who would have given me the time of day when I was that age. Not that I’m bitter, but gee whiz, I’m 6’4” and Cord has to stand on tiptoes to see over the tops of his boots... While we watched Cord danced with at least four of the bevy, though it was always the same dance regardless of the music. First he’d take his wrap, then hunker down with his left arm out and forward, chin tucked and riding arm cocked slightly at the elbow, then once the dance started, he’d commence to spurring with his outside foot… what on earth am I saying? No, mostly he twirled them.

I caught a brief glimpse of JB Mauney, who acted like a man who was preoccupied by the fact that his hat didn’t fit right. But then we started to lose our visibility of one whole half of the room because a very large man began to invade our field of view. It was a bit like watching an eclipse – you never saw him move, but every time we looked up, more and more of the room had been blotted out by his immense back (and, I regret to say, backside).

The wife sent me to the bar to get a Jack Daniels and Coke, which at $8 seemed like a pretty poor investment. For same eight bucks I could have bought a case of Milwaukee’s Beast, but I guess at PBR events one either takes tight-lipped swigs from longnecks (I believe the characteristic swig is designed to avoid flushing out one’s Copenhagen) or has mixed drinks, but Milwaukee’s Beast would be horribly déclassé.

There seemed to be very little actual cowboy participation, so I amused myself in a detailed study of the wallflowers (half of them guys who clearly wished they were cowboys, and the other half girls who wished the guys were cowboys too). Then the wife made a Significant Spotting: Guillherme Marchi, or a guy we were pretty sure was Guillherme. He wasn’t wearing his sponsor shirt and as a sartorial specimen he looked like any other Saturday night cowboy looking for something to do. We weren’t even sure it was Guillherme. He had the jaw, to be sure, and was about the right size and seemed fit, but no, surely Guillherme wouldn’t be standing by himself against the back of the room, would he?

Why, the poor guy even had to shell out for his own drink! I watched him pull out a wallet and hand green to the bartender, which seemed like a ridiculous thing for a PBR cowboy to have to. Surely the PBR would comp the world number one bull rider a few drinks, wouldn’t they? I mean, the guy goes to the after-party for the sake of fan enthusiasm and the PBR and the Wigwam stiff him eight bucks for a drink? I call no way! When Brett Favre goes to a Packers party, do the Packers make him pay for his own Pabst Blue Ribbon? I bet not!

Still, it sure looked like him. So I slipped into my secret identity, Sooper Spy, and pretended to walk right past him en route to the bathroom. Yep, definitely Guillherme. Now, understand that we’ve been fans of Guillherme for a while. He rides well, and unlike some of the knobs and yokels that inhabit the PBR, he seems to display a certain amount of dignity and character. And when he flashes that I’m not sure what Leah Garcia just asked me smile, well, he’s hard to beat. But such was my skill as Sooper Spy that I also recognized Renato Nunez, another one of the Brazilian riders, and walked right past Mike White without recognizing him.

That’s kind of embarrassing. There are some PBR cowboys that I just flat don’t like, and in most cases I couldn’t even tell you why. JB Mauney and Travis Briscoe just flat rub me the wrong way, for example. But there are a lot of cowboys that I do like, such as Mike White, Luke Snyder, Dustin “How Hard Can It Be” Elliot, Zack Brown, and even good old Cord McCoy. I walked right by Mike White without recognizing him, and this detail will come back to haunt my narrative.

Upon my return to the Great Barren Room, I grabbed the wheelchair and told my wife we were going to go meet Guillherme Marchi. I hate to say I finally resolved to meet him while straddling a urinal, but that’s about how it played. In the words of my grandfather, it aint a purty thought, but it is a thought. Guillherme, blissfully unaware of the events in my life in the immediately preceding few minutes, saw us coming and shifted his drink to his left hand and smiled as he shook my hand. I had the whole speech worked out in advance: “I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time, and I feel that this is your year and I wish you the best of luck.” But what came out? “Errr, haberdashers, you know, nine-iron woodsman poker handle! Crumpets!” And Guilherme, being a pleasant and affable sort, smiled and nodded and clapped me on the shoulder and said “Thank you very much.” My wife managed to say “We’re going to eat at your restaurant” before she was overcome by his apparently quite delectable eyelashes.

So we staggered away from Guillherme, and decided that it would be best to leave the afterparty on that note, before we staggered up to the next Famous Cowboy and blurted “Origami spheres truly tingle my benefactors! Argentina!”

Oh, and sorry, Mike. Had I seen you, I would certainly have stopped to shake your hand, but – alas, earwax. Blame it on the Bossa Nova.