no way. bullfight.
alright, bullfight.
the mystery roommate wrote a story about it. apparently, we were supposed to meet up with this dude Carlos. at the event. Carlos is a reporter for Adelante – the spanish version of the Imperial Valley Press – and was to take pictures with a slick looking camera with a big lens, but he didn’t materialize. so we rolled alone.
you get to the border. you go through the border. you find a cab driver. you haggle with him. he takes you to basically anywhere in the city for $4. you pay him when you arrive, you get out. you pay about $7.50 for a ticket. $5 for a 24 oz. beer. and another $4 to get back to the crossing.
so that’s what, $20, $21 for the whole afternoon?
the whole place wasn’t half full. I would imagine the ring holds about four or five thousand people, and half of it was empty. I get the feeling that bullfighting is like hockey in the States: a Mexican niche sport. it is definitely very hispanic, very old world. I mean, fuck, in a dog or cock fight, there’s at least half a chance that nothing will die. not so here. that bull is fucked from the start.
to be honest, it’s not really a fight. I mean, there’s always the possibility that the matador or one of his multiple assistants could get seriously hurt, but a bullfight isn’t an actual contest of wills between the bull and the matador. this is certain from the beginning: the bull will die. where the actual sport of it comes from is how artfully or technically the matador is able to kill it.
I didn’t realize this until the very end. I mean, I assumed I wasn’t going to see anyone killed on sunday by a pissed off, rampaging animal, but I guess I thought of it more as some cultural happening. but that’s not the case; the matadors (there were three of them) were actually competing. someone was scoring them. someone was keeping track of what was going on, not just appreciating or taking in the spectacle of it all.
score, from what I’ve been told, goes something like this:
-confirmation (yeah, you killed it. the bull’s dead)
-ovation (people clap for you)
-one ear
-two ears
-two ears and a tail.
they cut those off and give them to the matador if he kicks ass. this is also accompanied by bouquets of flowers, wavings of handkerchiefs, cheering, etc.whoever gets the highest scores through two bulls wins. so, that’s six bulls. they kind of lose their majesty after the first or second one.
a lot goes into a bullfight before the matador actually comes out and does anything. most of the time is spent tiring the bull out, bleeding it a little bit, so it’s feasible that a matador get in the ring with it.I guess you could call that respect. I’m not sure.then, the show begins. getting the animal to charge at a red cape. hearing the crowd yell “ole!” listening to the 8-yr-old behind you clamor for the kill: “oh, yeah, here comes the sword!!!”
the bit Pierce Brosnan says in “the Matador” about how the bulls die an honorable death, I’m not sure if I buy that. I mean, it quickly became apparent to me that it was more about the matador than about the bull. the bull is a big, angry, hulking beast that can move pretty fucking fast when it wants to. for the most part, they’re all like this. people are much more interested in the matador’s courage than the bull’s strength and tenacity.
none of this is to say that it wasn’t incredibly interesting to watch, and that I wouldn’t go back. I mean, fuck. how many of you have eaten a fast-food hamburger in the last month? this point is too easy to make, but at least the meat in the bullfight (they butcher all of the slain bulls for market) gets a chance to fuck something up on its way out. that’s a chance many don’t ever get.
what else is news, pray tell:
it’s funny to read back over this thing in watch my many mood changes. to be honest, I’m not much smarter than I was two years ago when I started typing on this fucking thing, but nonetheless, it is fun to sit and watch the rollercoaster.
like, for instance: right now, I can’t wait to get out of here. can’t wait. seriously, can’t wait. but I can look back, only a day or two, and realize that I’m in a better state of mind about it than I was over the weekend.
one year from today, I will not be working at this newspaper. I won’t be living in this town. I say this with all the certainty I could possibly have (that means this is far from concrete), but fuck, it’s only a couple of months. I’ve got years and years and years to spend elsewhere. at the least, six or seven months isn’t going to kill me, it’s just going to improve my resume. so as much as I dislike this job sometimes, dislike this town, I will get over this. I’ll move forward, and I’ll be out of here some day. and some day is soon.
right?
until then, I’ve got a temporary respite over Thanksgiving. Spencer, be in town. come on, man.
I’m out of town on Thursday doing the family thing, but otherwise I’m in town. I look forward to seeing you. We can continue the conversation that we began last time you were here.