Bob Tallman

Full episode transcript, auto-generated from the audio and lightly formatted (verbatim, not edited).

shangling under she don't know he's barely hanging on the whole when you think about where I was raised 55 miles from town on a gravel road or VA Nevada one room schoolhouse one teacher eight nine kids all eight grades two-hole or out house and uh might be 10 or 12 of us there when the bus ran and if there was 12 kids that year, eight nine of them would be Pyute Indian kids because we were right on the res. So when I didn't go to kindergarten, so when I was in first grade, uh I could speak Italian, Pyute, and a little English. Where how'd you get the Italian? My mom, my mother, and my grandmother came through Ellis Island from Cabinago, Switzerland, Italy, 1911.

You want to talk about a mixed mash of cultures? Uh, my dad, German, Indian, and um there were no hired help except our family. My great uncle uh lived to be 90. My grandmother 90.

Uh my mom and dad until their late 80s. And you get in a bath house on the ranch because they didn't have running water with six, eight people. The first birth I ever saw was a water birth. In that deal, my mother and my grandmother birthed this beautiful Indian lady's baby.

Wash them off, stick them on the faucet. How old were you? 56. I was 10 going on 11 when we left there.

I'd never rode a bicycle, never played marbles. Did not know anything about sports. Sports to me was riding a colt. Why?

because it cost $2 a day to hire a buckaroo. So all of us kids had to go. No fences. Six ranches running commons.

Couple thousand head of cattle. People talk about the Wild West. Yeah. Fiddle player at night in a bunk house when they'd have a party.

He had one eye and after about quart of whiskey, he'd take that eye out and stick it in his pocket and play that fiddle. That was my first introduction to live music. The world today has to live with a device to be informed, educated, and entertained. to get to come to one of your concerts or watch you play and understand the intricacy of inner talent to pick a guitar, sing not just in harmony but have the lyrics and I can talk for hours without a script.

But today, uh, we have a rock concert and we insert a rodeo into it. And the technology, when you think about what I started with 60 years ago, I had a uh $30 uh Windsor microphone, four big university horns, 50 lb drivers, wire strung aorus, take it on announcer stand. And I had worked for a man with a man named Vern Ryan in Nevada and he was a rodeo announcer and had a 45 spin it, drop a needle on it, horse buck jam, crashed, knocked the needle off. So I went to telling stories and guy paid me $100 to announce rodeo one night in Fallon, Nevada.

I said, "There'll never be another poor day." And I was working three jobs at the time. I was a breakman on the Western Pacific Railroad, drove a truck delivering freight for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and my dad had a lumber yard in Winnamaka, Nevada, and in between I'd go rope buckaroo. And I knew that there'd never be another poor day as long as I kept three jobs.

I still have three jobs today. Rodeo business, the ranch and our beef business, and the real estate business. Then I tell stories in between. You can write a song about this probably.

Yeah. I heard one last night. Get this. Uh there was uh I won't use his name.

the guy who did it, but he went through a nasty divorce and uh where he had his wedding ring, they had their initials tattooed right there and he had spent about two years uh Kade Bruno was actually telling me this story, but uh it's not Cade, but it's a buddy of his. And he had spent two years smoking cigarettes. And whenever he'd put out a cigarette, he'd burn out those initials with a cigarette for about two years. And so now it's just a scar over where initials used to be.

Easy to wake up in the morning, go like this, and remember it all. Yeah. Exactly. You know, hell is what you make of it and what you make out of it.

Heaven is your dream to live to be there. Being an ordained minister. Say that again. Hell is what we live with.

Heaven is what you make out of it. Because when you go outside of this hotel, there's seven lanes right there. I count things like that because I like to be aware of my surroundings. To the average person who lives out in the country uh where we all live does not realize what it's like to come to a city of 3 million that's a transferable energy 25 hours a day.

And people say there's only 24. Oh no. In the fast world, it's 25, maybe more because you are living particles of life that you jam all into it, burn away with it with that. Then some place in there you got to eat, drink, sleep, and occasionally uh have a thought of how to get out.

Where do you go when you get out? If you hadn't been someplace heavenly and you get into that lifestyle or that stream of life, you don't know where you're going to go back to. So today, I have 18-year-old grandkids. I've been married 57 years next week.

Um, my wife gave up a career and an education in college to help me get to where I went and have gone and I'm still going. None of that has been hell except on other people helping me live in heaven. That's quite the line. Think about it.

as far south as you can go, as far north as you dream to go. So someplace in the middle, you have got to find a place of stability and stay with it. Does that ever come with an element of guilt? Totally.

Guilt is what gives you reason to be better at who you are and what you do. People that don't have guilt have never lived much. They've never had to receive something and lose it and give it away or mess it up and lose it. We're all guaranteed the first breath, the first milk, the first step, the first movement in a line.

The surroundings that you do all of those things in. If you're born, you cry because it's a natural thing that you're birthed with to open your lungs and create a sound. And people that have never really cried don't remember the first cry. People who have never really swallowed that first milk don't remember the next drink.

in everything you live every second from that point on in what you develop your life into or with people that help you develop it. When was the first time you picked up a guitar? What was the first stroke? What was the first song?

Who did you emulate? Somebody had to spirit you into wanting to go wang and drive that song out. That song was a story. That story came from somebody's life or existence.

Or if you wrote that song, you wrote it after somebody you admired or feared. The person you admired gives you strength of good music. The person you feared will make you think twice. Did you like that fear?

Did it hurt? Does it still hurt? Did you get by it? The next song you wrote, the next song of somebody else's that you played, you had to have.

Who was your hero? Me. In the music world. I'm sure you have many.

Many. It's a difficult question because you take little bits and pieces from everybody. But I but I started with the with the blues guys. Eric Clapton, Stevie Rayvon.

I listened to a lot of the Almond Brothers. Bob Seager. That's not really a blues guy. Stevie Rayvon for me.

Really? Yeah. And his wife and his sister who I put in the bucking bowl business back in the 90s. Did he What year did he die?

Late 80s. Yeah. So that have been after that. Yeah.

We're googling right now. We'll find out. Okay. Those guys came out of the woodwork when who was who was doing it then in our world of country music?

George. George Jones was always one of my favorites. Then George Strait. And I was in Houston the night they hired him on the phone to replace Eddie Rabbit.

And I was sitting in the office when they called him. One guy said, ' Who is this George Strait? The other guy said, 'Oh, he plays all over Texas. He's hot.

Texans love him. Bring him to the Astrodome. Hell 66,000 people. Then I introduced Winona and her mom to open for him.

And I spent two nights here with her and Cactus, who I knew Cactus before I knew Winona really. Highway 101. Cactus Moer, I call him Jack. We've been friends, drank a lot of whiskey together, told some lies together, and have watched the world follow us.

Me and one side over here, them and one side over there. They're my friends. They're not just star entertainers. You've become my friend.

Not just a star in the making, but your day could be in Houston at that big rodeo. your day uh could be when you open for the rodeo here. Cool deal. The coolest.

What did that do for you emotionally or? Yeah, everything. It's interesting. Sometimes I come off as maybe a little bit irreverent in situations, but sometimes it's just to calm my own nerves, if that makes sense.

I'm taking it very serious. How do you describe irrevant? Not disrespectful. It's not disrespectful, but I try to be loose and I try to joke around and sometimes people take that as like, oh, is he not But you only had 18,000 people.

Well, exactly. But you had only 18,000. You had the Cowboy channel. Yeah.

Please continue. Yeah. So it's just sometime, you know, and it's difficult the idea of being in the moment and really enjoying something is a is an interesting idea because it's almost to stay focused and do what you need to do. You it's this weird dichotomy of being present yet it's almost an out-of- body experience at times and you're kind of observing yourself doing what you need to do.

You don't think about breathing, do you? I think about breathing a ton. nose breathing. When you walked up those little six steps, you know, walked out on that stage, you know it, and it's dark around you and then all of a sudden they light you up.

Do you know how many thousands of times that they've done that to me? Never pay attention to it. People say, "Are you nervous when you go on 60 years later?" Hell yes, I'm nervous.

The first time you aren't nervous, you're not going to sell. You have got I've got about maybe 30 seconds to sink a hook in them cuz I want control of those 18,000 70,000 at Houston, 3,000 at Plains, Montana, 10,000 at Reno. You got to get a hook in them and then bring them to you, stick them in your heart, and then go to work. So, the first sounds out of your mouth when you started to sing the other night, how'd that feel?

Surprising. I'm oftenimes surprised when I actually do what I feel like I can do. Uh because I'm not terribly impressed with myself. Um I'm confident, but I'm usually critiquing myself and I can do better.

And there's times when there's a big moment and I seem to just be okay that I'm a little surprised. I'll usually go, "Oh, oh yeah, okay. Yeah, here we are. You're doing it."

Which is it? Which is it? when it was over and they cheered you. Okay, I'm standing 60 70 feet from you and I got a lot of stuff happening.

I'm waiting for the 13th Bearback Rider to get done for me to do my stick and I told him no introductions. Don't introduce me. I've been introduced there for 30 years, 40 actually because I started here in 1985. We didn't have a U then, we didn't have the technology then.

And when I started in Oklahoma City, okay, I'd been working there for $15 a day on the labor crew, gathering the bucking horses in the morning, feeding them and the bulls and the cavs and the steers, and then we'd buck them and then put them back at midnight. We went to work at 5 in the morning and we quit at 1 in the morning. Then we go drink Martywood wine. 130 proof Everclear.

That's the real deal there. I helped make it so I had to drink it. Yeah, you had to. It was the only option, you know.

Yeah, I get it. And you get about four days of that in you. You just kind of glide through life. Yeah.

But you still have a responsibility. You got to pick your guitar up. You got to tune it when they aren't looking. Um, I was intrigued, flattered to be asked to come here today with you because of a lot of things.

Of course, I Googled you. I'm sorry. No, I really don't know how to use this machine, but I use it or have somebody do it for me because I'm not a social media guy. I got 20 30,000 people to follow.

An old fat man 70 years old, you know, almost 80. I'd like to be informed about what you do. I know what I have done and I know where I'm going. Sometimes then there's times my favorite place in the world is in the pasture with a set of cows, calves, yearlings, whatever.

And you know where I go to do that? Not because I'm an ordained minister. I go to do that because that's time to pray. Sometimes I sing, say it out loud.

Sometimes I just think it. People ask me, "What's your favorite sound?" You ever heard a cow eat grass? Oh yeah.

Wrap that tongue around it. Rip it out of the ground and to see him look up. It's heavenly. from that sound and that scene to Jesus Christ is that long or quicker and then again and again and again.

From the first time you strum that guitar, if you have a band with you, from the first time you put it all together, everybody's fingers key and presentation makes all the difference in the first word you sing and the last word you sing. And that harmony amongst all those instruments or just one acappella. Have you ever thought of that? You will now.

I think about a lot. I like the way you shape your hat. Oh yeah. Yeah.

It's a um It's kind of old school. Yeah. Buckarooie a little bit. Yeah.

kind of has that old school RCA thing even like that Larry Mayan high crown, you know, kind of goes down in the back. I'm a buck crew. Yeah. You can tell by people how they wear their hat and how they grab it right there.

Oh yeah, that's the other thing. That's all you need. And then put it on your head. How you wear it is how you look under it.

And if you want to see it, if it's you got floor lighting like you and I have, you got a monitor is different. If you're open to the house, you don't have a feel. And when that crowd comes, they're going, "Who's this kid? Where'd he come from?

Oh my god, he'd sing. Oh, he's all by himself." One other person picking. You were judged by 18,000 live, another 10,000 for the moment.

So there's 30,000 people that knew that moment, but then they wipe your ass out and you're gone. Yep. We're going to buck them. Buck them hard.

And everybody gets out on the edge of their seat. There's some people going, "Who was that kid?" They check you out. How old are you?

34. Okay. two and a half times older than you. I'm past the cute phase of being in the music industry, you know, past the what?

The cute phase. Oh, yeah. Like at the family reunions six years ago, 10 years ago, they would ask you, "Oh, so you're still you're still doing the music thing. That's cool."

Yeah. Right on. Now it's like still, you know, still doing that. Move past the cute phase.

Has anybody recorded anything you've written? I've had some cuts with some different guys about uh when did that Parker album come out? Six months ago. Yeah, maybe soon.

I got a song with Parker Mcllum that we wrote together, which he's mega star right now. Oh, yeah. So, that's been the biggest cut that I've gotten so far. I told you about the fiddle player in the bunk house.

One eye. One eye. We drank whiskey out of a bottle. We not me.

My mother drank grenardine and I'd sit there on her knee and watch them. My dad drank quarter whiskey a day. It seemed like that's how they did it in the Buckaroo camp. 4:00 in the morning.

I remember the first sounds I ever heard was stretching bobwire and cussing cuz everybody go to hooland catch your horse for the day and catch you one for the day. We didn't ride ponies. We rode big horses and they tied our stirrups down underneath the belly of the horse so if he went to bucking you wouldn't lose your stirrups and you just got a halt and you hung on and then somebody'd ride in there and go to whooping on him with a roau. Out we go and away we go.

Remember no fences. When there's no fences there's no rules. When you live a life with no fences, you either live it slowly and graduate, get to a level you're comfortable, and you go on. In your music world, you've come to this point and your trajectory is still up and then somebody's going to see you like somebody saw me and they're going to go, "Give him that shot."

So after I played that night, I you know that hallway, that famous hallway where it tees right there. Oh yeah. Where it goes down to the media and then it goes over there to the alleyway. Oh yeah.

I was trying to do my best to linger right there cuz I wanted to say hi to all the contestants and everything, but they want to get you out of there, you know. So pouring a drink and I'm like, I need to get another cup, you know, and guys are walking by. I'm like, let's go, you know, and they're going by finally get me out there and I'm sitting down there at the media seats, which is crazy. You're right there on the railing.

I mean, I never thought I would even be able to sit right there. You're so close. And I get a text from Bo Gardner or I texted Bo and I just said, "Thank you for this." You know, I have never thought like Little Horseshoe from Texas would even be in this arena, you know.

So, thanks for letting me be a part of it. And Bo said, "Uh, I'm sitting in the suite with Tim McGraw right now and Tim's manager." And he said, uh, when I got up there and I, right when I started singing, uh, he said, Tim stood up and he goes, "Hell yeah." He goes, "Brian," this is his manager's name.

He goes, "Brian." He goes, "That's the [expletive] right there. You need to find that guy." So Bo texted me that, right?

And I'm looking at that text and I'm like, so we're talking about being in the moment and those times that there's times to focus and almost have these out-of- body experiences and just focus on what you need to do. And there's other times where you can finally relax and just take it all in, you know. And that was one of those moments. I'm looking over there.

And you saved that text, didn't you? Absolutely. I texted Bo back and I said, "That is now the coolest text that I've ever got that I've ever gotten in my entire life." So I went up there and met with Bo and he introduced me to the manager.

And so he ended up taking me out to Tim's show the next night. And pretty cool deal. Little horseshoe. Did you get to meet him, visit with him and his manager?

his manager. I didn't get to meet Tim. He He gave me a guitar one time. Really?

When? How long ago? Uh it was similar to It's kind of a miniature. Uh 20 years ago.

I worked on a picture that he was starring in and he gave everybody a signed guitar. We were all just sitting around on buckets and um I was like 13 years old, 14 and I was I got a five string ly and I was going to take guitar lessons but I was so immersed in the moment with the guy that was teaching me and he could sing that I never learned to play it because I just had him sing again sing again and he was an old line picker. He played back up on stages for people uh forever. And that moment for you, you don't even know what you did to breathe.

And you kind of forget for that moment who you are and where you are. And then the natural in you came alive. You wouldn't be here or neither would I be here with you if you weren't on a trajectory of greatness coming. How old are you?

34. 34. You just told me that. That was a really meaningful thing that you just said to me.

Yeah, that was cool to hear. There have been 3,400 34,000 people, 3. 4 four million people just like you that never got the break. And a lot of them might have had it right in front of them.

But when I sent you that text yesterday with all my stakes, that's my signature. Yeah. T-bone steak. Uhhuh.

And you sent me back knives and forks. I'll save this text. I actually I saved it because I wanted to show my wife. I said, "He gets it."

Yeah. He's from Decatur, Texas. Yeah. Come on.

He lived 30 minutes from our house. I mean, my guys spent the time to send 50 steak emojis. I'm going to I'm going to do my best to send something back. I couldn't.

So, I couldn't decide between I had two options. I had the knife and fork one, and then I had a big butcher knife. And I was like, "Okay, the butcher knife might seem a little aggressive. If I just got to send knife and fork.

I'd never seen that emoji before. I had to search for it. I was committed to the bit. You know, you know, I've been around a few stars, most of them at Houston, and we don't introduce the stars there anymore.

It's all sequenced in by the time we roll out the big stage. and you got 70 65 to 75,000 of course George and after his 23rd retirement and uh yeah right I text him merry Christmas and happy Easter and a few other things and he always texts back which is compliment uh is he a dear friend no I don't know him that well now some others have become dear friends but it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't have in a premier position to be recognized, heard, to watch them do what their stick is. And people always ask me about Houston, who was your favorite? Who is your favorite?

And I said, moment for moment, I watched the big stage there one night. There was a stool, a little table, a glass of water, no ice in it, and Bill Cosby went on for an hour and 22 minutes. People laughed, people cried. I was entertained because having the ability to set a hook in an audience, of course, with reputation, but to hold an audience and switch them over and dump them, pick them back up, switch them over and dump them.

In the rodeo business, when I start, everybody else has a way of starting. I wait. You try them and you try them again. And if you don't get command of them, no matter what you do is just mundane.

It just goes on. I don't pray like most people pray. I tell stories and just before I start I try to find a word of what the world is doing that moment. World might be competition if I So there's a theme a theme okay and I always end it with my Lord and Savior in Jesus Christ and then I'll say what do you say and they say amen.

If you did well, you didn't s syn sink a hook in them. You drove a spear in them. So when you go to pull it back, it's got tongues. You got it.

You got them. I don't want them. He wants them. I did my job.

I promoted the word, the thought, the memories that they'll have. I tell a story in a lot of cases and just you don't have notice to do it. about when we start the prayer moment and there are people that go you got to come announce the rodeo because we want you to pray. Patrick Gotch the cowboy channel who I've known for 40 years said Bob you've got to do this and they'll run a camera on me and I said I tried to turn my back on the camera.

I said, "Listen to what I say, not how I look saying it." About give me 15. If I said to you, Jared, give me 15. What's your first thought?

Dollars, minutes, minutes, moments, and I ask for people 15 seconds. And here's the deal. Because of this device, when you get up in the morning, you either roll over, rare up, swing around, your feet hit the floor. What's the first thing we all do?

You grab this son of a [expletive] and you want to know what did I miss? What did I miss? Who is looking for me? Who do I want to talk to?

What was the last thought I had that I sane moment before I went to sleep? And if you don't pray yourself to sleep, you're a lost soul. So if you don't pray yourself to get up, you're even more losful. It's habit forming.

Once you do it and realize I read about seven or eight, 10 devotionals every morning, some long, some short. And come here, Booger. Bob wants to see you. Give me 15, Booger.

Yeah, give me 15. She'd give you a push-up. Yeah, there it is. There it is.

This is a full plank on that one. So I tell people I said how busy are you? How important is this? Put it away.

Do not reach for it first. Fold your hands. Put your hands on here. Whatever.

Wipe your eyes. I don't care what you do. Give me 15 seconds. And take that 15 seconds to say good morning Lord.

Thank you Lord for a good night's sleep. Even if it was two hours. Thank you Lord for the day before me. Thank you for the blessings of my family.

Thank you for the opportunity for my career. Thank you for this ranch. Thank you for green grass. Thank you for snow.

Thank you for hail. Why would you do that? Hail carries nitrogen. Nitrogen goes in the ground.

It grows green grass. My cows can eat. Give them 15 seconds before you go to bed at night. Give them 15 seconds.

You've been drinking eight glasses of wine, three martinis, whatever you've been drinking. Take 15. You can do it on your side. You can do it with your eyes closed.

You can do it whatever you pray out loud constantly. I pray when an ambulance goes by for the doctor that's going to receive that patient, for whoever that patient is, for that patient's family, for that driver to get him to that hospital, get him in that emergency. Pray for the doctor's hands that are going to touch him or her or that child and heal them. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

If that's all I have time for, that's all I'm going to give them. But I gave it. How can you receive if you don't give thanks? I don't think you're going to be able to be joyful in what you receive if you don't give thanks.

Totally. You might receive some things, but that's not actually where the joy really comes from. We had it. We've had it today.

Uh, who was your first text today? What was on their mind? Who's going to be your last text tonight? Phone calls first thing.

I normally don't. I get about 40 marketing calls a day. So do y'all. And they all come from Ulus, Fort Worth, Benbrook, Decatur.

Uh the marketing call business is a big deal. Spam. We walked into the studio today. What did I say?

Oh, it's just a spam call. Sometimes I answer them. Hi, what are you all doing? What are you selling today?

Got to hope your day is as good as mine. And then you'll get an AI voice that comes on, wants to tell you me, Medicare, uh, insurance, something else that they think you need to, and it's all AI. And I go, "Hey, Martha, when you're done reading that script on that computer screen in front of you in the boiler room that you live in, or if you're in Kenya or in California, whoa, talk to me." Click.

Every once in a while, one of those people will talk to me and I ask him, "Booger, you all right?" That's what he asks him. You getting along, fine. She's showing you what the girls in Las Vegas, too.

He get He gets on the phone with the boiler room in Africa and goes, "Boo, you all right?" She did. Oh, y'all ought to be here. This dog is priceless.

She's a girl. She's a girl. Yeah, she's got some issues going on with her little itching or whatever. That's all right.

Did she spin around on the carpet? Yeah. Glands. Glands.

I know. That's what I've got one just like her. Really? Yeah.

Your delivery on that was so funny. Back to the point at hand. Yes, sir. You sat and watched a rodeo.

They ride bugging horses, then we bulldog, then we team rope, then we ride Bronx, then we rope cavs, then we barrel race, and we ride bulls. What was going on in your head after two and a half minutes walking over there hanging out and then Bo Gardner texts you that he's got the star Tim McGraw and Brian his manager with him. Did you have a physical transformation? Did you sit up?

Did you just go, "No shit." Probably more the latter. Yeah. Yeah.

Probably more the ladder. Yeah. I' I've really tried to focus on uh it's it seems to be a bumper sticker nowadays, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will leave lead your path straight. Like everybody knows that Bible verse.

It's hung on every wall in the country and on every bumper of every car. But when you like really think about what that mean, for one, it exposes how sinful and lost we really are. Because if he's saying in all your ways acknowledge him, come on. It's like impossible in all your ways.

And then also just how simple it would be to just acknowledge him. Like you think I think about my wife or something saying, "Well, you just walked in the house and it's like you didn't even acknowledge me. You know, they're not asking for some grand gesture. It's just acknowledgement.

Like, acknowledge I'm even there. Like, acknowledge I'm alive. Acknowledge you love me, right? That's all God's asking for, but in a big way, in all your ways, just acknowledge him.

Hey, man. Thanks. Like, hey, I want to do this with you. Will you help me with this?

Like, I don't want to do it on my own. And it really exposes how often we fail at that. And it's such a simple task. So, I've tried to start develop You don't have to time it.

No. Okay, I'm going to give you 10 seconds, give you 10 minutes. You don't have to uh record it if you do it often enough. I walk in the house, I got two dogs, unless they're outside when I drive in and see them, a wife.

And that acknowledgement is important. I just call her, "Yo, mom, dad, I'm here." And uh after 57 years, she's going, "When are you going to go again?" Yeah.

Right. You know, jokingly. But um the older you get, you will find the easier it is in all your ways to serve. And people said, "Well, but I'm I haven't been baptized.

Uh, I haven't been. You don't understand baptismal. I was born and raised in the Catholic church, so I got dunked quite quick. I was an alter boy.

Um, I still have my missile from when I was like five, six, seven years old in catechism. And I go to Baptist Church in Texas. And I joke about it. I tell people they got better music than the Catholics.

I support in my charities churches. I'm very blessed to have what I have. If you don't tithe, oh, you got to give them money. Oh, no, no, no, no.

You tithe with your mind, your hands, your heart, your back, your vehicle. Time. You ever notice rich people love to tithe with money? You get them to tithe with their time.

It's a whole other story. Money is not that hard to make. It's not that hard to give. It's hard to keep.

So when you give your time, t time is a nonrenewable natural resource. Have you ever heard that? Yes, sir. When you share your time, you with me today here at the moment, you and me and Booger, you are giving the greatest gift that you have.

Everybody's so busy, so important or so sad and so sorry, they don't think about coming from down here to up here. What do you do in between? Now she give me licks. Love the dog.

Gordless, come up here. You said my lap. She says, "I don't know you that well. Just scratch my butt.

You know, we'll get there." Oh, yeah. Uh, little push-up. Time.

Write a song about that. Think about it. Time. Write a book about it.

I'm going to write I'm in the process of starting a book. It's going to take a couple years to get it done. I have two people that I know and trust, two ladies and a gentleman I want to meet to see about finishing it. And we've got It Ain't My First Rodeo.

Uh what do you call it? Not patented, but reserved. Registered. Um copyrighted.

Copyrighted. Okay. Once something's been used and now you hear him on a newscast New York say that a this ain't his first rodeo. That wasn't his first rodeo.

You hear people say that. Um heard Sean Hannity say it here a while back. Well, the phrasiology, the song, the lyrics, the action. If it's not your first rodeo, maybe driving a race car.

I'm a NASCAR fan. Um, not a big sports fan because I never played sports. I was a little guy and uh played high school football for three days. All my friends beat the piss out of me, run over the top of me.

And I said, "This ain't going to work. I can chase cheerleaders and bucking horses on my own and take my time doing it." Well, when you get ready to ride a bucking horse today, the time you spend in preparation, stretching, taping, thinking, watching videos if they're available, preparing your mind, tie it to your heart, tie your heart to your butt, and think about what you're going to do in that snatching, jumping, kicking, killing, fire breathing dragon son of a buck. you got to get on and then he just tweets down through the middle.

Every jump's going to be different. Every day is going to be different. And people don't ever prepare for the day except for I have coffee. I have orange juice.

I eat breakfast. I don't eat breakfast. I take two pills. I don't take any pills.

You get up and stretch. Some do, some don't. At my age, putting my socks on is a pretty good stretch. Okay.

What do you do to prepare for a quick moment, two and a half in Thomas and Mac or in the Dickies Arena? What do you do to prepare to go in studio and record? There's a certain sequence of things. Some people smoke regardless of what they do.

Some vape, which I think is a killer. Can't buy life insurance if you vape at all anymore. Really? Well, they want a chest X-ray.

Smoke a cigarette. Come on. I did for 30 years. You did?

Yeah. I'm an addict. I haven't for 30 years. But um time.

How do we want to spend the next three minutes? I'm intrigued with what you do and who you are because I love to see people blow and go. Then you'll see change. Okay.

Um, what was the change in Elvis's life? We're sitting in his green room. I'm an Elvis fan. I was within 10 ft of getting to meet him one time and didn't get to.

Always wanted to meet John Wayne. People say, "Who would you like to have lunch with?" I said, "Oh, my best friend." Really?

I said, "Yeah, I'd like to have a Coke and a cheeseburger, but Jesus." And they give you that look like, "You're [expletive] me." No. If he'd have been a cowboy, he'd have been a world champion.

What would you ask him? I said, "It depends on how you meet. Um, I'd like to meet him today. I don't want to just get to heaven to meet him.

I want to know some things. How do I do this better? What would you want me to do more of? And how would you want me to do it?

How do you want me to appear? How do you want me to sound? And so the last 15 seconds before we start, we all knuckle bump, pray, take a moment, um, and try to do it privately. It's not for show.

It's for real. Because once it starts, they just don't go, "Okay, we just got halfway through the grand entry. It's not working. Shut it off.

There's 20,000 people there. Let's start over. Oh no. If it starts to rain, we buck them.

We rope them. And I've got to the point to where I do more replay announcing um reride after the ride. I tell people, do you see this? Watch the center of his back and this horse doing this.

Zeke Thirstston the other night had a bron that what in the in the industry we call a piece of [expletive] and this horse jump hit duck dive jump hit dropped his head throat his hair back and I'm watching his back trying to hold on to a Bron one hand free and his back turned 180 six times in 8 seconds. How in the heck does a man's body now when he's my age? Yeah, he'll need one of these canes. It's not supposed to move like that.

But I watched his dad ride six times in Oklahoma City at the NFR and it was a totally different set of horses. Totally different style there. There were some bad buggers in that bunch. But today they breed these bucket horses like we breed bulls.

And they are dragons. You get one little buck clickity click right down through the arena. Jump and kick. Jump and kick.

Jump and kick. That's when you got to show your stuff. Or they jump out of their two jumps and stack it up and you go to riding them. Um, you watch Joel Harris, brother Ty, and the horses they ride.

Sylvester's Lollipop. Uh you watch Shane Hansie who's got 16 years of this and you watch and when they make that run at a normal rodeo because here this is it's all about money and stats. I like to tell people watch this replay and I meet the replay guy whatever I'm working someplace because I'm going to tell them I may need two or three runs and I'll holl at the guy running on the rope and shoot. Wait, don't run that next guy.

I want people to learn something. Watch that horse run in place. Watch him step out of there in that right stirrup. Watch him hold that slack and keep that calf standing.

Now, when he gets to him, if everything's right, he should founce him once in the air and string before he hits the ground. If and you get a run like that, I make him play it over two or three times. I said people, you got to understand, you need to know how it's muscle and mind repetition. Thousands of practice cavs.

That horse has got to work perfect. When he raises and strings that calf and goes to tie, Roy Cooper had hands. Deep picket was the same way. Their fingers are that much longer than mine.

And they could reach and grab them hind legs low, slow, but it has to happen that quick. And then choo and they're out of there. You watch guys try to cheat the system, pulling on that pig and string with their other hand going to the air in the team open. Um, one of the greatest teams here this year is Colton Schmidt.

I got a Canadian and a Cuban and Jonathan Torres and they rope at our house. Colton does. And he got paired up because his partner didn't make it. And to see that horse of Ren Rashard run down through there and he barely's got this on him.

And when he goes to the horn, it's over cuz I know Torres is going to go whoosh. There's that much room beneath their feet at the ground when you two hawk them and then get to the horn. Pull that slack and get to the horn all in one move. Then you got to face 3.

8, 3. 6, 3. 5. How do you do it?

Yeah, you can't snap your finger three times in that time frame and they've rode out, didn't break the barrier, got them roped, stretched, and faced in under four seconds. My grandson uh he traveled with Colton last summer and drove for him and rode the horses and get the apple picker out and clean the manure up and listen and met everybody. But where we live at home, that's where these guys live every day. Ain't it amazing?

Incredible. Yeah. Yeah, I love rodeo. It is my life.

Yeah. And it's great to see it explode the way that it has. It's got such depth to it, though. I'm hoping that it lasts a long time and it's not just a quick cycle, right, in everybody's life.

Yeah. Well, it's I mean, it's in the popular. You got Beyonce wearing a cowboy hat on the cover of the of her album. So, it's definitely popular, but it does feel like it's bigger than even when like Urban Cowboy and all that kind of stuff started coming out.

during that cycle. It feels like it's bigger than that. And it's definitely permeating through all of the horse industry as well as like the ranching as well as rodeo. You know, people like an average person even knowing what even hearing the term cutting horse, you know, 20 years ago, I think somebody in New York hadn't even ever heard that word before.

And now it's like you had cutting horses in downtown New York for photooots and there's such depth in the industry. I really hope it we're able to, you know, grow it and sustain it. I think it can happen just because it has such deep roots. There's a lot for people to dig into if you want to get into it for the rest of your life you can spend.

I think where people are raised in the environment that they're raised in 1966 I had my first semester paid for at Soul Ross Alpine and it was a be two and a half day drive from Winnamaka Nevada to Alpine Texas and I had a girlfriend lovely lady still is so I went to Calpali What would I have done? Where would my life be today if id have went to South Texas? People don't know that the glass mountains are 10,000 ft tall. People don't know about Solos University, but they do know here about Calpali, St.

Louis Abyispo. My life changed twice pretty damn quick. Who did who mentored me to become what I became and have fostered, fueled and gone on with in life. Those people cared and thank God I paid attention.

Um, where you were raised, the people you were around. Now remember, black and white TV was a big deal when I was a kid. Okay? You're born into a whole new whole new world different at 34 years old to know what you know about that life where I came from.

And you have to either read about it, get into the archives, um, and you have to give thanks for where you came from, what you got done. And if you want to know more about me, you're going to have to go back in the archives to find it. uh all the print, all the pictures, all the success successes. You'll never see the failures and I can tell you about them.

What did I do wrong? I should have went over there instead of over here. Think about all those things. And how do you tell your kids about them?

What do you think are the major ways that you've changed since early in life, like in your 20s until now? Well, in the rodeo business or just even personally, I think I finally grew up at about 60. Serious wasn't 15 20 years ago. That number is used in some location.

Sorry, Siri. I thought I had you shut off. My god, we've been doing this for an hour. See, have we really already?

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Okay. How have I changed?

My grandson's trying to call me. The team roper. Oh, take it. You need to call him.

No. Okay. He'll wait. He's 17, gonna be 18.

Um Siri does not understand. Love you, darling. See, he handles any situation. I lived so fast from the age 20 to 40.

Okay, this would have been the 60s,7s and 80s. You think his hair is long? My hair was as long. And I'd turn it around, put it in a ponytail, stick it down the back of my neck.

Afro like this. Diamond stud. I got the knot right there. Oh yeah.

Rockstar. No, I did it because a guy named Jim Hadley, he had a diamond in a steer's head in an earring. Oh, in the 70s was not popular. Ty Murray and Tough Edan told me, "You take that out of your ear, we're going to rip it out."

I waited a while and I took it out. Seems like a better option. New York. I used to record in studios um in New York.

Uh, we did records. I did voiceovers for major companies. Get in an elevator with a guy weighed 400 lb and wasn't room for anybody else in there. And he'd crank it over and up.

We'd go 20 stories. Get in a recording studio. Um, I can remember in Queens in New York 3:00 in the morning, walking home with another guy down the street. Never thought about it.

Safe. I remember the first cheesecake and glass of milk I ever ordered in a hotel cost $25. And I'd have probably had maybe $200 or $300 in my pocket. They were paying for it.

John Blair TV, New York City, Hal Pengry, my producer. Um, who did I get to work with? These are the changes. Okay.

Bob Eubanks. Just talked to him the other day. is 86 years old. Larry Wilcox of Chips Mayan and I with all these different people on and on and on.

Uh 15 different parts. I still get seven, eight, nine, $10 checks with 13 movies I did bit parts in. Yeah. Screen Actors Guild.

SAG and AFRA paid for my daughter's birth. all of our insurance for 40 years. I took retirement, early retirement. Yeah.

Lived in Hollywood. James Conhan as dear friend as I ever had stars, Hefner's Stay at the Mansion. Don't tell me about it, boys. I've seen it all.

And I never saw anything wrong. People say, "Oh, you stayed with him in Hefner's mansion." Yes. Many nights.

Called my wife as soon as I get there. I said, "I got to get out of the car. They're wanting to take it to go wash it." I'm getting nervous just No.

Talk to about it. No, but I knew somebody that knew somebody. Yeah. And then in between big movies and stuff, they'd come where we lived in California and hide out with us.

No drugs, no [expletive] They're real people. They just live a different life. And I remember when my daughter was born, driving down uh Highway 99 in California with him in the back seat holding that baby. Hugh Hefner.

No. Oh, James Conhan. Oh, James Khan. Okay.

Larry Wilcox. Chips. Yeah. Him and Eric Estrada.

They're just people. Gone roped pretty good. No kidding. Yeah.

Yeah, but going to New York, doing those things, LA, my wife was raised there and being around those people. I got a girlfriend, her name is Sia Tucker. She's as crazy as I want her to be and I love her dearly. As crazy as I want her to be.

Yeah, that's a funny line. But um and they all had houses to stay in and we live that life. Um people don't people don't think about that stuff. I don't know if I should have told you all that.

told us what but um the other side of that life at the age of 20 to 30 30 to 40 because I don't want people to be envious and I don't want people to think that it played a big part in my life but it did it taught me I don't want to be in Hollywood sure because the punishment that those people take took take today will take for a long time um I knew them and they wanted to be a part of our life. I didn't care about being a part of their life. Mhm. How do you like your spam?

Somebody's wanting to again. Do you cook your spam on both sides? I try to. It's safer that way.

Hash browns, eggs. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

A little bit of sourdough toast. Siri, tell them to cook it on both sides. Um, and then I had to grow up. My daughter's 51 years old.

I missed her kindergarten graduation. I was there for a few of those birthdays. Then she went to college, Boseman, had a scholarship, rodeoed. my wife back and forth did it all and still does it today.

Now we're doing it with our grandkids. I miss a lot of those things. I went to the watch party last night and everybody else went to the fountain blue to and went ice skating. I remember going there 10 years ago when my grandkids were just kids.

Uh, I think it was at the Cosmopolitan. And you live in a blur. That's why I like to go to the pasture and listen to cows eat grass. You live in a blur.

You make money in a blur. I've wasted, I don't know, two, three, four, five million dollars on trying to catch up, get with it. I don't make that much money. What do you mean catch up?

spending money on trying to live. It's expensive when you're in a spotlight. It's an expensive lifestyle because you pay for it getting there and you pay for it while you're there. You're going to find out you're going to write a hit record.

Somebody's going to want to record it. Then somebody's going to want to sing with you. Then somebody's going to want to hire you and put you on the biggest stages in the world. Las Vegas, Jared, is a life that quick.

You get here, you're here that long and you're gone. But the rest of the world is your dinner table. Where'd you tell me you do this in Fort Worth where I play? Yeah.

I've played Tanah Hills in the stockyards. Play there quite a bit. Usually a couple times a year. Okay.

I want you to play the theater in Granberry. Okay. They'll pay they'll pay a couple hundred bucks to come listen to you sing for a hundred people. Yeah.

You deserve that. That's where my buddy Josh Weathers whenever he goes there. All my family goes. I get to go once in a while if I'm home.

He's a good egg. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll have to set it up.

I'll go play it and then you can come out if you're if you're not spending if you're not doing 300 perfs that year. You know, that was 1983. Crazy. I'm down to 140.

Only 140. I'm going to back up. They're going to retire me this year in Fort Worth. And you're what, 78?

Yeah. Yeah. I still I only got I'm 22 from being 100. When I hit a 100, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do the rest of my life.

There you go. But I've been at Fort Worth 50 years this year and they're retiring me. Mr. Barnes, who was my boss there for 20 years, 30, is retired.

And I said, I don't want no big party, no spotlights, but it's inevitable it'll happen. I've lived through four mayors in my tenure at Fort Worth, Texas. Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. FWSSR.

com. That's so cool. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to go to Houston for a little longer.

When I can't snap it out, click it, quick it, cuz they got escalators. Somebody will take me in a wheelchair if that's what it takes. Uh, then I need to get out of there. And there are my dear friend Boyd Paulus and I have been side by side.

Randy Corley and I, Wayne Brooks, who I still work with a lot, side by side. Now I got Garrett Urugan and Anthony Lucia and they are so smart, but they're electronically smart. They can do things in 10 minutes. It takes me three hours to do the study work, but I still like doing the study work.

I do the oldfashioned way with an iPad. Yeah, you just they go clickity click and they got the answer and I'm going h screen over. How do I do that? the oldfashioned way with the iPad.

Yeah. Yeah. Just sticking to the old school. Yeah.

Old school iPads. I never had a computer till six, seven years ago when I got in the real estate business. Had to take 180 hours online. What's what's your real estate business called?

Platinum Realy Weatherford, Texas. That's right. Do y'all mainly selling raw land or? We sell if it's for sale, we sell it.

There you go. But um if we ever get to do another podcast, I'd like to do it on just real estate. Not because we sell it and we've been successful. God is good.

Jesus is goodter. You talk about being blessed, but I have a real estate partner, Phil Sanders, okay, who is brilliant. And um I don't know how to really when we get to do another podcast I'll tell you the whole story. It's an intric it's evil if you don't do it right and it burns a lot of people.

Our success story has been blessed over and over and over. How do people buy beef from you? Um, well, we've been doing it 16 years and I am a sixth generation. There's seven with my family.

Uh, cow person. I've got pictures go back to 1903 in northern Nevada. Uh, my great greatuncle came here in 1895. Uh, we've been in the beef business, cow calf beef business a long time.

And locally at home, I have a Facebook page, Bob Tolman's Reserve Angus Beef. And then once they buy, they normally buy back. I got people that have bought back for 12, 13 years, buy a quarter, buy a half, buy a whole beef, split it up, whatever. But they trust us because we are holistic.

And it's pretty good stuff. Is it? I need to get you all some. I'll buy some.

See what you think. I don't think you can buy it, but I'll get you. You come to my show in Granberry and I'll buy some beef from you. I'll bring you some uh indicator so you're healthier when you get there.

There you Yeah. There you go. There you go. There you go.

Well, man, you've been really generous with your time and I really appreciate it. This was a pinch me pinch myself moment for sure. It is for me, too. Yeah.

Well, that's cool to hear. You said a lot of cool stuff to me, and I really appreciate it. Write me a song about time. I'll try.

It's a broad If you'll booger it out someplace when you least expect it. Yeah. Yeah. They hit like a lightning bolt sometimes.

Let the prayer be your morning lightning bolt and let your prayer be your closing cloud at night. Thank you, Jesus, for the moment. Thank you for tomorrow. Pay forward.

Amen. Bless you. That's where we end it. See y'all.

Thanks, Paul. The floors of a wild bar with the daylight floor. It's the final crash. It'll leave him putting back the pieces.

She don't need him. No. Mama said these men ain't built right. Only good at leaving after one night.

Yes, Mayor May might seem polite, but Mustangs run wild. It's another jackpot. Living life like a heathen. Everybody knows ain't no rest for the wicked.

She's doping his ass like a cold. Don't come home. Kick rocks cowboy.