The Tears and Tenacity of a Clown

Hey, everybody, a quick heads up. This episode deals with some unexpected loss, so listen at your own discretion.

I have these long wringler baggy pants that are about five times to be some old red suspenders. I've got different colored socks and converse tennis shoes with wide around. My eyes and my mouth and the rest of my face is painted red kind of. It's an old school traditional look.

Welcome back to on the Job. I'm Averrey Thompson, and this week we're making a call over to Petrolia, Texas, a little town up there on the banks of the Red River, to speak with Brandon Dunn, who has, at least in my opinion, one of the more fascinating jobs on the planet.

I'm Brandon Dunn. I'm a professional rodeo clown and barrel man.

That's right, partners. This year episode we're talking with a rodeo clown. Yeeha. Now, I bet that there are probably a few of you out there going what in blabbering tarnation as a rodeo clown or heck, maybe you're surprised to hear that rodeos still exist, to which I'm here to tell you all that rodeos are alive and bucking.

It is a huge business, and I think the popularity of rodeo is growing more so now than it has ever before it So I don't think rodeo is going anywhere anytime soon.

And that's not a biased opinion. There there are more than six hundred rodeos put on across the USA and countless more amateur events, and according to some sources, bull riding is now America's fastest grown sport, which means that people like Brandon Dunn can make a full time career as a rodeo clown. Which if that doesn't make you proud to be an American, well I don't know what will.

It's kind of a spoof of the old top Gun movie. Got an old airplane? That is that Actually the cockpit of it is an old World War two airplane, but it's built on a corvet body, And so I'll fly that thing in there and crash land that right in the middle of the arena and tell everybody I'm trying out to be Tom Cruise in the new Top Gun movie, and it brings a lot of laughs. Kids really enjoy it.

But most rodeo clowns also have a job to do during the actual bull and bronco riding events, and Brandon is certainly no exception, which is why he also calls himself a barrel man, which strangely enough, is exactly what it sounds like. Brandon will climb into a barrel which has holes in the top and bottom for his head and feet to protrude from, and then he'll get in the ring and wait for the bull and his rider to come shooting out of the gates.

A lot of them times in bulls of buck, three or four or five steps out of the buck and shoot the bull rider bucks off. It's too far to get to the fence for them to be safe, and so I can bring that barrel in there to them and distract the bull, and the bull hit me in the barrel instead of the bull rider. In the bull riding instance.

What's it feel like to have a bull hit the barrel?

It does get intense. Sometimes that bull will end over end that barrel and you come out of that barrel and you don't know which ends up, and it's quite surprising.

And with there being two holes in that barrel, if a barrel man's not careful or just downright unlucky, sometimes a bull can even get his head or horns in there.

I had a bull to get his head in the barrel with me before, and man, it looked like watching the video, I think, how did I even survive that? And a matter of fact, the bull bloodied his nose when he stuck his head in there, and the blood of that bull's nose was all over the barrel. Well, everybody thought that was my blood inside and they were trying to roll me out of the arena.

So the moral of the story, folks, is, don't let that makeup fool you. These rodeo clowns are a tough bunch of ombreis. And in case you haven't been to a rodeo lately, let me remind you that we're not talking about some little dairy cows here. These rodeo bulls are supreme athletes who have been carefully bred to be very big and ferociously mean. So from the very moment these bulls are born, there's no question what they're going to be doing. These bulls are destined for the rodeo.

My mom was a professional bell racer, my dad was a steer wrestler. But I think I got the passion of love to rodeo clowner now for my uncle, which was Rex Done. He would do clown acts and five bulls, and I think that's where my passion and the love for clowning was born.

So rodeo clowning is in your blood, It's in your heritage, you know.

Ever since I could remember, that's all I've ever wanted to do. I mean from the time that I can very first remember if I would have a set of old baggies that my mom might cut up for me, try to put on her old lipstick or something to paint my face up with, and I would go outside and we had an old blue healer dog that would chase you around, and I let that dog takes me around, pretending he was a bull. That's the only thing I can ever remember really wanting to be was a rodeo clown.

No matter where you are in this big country of ours, there's a good chance you can find a rodeo nearby. Even those city slickers up in New York piland to Madison Square Garden for three days every January to watch riders and clowns perform their craft at its highest level, Which means that the life of a rodeo man is very much a life on the road.

I have to pretty much drive everywhere, and of course in the state of Texas, Oklahoma got rodeos in Idaho and Montana, so we just kind of travel all across the United States.

Do you like that aspect of it or does it travel get tiring?

It gets tiring, But I think I've got enough gypsy blood in me. And like I say, rodeo is a way of life, not only the competition parts of it, but the knights on the road, the time's away from home. I mean, you certainly miss your family. So I've got a wife that's very, very supportive, and she grew up in the rodeo industry as well, so she very well understands the nature of this business. But there's times that you'll leave the house and it may be a month or two before you get back home.

So that's how it went for Brandon. From one rodeo to the next, with lots of lonely miles in between. But there were miles that he accepted because he knew that when he got there, whether it was a big stadium in Houston or rinky dink little corral in Idaho, that he had a job to do.

When I'm in the arena, I forget everybody everything else in the outside. That's kind of my sanctuary, and I know for two hours, people have paid good money to come and be entertained at a rodeo, and that is my primary focus. To make sure that those people that they can forget about their troubles and they can leave and say, you know, we have been well entertained outside of that arena. I'm truly I'm not a people person.

Do you think putting on your outfit, putting on the makeup allows you to become this other person?

Most definitely. I would compare it to be like a method actor or something like that. You know, you get into that character, and this character has become, for lack of a better word, kind of my alter ego. When I walk in there, I mean, it's kind of the Chris Gains of Garth Brooks. When I walk in there, I'm still Brandon, but I just take on this whole new character and a whole new light in the arena.

And for seventeen years, Brandon lived that life, weekend after weekend, full after ball, seventeen years of showmanship, seventeen years of doing what he loved, and then it all came to a tragic halt. We'll be right back.

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We're back speaking with Brandon Dunn, who for seventeen years traveled the country as a rodeo clown and bullfighter, entertaining audiences with this comedy act and then stepping in the ring with some of the world's fiercest bulls.

What are you thinking about right before they open the gate?

There's really not a whole lot of thank of course, I don't think you really think to be if you're going to be a rodeo clown or bullfighter anyway, I think half your brain has kind of been removed the choice, career choice that you're going to be in. But at this point in the game, there's not a whole lot of thinking. It's just more reaction. You know what your job is. It's just time to go get your job done.

But then, in April of two thousand and three, Brandon and his family were involved in a horrific car accident. The head on collision with a drunk driver killed Brandon's seven year old daughter and left Brandon crippled.

There was four of us in that vehicle, and we were all in separate hospitals. Didn't get to see each other I didn't get to go to my daughter's funeral. I mean, it busted me up from head to toe. It took my Rodeo career, and to be truthful, probably the first six years of it, I just pouted. I was in a deep depression. You know, my whole life had been completely turned upside down.

In this time of darkness, Brandon turned away from Rodeo life completely.

I kind of cut myself off from even my good friends that were Rodeo on I just kind of, like I said, I just pouted, stayed to myself. I tried to change my whole lifestyle because Rodeo was such a deep part of who I was and had such a huge influence on me that I just completely just cut myself off from that world.

In the absence of Rodeo, Brandon hungered down at home and focused his energy on the family cattle ranch. He deepened his connection with his family and his faith in God. He started up a little church that he became a pastor of. But even though Brandon had turned his back on Rodeo, Rodeo wasn't about to let him go that easily because the passion Brandon once had for Rodeo was beginning to show itself in the next generation of duns.

I guess he was about twelve years old or so. He kept telling me. He said, Dad, I really want to fight bulls. I really want to fight bulls. And the little rascal, I said, the son, if you want to do this, you're going to have to put out some efforts. Showed me that you want to get in shape. Of course, he's twelve years old, but the kids started coming home when he started running, and he started doing push ups and set ups every night, and I thought, well,

But instead, Brandon's son fell in love with that little bull, and his interest in rodeoing only grew. And as Brandon watched his son Brendle's passion for rodeo blossom, his old love for the sport re emerged.

So I thought, well, the only way that I know to goud this deal is maybe get me a barrel and see if I can go back to just being inside the barrel and doing my clown ax and stuff.

So a few years after Doctors narrowly managed to put Brandon Dunn back together again, he was back out in the rodeo ring.

And sure enough it took off. The first probably three or four years of Brindle's rodeo career, we were working rodeos, me and him, and so I really never had intentions of coming back to the level of the game that I'm at right now. But God's kind of brought it all back full circle, and it was because of Brindle. Here we are in life is good.

How does it feel to have your son following in your clown truth?

You know, I've always told Brindle from an early age. I said, son, you don't have to do this because I do this. And honestly, there's times out there that I couldn't be more proud. But there's time said, man, I just want to stick my head in the barrel and not see what's happening. I told him, I said, son, if you ever want to go play Tidley Winks, let's just go play Tiddley Winks. So we'll be the tidy wing champion. It'll be a whole lot easier on your dad.

But of course this is a done we're talking about, and Brandon's son is the next generation and a long lineage of people born and bred for the rodeo ring.

I never dreamed, even when I was fighting bulls, that I would be able to share the arena with my son the way that I do now. And we have lots of highlights, especially when he's in the bullfights and I'm in the barrel. He brings that bull to the barrel and it's just a total conversation while that barrel

For on the job. I'm Avery Thompson. I'll see you down that dusty trail.