If the prime illustration of the Yiddish word chutzpah (presumption-plus-arrogance) is the teenage boy who murders his parents and then asks the court for mercy because he is an orphan, then perhaps the prime illustration of the word mishegoss (insanity) is to be a competitive bull rider.
But to Milwaukee native sportswriter Josh Peter, successful bull riders in fact have to have some chutzpah and mishegoss, but also more — “burning desire and passion,” “love for riding and a sense of connection to the animals,” and the capacity to confront and vanquish their own fear.
“I’ve read and heard that the best way to overcome your fears is to face them head-on,” Peter said in a telephone interview. “I know [riding bulls] must bring an incredible exhilaration and sense of power, the way it does when we face a personal fear and conquer it.”
How does Peter know this without ever having himself attempted what the riders must do — sit on the back of a one-ton bull with one hand gripping a rope and, despite the bull’s serious objections, stay there for eight seconds?
Peter followed the Professional Bull Riders season across the country from January to October 2004, and chronicled it in his first book, “Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies & Bull Riders: A Year Inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour,” recently published by Rodale (246 pages, $24.95).
In fact, Peter said the process of writing a first book and bull riding are both “terrifying … I felt like I was on a bull, and it threw me, and I was stupid enough to climb on again.”
And he did this while “juggling fatherhood and husband-hood” and working his regular job as a sportswriter at the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Seeks the off-beat
The result is a colorful read, and not only because of the personalities and eccentricities of the riders. There are also the managers, the breeders of the bulls, the animal rights activists who oppose the whole business, and the riders’ families, girlfriends and “buckle bunnies” (groupies).
The bulls also are important and colorful characters; as one rider put it, “These guys are athletes as well.” They have such delicious names as Ugly, Bodacious, Little Yellow Jacket, Tornado; and they are themselves in competition for the title of Bull of the Year.
And there is beginning to be sizeable money involved in this “extreme sport.” Beginning in 2003, the champion rider of the year took home a $1 million prize; and the number of viewers has grown from 12 million in 1995 to around 100 million today.
Peter came to this subject the same way he came to much of his career. “I’ve always been attracted to the off-beat, enjoyed finding stories in places other people weren’t going,” he said.
While born in Milwaukee, Peter was raised in southern California with many trips back to visit grandparents Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz, and Ruth (now of Denver) and the late Manny Peter. Once he learned in high school that he couldn’t hope for a career as a professional athlete (having been cut from the soccer and basketball teams), he joined the school newspaper and began transforming a love of reading good stories about sports into a career.
Even then, and later as a journalism major at Northwestern University, he was eager to write about subjects others might disdain — freshman and sophomore football in high school, women’s basketball in college.
After six years working in South Carolina – where this Reform Jew found himself being “an ambassador for the religion. People would say to me, ‘I’ve never met a Jew; tell me about Judaism’” — he joined the Times-Picayune in 1997, becoming “sports enterprise and investigative writer.”
Then came the day in 2000 when he was walking by his boss’s desk and saw a press kit for a bull riding event. “It would have ended up in the trash,” but “I knew it had to be an interesting story,” Peter said.
Peter, his wife Vanessa and 16-month-old daughter Nora came through Hurricane Katrina with only mild damage to their home. Still, out of “concern for Nora’s future as much as our own,” Peter is contemplating leaving New Orleans, possibly for southern California.
He is also thinking about writing another book, the true story of a young New Orleans man “from the projects” who faced charges of crack possession; but who stole a school bus and evacuated some 60 people from the city before Katrina hit.
“What I love about this story is what it says about how we define people and view them,” Peter said. “This kid, who was largely seen as a hoodlum and of no use to the community, in the face of a crisis acted heroically…. It’s amazing.”
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