The Bobby Bones Show - The Tears and Tenacity of A Clown

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Brandon Dunn was born into rodeo royalty. And for twenty years he fulfilled his destiny -- until a tragic car accident ended his career. Or nearly ended it. Brandon tells his story of loss and rehabilitation, and welcomes us into the fascinating world of rodeo clowning. To see Brandon in action, check-out his page here. (http://www.roblittle.com/)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits,

my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component. to communities thriving. If there's not enough money

and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they failed. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast,

a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions, you can have like a strong stance, and then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight

change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everybody, a quick heads up. This episode deals with some unexpected loss, so listen at your own discretion. I have these long wrangler baggy pants that are about five times too big, some old red suspenders. I've got different colored socks and converse tennis shoes with white 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 Avery 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 here episode, we're talking with a rodeo clown. Yehah! Now I bet that there are probably a few of you out there going, what in blabbering tarnation is 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 600 rodeos put on across the USA and countless more amateur events. And according to some sources, bull riding is now America's fastest-growing 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. At most rodeos, Brandon has a designated time slot in which he gets to come out there at the center of the rodeo ring and perform his feature act. It's kind of a spoof of the old top gun movie. I've got an old airplane that is actually the cockpit of it is an old World War II airplane,

but it's built on a Corvair 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 and the new Top Gun movie, and it brings a lot of laugh. 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 them bulls will 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 him 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 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?

In 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 there. 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 ombrays. 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. But then, it turns out that you could also say the same thing about Brandon. My mom was a professional barrel racer. My dad was a steer wrestler.

But I think I got the passion and love to rodeo clowning now for my uncle, which was Rex Dunn. He would do clown acts and fight bull. 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, every 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 blueheater dog that would chase you around, and I'd let that dog chase me around

pretending he was a bull. That's the only thing I could 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 though city slickers up in New York pile into 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 you just kind of travel all across the United States. Do you like that aspect of it, or does 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 night's 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 they were miles that he accepted because he knew that when he got there, whether it was a big stadium in Houston or a rinky-dink little corral in Idaho, that he had a job to do. When I'm in the arena, I forget about 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. I'm just trying to kind of keep to myself. And a lot of people that don't know me or know what I do, they don't really understand. They don't really understand. And how can you be a clown? Because outside the arena, you're so serious.

You're so withdrawn from people. But when I get in that arena, you got to lay all that back. No matter what's going on, you just got to drop it there when you walk in that arena and entertain the crowd. 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 games 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 life in the arena. And for 17 years, Brandon lived that life. Weekend after weekend, bull after bull. 17 years of showmanship. 17 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 17 years traveled the country as a rodeo clown and bullfighter, entertaining audiences with his 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 thinking, 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.

That's the choice, career choice, that you're going to be in. But at this point in the game, there's not. 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 2003, 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. They 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, I just pouted. I just 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 hunkered 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 12 years old or so. He kept telling me, he said, Dad, I really want to fight bulls. I really want to five bulls. And the little rascal, I said, son, if you want to do this, you're going to have to put out some efforts to show me that you want to get in shape.

Of course, he's 12 years old. But the kid started coming home when he started running, and he started doing pushups and sit-ups every night. And I thought, well, now dad's got to put up or shut up. So I bought him a little, little bitty miniature Zibu Bull. and I thought, well, this thing, he was mean little rascal. And I thought, this little sucker, he's going to eat Brindle's lunch up, and that'll be that. We'll be through with this.

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 Brenda's passion for rodeo blossom, his old love for the sport reemerged. So I thought, well, the only way that I know to guide this deal is maybe get me a barrel and see if I can go back to just being inside the barrel and doing my clownax 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 into 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, and life is good. How does it feel to have your son following in your clown shoes? You know, I've always told Brindle from my 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 times that, man, I just want to stick my head in the barrel and not see what's happening. And I told him, I said, son, if you ever want to go play Tidley Winks, let's just go play Tidley Wink's and we'll be the Tidley 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, in 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 bull fights, and I'm in the barrel. He brings that bull to the barrel, and it's just a total conversation. While that barrel is getting mucked out by that bull, Brindle's protecting that barrel. And we'll talk and we'll laugh.

outside that thing. And from the outside, I'm sure people in the stands think, you know, one of us is fixing to get killed. Brennell's got total control over the situation. I feel just completely safe in his hands when I'm in that barrel. And every time we get out of it, we give each other one great big hug. That's probably the highlight of my whole career. For on the job, I'm Avery Thompson. I'll see you down that dusty trail. A win is a win. A win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the Fourth. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.

This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they failed. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Reck. radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.