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    Big city girl meets country

    Don't expect PC in a small town rodeo & other lessons from Matagorda

    Rachel Hanley
    Mar 19, 2010 | 10:37 am
    • Cowboys getting ready for to release the bull
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • Cowboy riding the bronco
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • Cowboy in training
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • One of the many Fair games
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • Swing Carousel
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • Matagorda County Fair
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • Horses running pre-rodeo
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • A great view of the arena
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • The rodeo clown/political commentator
      Photo by Rachel Hanley
    • We all stood for the national anthem and prayer.
    • Mutton Bustin' was a highlight of the show.
    • Cowboy roping a calf – and I could see it from the stands!

    Dressed in cowboy boots, a straw hat, plaid pearl-snap shirt and jeans — I looked the part but felt completely out of place at the Matagorda County Fair Livestock Show and Rodeo.
     
    At first everything seemed normal — a ferris wheel, swing carousel, carnival games, livestock — everything a fair and rodeo should be. Compared to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, it was of course smaller with fewer rides, only about 20 cows, three pigs and a single goat — but I expected as much.

    While Bay City — the Matagorda rodeo's base — is only about 80 miles from downtown Houston, a lot changes in those clicks of the car odometer.

    Matagorda's entire county has a population of less than 40,000. You're definitely not on Kirby anymore.
     
    Which can be good for your wallet. I am happy to say I could buy a meal for $5. The Houston rodeo is out to get every penny in your pocket, but in Matagorda, church groups provide healthy competition for the vendors..
     
    Finally, the rodeo began. My friends and I found our place on the bleachers and I realized what a fabulous view I was going to have. I watch the screens at the Houston rodeo but here, everything was going to be lifesize (versus ant-size).

    It was around this time that my friends leaned over and laughingly told me I ought to take notes of the commentators' remarks. I didn't understand at first. Then they told me, "Last year he said, 'We welcome all religions here — Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist ... and even Catholic.' "
     
    I was shocked. I knew I was in small town Texas, but I confess I didn't fully understand the culture that came with it.

     Bucking broncs & Obama's health plan
     
    The lights turned low signaling the start of the rodeo. I was excited. The announcer opened the evening with a prayer which surprised me, but I had no problem with it. Then out came "whether you worship in a temple, a synagogue or a church we are privileged to live in a country where we can pray to the one true God."

    I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but then he ended with, "In Jesus' name." Once again, I was shocked. I haven't heard someone at a public event end a prayer with Jesus' name, I think ever. This would never happen in Houston.
     
    The show quickly started and there were more events than the Houston rodeo. It was a good three hours of bucking and goring and while the cowboys were not on par with the ones at the Houston rodeo, they still provided a great show.
     
    Another key element in the show was the rodeo clown. Heading in, I had no idea a rodeo clown would do more than make faces and taunt/distract bulls, but at this rodeo he was a key outlet to the political feelings of the commentator and the crowd.
     
    Of course, Obama's medical plan was a hot ticket. It began with asking the crowd if they'd like to see half of Congress on the bulls. The master of ceremonies then tried to dance around it by saying he didn't actually specify which half. If there were any question left in any of our minds, it was quickly cleared up as the clown stepped in crap and compared it to Obama's medical plan.

    Obama was also compared to a stretched-out bra — as both are losing support.
     
    I honestly didn't expect comments like that at a public event, but then I've never lived in a small town. I completely expect it with Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart (the other way) or a comedian, but not in a public event.
     
    The comments continued and the subject of women came up. A lady in the front row had her heels up and the clown remarked that it looked like she had a remote in her hand and was ready to watch TV. He then continued, "But I know you don't have a remote 'cause you're a woman."
     
    I know it was suppose to be funny, but I wasn't laughing

    It hit a little too close to home and reminded me of so many negative experiences with people who subscribe to this philosophy. They may comment jokingly, but on closer inspection I've found it's not all humorous.
     
    There were other comments speckled throughout the evening (A man dressed like an "Indian" for instance. Is it that hard to say Native Americans?) But there were also some genuinely funny moments. The clown tried dancing like Michael Jackson and the kids in the mutton bustin' were fabulous. It wasn't a completely bad show, but by the end, I felt like I was under a spotlight — and I dressed the part!
     
    I rode home with a Korean friend of mine and in a very white arena, it was uncomfortable for her as well. Another friend of mine jokingly said he was "looking for a lynching posse." It wasn't that bad, and there were other races and nationalities in the town — just not in the arena.
     
    As far as next year goes, I imagine I'll return. I just have a better idea of what to expect and PC is not it.

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    Movie Review

    'I Know What You Did Last Summer' reboot lacks energy or thrills

    Alex Bentley
    Jul 17, 2025 | 2:00 pm
    Sarah Pidgeon, Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders in I Know What You Did Last Summer
    Photo by Brook Rushton
    Sarah Pidgeon, Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

    When the original I Know What You Did Last Summer came out in 1997, it was riding the coattails of Scream, which came out in 1996. Like that film, it featured hot young actors of the time, albeit with a story that was much more standard than the inventive Scream. Still, it made enough of an impact for some studio executive to think it was worth reviving nearly 30 years later with its own legacy-quel.

    In the new I Know What You Did Last Summer, a group of five high school friends — Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) — have reunited at the engagement party for Danica and Teddy on the 4th of July. While on an impromptu trip to watch fireworks on a twisty road in the nearby hills, Teddy goofs off in the middle of the road, causing a truck to swerve and drive off the cliff.

    A year later, having sworn to each other to not speak of the accident to anybody, they start getting stalked by a mysterious person in a fisherman’s slicker carrying a hook. With Teddy’s rich father, Grant (Billy Campbell), actively trying to cover up what his son did (as well as the fallout), it’s up to the group to figure out who is coming after them and how to stop that person.

    Written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and co-written by Sam Lansky, the film doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel; in fact, it barely builds something that can roll. It might just be the laziest and most incompetent attempt to capitalize on an existing piece of intellectual property. There is almost zero effort put into establishing a connection between the members of the friend group, making them feel like strangers for the entire film.

    It doesn’t help that the young male actors in the film — which grows to include Wyatt (Joshua Orpin), a new fiance for Danica — serve no purpose other than to be generically good-looking. The most impactful of the men in the film is the returning Freddie Prinze, Jr., who — along with Jennifer Love Hewitt — has his old character from the first two films shoehorned into the new story. The filmmakers undercut any good feelings from their return by giving them hardly anything to do and then having Hewitt deliver the line, “Nostalgia is overrated.”

    The film as a whole never has a sense of momentum. The inciting incident is so tame — they even attempt to save the driver before the truck goes off the cliff — that the guilt they feel and the anger of the person going after them doesn’t feel warranted. Once the attacks start, it is shocking at how low-energy the sequences are, providing no sense of suspense or thrills. The filmmakers resort to the lamest of horror movie tropes, turning the film into a paint-by-numbers affair.

    Cline (one of the stars of Netflix’s Outer Banks) and Wonders (The Studio on Apple TV+, Bodies Bodies Bodies) are the clear stars of the film, but their characters are made into inert scream queens, negating any acting talent they possess. Hauer-King, Withers, and Pidgeon don’t bring anything interesting to their characters, existing merely to have someone else for the killer to go after.

    Even the worst films can have some kind of redeeming value if you look hard enough, but the only thing I Know What You Did Last Summer has to offer is that it becomes so comically bad by the end that you can’t help but laugh at its ineptitude. Both fans of the original and fans of horror movies in general will feel cheated by the experience.

    ---

    I Know What You Did Last Summer opens in theaters on July 18.

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