Fun Question:

[Old Ironsights]

You are visiting a Left Cast Beach. While there, a guy in a Suit invites you behind a Police Line to a Location Shoot and says he will pay you $500 for your opinion.

He presents you with 2 actors - Identically garbed in ranch/roughneck clothing and equally "Movie Hero" in aspect.

He says, both men are Unknowns. Neither are from Hollywood/California. Both show an adequate amount of skill. Both know/quickly learn their lines. But the Movie Execs are looking for "real".

You are not allowed to have a conversation with either "cowboy". How do you pick the "real" Cowboy/Roughneck?

[Chuck 100 yd]

It`s the one with BS on his boots.

[octagon]

Working man has working hands.

[yooper2]

Amen to what Octagon said. You can tell a whole lot about folks by their mitts. I worked at a hardware store for a while and if people had working hands I just smiled and said hello. If they had office hands they were asked if they needed any help.


Eric

[Streetstar]

Amen to what Octagon said. You can tell a whole lot about folks by their mitts. I worked at a hardware store for a while and if people had working hands I just smiled and said hello. If they had office hands they were asked if they needed any help.


Eric

\\


i've lifted weights for various sporting endeavors and rode off-road dirt bikes in competition my whole adult life ---- my mitts look like they've paved the road to hell and back

--------- but................. I'm no cowboy and i definitely do not work physically like one in my civvie career ---- so i would say, this may be sometimes misleading ? (maybe not)

I worked an insurance claim for a successful dentist (judging from the size of his house that is ) recently ---- i did notice that he had the softest hands i had ever shook of a grown man his age (mid 50's) --- but he was a big, strapping guy - 6'3 and maybe 220 ---
If i was a dentist or doctor, i also probably would limit where i stuck those things ! (not sure i could give up the motocross or the weights though)

[Old Ironsights]

Yep, hands are too variable these days.

Answer: Have him take off his boots.

There's a right way and a wrong way, and you can see it when he does it/tries (even with a boot jack).

Then look at his feet/calves. A man who lives in Cowboy Boots will NOT have tanned shins/feet and will most likely have pasty white feet with boot toe...

Without a lot of prep-time those two things should be enough to separate Real from Dressed.

[7.62 Precision]

Yep, hands are too variable these days.

Answer: Have him take off his boots.

There's a right way and a wrong way, and you can see it when he does it/tries (even with a boot jack).

Then look at his feet/calves. A man who lives in Cowboy Boots will NOT have tanned shins/feet and will most likely have pasty white feet with boot toe...

Without a lot of prep-time those two things should be enough to separate Real from Dressed.

And he just might have a ring around his calf with no hair . . .

[firefuzz]

Yep, hands are too variable these days.

Answer: Have him take off his boots.

There's a right way and a wrong way, and you can see it when he does it/tries (even with a boot jack).

Then look at his feet/calves. A man who lives in Cowboy Boots will NOT have tanned shins/feet and will most likely have pasty white feet with boot toe...

Without a lot of prep-time those two things should be enough to separate Real from Dressed.

And he just might have a ring around his calf with no hair . . .

And the real cowboy will be the one that puts knuckle bumps on your head when you ask him to take off his boots and show you his legs.

Rob

[BigSky56]

Pop always said never hire a guy that wears a straw hat or rolls his own cigarettes they spend to much time chasing their hat and papers around. offer them a dip of copenhagen the guy that uses 3 fingers and thumb or the lid to scope up a quarter of the can and put it in his lip is your man. danny

[Meeteetse]

Where I'm from cowboys and roughnecks are two different types.

Cowboys wear long sleeve shirts so their tan is hands, neck and face and the top of their head never sees the sun. Their boots are for riding not walking and there will never be a snuff can ring on their wranglers. Hell to sit a saddle with a can in your back pocket. The last thing a true cowboy takes off at night and puts on in the morning is his felt/beaver cowboy hat, never straw. A cowboy will occasionally wear a ball cap as long as it says "King Ropes, Sheridan Wyoming" on the crown.

A roughneck wears steal toed boots made for standing on a rig deck and usually has oil under his nails and is usually missing a finger or two from setting pipe. He will wear any type of ball cap as long as it has a beer logo on it and it was free. Usually has a tattoo or two.

There may be a joke to this, but in the real world I could pick the cowboy. Too many in the family not to know the signs.

[gundownunder]

The real one is the one with the bow legs and the outside half of his boot heels worn right off.

Give them a big toothy smile, the man your looking for will grin back at you with his mouth still shut, because he knows what flies and dust taste like

[Sixgun]

I'd say it's the guy with the 14 pound belt buckle and a cucumber taped to his inner thigh.----6

[Canuck Bob]

This thread drove me to tears! When someone says cowboy there is only one man that meets the full description in my world, Ed Pugh, my uncle. He wore a straw hat, never smoked and thought snuff was a nasty habit, never saw him shoot or carry a gun, he had enough of that in Europe.

At 78 he drove the Calgary Stampede bucking stock herd across the Red Deer River and taught many generations of cowboys how it was done. He was the trail boss.

He taught me to ride, brand, fence, and corrected my attitude. RIP Uncle Ed.

I don't think a real cowboy would have anything to do with the bunch of wannabees described above. He'd have cattle to tend and family to raise.

[DPris]

Good set-up.

I have another one:

Same scenario, but you get to ask each candidate for the role one single question.
"How do you pronounce carbine"?

One answers "carbine".
The other answers "carbine".

Which one do you recommend as the genuine authentic Western cowboy?
Denis

[piller]

If you want to find out which one is a roughneck, ask him when he last tripped and how far. Where I grew up, the real cowboys did not keep their skoal or copenhagen in their back pocket because that is rather uncomfortable to have there when you are in the saddle. The real cowboys out where I grew up knew what a frog was and where they could be found.

[DPris]

No takers on the "carbine" vs "carbine" question?
Too esoteric?
Denis

[JB]

I'd put on a recording of the Village People's YMCA and see which one had the best moves. Movies have to be entertaining after all!

[FWiedner]

Is either one of the guys Tom Selleck?

[piller]

No takers on the "carbine" vs "carbine" question?
Too esoteric?
Denis

If they were from Texas, it would be pronounced KYAR-BIGN, but anywhere else and it would be pronounced CARBEEN.

[DPris]

Bingo!

Out here in the West, it's carbeen.

Anybody who pronounced it carbyne amongst my sagebrush would be considered an Easterner.

Wanno go for Colorado vs Colorado, now?

After that, we could do Nevada vs Nevada.
Denis

[Streetstar]

I just watched this movie --- i used to laugh at how corny "bud n sissy" were -- but this time i really watched it , and enjoyed it --- the filmmaker captured oil boom era Texas life ---
--- Uncle Bob's nice new house in a new sub-division with no yard that backed up to a weed choked field and a refinery in the background was something i had never noticed before


But the age old question is who is the real "cowboy" --- Wes Hightower, or Bud Davis -- after all , Bud won the buckin bull competition at Gilleys !




OR

[piller]

I would bet that you could put John Travolta near a horse and ask him to look at the frogs and he would look anywhere but at the horse.

[Streetstar]

I would bet that you could put John Travolta near a horse and ask him to look at the frogs and he would look anywhere but at the horse.

LOL --- Scott Glenn is also a gnarly looking dude --- anything you put him in he looks the part ---- but you never know, he might sing showtunes away from the camera's eye --

[KiwiKev]

If he spent a lot of time on the back of a horse he may have slightly bowed legs. He would also have a face of character weathered by the elements. His finger nails and hands would probably be stained and possibly rope burned. ( As mentioned by Octogon) He will also look very uncomfortable in a suit.

[Gobblerforge]

So what is the correct answer?
Gobbler

[GoatGuy]

No takers on the "carbine" vs "carbine" question?
Too esoteric?
Denis

If they were from Texas, it would be pronounced KYAR-BIGN, but anywhere else and it would be pronounced CARBEEN.

Was born in Arkansas to parents of mixed heritage (Paternal-Texas/Maternal-Arkansas). Raised in Dallas, Texas. Schooled in Texas. Dad's close knit, large family all from TX. Have lived/worked in Texas, New Mexico, Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas and traveled extensively in other states. Never in my lifetime (and I'm an old sonuvabuck) have I heard ANYONE refer to a carbine as a KYAR-BIGN. As insulting as that is to the ear, I think I would have remembered an utterance of that term in describing a fine example of the most handily carried rifled arm.

[vancelw]

No takers on the "carbine" vs "carbine" question?
Too esoteric?
Denis

If they were from Texas, it would be pronounced KYAR-BIGN, but anywhere else and it would be pronounced CARBEEN.

Was born in Arkansas to parents of mixed heritage (Paternal-Texas/Maternal-Arkansas). Raised in Dallas, Texas. Schooled in Texas. Dad's close knit, large family all from TX. Have lived/worked in Texas, New Mexico, Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas and traveled extensively in other states. Never in my lifetime (and I'm an old sonuvabuck) have I heard ANYONE refer to a carbine as a KYAR-BIGN. As insulting as that is to the ear, I think I would have remembered an utterance of that term in describing a fine example of the most handily carried rifled arm.

Kinda what I was thinking. The only time I've ever heard it called anything but KAR BEEN was on TV.