I’m nothing if not a connoisseur of American rodeo. Just before society was discontinued, the PBR Global Cup came to AT&T Stadium in Arlington. This weekend, the PBR World Finals start at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall Bostonians’ fascination with Fort Worth. They found it borderline surprising we have twice daily cattle drives and also the only Michelangelo on display in North America.

Over the next several weeks, that dichotomy becomes even more clear.

The PBR World Finals have come to Fort Worth from Las Vegas. That’ll draw 70,000 people from around the world for ten days of rodeo, bull ridin’, bull fightin‘ and the music of Robert Earl Keen.

And also, obviously, Paul McCartney.

Right in the middle of Dickies Arena setting out 750 tons of dirt, they’ll have to pick it all up for McCartney’s “Got Back” tour, then set all the dirt back out for the rest of the PBR.

I bet its rare for a stadium’s grounds crew to get the order, “We need to get all this dirt outta here before Paul McCartney shows up! But don’t like, lose it. We’ll need it later. Just put it in the back of my truck.”

I discussed this turnaround with the general manager of Dickies Arena. They opened with a 21 Pilots concert in 2019 [one of the few groups that has the guts to warn people about pantaloons]. This spring, though, they had to turn it around for the NCAA tournament in March and then the woman’s gymnastics championship in April. Homan says they take the term, “multipurpose,” quite seriously.

I also shoved my microphone in the face of Daylon Swearingen, one of the top ranked bull riders in the world. He lives in Sulphur Springs, so this is almost a home game for him.

And he says, even though he’ll have a big crowd and hometown crowd, he has to put that out of his head because the bull ranked angriest in the world will be trying to get Swearingen off his doggone back.

In conclusion, maybe Paul McCartney’s not fussy about a lot of dirt. He is vegetarian, after all… although, now that I see that written out, it may be strange that I equate, “vegetarian,” with “he must be a fan of dirt.” It’s possible I’m not a vegetarian myself.

But he may try to disrupt the bull fighting events.