HOLY COW! LET'S BUCK!

It takes a lot to surprise this jaded New Yorker, but one 19-year-old amateur bull rider from Oklahoma managed to do just that in a big way. Alvin Morris, the bull rider I sponsor who rides in a shirt embroidered with my Let's Buck tagline and website and hands out bumper stickers printed with the same at rodeos in exchange for my covering his entrance fees, has gone above and beyond. Take a look at the below. I am still in shock. Yeah, that's a real tattoo.

The design came from the mudflap girls on his chaps, combined with my tagline, which he loved from the moment he first heard it. The below chaps also inspired the colors for the sponsor shirt Alvin wears, a black button-down with hot pink embroidery reading Let's Buck www.catjohnson.net down his free arm.

Before you non-ink people freak out and start with the "tattoos are forever" argument, let me launch my own defense. Alvin once told me he is going to ride until he "competes in the championship in Vegas or is too crippled to ride at all", so I dare say bull riders are forever as well as tattoos. It's just my guess, but I don't think Alvin will ever regret his tattoo.

He promises a better picture in 2 weeks after he's allowed to wash it. It's just hours old now but (forgive me--the marketing professional in me can't help saying this) the timing of his surprise for me couldn't be better, just as my Studs in Spurs series has new releases. BUCKED (Studs in Spurs, Book 2), the title that inspired the Let's Buck line, releases in paperback worldwide Dec. 7th. And RIDE (Studs in Spurs, Book 3) releases in eBook from Samhain Publishing Dec. 28th.

Make no mistake, Alvin didn't even give me a hint except to say I had a surprise coming Friday night. I actually thought he'd gotten a stock contractor to name a bull after me, which I'd joked about him doing. I'm still speechless from Alvin's surprise. All I can say is, LET'S BUCK!