Now Here's an Odd Job: Mexican Rodeo Clown in Queens

Miguel Angel Lorea Hoyos, also known as "Cowboy's Pet," is a rodeo clown in a bull ring in Howard Beach, New York City. His job is to distract the bulls so that the cowboys can be safer as they do what they have to do.

Hoyos' way of making his living is one of the very few not in danger of being outsourced to a nation with lower wages. In fact, the job of rodeo clown has been imported from Mexico.

As Hoyos explains in Spanish in this video, he honed his skills as a rodeo clown when he was a little boy in Mexico. Over the years he has adjusted to the peril of being right in there with the bulls. Today, he only shrugs and notes that the cowboys have it worse than he does.

Perhaps the key to his calm is his sense of selflessness. For one thing, he is grateful to have a job in America. For another, he sees himself as not that all-important in the world of showbiz.