There's a commercial airing regularly featuring Tom Selleck peddling reverse mortgages. It's too soon to call this a good ad or a bad ad -- the test is how many widgets a commercial sells.
But one notable feature of a version of that ad has Tom Selleck beginning his spiel by telling the camera lens this isn't his first rodeo. What exactly does that mean in this context? This is not his first commercial? Buying a reverse mortgage is like mounting a bucking bronc, and he's done it before?
Grammarist.com defines it this way:
This ain’t my first rodeo means I am not a novice to this situation, I have experience in this area and I am competent. The idiom this ain’t my first rodeo is mostly used in instances where a less experienced person is trying to give advice to a more experienced person, and is meant to establish superiority.
It doesn't quite fit. The TV viewer is not trying to give Tom Selleck advice, it's the other way around.
In any event, an IMDB search dug up a made-for-tv movie in which he played a rodeo rider. The movie is Ruby Jean and Joe summarized thusly:
The elderly and fading rodeo-rider Joe Wade (Tom Selleck) picks up the young female hitchhiker Ruby Jean (Rebekah Johnson). Even though that Joe is constantly being corrected by Ruby Jean their beginning friendship is growing. Their conversations on the road puts both of them in a position to deal with their lives.
Ah ha. It's getting clearer now. Selleck is getting old and has to deal with new things as he ages. He assumes his audience is too. It's starting to make sense now. But sorry, Tom. I'm not in the market for a mortgage, reverse or obverse.
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1:43 PM 10/27/2019