At the Gay Rodeo, Part III: Competition

Steer Riding

Jove asked how I wound up getting interested in rodeo. The short form is that my father is from (and I was born in) a part of the country that is heavily tinged with hilbilly. We lived all over the United States, moving around with the Air Force, but country/western music came along with us wherever we went. Then came college and a long residence in Boston, during which time I was determined to purify myself of everything rustic and blue collar. It didn't work. After two years of living in Chicago, I started two-stepping at Charlie's bar. And then I made friends with my buddy John, a resident of Dallas, who lured me down to Fort Worth for my first gay rodeo.

Which is why I have now spent many hours of my life photographing gay men and lesbians putting underwear on goats. (Keep reading. You'll see.)

Shooting the competitive events in progress is the toughest part of a rodeo for me, and also the most exciting. Some of the challenge comes from shooting with a camera that has limits capturing fast action in low light. Although for fans and competitors it may seem that all is bright, my faithful little Canon can struggle to keep up.


Grand Entry: Trooping the Colors

Sometimes I like to use this situation to advantage, as in the picture above. The arena crew, standing still, is sharp. The flag rider, galloping past, is blurred. To me, the contrast makes for a more interesting shot than one in which everybody appears to be still.

I've learned to "pan" my camera along with (for example) moving horses and bulls in order to get the shots I need. This isn't foolproof (one can't always swing the camera at precisely the speed the horse is moving, while keeping it in the frame), but when I works the result is gratifyingly kinetic.

(Note: I notice with annoyance that both Blogger and Flickr [my two means of adding images] have a "helpful" image compression built in that squeezes the detail right out of these photos, which I've already compressed to my own satisfaction. Ah, well. It probably only makes difference to me. But I swear they're not so blurry as they appear.)


Barrel Racing


Barrel Racing


Barrel Racing


Flag Racing


Flag Racing


Flag Racing


Breakaway Roping


Breakaway Roping


Breakaway Roping


Team Roping


Steer Decorating


Bareback Bronc Riding


Loading a rider, Women's Bareback Bronc Riding


Very Short Ride, Bareback Bronc Riding


Prep for the Wild Drag Race


Wild Drag Race


Wild Drag Race


Wild Drag Race


Wild Drag Race


Goat Dressing


Goat Dressing


Goat Dressing


Loading the chute, steer riding


Steer Riding


Steer Riding


Bull Riding

If you'd like more information on what in tarnation is going on in these pictures, you can get the whole scoop from the International Gay Rodeo Association Web site.

At the Gay Rodeo, Part II: Cowboys, Cowgirls, and Crew

When I was at the rodeo there was a crew from the Travel Channel interviewing attendees for an upcoming series on gay travel destinations. I didn't realize at the time that the little queen interviewing me is a gay reality TV figure, from some show about a race or racing or something.

One of the questions he asked was whether "gays like rodeo because of the dress-up element." I said while it didn't hurt, it isn't the main point. A gay rodeo is not a circuit party. It's not about A-list gays posing in silly costumes. If it were, I wouldn't be there.

Not, mind you, that I am immune to the appeal of well-fitted jeans and cowboy boots. I just prefer them on the real thing, not a porn star or a gym rat.

I'd like to thank the crew of the rodeo for their patience and good nature. The area behind the chutes, to which I had access for the first time in making rodeo photographs, is crowded, busy and dangerous. I was very nervous about getting in their way, but they were equally concerned about helping me out.

Rodeo people are good people.

At the Gay Rodeo, Part I: Fans

Spectators in the stands at my most recent gay rodeo. Competitors and crew will be the next entry, followed by shots of the competition.

In posting these, I find I'm so homesick for Texas (a place I've never lived) right now that I could scream. Nothing makes Chicago seem so bleak, uninteresting, and inhospitable as a few days in Dallas surrounded by people like this.

I'm more myself, more relaxed, and more comfortable shooting photos at a rodeo than I am anywhere else doing anything else.

Tidy Up the Blog Day

Errata

So math isn't my strong suit, as many of you found out reading the opening line of yesterday's post. In my mind, I'm not yet halfway to forty because I'm still on the lower end of my thirties. I'm not twelve, although I can still fit into my Boy Scout uniform (which was bought for me when I was twelve) when the occasion arises.

What occasion, you're wondering? Like I'm going to tell you. My mother reads this blog.

Opera

I was tickled blush and bashful, two distinctly different shades of pink, at how many of you either spoke up as opera lovers or said you'd think about giving some of the arias a whirl as knitting background.

I even heard from voice students, which frankly thrills me. I used to live surrounded by singers, and while one can go mad living the opera life, once you've tasted it you never get it out of your system. I wish you all Good Voice, kids. Work hard, and find a copy of Mary Garden's autobiography so you can read her advice on becoming an opera singer. She knew what the hell she was doing and became a legend in her own time. Ignore her good counsel at your peril.

It was interesting that two readers - LornaJay and Ted - recommended different settings of the "Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath) as suitable for moments of confusion or ripping back.

They're so right. I also find the "Dies Irae" infinitely useful, myself, as a film score for fantasies in which I take on the boss, or the Chicago Transit Authority, or slow-moving yuppie parents who block entire city sidewalks and intersections with baby carriages the size of SUVs.

Ring Tones

Speaking of cell phones, The "Mexican Hat Dance" has now been replaced on mine by a chime that sounds like entrance music for Tinkerbell as written by Philip Glass. It's not quite what I want, but neither does it draw withering glances from strangers on the train.

However, after reading Christopher's bold confession that he downloaded the theme from "The Facts of Life" as a ring tone, I'm suddenly feeling inspired. I haven't taken a moment to check to see what's available, but I'm wondering about:

1. "I Wish I Were an Oscar Meyer Weiner"
2. The opening theme from "Sesame Street"
   
3. Marlon Brando screaming, "Stella! Hey, Stella!" in A Streetcar Named Desire
4. "I'm a Little Teapot"

Embarrassment of Riches

May I please draw your attention to the birth of two perfectly splendid new blogs, by writers who should have set up blogs long ago but I'm glad they didn't because who the hell needs the competition?

We have, in alphabetical order:

• Carol, one the funniest women in America (and cute, too) over at Go Knit in Your Hat; and
• Ted, aka Knitterguy, who spins beautiful yarn with maddening ease and knits lace as though it were garter stitch (and ditto on the cute, I've seen his picture. nyah.).
  

Question of the Week

Buzz asks, "...isn't it better to be ahead of the wave, rather than behind it?"

No.

Coming Up

Pictures of gay cowboys, and not the two posers in Brokeback Mountain. Real ones. I'm going through 800 frames, though, so do be patient.

Phone Call of the Wild

I'm not even halfway to 40 yet and I'm already becoming a cranky old man. That's the dark side of precocity. At five, it's cute. In your thirties, it's premature aging.

My first and only cell phone, an ancient Motorola Star Tac, passed away quietly on Sunday morning after a long life plagued with illnesses and abnormalities. I hated it. It had lousy reception and a dodgy LCD display. It kept a battery charge for about as long as a second-rate cowboy keeps his seat on the back of an angry bull. It combined the toughness of a Fabergé egg with the aesthetics of a dung beetle.

After buying it, every time I'd hear news of layoffs at Motorola, which is a local company, I'd think, "Good. Serves you right."

I might have mourned the demise of Ugly Phone a bit more if I'd had any clue how things have changed in the past three years. Apparently, a telephone is no longer a small appliance. It is now a fashion statement. A mobile office. An entertainment center. A status symbol. And possibly a sex toy, given the way the guy at the Verizon store was quivering as he showed me what was for sale.

He positively bounced from model to model, flipping them open and fondling them. Camera phones, phones with Global Positioning capabilities, phones that would allow me to play violent computer games and catch up on "Dawson's Creek," phones that would allow me to select any song from the oeuvre of 50 Cent as my personal ring tone.

He was visibly deflated when I didn't join in the orgy of phone love.

"I don't want a phone with a camera," I said. "I have a camera."

"But you probably don't always have it with you," he said.

"I'm more likely to leave the phone at home than my camera," I said.

He got that "does-not-compute" look on his face.

"And I don't need the games, either," I said. "I don't play computer games."

"But hey, man, what do you do when you're waiting for the subway?" he said.

"I knit," I said.

"Okay, man, that's cool, that's cool, no games," he said, as I helped him up off the floor.

"And I want a phone that just rings. I don't want it to play music. I just want it to ring. Just ring, ring, ring. It could beep, maybe. But no music."

He was still smiling broadly, but I think he was wondering whether I might be dangerous or deranged.

"So, okay. No camera, no games, and you don't want it to play music."

"Nope. I just want a phone. I want to call people and get calls, but I don't need to hear from Gladys Knight and the Pips every time my mother wants to chat."

"Gladys? And the what?"

"Never mind. What do you have that just acts like a phone, and not a Chuck E. Cheese?"

He had completely ceased to vibrate. He pointed to one small, unassuming phone in the corner. It looked like a geek phone, a phone that never gets invited to cool parties, a phone that would rather stay inside and read than go play baseball. I felt a kinship with this phone.

"This is the simplest phone we got," he said. "It, um, doesn't do much. It has a color display. They all have color displays now, is that okay?"

"That's fine," I said. "Charge it up and let's go."

Het set it up for me, sighing and looking a little glum. But he got his own back. I stuck the thing in my pocket and forgot about it until I was halfway home on the subway, sitting the middle of the usual comatose cubicle victims. A friend of mine called and suddenly, inside my pocket, an entire mariachi band began to play the "Mexican Hat Dance" in living stereo at full volume.

And I realized I hadn't figured out how to shut off the phone yet.

Progress. Olé.

Knit Me an Aria

Wotan had taken away her immortality, but at least she still had her knitting needles.

I'm an opera fan, and while I don't listen to operatic music exclusively, I do find it highly suitable as a background for knitting.

A love of opera is much like a love of knitting: one feels compelled to spread the joy. To that end, I give you my off-the-cuff list of opera arias, duets, and scenes that pair well with certain types of knitting.

1. For knitting 2x2 rib. "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's The Barber of Seville. It may only be true for continental knitters (of which I am one), but if you can get the alternation of your knitting and purling to fall in with the rhythm of Figaro's patter, you can build up a head of steam and finish your sweater or cuff ribbing in record time. Don't try to keep up with the final molto allegro, though. You'll put your eye out.
   
   
2. For knitting something for your sweetheart. "Deh vieni, non tardar" from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. My favorite aria from my favorite opera. Simple and calm, but filled with the buoyant feeling you get (at least, I hope you do) when you think of the person you love.
   
   
3. For knitting lace. "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio," from Verdi's Falstaff. When it's properly performed, the texture of the music is pure gossamer.
   
   
4. For ripping back a little. "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinen Herzen," from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). The first line of this notoriously difficult, fiendlishly angry aria translates to "A vengeful Hell pulses within my heart." Enough said.
   
   
5. For ripping back a whole lot. "Ah, chi mi dice mai" from Mozart's Don Giovanni. Another vengeance aria. Includes the delicious and appropriate lines "I will destroy him. I will rip his heart out."
   
   
6. For weaving in ends or sewing seams. "Dome epais" from Délibes's Lakmé. Awfully Enya for something written in the last century. If this won't keep you calm and balanced as your project nears completion, you need to switch to decaf.
   
   
7. For dancing madly about the room with a really cool just-finished object. "Je suis Titania" from Thomas's Mignon, "Son vergin vezzosa" from Bellini's I Puritani, or "Je veux vivre" from Gounod's Romeo et Juliette. All sunny and frolicsome, to put it mildly. You get to be the queen of the fairies, a sprightly virgin, or a love-smacked Juliet Capulet. Take your pick.
   
   
8. For lying down very still in the dark after completing your first Fair Isle or Aran sweater, an Orenburg lace shawl, or some other absolutely epochal project. Isolde's Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. "Liebestod" means "love-death" and the character in question is simultaneously dying of, and being transfigured by, love. This is for celebrating achievements bigger than a new hat or a shrug. This is for the projects that lift you up to the next level of knitting.
   
   
9. For trying to collect yourself when the #$@%^! pattern just isn't working, or you just found a @$#%^ error five rows back. "A vos jeux, mes amis," from Thomas's Hamlet, "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice" from Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice, "When I am laid in earth," from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, "E lucevan le stelle" from Puccini's Tosca, "Addio del passato" from Verdi's La Traviata. All mad scenes or pre-death arias. Have a good cry. You'll feel better.
   
   
10. All-purpose. "Song to the Moon" from Dvorák's Rusalka, "Mi chiamano Mimì" from Puccini's La Bohème, "Depuis le jour" from Charpentier's Louise, "Gold is a fine thing," from Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe, "Una furtiva lagrima" from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love).

Oddly enough, I can't think of a single instance of a knitting aria or scene* (although the opening of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel is often staged with Gretel knitting). One wishes Isolde had been a knitter. With a sweater or shawl to occupy her on that sea voyage, she could have kept her hands to herself and left Tristan alone.

And of course, it would have been therapeutic for Cio-Cio San (aka Madama Butterfly) to have a hobby, instead of staring through that damned telescope all day watching for Pinkerton's ship. After completing her first sweater–a well-known booster of self-esteem–maybe she'd have grown a backbone and decided to cut her losses, take the kid, and marry that nice Prince Yamadori.

On the other hand, there are quite a few songs and arias that either reference or actually involve spinning. But that's another entry.

*If there are some I don't know of or have forgotten, I guarantee other opera buffs reading this will let me know. We're a garrulous bunch.

See You in the Funny Pages

From beyond the grave, your grandmother's restless spirit calls out to know why the hell that blue merino sweater with the traveling cables is still sitting in the back of your bottom drawer.

Lend Me Your Ears

When I was four or five, my father built me a puppet theater for Christmas. This thing was awesome - a sturdy, free-standing wooden booth with a "stage" at just the right height for holding up hand puppets and putting on a show.

You can't do a show without a cast, so I was also given brand-new puppets of Ernie, Bert, and Cookie Monster. I think Cookie Monster was my mother's creation. He was sewn from blue fun fur and had a slit in the back of his throat so that he could appear to noisily devour cookies (or anything else handy).

I loved the theater and the puppets. But I was a very weird little boy who never used any toy in quite the intended manner. After performing one or two skits for glassy-eyed audience of stuffed animals, I got the notion that the little booth could be more fun as a radio station. I fixed up a pretend microphone using an empty toilet paper roll and some string, moved in two chairs from my kiddie dinette, and hey presto, I was on the air.

My radio shows usually followed an interview format in which I consulted leading experts on a variety of topics. I recall with particular vividness a "What Are You Wearing Today?" fashion segment with Raggedy Ann and Flora the Beanbag Frog. Flora didn't actually wear clothes, but she was still highly opinionated and predicted that "big hats with veils" would be "all the rage."

You would think, wouldn't you, that this presaged a career in broadcasting?* Possibly as a stand-by for Elsa Klensch? But no. I've been in stage shows on and off over the years (high school drama club being, of course, the Head-Start Program for gay youth), but never behind a microphone.

Until now.



I got a message a few weeks ago from Brenda Dayne, who writes all that fun stuff for Interweave Knits from a little village somewhere in Wales. Brenda's launching a new Podcast audio knitting magazine, Cast On. And she's asked me to write a little something–and read it.

(She said the initial idea to ask me was her son's. If I do a lousy job, will he be sent to bed without supper?)

I think Brenda's idea is terrific: a knitting magazine you can enjoy while you're knitting. Makes perfect sense, no? I've already enjoyed all the epsiodes of Marie Irshad's excellent KnitCast while in media res, and it'll be fun to read my story aloud and imagine that others will get similar pleasure from it. Provided that they can get past my voice, which has a tendency to sound like a sheep bleat. But maybe for this audience, that's a good thing.

The first issue of Cast On (a Halloween special) is up and running, so give it a listen if you're inclined.

Also, a quick note about my schedule. For the rest of the week, I'm going to have to focus on some work for family members, so posts will be a little thin on the ground. But I'll try to make it up to you next week, when new photos of hot gay cowboys will, I hope, be very much in abundance.

*And also a fondness for men in uniform. Which did come to pass. One out of two ain't bad.

Goddess Fixation?

With some trepidation I have added a new design to the shop.



Sure, she's a timeless symbol of love and beauty. But can she knit?

I have no idea whether anybody will actually buy this one. It's a bit out there. My test audience of four gave three guffaws and one "Huh?" But I see this as half the fun of blogging: You get to subject a large number of unsuspecting people to the freakish ideas spinning around in your head. Come closer, my pretties. Closer. Closer.

Maybe it also reveals something about me that this is the third design featuring an object of worship.*

I have a knitting Buddha sketch kicking around, but don't hold your breath waiting for the "Mohammed Knits" mug. I don't need that kind of trouble.

Anyway, about Venus. She's only on a bag and a simple t-shirt right now, but if you'd like to buy her on another style of shirt or whatever, speak up. We aim to please.

What I Said

What I said to the sleazy guy was, "I'm not knitting for charity this week."

Mrs. Parker wept.

*No, not the ball of yarn. Well, not only the ball of yarn.

And the Sheep Goes to...

The decoration at left, which seemed appropriate for this festive entry, is the work of an accomplished Belgian vandal. I photographed it in Antwerp in the spring. It tells you something about how much there was to see and do in Antwerp that I stopped to photograph a drawing of men's underwear.*

Anyhow.

It seems that size does matter, at least to a large portion of those who read this blog.

Contest entries received: 55

Entries that included a joke about the sleazy man's endowment (or lack thereof): 22

You people, I swear.

Anyhow, it was tough to pick a favorite out of all the good stuff that came in. When more or less identical entries arrived, I decided to give priority to the earlier entry. Speed counts when you're cracking wise.

Before I get to the winner, we have some honorable mentions.

(Don't you go skipping right to the winner, either, or I shall be very cross. I'm watching you.)

Ickiest Mental Image: From Jack

"A jockstrap. Really? I would imagine you wearing a thong."

(Thanks, Jack. Only took me three hours to get that one out of my head.)

Best Slap with a Smile: From Sylvia in Texas

"What a simply charming idea! And then we can stuff it in your mouth!"

(Of course that's probably exactly the order of events the guy had in mind.)

Best Idea for a Future Issue of Knitter's: From Lucia

"Why, yes, and I'll throw in a matching gag."

(Somebody go call Lily Chin. We need this to be ready for the spring line-up.)

Best of the Size Jokes: From Gina (aka Ween)

"I don't have time to knit one of those for you at the moment, but I could whip out a cock ring. I'm sure you don't need a very big one."

(At last, we've found a logical use for stainless steel yarn.)

Take-No-Prisoners Award: From Carol S.

"Perhaps, sir, I should start with a knitted dick to put in it."

(Do not mess with Carol, kids. You will not win.)

And the winner, because it is pithy, it made me laugh out loud, and it would have made the target retreat into confused silence–which is exactly what I wanted:

"You look more like the poncho type to me."

Thanks to Sockbug. Sockbug, send me your address information via e-mail so I can ship you the sheep.

*Seriously, though, don't you love the exclamation point? It suggests that the artist was really excited about the subject matter. To write "SLIPPEN" would be merely to label the piece. To write "SLIPPEN!" is to convey to the viewer the joy of the creative process. Graffiti is so often banal in its pessimism. Here, the voice of hope cries out from the shingled wall. UNDERWEAR!