This year was Rubbout 21 in Vancouver, BC. Started by Bill Houghton two decades and some ago, it was handed off to Mitch Kenyon several years ago, who built it from a small regional event (mostly Vancouver, some Seattle, a few from beyond) to something attracting a broader segment. Mitch turned it over to a committee (including Mr. Vancouver Leather Doug Mitchell and Mr. West Coast Rubber Reid Dagleish), who have tried to build things a level higher, to attract outside of the rubber “core” with some added events, with a mix of success.
This was my 13th trip to Rubbout over the years, having only missed one year since I started attending. I’ve attended more years than anyone except Bill Houghton, in fact. Once again, I room shared with Cliff, who this year brought along his pup, Spike (Marty).
This year’s posters for the event and the Slick dance were by comics artist Stephen Sadowski (JSA, John Carter of Mars) and were fantastic.
Riding Up
My car is currently out of commission. Apparently rats have chewed through the coolant systems, so it wants to overheat quickly, and repairing that requires taking out a chunk of the engine (thanks, Land Rover!), to the tune of $1500 or more. I ride my maxiscooter most of time anyway (heck, all of the time now!), so this really only becomes an issue for out of town trips.
For Northwest Sash Bash last month, I rented a car, since there were four of us going down. This year, I decided to ride up. The scooter will comfortably zip along above 70 mph (even up to 85), so there’s no issue with highway speeds. (And I did four multi-hour trips like this last year on it, and have ridden to Vancouver on my previous scooter a couple times, so the trip itself is old hat.)
I’ve gotten in the habit of wearing my title vest on these long bike trips as biker colors (which makes sense, when you think about the origins of title vest patches). I started it last summer with a trip to Richland where I wore my Mr. Northwest Cub vest that way, and continued the tradition on this trip, both to Vancouver and back.
The only complication this year was weather, or maybe I should say the time of year. While the country as a whole had a warmer than average March, Washington was actually below average for the month. (In fact, we were the only one of the lower 48 state to be below average in March.) Fortunately, the weather was looking at least clear, so I did the ride. About the time I got to Stanwood (an hour north), it was getting pretty chilly, so I stopped for Starbucks in Burlington to warm up. From there north, temps raised a bit and all was fine… until the border.
First off, I violated my rule of not crossing at Peace Arch. I was lulled into a false sense of security by indications that the wait was only 5 minutes. Which was true, until they pulled me over to Customs.
Apparently this was my once-a-decade border stop. (I was stopped in 1992 or 1993, going to Vancouver from my parents’ home in Bellingham, and in about 2002, coming back from Rubbout in Vancouver.) They made me give them my keys and passport and phone, and wanted to know if I had any firearms, any pot, if I had been arrested, if I had been in the back of a police car, if I had ever been fingerprinted (yes, when I was a Boy Scout), and pretty much just made me sit on my butt for 30 minutes or more. So far as I can tell, they didn’t search the bike. One of the customs agents implied that my name might have matched close to someone else, but hell, for all I know they were stopping everyone on bikes, or it was a tax-related thing, or as I said, maybe they just do this to you once a decade. (It will be interesting to see what I run into when I go up for Pride in August.)
Once I got into Vancouver on the city streets, I was waiting at a light and heard a honk behind me. WTF? Cliff and Marty were right behind me! (Which was odd because they left Stanwood a bit before I left Seattle, and then I got stopped at the border. Turns out they hit several thrift stores on the way up.)
Friday Night
At most event weekend events, Friday night is the obligatory Meet & Greet, usually overlaid on an existing bar night as the only event of the day since you often only have a portion of your attendees present and the locals are dragging in after a workday. That is what Rubbout has done for years, but this year, they amped it up with basically two events.
First was the standard Meet & Greet at the Junction Pub. Second though, with sponsorship from Mr. S, Rubbout took over the entirety of the PumpJack Pub, closing it to the public after 9:00 pm. (Well, sort of. The PumpJack has a capacity of roughly 100 people, and that’s how many were registered for Rubbout. For the first hour after 10:00, they would be letting in only package holders; after that, there would be a $10 cover for what small piece of the general public could fit in. So close enough to a private party.)
About a month before the event, I got an invite from Doug to do a bondage demo during the Friday night event. I ended up not being able to bring a bondage boy whom I’ve played with a few times up with me, so they found someone to be my stunt bottom. Two someones, actually. For the younger guy, I put him in a duct tape hood using the same method Karen Yew taught at Northwest Sash Bash, but I used three tape tubes — two red and one yellow — which then sliced open against the black duct tape to make a rubber pride flag hood. I put the other guy in a neoprene hood. I then tied them each into a rope harness — one red, one yellow (I do like my colors) — and then used red bungee cord loops to tie the harnesses to each other. So the boys got to have a hooded bondage tug of war.
This was the one piece of the weekend directly connected to the Northwest LeatherSIR title, there I wore my leather vest instead of rubber this, that, and the other.
Saturday
Saturday afternoon was a Puppy Play event and “Best in Show” contest, which was won by Pup Gadget from Seattle, one of the proponents of the new SEA-PAH (Pups and Handlers) group in Seattle.
Saturday night was the Slick event at Performance Works on Granville Island. This was the controversial part of the weekend, and the biggest failure point. In an effort to expand Rubbout beyond just the “we come to gear up and play” rubber guys, the Rubbout crew has tried to expand to have a Saturday dance, to broaden the exposure of rubber by getting the leather guys involved, and this year broadening even more to a general dance crowd. Last year, they had a pretty good event at Wise Hall, but this jumped the scale up a level.
Unfortunately, the non-rubber crowd didn’t bite much and attendance was pretty low beyond the Rubbout registrants. As well, there were some attempts at a show (following the “Invasion” theme of the weekend) which fell completely flat — they cleared everyone from the center of the floor and one point and… fog blew out from under the stage, but nothing else seemed to happen. (Heck if I know what it was supposed to be.)
So what went wrong with the event? Inadequate marketing? Overreach into an arena/for a crowd that could care less? Easter weekend? Location people didn’t want to go to? Competition from other local events? I don’t know. The only thing I can really say is that thumpa-thump dance events don’t appeal to me at all — I went to the event only because it was part of my weekend package, had a couple drinks, and left about 11 pm — but last year’s event was both more crowded and had greater variety in setup in the location and thus was “better” in multiple ways. Maybe they can retreat back to that option.
Saturday night was the “official” after party at Steamworks. According to the website, my Rubbout package was supposed to get me a 6 month membership and there were supposed to be discount cards handed out at Slick, but I never saw the cards and the guy at the front desk seemed completely ambivalent to the Rubbout wristband. There didn’t seem to be many of the Rubbout guys there, and Steamworks in general is a more general audiences play space, not especially conducive to rubber guys. While I got a little play in while there, it was only a couple short sessions and I eventually left rather unfulfilled
I don’t think Steamworks was a good fit for Rubbout. In years past, the play party has been at M2M, which is more welcoming of and enjoyable for the kink guys. (And walking distance from the host hotel.) I would have gone to M2M if this hadn’t been a designated event for the weekend; if they use Steamworks again next year, I’ll go with my better judgement and not go to that venue.
Sunday
On Sunday, things returned to the regular Sunday brunch that Rubbout has used for… maybe forever. The early ones had been at Doll & Penny’s (what is now PumpJack Pub), I think we had a couple at Fountainhead Pub, several at PumpJack Pub, and this year and last at Junction Pub. In addition to Brunch, they had a raffle for which tickets had been sold all weekend. I also bought copies of the Sadowski event poster, for eventual playroom art.
My only complaint is that the bartender couldn’t make a bloody mary to save his life. Three cans of tomato juice and a shot of vodka does not qualify. I had to ask for spice and olives (as the only veggies available).
The weather had continued to improve during the weekend, so the ride home was several degrees warmer than the ride up. (Turned out to be a record high for Seattle that day, cresting 70 degrees.) Best of all, no issues at the border this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment