One of the downsides to being involved in more than just the leather community is that the other activities you are involved in all also have weekend-long events that you have to attend.
In this case, it was the annual convention of the International Association of Gay/Lesbian Country Western Dance Clubs. Usually held over Memorial Day Weekend, this was the 19th annual convention, held in New Orleans. It was also my 18th of these conventions; I missed the first, in Louisville in 1994, only because I didn’t know it was happening. (Next year’s is the 20th annual, and we will be holding it in Seattle. I’m one of the co-chairs. We are already hip-deep in planning.)
People ask me if a trip like this is Business or Pleasure. I answer “Professional Obligation”. Over the years, my duties and activities at these events have grown to take up so much time that I hardly get any dancing in. This year, I taught one line dance workshop, had a 2-hour meeting of the Dance Competition Committee, took part of one dance workshop, served as club delegate for a 3-hour meeting, DJ’ed a couple hours of line dancing, practiced for dance competitions, competed in one couples dance and five line dances, DJ’ed a couple more hours of line dancing, and served as the primary spokesperson for advertising our hoedown convention for next year. (I also spent abundant time in the weeks before the convention prepping banners and postcards and websites and registration forms for next year’s event, and competition music for this one, to have them ready in time.)
I didn’t even get into the main ballroom for dancing either night. Oh, I could have, but I went out to the leather bars instead. In this case, I’m fine with that limited dancing. I have been dealing with a sprained wrist for over two months and an injured ankle for one month, to the point that my actual dancing needed to be curtailed if I was finally going to heal. And of course, one of the things mentioned in my International contest application is liking to travel around the country and getting out to the local leather venues to see how different communities operate and what I can learn from them to bring back to my own.
(Writing this a few weeks later, my ankle is doing a lot better. My wrist… well, it was improving until dealing with luggage on two trips and four flogging sessions at an event. Sigh.)
This was not my first time in New Orleans, having been there for a weekend mini-hoedown back in May 2004. That one was much freer for sightseeing, thankfully, since this time, I barely saw anything outside in the daylight.
Rawhide 2010
On Thursday, after about an hour of line dancing on Bourbon Street (literally on the street, in front of Napoleon’s Itch), I took my sweaty self a couple blocks over to Rawhide 2010.
Curiously for late on a Thursday, they were charging a door cover despite there not being any event going on. Rawhide 2010 has a darkened area around its putative pool table which serves as a pseudo-backroom, where a very blind eye is turned to furtive cocksucking. My best guess is that the cover to ensure income from guys who really only want to come for the dark area. Since Rawhide 2010 is only a couple blocks from Bourbon Street, they may get a lot of slosh over from that of guys who, if allowed, would just slip in to get their rocks off, nothing more. (I recall that the gay bars in Amsterdam had a one-drink-minimum policy, for exactly that reason.)
Phoenix/New Orleans Eagle
On Friday, I walked to the Phoenix, all the way into the Garden District (our hotel was on Canal Street at the foot of Bourbon Street), about a 30 minute walk. I got myself one street over from Bourbon so I could actually make good time without dodging drunk crowds.
When I was in New Orleans a few years ago, the Phoenix was a block or so from Cowpokes, the country bar. My memory (which may be faulty) is that Cowpokes went under due to damage from Hurricane Katrina and the Phoenix was also damaged. Apparently it rose from the ashes. (Come on, you knew a line like that was coming, with a bar with this name!)
No cover at the Phoenix. It’s not near enough to Bourbon Street to deal with slosh over from there, so it’s a destination rather than a crawl stop. But like Rawhide 2010, it does have a backroom area, in this case the “New Orleans Eagle”, the second, extremely dimly lit bar upstairs. (I assume it’s just a different name for the second space, not a separate business in the same space.)
At the Phoenix, I joined a conversation between D., an older leatherman than me (and if he is really 60 as he claimed, he’s got a damn fine body for his age!), and T., a young newbie. The conversation started because T. was wearing a harness under his t-shirt, too shy to take the shirt off.
Mostly, I let D. talk, so I could see where he was coming from, what his leather past had been and how it differed from mine (my leather upbringing having been West Coast based). I was also keeping an eye on T., to be sure I could provide a counterpoint to anything that D. said which I didn’t agree with. (The most interesting quirky thing from D. was talking about a hierarchy of leather roles, listing Master and then higher on the pecking order than that, a “Dungeon Master”. New one on me. Regional, maybe regional from an era before me? Hard to say.)
Vibes from D. were that he was putting the make on T., but with D.’s boy running around (upstairs to the backroom) and D. saying the guy had never been fucked “covered” (ie, bareback only), I wanted to make sure T. was aware of what might be going on. Indeed, there was an open-ended invite for T. to come over, and for me to fist D. and fuck his boy on Saturday, which I declined due to the barebacking.
Eventually, D. and his boy wandered off or left, and T. and I talked a while longer, made out a bit, and he ended up giving me a ride back to my hotel.
Phoenix Redux
Saturday night, I headed back to the Phoenix again (this time by cab). No D. this time, but T. was there again, and this time he quite willingly took his shirt off. (Progress!)
We got to talk about a variety of leather-related subjects that night, and eventually headed upstairs to the Eagle, where we also go into a nice cocksucking session, and a touch of spanking (a first for him). (And he did a very good job, especially given the 2 gauge PA.)
Later, he again gave me a ride back to the hotel. I made sure that he had my contact info and the open invite to call or email anytime he needs to, especially if he needs a long-distance sounding board or mentoring.
T. strikes as a newbie leatherboy with a lot of good potential. Good head on his shoulders, good instincts, just needs some experience to round him out and set him on the road to finding himself a good place in the New Orleans leather community. (I should dig up a bit of contact info for him, for some guys who can maybe help be local mentors.)
Returning Home
Alas, New Orleans this year was horrifically expensive to get to. Not being a hub city makes it bad enough, but this year was exceptionally bad, as bad as getting to the Montréal convention in 2003 was. I even looked into flying into Shreveport or Baton Rouge and driving (like I did a couple years ago for a hoedown in Austin, going into Dallas instead), but I realized that even without considering my time for driving, car+gas+parking would mean I would need to save $200 or so on the airfare to make that viable (and savings with other airports weren’t even close to that much). I did eventually get a flight for under $500 on Southwest, going through Phoenix with a plane-change and then Houston, and Nashville and Chicago (with a plane change) coming back. And I only got that price because I flew back on Sunday, having to leave the hoedown right after the brunch and thus missing even more dancing opportunities. Ugh.
I got a further reminder why I dislike flights with plane changes in the middle: we were late leaving Phoenix because of a plane issue, turning my 90 minute layover into 5 hours. And we were late leaving Chicago coming back as well, turning that 1 hour into 2.5 hours. I did get a $100 voucher in compensation for the Phoenix delay, at least.
This then also got me back to Seattle after the last light rail train, giving me three choices at 1:30 am: bus, Shuttle Express, or taxi. (Or I could have slept in the airport floor until the train ran again at 5 am. Not gonna happen.) Bus would require two bus change, with 30 minutes or more between each one, and a 6 block walk at the end, getting me home around 4:30 am. Shuttle Express ($37+tip) had about a half-dozen people waiting, so I asked how long I could expect to have to wait. Well, they won’t go until they have at least a half-full van going to your part of town, and there was no one queued up for my zip code. So 20 minutes, an hour, longer? She couldn’t say, that depends on what dispatch gets in. (Note that we were the last flight due in that night, so no one else would be getting in the Shuttle Express outbound queue for quite a while.) Which tells me at least an hour, and could be God knows how long.
So I half-cussed at her and caught a cab about 30 feet away, and we were gone in under a minute. At that time of night, I was going to pay whatever, just get me the fuck home. We ended up taking a slightly longer but faster route (which probably cost me a couple dollars more), for $42+tip. While that was hugely over the $2.50+walking the train would have cost, this was very useful info for the future: the difference between Shuttle Express and taxi to my house is roughly $5. While I will still take light rail as my preference, I will never again in my life take Shuttle Express to/from my house. $5 extra is soooo worth the convenience of “now”.
One of the advantages of getting home even at 2 am on a holiday weekend is that I had Monday free, and so I had set up a play date with Larry for Memorial Day afternoon. Well rested by sleeping late, we fucked and fisted and pissed the entire afternoon away. Delightful.
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