Rubbout 2012 • April 6–8

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.

Emerald City Hoedown 2012 • April 13-15Spring Thaw 2012 • April 20–22

The second and third weekends of April, I had non-leather weekend events which I was intimately involved in.  Although not title-related, they still show on my title event calendar, and one of the things that was prominent in my contest application was wanting to build bridge between leather and the country-western dance and bear communities.

The Hoedown

This was the 5th year for Rain Country Dance Association’s Emerald City Hoedown.  We’ve gone from an event with a bar dance night, a few dance workshops at two sites a few blocks apart, and a big dance at a local ethnic community hall, to our current one with three days of workshops, three dance nights, and dancers coming in from as far away as Hawaii, Texas, and New Jersey.  Next year will be even bigger (as much as three times as big!), as we will be hosting the 20th annual convention of the International Association of Gay/Lesbian Country Western Dance Clubs (an organization I have been heavily involved with for the past 18 years, and this upcoming convention is something I have been aiming at for most of that time).

I was co-chair of the event this year, and we figure that there was a good 400 hours of work involved from the six of us on the committee, when you add everything up over the past year.  In addition to organizational duties, I also ran all the pre-event registration, set up and managed the sound systems, provided music for many of the workshops, taught workshops on Two-Step, Shuffle, and Line Dance Styling (titled “You’re Not Doing That Gay Enough!”), did our Saturday night announcements, and ran the small dance competitions (a line dance contest and a “Pat & Chris” (random partner) Two-Step contest).

One thing that I have been able to bring to our hoedown from the leather side of things, and to the IAGLCWDC conventions as well, is boot care.  Bootblacking has exploded in the leather community in recent years, but it is still almost unknown on the country dance scene.  We have had bootblack at at least the last four of our events, and in fact many of the Northwest Community Bootblack titleholders (Kelley, Henry, Scout, Ruin) do at least some two-stepping, so it hasn’t been a hard sell to get them here.  This year, Ruin blacked for us on Friday night and on Saturday afternoon.

As well, Ruin is a former ballroom and Latin dance competitor, so I got her to teach a dance workshop in Foxtrot during the hoedown.  She is already asking about next year, and might do a forum (non-dancing workshop) on boot care for dancers, as well.

The Thaw

Spring Thaw is the Northwest Bears’ annual event, this being the 18th year and my second year on the committee.  (For a couple months, myself and Pete were the entire committee.)  Knowing how booked I was with the Emerald City Hoedown, I refrained from doing anything but the pre-event registration (where I could heavily leverage what I did with the hoedown) and the Friday and Saturday after hours (where I teamed up with current Mr. Northwest Cub Jeffrey; I was last year’s Mr. Northwest Cub).

(This has been one of the biggest challenges of my title year, and frankly, my leather life for the past few years: learning how to say no, or at least how to say “I can’t do that also”.  With broad skills comes broad responsibility to use them, but take on too much and something has to give — sometimes you fail to do something, and sometimes you half kill yourself trying.  Neither is good.)

Spring Thaw has a lot of good momentum from running for years, but it has been something of a strain to put it together the last couple years, and this one especially.  The club needs better engagement and support from the board and the membership early in the process to make things roll more easily.  Pete and I basically came to an ultimatum point a few months out, where we needed committee members and planning involvement or it wasn’t going to happen.  We got that, but we came to another point a couple months later where we tossed out the planned “theme” for the weekend because none of our events were going to make use of it.  (The only thing worse that not having a theme to build on is having a good one and not building on it.  Like Spring Thaw failed to do last year, with an Wizard of Oz tagline and zero Oz content.)

Since Pete was also on the committee for the hoedown, we have both had an up-close view of the difference between the two events in terms of pre-planning, budget, committee engagement, and so forth.  The Hoedown was down a bit in numbers from last year but we ironed out many previous problems and things ran pretty well.  Spring Thaw was similarly down a bit but had a lot more stress in the planning stages.

We’ll be having a post-mortems on both events in the next week.  It will be interesting to see how things fall out from those.

International Ms. Leather 2012 • March 29–April 1

I decided in February to probably go to International Ms. Leather this year in January, and firmed things up in late February.  Ms. Alaska Leather Sarha would be competing, and since Alaska is in my region and I’m going to be a presenter at Northern Exposure 3.0 in Anchorage in June, there was definite reason for me to attend.  (Alas, neither Washington State Ms. Leather Momma Kat nor Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey decided to compete.)  And of course, it gets my name and title out there a bit more.

Ruin also decided to attend, with a view what an international-level bootblack competition looks like and with the thought of competing for International Ms. Bootblack in the future (if she doesn’t win International Community Bootblack, of course!) A significant number of other Seattle attendees were there as well, including three resident former IMsL titleholders (Spencer, Hobbit, and Lamalani); Candace from Seattle girls of Leather; Daddy Wendell, with his leather gear and books in the vendor mart; and a number of others I’m forgetting now.

This was hardly my first time at the leatherwomen’s rodeo, though.  I’ve attended International Ms. Leather before in San Diego and Omaha (yes, in Omaha!), Ms. World Leather in Dallas (twice), Ms. & Mr. World Leather in Philadelphia, and whichever of IMsL and MWL was in Las Vegas about six years ago.  As a male titleholder, a women’s leather event can be a very interesting thing to go to; with most of it focused counter to the guys, we get more of a chance to connect with each other (however few of us are there) than we do at other leather weekend events.

Worked All Day, Got It All Done

Heading to light rail to go to the airport on Thursday was miserable, with steady light rain.  I aimed to catch a nearby bus, but missed it by a minute or so.  Waited for the bus going the other direction, which would also get me where I was going, but it was listed as late, and after a few minutes, I trekked to the next major intersection… and missed that bus by a minute.  So I ended up walking all the way to light rail, nearly a mile with 1/3 of it uphill.  Not that I haven’t done this before, but my right wrist had been bothering me for a couple weeks (and still is, almost a month later; I think I strained/sprained it cutting laurel branches), which made dragging the heavy bag quite a challenge, since the most convenient hand and hand position was the one hand and position I could not use.

The company I work for has a San Francisco office, so I was able to go down on Thursday, work from there on Friday and Monday, and get work to pick up some of the hotel stay, meals, and transit as a result.  In addition, I room shared with Mr. San Diego Leather Kurt Wendelborg, so once I get reimbursed from work, the hotel itself won’t have cost me anything.

This did mean that I didn’t get to attend the workshops and such on Friday, unfortunately.  There were some nice ones on the schedule.  IMsL is an oddity among leather events that way, having a raft of workshops in addition to the contest.  On the other hand, that perhaps makes it more attractive to the leatherwomen, making the weekend more justifiable for them to travel to.  (You generally couldn’t do that at a gay men’s weekend.  You’d get 6 or 8 guys at the workshops, everyone else in the lobby at 11 am, drinking and cruising.)

The hotel used by IMsL was the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway at Van Ness and California.  It is the same one used by Sundance Stompede in October, so I’ve stayed there many times.  It was interesting to see the space laid out not with dance floor in mind.  (This is also the hotel where International LeatherSIR/Leatherboy and Community Bootblack will be in July, so Ruin and I got the chance to see it with contest needs in mind.)

Thursday

Thursday night was a burlesque show, a combination of strippers and stage fantasies.  I unfortunately came in right at the end of one where the gal did a striptease by removing shaving cream foam.  I did get to see the gal in the white dress doing a watermelon fantasy.  (Not as good as Lori Ellison’s IMsL fantasy, but it did spark a couple idea for me for stage fantasies for my International contest.)  (No, not a striptease with watermelons.  Sparked ideas that were way different from what she was doing.)

Friday

Friday night, they had the opening ceremonies and the stage part of the International Ms. Bootblack competition (which only had two contestants, alas).  Also included was the parade of colors for the the clubs represented at the event.  (I didn’t have anything for SML at hand to go on stage for it, though.)

They also did titleholder protocol by announcing our names from the stage and having us each stand and wave.  There were only maybe a half-dozen non-contestant titleholders present on Friday night, but this was a pretty ineffective way of recognizing the titleholders who were present, as people on the other side of the room at best knew where you were, but couldn’t see you.  Worse, though, this was the only recognition of visiting titleholders during the weekend.  There were probably three times as many present on Saturday night, including some regional and national titleholders, but no acknowledgement at all.  That was very strange, and kind of sad, frankly.  No idea if it was something that just slipped out of the schedule, or a lapse intended to keep an otherwise long contest a bit shorter — I doubt it was an intentional snub.

I got to chat with Joan Norry and Nina from Alameda Leather Corps.  I’ll be down in late June to judge their leather contest.  ACLC was my original club in the late 1990s.

I checked out the play space they had set up for the guys, which was a small room with a cross in one corner and a sling in the other.  I give them high marks for setting aside a space just for the guys, although I don’t know how much it was used.  One thing I would recommend is a tarp under the sling.  Fisting aside, lube and body fluids do have a tendency to splatter and drip when using a sling, and there was nothing under it but the meeting room carpet.

I went out to Kok Bar that night.  It was a decent enough crowd, but it sure got better when I got invited to join a couple guys (Sergio and José) off Manhunt for a fisting three-way at their place in the Castro.  That always perks up an evening.

Saturday

I slept late and then ate and cruised and hung out in the vendor market and silent auction area, bidding on a few items.  Late afternoon was the Titleholders Meet & Greet in the hospitality suite.  Among others, I got to meet Northern California LeatherSIR Ray aka Volt; for whatever reason, Northern California Leatherboy Seth wasn’t able to get to IMsL, although I chatted with him online a couple times during the weekend.

After a nap and dinner came the contest, with seven contestants – in addition to Sarha from Alaska, they were from as far away as North Carolina and Australia.  I had misread the schedule, expecting the contest to run 7-9 pm, but it didn’t start until 8, I think, and then ran well past the 2 hour listed time, finishing nearly at 11:30.  So I had to keep pushing out my play date for the evening from an initial 10:30 until after midnight.

After the contest, we were supposed to pick up our Silent Auction items.  That ended up as somewhere between very inconvenient and a clusterfuck.  The items had all been numbered, but some of the items had been moved between tabled for better display or whatever.  When it came time to close up the auction, each item was put in a bag and put in order by number.  So you went to the table where your item had been and opened each bag until you found your item, and then saw if you had actually won it.  Two of my items I found (a pair of Doc Martens and a package with Guy Baldwin’s Ties That Bind, some bondage clasps, and J Lube [odd combo, yes]), but the other two I did not (and I didn’t know the numbers), and I didn’t know if I had won them or someone else had and had already claimed them.

Once you found what of your items you could, you then left the items there and took the bid sheets up a floor and halfway across the hotel to registration so you could wait in line to pay for them there.  Then you went back down, cut past the lineup of people waiting to find their items, re-found your items, and turned in the paid bid sheet.  I’m sure it made sense to someone to have people make multiple trips up and down the stairs rather than having a pay station in the auction room, but it didn’t make sense to me.

I eventually got out of the hotel and back up to the Castro to play with Mak at his place.  We had a great time, and I’m looking forward to the next time he comes up here.  (He’s an old play buddy of a friend of mine who lives about a mile away, so there’s double incentive to get him up here.)  Wonder if I can get him to bring that fuck machine he’s got?

Sunday & Monday

Sunday was wind-down day for IMsL, including a brunch (with keynote speaker) which was an extra rather than included in the weekend price.  This initially seemed odd, but I know enough about how hotel event brunches work: they are darn expensive.  A sit down brunch is going to run $35-50 per person — that’s not just food costs (although they do make a lot of extra food “just in case”) but also room rental, setup, and staff, costs which are spread out over a lot more people and time in a restaurant.  So buy making this a paid extra, they are able to keep weekend package prices lower (and thus get more people to pay for them) and also keep the brunch more intimate and aimed at the people who really want to hear the speaker.  People who need to leave early or otherwise not partake of the brunch aren’t out the huge chunk of change it adds to the rest of the weekend.

I checked in with the Silent Auction, and sure enough, the other two items I had bid on had been won by me, but hadn’t been findable the night before.  With far fewer things remaining, I was able to pick up the other pair of low boots (from a company called “Drew”!) ($55) and a box of 750 condoms ($50).  Yes, that’s a lot of condoms, but I need to have them on hand for my play parties anyway, and this was about the same price as about 150 from Costco, so a net win.  I had to ship the box of them home, though, which added another $15 to the cost.

(Alas for the new boots, three weeks later I had an accident on the scooter, went down avoiding a car that started to lurch out a parking garage and into the lane right in front of me.  Minor bruises on me, trashed the toe part of the right boot.  Ruin has done a minor blacking job on them which helped, and I’ll get them to her soon for a more intense repair.)

On Saturday, I had had another offer for a play session — for a four-way, actually — which I had to turn down since I was already scheduled to play with Mak.  But we picked it up late afternoon Sunday instead.  Not exactly a four-way — the two of us and his other half and another guy playing in the same room — but I had a great, intense time.  Definitely someone to look up the next time I’m in San Francisco.

I left his place in the Castro just about dusk, caught a quesadilla for food and a beer at 440 Castro, then headed back to the hotel.  Couldn’t decide if I was still horny for more play, or just wanted to go to sl… zzzz.

Monday, I worked from the hotel for a couple hours in the morning, then checked out and headed to our San Francisco office, and from there to SFO at the end of the work day and home again.  Spencer and Candace turned out to be on my flight back, and Spencer’s boy was meeting them at the airport, so they gave me a ride home instead of having to deal with light rail and dragging my luggage nearly a mile from there to the house.

“Are You Losing Weight?”

Over the last few weeks, I have had lots of people ask me this question.  Twenty or more.  In some cases, these are people who haven’t seen me for months, but many see me at least once a month or so.

I last dealt with this subject about a year and a half ago, where I also observed the leftover-from-the-90s fear of that question’s implications.  Most people have been adding “You look great” these days.

Since that post, I have maybe lost another five pounds, down to about 190 lbs.  (From a height on maybe 225 lbs five years ago.)  That shouldn’t be enough to trigger these sorts of comments, though, especially all of a sudden.  Most likely, my face has become a bit more slender in the last 6 weeks and that’s what people are noticing — or else the stress of helping chaperone two consecutive weekend events to fruition during the most recent weeks of my title year has taken a toll.

Admittedly, during my title year, I am trying to reduce my weight some and generally look better leading up to the contest in July.  And at 190 lbs (I thought I was there last fall but needed to calibrate my scale by a few pounds), I’m down to where I was in probably 1998 (and I can still wear my original chaps from 1991), but I haven’t been actively dieting.

The basics of losing weight are simple: more calories out than in.  Eat less, eat better, be more active.  Beyond that, a huge part of it is in how you behave.  If you act like you are thinner, you are perceived as thinner.  Here are some ideas:

• Wear appropriate clothing.  If you are trying to squeeze into stuff that is too small, it shows.  Bulges in bad places can make you look fat, such as over the edge of chaps or around the straps of a harness.  In the reverse, wearing stuff that is too large can make you look small, even too thin (unhealthy).  Wear stuff that actually fits right.  Also, be aware of what looks good on you.  Is black (leather) slimming?  I don’t know, but white centered around the waist can really show off a tummy, as can shirts which are too short for your torso and ride up to show the tummy.
• Have good posture.  Stand up straight.  Don’t slouch.  Shoulders back and wide, tits up, head level.  This is true when sitting at the computer or watching TV as much as when standing.  When walking or dancing, imagine a string going from your head to the ceiling, stretching you up.  Feel tall and thin and you will project that way to others.
• Focus on your core.  This goes hand in hand with the posture, but your core — your abs, your solar plexus — is where most of your body movement comes from.  You use it to balance yourself, to sit up and stand up, to walk and run and dance.  Just by concentrating on it a little, keeping it consciously tighter, you add a little tension to the muscles throughout your body, and you pull in your gut.  You won’t get ripped abs from this, but you will project better and show less gut.  (I ride a maxiscooter, and I have found you also ride from the core, relying on it to keep you upright and to do most of the steering via body weight shifts.  So I get added core focus there every day without thinking about it.  Riding any wheeled vehicle, bicycle on up, will give the same benefit.)
• What is your relationship like?  While I’m single right now, which carries with it a certain incentive to slim down, being in a relationship can be either good or detrimental to weight reduction.  What one of you does will tend to reflect in what the other does.  If one member of the couple is active, the other is likely to enjoy similar activities.  On the other hand, if one is the sort who would rather stay at home and nest, the odds increase that both will, and the ability to keep weight down reduces.
• Have a positive view of yourself.  If you think of yourself as fat, you will project that to others.  If you think of yourself as slimming down, that’s what you will project.  You don’t have to go around telling people you are losing weight, you just need to make sure you know it, and they will.

But I’ll put in one other thing to actively do:

• Have hot, kinky sex.  Think about what it takes in terms of effort, muscle control, and energy expenditure to do stuff like staying balanced in near-suspension bondage, or throwing a few hundred strokes of the flogger, or getting fisted for a solid hour.  (And think how much you will enjoy that effort vs. pumping iron at the gym?  I’m a big fan of doing the exercise that you want to do!)

So if I haven’t actually lost more than a couple pounds recently but people are noticing anyway, it must be because of these other things.  I’m eating healthier, but also I’m avoiding clothes that don’t flatter me, I’m strengthening my core, I’m projecting a thinner (and more broad across the shoulders) body, I’m thinking good thoughts, and I’m not letting my relationships with others define how I treat my body.

And I’m having hot, sweaty, energetic sex every time I can.  Burn those calories off!

Northwest Sash Bash 2012 • March 2–4

The first weekend in March, Northwest Community Bootblack Ruin, Seattle Leather Daddy Ryan, and past Seattle Daddy’s Boy Jean drove down to Portland for Northwest Sash Bash.  This was the eighth year for the event, started in 2005 by Andy Mangels and Darklady during their year as Mr. and Ms. Oregon State Leather.  I have attended each year.

Northwest Sash Bash was created a a no-contest event weekend, aimed at getting leather titleholders from around the country to come to the Northwest and have a leather weekend where they have no duties, whether they can relax with their peers, and where they and the local community can actually interact.

For a few years, the event was traded back and forth between Portland and Seattle (to both share the wealth and to avoid burnout), but last year, Blackout Leather Productions took it back for the long term.

Before the Bash

Between being a current regional titleholder, having been to all the past Sash Bash weekends, and having been involved with organizing the event in years past, I did my best to wrangle the Seattle and Vancouver titleholders into coming.  Washington State Ms. Leather Miss Kat and Mr. West Coast Rubber Reid were out of town, Seattle Daddy’s Boy Damien had just returned from or was just about to leave on a trip, Seattle Grand Dad Jeff was unable to get away from work, and Northwest Leatherboy Danny had recently resigned from the title.  So it was Ruin, Ryan, myself, and Washington State Mr. Leather James able to attend, plus Oregon titleholders.  American Leatherwoman Trinity was listed as attending, but I did not meet her.

We had a lengthy back-and-forth in terms of room shares and hotel room, but that all got settled with Jean and Ruin being housed with Portland folks and Ryan and I sharing a hotel room near the airport.  I also rented a car to take Ruin, Ryan, and Jean down (James come down by himself), because my own is in need of cooling system repairs.

Friday: Herding Cats

Jean met me at light rail and we went down to the airport to pick up the car, then headed downtown where Ruin was meeting us after catching the bus.  I was also picking up the title sash from Gene to transport to our new Northwest Leatherboy, Dan.  Then we headed to the Cuff Complex and Doghouse Leathers , where I had to drop CDs off for Keith to use at Cuff Country that weekend and to pick up Ryan and Dan’s title vest.  And then, because you always forget something, we had to go back to my house (which was south, at least) to pick up stuff for the fantasy on Saturday night.

After that, it was simply a miserable slog until we were through Tacoma.  I had targeted picking Ryan up at 3 pm to be in Portland at 6 pm.  It was about 3:45 by the time we left my house, and then rain an traffic took us an hour longer than usual to get south of Tacoma; we should have been there about 4 and it was after 5 instead.  And thus the goal of getting to the Leather and Cigar Social at the Eagle Portland shifted from 7:30 to closing in on 9:00.  Ruin didn’t get to where she was staying until after the social, when Oregon Bootblack Nick gave her a ride (since he lived nearby).

Saturday: Your Mouth Would Look Good with Duct Tape Covering It

Saturday morning, Ryan and I picked up Ruin and met Dan at The Roxy for brunch.  Because I was coming from the far side of town, it took quite a while to get there and Dan ended up waiting and waiting and waiting.  Sorry boy!

After that, we went to Embers Avenue where Karen Yew did two workshops: one on basic rope bondage and one on duct tape fist mitts and hoods.  The first one was okay — a little new stuff for me, but not much — but I really liked the second one.  I hope to make use of the technique at a play party this coming weekend, and again two weeks after that at Rubbout.

Unfortunately, the workshops were pretty low attendance, just the four of us and four others for the first one, and only four total for the second one.  I’ve seen this happen with workshops and demos (and vendor markets) attached to bigger events before: all the advertising goes out with “Hey, there’s this big event happening (and by the way, there will be a workshop or two)”, leaving people to catch that from the ad and go to the website to find out more.  Really, there’s a need for multi-pronged advertising: “Hey, there’s this big event happening (and by the way, there will be a workshop or two)” and “We’ve got a couple great workshops (tied in with this big event)”.  You have a much better chance of reaching the right people that way, which increases your event attendance, increases your even income, and give you the chance to convert people from attending pieces of the event to the entire thing (or to attending next year).

After the workshops, Oregon State Ms. Leather Miss Tracey took about eight of us on a walk down to the Portland Saturday Market, a weekly outdoor market of vending booths.  Dan and I bought catnip toys for our cats, Ruin and I caught our dinners there, and a bunch of us bought fancy cupcakes to eat later.  On the way back to Embers, we walked past Voodoo Doughnuts, only to find a line out the door and down the block.

Ryan was already back at the hotel when I got there (he and James had gone in search of military surplus stuff after the first workshop).  A quick shower and change and we back on the road.  We stopped at a store midway back to Embers for coffee and Klondike Bars (because I was going to redo my stage fantasy from the contest as part of the evening’s show).  The rest of the jaunt to Embers should have taken maybe 15 minutes and took double that; due to something going on at the Rose Quarter and an accident on the freeway, traffic was a nightmare.  We planned to be there at 6:50, got there at 7:10.  Ugh.

The Black Show and Live Auction — referred to as an “erotica show” in years past — went ahead at a decent clip.  Attendance was lower than it has been, and the show was heavy on drag acts (which may be good, but aren’t stage fantasies and other hot stuff!); again, I think there’s advertising improvement focus that could be done.  The Klondike Bar fantasy went off well (and messy), and the addition of chocolate syrup pushed the edgy nature a level further.

(I haven’t yet posted the pics from the contest fantasy, have I?  Will solve that soon.)

Among the auction items was an original framed drawing by Oregon State Mr. Leather Tarsus.  Cliff had bought one of his pieces a couple years ago, and his figure work has improved since then.  Dan wasn’t especially happy that I bought it, because he was bidding on it, too.  Sorry again, boy!

After the show, Ryan, Ruin, and I went to the Sindicate space to check out the play party.  As expected, it was mostly women and pan (kinky het) play, not much to interest me.  So I left them there and headed to the hotel for a costume change, then came back to pick them up.  They had got in some bondage and flogging play while I was gone.

We dropped Ruin off at her hosts’ house and then Ryan and I headed to the Eagle for a bit.  We left there and went back to the hotel, and then I came back into town to check out Hawk’s PDX, the new sex club.  (Dan had won a couple passes in the raffle at the show and passed them to me.)  I’ve been to the Hawk’s Gym in Las Vegas, so I was interested in checking this out.  Low population that night (at least by when I got there) and more brightly lit than just about any sex club I’ve been to, but I did play with one guy and was able to leave satisfied.  Also got to talk to Andy Mangels, who was working the desk that night.

Sunday: 100 Miles of Butt Sex

Sunday morning saw a leather potluck brunch at the home of the leather couple Ruin was staying at.  In many ways, this was the best part of the weekend: good food, good conversation, etc.  Brent from the Sash Bash committee took the chance to chat with us about what had gone well or less well during the weekend, to help with planning for next year.

Ryan, Jean, and I headed out to the car, and then waited for Ruin to say her goodbyes.  And waited and waited.  (Okay, maybe 5 minutes, not that long.)  Finally, we each sent her a text at the same time.  We also joked about taking pics of her making faces at icky comments I made during the weekend, and packaging them into a calendar.  (Favorite phrases of the weekend: “execratory functions” and [artificially low voice] “larger than average manhood”.)

Driving back north was far more enjoyable than the trip south had been on Friday – nice weather and not even the standard slow down in Centralia.  Ruin had a question, though.  (It’s her standard line, “I have a question!”)  For the first 100 miles (roughly Portland to Olympia), we went through an entire workshop on butt sex and how to make it easier and more pleasurable: me driving, Ruin in the back seat with questions, Ryan and Jean piping in as needed.  We covered lube and stretching and relaxing and toys and douching (Ruin makes a face here) and even the edge of fisting.  She was tickled by the whole thing and said she’s going to see about having me do a butt sex workshop for Seattle girls of Leather: “Help me, Obi-Jim!  You’re my last hope!”

(Yes, it sounds bizarre to me as well.)

Favorite comment of the trip back, noting how it it sometimes difficult to remove a cock from the ass after butt fucking, I said that was because the cock likes it there, it’s found a new home and wants to stay.  “Are you saying my Sir’s dick is a hermit crab?”  “Yes, and that makes your ass the discarded shell.”  <insert facial expression from Ruin here>

What is a “Stage Fantasy”?

(Note: The content below is heavily biased to my own opinions and preferences, and thus certainly is not Gospel Truth, the only way to do a Fantasy.  Any time someone says words like “should”, “only way”, or “real”, you know your bullshit alarms should [ahem!] start ringing…)

What is a “Stage Fantasy”?

A Stage Fantasy is typically a staged presentation of BDSM leathersex scene, lasting a few minutes and using simulated sex (although there are fantasies which don’t feature anything sexual, playing for emotional content instead).  Sometimes a Stage Fantasy is serious, sometimes comedic, and sometimes performance art of its own.

A Stage Fantasy is primarily for entertainment purposes.  It is not a BDSM demo, and it is not a workshop; it should not try to be either of these.

The Stage Fantasy used to be a staple of leather contests; there was even a International Mr. Fantasy title (near the bottom of the page) from 1995 to 1998.  In recent years, the inclusion of a Fantasy component in men’s leather contests has largely drifted away, although the women’s contests continue to have them.  It is not part of the International Mr. Leather contest, so many feeders to that do not require a Fantasy, replacing it with a Speech (or sometimes with nothing at all).  The International LeatherSIR/Leatherboy contest does include a Stage Fantasy.  As part of being a “play”-oriented title, the contestants are expected to be active BDSM/sex/kink players and to be able to present such in the contest, guided by themes assigned randomly to each region.

Some contests do still include a Fantasy component in a limited scope, such as a themed costume or outfit (beyond formal wear/bar wear) or a solo segment where all contestants do the same base concept (such as an on-stage shower scene).  And at least the year I won it (2006), International Mr. Saliva (bottom of the page) was at its core a Fantasy-based title: best presentation of slobbering all over someone won.  (I fucking earned my light yellow hanky, let me tell you!)

Why Listen to Me?

I do have some experience here.  As noted above, I was International Mr. Saliva 2006, out-licking three other men and one woman for my title.  I also did shower scenes forMr. International Rubber twice, Northwest Image costuming for Seattle Leather Daddy twice (and advised several other contestants), and I choreographed two American Leatherman fantasies (my own, and Rusty’s the year he won), a solo fantasy for Mr. Leather OutGames, and my title contest fantasy this year.  Rusty’s title fantasy, my OutGames fantasy, and this year’s title fantasy were all re-presented at Northwest Sash Bash the next year.

I also have done over 15 years of country-western dance performance teams and I was part of the VisQueens (link is to a video of one of our best routines), Seattle’s leather/bear/drag performing group.

And of course, I have seen dozens of fantasies and erotica show pieces (which are often basically the same thing) over the years, analyzing the ones I liked (and the ones I didn’t) to determine what worked (and what failed).

A Fantasy Tells a Story

As noted above, a Stage Fantasy is not a demo or a workshop, it is a presentation.  In my opinion, a Stage Fantasy should tell a story.  In classic storytelling parlance, there should be an introduction, a complication, an action, a climax, and a conclusion, with the characters left in a different state than they were at the start.  If you don’t tell a story, then you are just providing a vignette, a view into a story in progress but without context and completion.

That may sound complex, but consider a common fantasy (or porno) “plot”: the sexy deliveryman brings a package and ends up fucking with the customer until they both are sexually sated (and then he leaves to deliver the next package).  You have your setting (the customer’s house), your characters (the deliveryman and the customer), your complication (the delivery of the package, the sexual attraction), the action (fucking), the climax (the climax!), and the conclusion (the deliveryman leaves).  Presto, a story has been told.  No one said it had to be a great story, just a story.)

Now consider the non-story vignette version: two naked guys fuck and cum.  Who are they?  Don’t know.  Why are the naked?  So they can fuck.  Why are they fucking?  Why are you asking these questions, just start jacking, man!  What’s going to happen next?  Doesn’t matter, since once you cum, you don’t care any more.  A vignette can be entertaining in its narrow way, but it isn’t a story.

For a Stage Fantasy, you have two types of people in your audience: those who want a story, and those who just want to see some action.  Stories pervade our society, so those who really want just the action are fine with a little story around the edges, but those who want story are usually not fine if you jump right into the sex.

Who Is Your Audience?

Doing a Stage Fantasy in a contest, you have two related but separate audiences: the Judges and Everyone Else.

For the Judges, they are likely looking with an analytic eye.  If there’s a specified theme, did you work with it well?  Did you make good use of your time (or did you drag things out way too long)?  Was the action clear (or was it blocked from view)?  Did you make good use of music and lighting?  If there was dialogue, was it clear?  And so forth.  You can plan on your judges paying attention to every bit of your fantasy, but you can also plan on them paying attention to every bit of it.

Everyone Else is just there to be entertained.  They usually don’t give a flying fuck if you adhere to a theme.  They care that it engages them — attracts their attention and keeps it.  The general audience is also very fickle: if they like it, they will let you know, but if they don’t like it, or if they are bored by it, they probably won’t let you know… they’ll just ignore you.  And when they ignore you, the judges will notice.

There’s actually a third audience: Yourself.  If you aren’t into the presentation (if it’s a sex scene that doesn’t turn you on) or you don’t like the theme, the judges will notice that your performance is lacking.  You need to make sure that you are engaged in the fantasy and that the fantasy engages you.  (These are separate things.)  And as any performer will tell you, your worst critic is yourself.  You notice everything tiny thing that you fucked up or that didn’t come off right, and no one can beat you up for these things as well as you can.

Keep Them Entertained

Here is the secret they don’t tell you about Stage Fantasies at contests: the audience could generally care less.  They are there to drink, to socialize, and to be entertained.  The moment you stop entertaining them, they go back to drinking and socializing, even if you’re still on stage beating on someone.

So how do you keep them entertained?  Aye, there’s the rub!  You can count on the audience giving you 20–30 seconds for free: when your bit is announced, they will all quiet down and pay attention for a few moments, just to see if you are going to do anything interesting.  (They want you to do something interesting.  They didn’t pay to attend the contest just to chit chat.)  Which means that by 20 seconds in, you’d better be doing something.  That doesn’t mean you have to start the sex part right away, just that you need to be obviously leading to something they want to see.

You know what they don’t want to see?  Something they have already seen before!  (If I see another military takedown and rape scene in my life, I may scratch my eyes out.)  20 seconds in and they will be thinking “Is this a familiar setup, something I’ve seen done before?”  And if their immediate answer is “Yes”, boom, they take a drink and start chatting with their buddy.  So if you are going to do “yet another military takedown and rape” (YAMTAR) for your Fantasy, you’ve got to have some story or staging there that tells the audience “You haven’t seen this one!”

Just because you are 20 seconds in an you’ve caught their attention, that doesn’t mean you’re golden.  Nope, what it means is that in another 20–30 seconds, you have to keep that attention.  There are three ways to do that: excel, innovate, or violate.  “Excel” meaning that while what you’re doing may be standard, it is also note-perfect, hot, and engaging.  People will watch the same porn over again, but only if it gets them hard; if you’re just doing that YAMTAR the standard way, people get bored.  “Innovate” meaning that while you are doing something that initially looks standard, you are mixing it up.  If you are giving a new twist on an old standard, people may be intrigued enough to watch a bit longer… if they notice the twist.  “Violate” meaning you aren’t even doing something standard, you are setting expectations and then twisting or changing them.  People are more likely to notice this and will allow you to recapture their attention.

Now you’re a minute in, though, and you’ve got somewhere on the order of three minutes more to go.  You can’t coast now, because the audience’s attention is drifting again.  If any segment of your Fantasy is going on and on (and on), you are giving the audience a “jumping off” point, an invitation to stop paying attention.  You have to keep Excelling, Innovating, or Violating all the way through, keeping the audience’s attention every 20–30 seconds through the entire Stage Fantasy.

And finally, you need to have Climax and an Ending.  In part, you can argue that this isn’t totally necessary — when the lights go down, the action stops and you leave the stage, and it’s over.  But a segment of the audience (and especially the judges) want to see that you have presented a complete idea, that you can follow things through and not leave it hanging.  (If you prefer: you’ll get a lot more applause if things are complete than if they just thud.)  How you present and complete your Stage Fantasy says something about how you plan, execute, and complete anything as a leatherperson.

(As an aside, go back to what I wrote above and replace “Stage Fantasy” with “Speech”.  A contest Speech should have a through-line, an idea that is introduced, built, climaxes, and concludes.  It should be aimed at both the Judges and Everyone Else.  After the first small chunk, it has to catch people’s attention and repeatedly keep their attention.  And so forth.)

Examples (Good and Bad)

The first full Stage Fantasy I did was for American Leatherman 2005.  I decided to go heavily for the Innovate tactic, intending to present the judges and audience with something they had probably neverseen before in a Fantasy.  Since I had been a country-western performance dancer and choreographer for over a decade, I decided to do the fantasy as a swing dance routine, telling the story through dance.  Using a cover of the Elvis song “Wear My Ring Around My Neck”, I (and my boyfriend/dance partner) alternated between a swing dance segment (repeating each chorus) and excerpts from a growing leather scene or relationship, building from dick sucking to fucking to flogging, culminating in a collaring at the very end, followed by a stage exit with an excerpt from “Teddy Bear” (“Put a chain around my neck and lead me anywhere”).  You’ll notice that in addition to innovating by doing a dance routine, I made sure that there was always something new for the audience every 30 seconds or so (but also always returning to something familiar to ensure that they touched base), and I had a clear build of intensity of the sex portions through the routine culminating in a clear ending which stitched into the very familiar music — there was no way someone was going to not watch the whole thing unless they hated Elvis.  (Was the fantasy successful?  While I didn’t win the contest [second runner-up], my fantasy scores were either second or third, so it was at least good enough.  I was personally happy with the fantasy, and it did get mentioned after the contest by other people, so it was memorable enough.)

One failure of a fantasy I saw a good 15 years ago was a “magic tricks with rope bondage” piece done at a San Francisco Bay Area contest.  While it was quite different, the fact that it required a lot of talking from the contestant was problematic on its own, and then the magic tricks didn’t show well to an audience 30 or more feet away.  It was slow, and quiet, and totally not engaging for the audience.  It would have been great for a demo, maybe, but the staging sucked so badly that it is still in my head all this time later as a hugely bad example.

Probably the best fantasy I’ve ever seen was Lori Ellison’s watermelon fantasy she did for International Ms. Leather, which I got to see her do two more times.  After cutting a hole in a watermelon and fingering it, fucking it with a strap one, tearing the hole bigger and fisting and then two-handed fisting it, she dumped the remaining watermelon smoothie over her head.  I do it a horrible disservice in this terse description, but suffice to say, you could feel both the women and most of the gay men in the audience squirming in their seats, appalled to be thinking “Fuck, I want her!”   Absolute minimal staging and props (watermelon, knife, strap-on), but by constantly changing/upping the ante, she kept the audience riveted.

For Rusty’s American Leatherman fantasy, we started with the old saw of the deliveryman bringing in a package, then violated it by having him push the horny delivery man out the door so he could open the package.  (Music: “Stand and Deliver”)  Then he opened the box and started pulling out inflatable sheep, plus some gloves and Crisco to start fisting one of them.  (Music: “Little Lamb” from Gypsy)  Then the box shook and out tumbled a boy dressed as a sheep (cotton balls glued on underwear and a t-shirt), and they wrestled.  (Music: “Dirty Deeds Done with Sheep”)  Finally, Rusty (who is a hair stylist) pulled out a pair of hair clippers (music cue: the very recognizable whistle/scream from Sweeney Todd) and chased the sheep-boy off stage.  Again, very regular changing of the theme, plus playing his personal life/career into the fantasy.

As an example of things to avoid, and speaking of music, at one contest I attended, the step-down speeches followed one of the fantasies, and the stepping-down titleholder made explicit negative mention of the song used in the just-finished fantasy, one of those pieces of music (this one from Nine Inch Nails) that has been used in so many fantasies that it triggered “Oh god, not again” reactions.  If your first reaction is to use something “obvious”, you’re in YAMTAR territory; reconsider.

“God Is in the Details”, but Don’t Overdo It

To me, this quote (which I picked up from Stephen Sondheim) means that perfection or elegance (God) reveals itself as you examine something closer.

From the reference point of a Stage Fantasy, a better one (closer to perfect or more elegant) will be created if you put more detail into it.  Just “winging it” with the barest story idea can get you  something acceptable (or sometimes, can get you an Epic Fail, but you will tend to have portions that are unclear, or too short, or too long (and thus boring).

So think about the story you are trying to tell.  Think about the emotions you are trying to evoke.  Think about the members of the audience you are aiming at.  (You are trying to make something hot for people into some given fetish or activity, right?)  Think about your music.  Think about your lighting.  Think about your dialogue.  Think about your props.

And then step back and put yourself in the place of the audience, at the event: would you be interested in and entertained by the Fantasy, at least to the degree those are desirable goals?  If the answer is anything but “Hell, yes”, go think some more.

All that said, another quote comes up: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”.  Applied here: you can focus too much on the details.  First, you can’t depend on having variability of music or lighting, nor amplification for dialog.  Second, you can’t please everyone (or if you are trying to offend them, you can’t do that, either).  Third, this is a sex fantasy, so too much plot detracts.

And fourth and probably most important: while “winging it” tends to produce uneven results, overthinking it can suck all the passion out.  Practice the Fantasy enough to be sure of your blocking, your timing, and your dialog, but then leave it alone!  If it becomes routine for you, the audience and judges will notice.

West Coast Rubber 2012 • February 24–26

This is the 8th year for West Coast Rubber.  I attended the inaugural one in 2005 in Palm Springs, on the weekend Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.  (With the 100+ degree heat making us sweat profusely, draining into rubber shirts and shorts and releasing ounces, even cups of liquid at a time, there were now-tasteless jokes about “breaching the levee”.)  I attended again in 2006, but after that, they moved it to Los Angeles, a city that doesn’t hold any attraction for me as a destination place, so I didn’t keep going.  I decided to go again in 2010, to reconnect with my rubber roots, and I had an okay time, although there was still no attraction for me to go to L.A.  (Read about that trip here.)  Now, though, they have moved it back to Palm Springs, and to February, where temps will top out at only about 82 degrees (“Heaven” for those of us from colder climates, in other words!).  I’m totally there!

My Rubber Roots

I first got into rubber in 1997 or so, after dating a guy who had some (but never wore it while we were dating).  I bought a rubber shirt from Mr. S at IML that year, and acquired a whole crapload of rubber attire and gear over the next several years.

In 1998 (I think), I competed for San Francisco Leather Daddy’s Boy, but wore rubber for the contest, and was later advised that that may have had an effect on me not winning.  In November 1999, though, I competed for Mr. International Rubber (2nd runner-up).  I then became a charter member of Rubber Men of San Francisco Bay (and designed the logos they used for years), and had them sponsor me to compete for International again in 2000 (2nd runner-up again, with a larger contestant field).

After moving to Seattle, I continued to attend (but not compete) for MIR for several years, including one year that I was suffering from Hep B the entire time, not aware of why I was sick until I got home.  I also started attending Rubbout in Vancouver (before I moved to Seattle, in fact, and it was he return drive to Seattle that convinced me to move from California), and have only missed one year of it since then.

Leather titles and a live-in relationship (with a live-in teenager) put a damper on my rubber time, but it has never been far from my heart, and I’m trying to recapture some of it these days.  This year is partially a good time for this, because while Northwest LeatherSIR is technically a “leather” title, it is a play title and embraces the play activities which work well/better/best/only in rubber as much as those which are best in leather (or in nothing at all).

Thursday

For this trip, I decided to take my portable sling.  My friend Bill recommended a rolling long bag for such (almost a golf club bag), and I found one from Coleman at the local Ross store.  Unfortunately, the bag itself is heavy enough that I couldn’t take the new frame, only the old one, and even then, the cross pieces, sling, and tie downs (a recommendation from my friend Matt, rather than chains) had to go in my carry-on to keep the bag just under 50 lbs.  But it is indeed much easier to transport.  And since the sling poles only fill the bottom compartment, I could put my nasty heavy carry-on in the top compartment to make transporting it also easier.

D. came over on Thursday night and helped me paw through my rubber, to figure out what I would take.  As usual, I took more than I ended up actually wearing, but really that was only a pair of shorts and a couple shirts more than needed, so not too bad.  Still, with the sling pieces as well as plenty of rubber, that carry-on was heavy.

D. also got the chance to try on some of my rubber.  Poof: instant rubber boy!  He took right to the latex and the Nasty Pig stuff (nice to have non-leather options for him), and I also took the opportunity to put him in the new neoprene hood and cuffs, use the rubber floggers on him, and so forth.

Friday

The trip to the airport and the flight were uneventful, except for the hard, hard landing in Long Beach.  I did discover another thing I don’t recommend people do: don’t watch episodes of Pan Am (featuring the glories of 1960s air travel) while flying on modern aircraft.

West Coast Rubber had all of Camp Palm Springs reserved (about 40 rooms).  This was the first time I’ve stayed there.  It was fine — a bit “dumpy”, but not out of the range of either what is acceptable or where I’ve stayed on previous trips.  The pillows were not comfortable, though, and the DVD player in my room wouldn’t play any of the DVDs they had for check out.  (Probably needs cleaning badly.)

I went down to Gear and bought a neoprene swimsuit/jock with the ass cut out.  Matthew was working that day (the same hunky hair guy I mentioned with the previous Palm Springs trip).

Friday night was a Meet & Greet and then a play party.  While there was a good crowd for the former, most guys didn’t hang around or didn’t play much.  Had a little fun, but only a little (just rub, wank, and suck).

Saturday

I tried to go to Sherman’s Deli for breakfast, but much of downtown Palm Springs was shut down for a parade.  Not sure if it was for Modernism Week or something else (someone said Black History Month, which is in February, so maybe).  Once I got to Sherman’s, there was a line out the door, so I went north to Rick’s Restaurant instead.  Also with a line out the door, but I was by myself, so I got immediate seating at the counter.  (I remember as a kid, I always wanted to sit at the counter at diners, but we never got to but maybe once or twice.  It still always feel like a cross between exotic and trucker.)  Catfish and eggs was the special that enticed me.  Online later, I got hit on by two guys who saw me (and my red hanky) during breakfast.

On Saturday, we had a BBQ and pool party.  Nice and relaxing, and rubber boys do like being in the pool in their rubber.  (Leather boys in their leather, not so much.)

At 5 pm, we had a rubber dinner in gear at Trio, with about 35 of us at four tables.  They had to move the reservation up from 6 pm because the restaurant was sold out later, due to Modernism Week, I think.  I gave a ride to some of the Vancouver boys, but getting them in their gear, shined up, and out the door was like herding cats.  Slicked up cats.  We were almost the last to arrive as a result.  While we were waiting, though, Paul from Vancouver took a couple nice pics of me in my rubber, which will be my cruise site profile pic for the next few months.

On the way back to my car, we chanced upon a gallery storefront featuring work by the artist SHAG.  It only took me a moment to connect the name and art style to an artist Cliff had told me about who does a lot of retro-styled modern tiki work.  We had to go in.  The gallery owner (I assume) got a kick out of having rubber guys in the store and after I took this pic of Reid (Mr. West Coast Rubber), he took one of the four of us with the big wall tiki.

After dinner, there was supposed to be the Mr. West Coast Rubber contest and then a play party, but apparently there were no contestants.  For a weekend like this, while unfortunate, that isn’t fatal.  Most of the guys attending are happy to have a contest, but we aren’t coming just for one.  So the contest got replaced by a bar crawl.

This was fine with me.  I had received an invite on Manhunt to a cocktail party where I would told some of the Desert Fetish Authority guys would be.  I asked him about dress code for it, but never heard back, so I went in rubber chaps, neoprene harness, and title vest.

While some of the DFA guys were likely in attendance, it was not a leathermen’s cocktail party.  Other than a couple guys in leather pants with their casual attire shirts, I was the only one in leather (rubber, etc.), and doubly so the only one with no shirt and his ass hanging out.  Social faux pas?  Perhaps.  But I remembered one of the things I was told two decades ago in San Francisco: “While some people may look askance at you for attending the opera in your leather pants, vests, and tux shirt, remember that what you’re wearing probably cost as much as what they’re wearing.”  So given the choice between turning tail or just acting like I belonged there, I chose the latter.

There were of course several leather guys there.  Eric, whom I played with on the last trip, was happy to see me, and he introduced me to a few other people.  I got the chance to explain some hanky code basics to a couple guys, including the idea that you can flag whatever hanky or stripe on your chaps or what not that you like, even if you aren’t into fisting or piss or whichever activity the color “means”, but what you can’t do (better not do) is either be unaware of the message you are sending with what you are displaying or be offended when someone makes the obvious assumption.

Ken and Bob (?), the owners of Gear were there, and Matthew was tending bar.  Curtis, one of the hosts and the guy who invited me, is an old acquaintance from square dancing in the Bay Area in the 1990s; we hadn’t even seen each other for 15 years until a chance meeting at Chaps Inn on my last trip.  Randy, another square dance friend from the Bay Area, was also there, as was John, who recognized me from my days at Adobe Systems in the 90s.  (I guess my looks haven’t changed a whole lot.)  There were also a couple transplants from Montréal, one a former titleholder and the other one of the founders of Club Bolo whom I knew just barely through IAGLCWDC channels.

After leaving the party, I headed to the Barracks in Cathedral City, expecting to meet up with the rubber boys, but it was pretty empty.  I did chat with Red, one of the security guys, who said that they get some undercover cops in on Sundays, looking for ways and reasons to shut the bar down.  (Never mind the large amount of slosh-over income that restaurants and such in the area get from it, it has gays having a good time, and that must be stopped!  “Watchdog has spoken!”)

Over at the Tool Shed, I found the rubber boys just hadn’t made it past there.  And since it was hopping there, no wonder!  After a couple beers, I headed back to the resort, running into Alex and Flip from Seattle.  Flip had a piece of art in the Erotic Art Expo that was being displayed at the Tool Shed.

I also got to see my buddy John, who has become a regular play buddy each time I come to town.

Sunday

Sunday morning, after playing until 3:30 am, I dragged my ass out of bed and down to Lulu California Bistro for brunch with the rubber guys, about 16 of us I think.  Lulu is huge inside and looks like it turns into a nightclub at night.  The menu is vast, and the food was pretty good (and abundant, 1/4 of my croissant sandwich came back to the resort with me to join some leftover catfish from the day before; they would be dinner later on).

After brunch, had an hour’s phone call with my co-chair for the upcoming Emerald City Hoedown, talking schedule details and the like.  Another pool party was on Sunday afternoon, smaller.  I ended up with a small sunburn, which made it hard to get up from a later nap.  Hied myself out to the Barracks, though.  Again ran into last year’s California LeatherSIR, Todd.  Also swapped some kisses and fondles with Mark, Kevin, and Daniel; the latter had been at the cocktail party the night before.  And with another Mark and Dino.  I also fielded a phone call about eventual ownership of the Northwest title sashes (GLPW owns them, but they aren’t the title producers any more, so what to do with them now?).

I stopped back at the Tool Shed and met up with Mark and Dino again, and then back to the resort where I had a play session with a hot guy named Rick.

The weather dropped more than 10 degrees Sunday night and a huge wind storm came through — very loud and cold.

Monday

Today I got to Sherman’s for breakfast.

Packing up, I passed a partial bottle of Bushmill’s whiskey on to one of the guys who drove out from Los Angeles, and passed some beer and unopened Crisco sticks on to other guys still around who might use them.  I knew I didn’t have weight to spare in my sling bag to take stuff, nor could I take them in the carry-on.

Sporting pins on my vest for events I’ve been to and this my second trip to Palm Springs with the title, I wanted to get a Palm Springs pin.  Q Trading Post had none (but I picked up a bear paw pin there), but I found some generic Palm Springs pins at Rite-Aid; better than nothing.  (I’ve debated snagging the PSLOD pin from my Mr. Northwest Cub vest, the one John gave me last summer; I may still do that as well.)

The wind had definitely heralded a change in the weather, with rain squalls all the way to Long Beach.  I had looked at options for renting a motorcycle or scooter for this trip; I would love to do the ride to Palm Springs on one, but they are prohibitively expensive.  (Obviously, I would not have brought the sling in that case!)  Sure glad I wasn’t on one coming back in the rain.

I do like flying in and out of Long Beach airport.  While they are expanding the airport now, it is still pretty darn small, so the walk from rental car return to ticket counter to gate is the equivalent of about a block.  I was struck at the airport that I always want to add letters to their abbreviation, though: LGB?  No, LGBTQ!