No Means No, Yes? Maybe…

Following up on this post about country songs that annoy the fuck out of me, we have the Lori Morgan hit from 1993 (her biggest hit ever, according to Wikipedia), “What Part of No”.  The song starts with her telling some guy she’s there to unwind, that she’s not interested in a dance or in romance, but then it hits the second verse with these lyrics:

I appreciate the drink, and the rose was nice of you
I don’t mean to be so mean
But I don’t think I’m getting through
I don’t need company, no, I don’t wanna dance
So what part of “No” don’t you understand

While I don’t have sympathy for guys who can’t take a hint (especially with the implied threat of stalking and rape embedded in the song), you took the drink he bought you and you accepted the rose he gave you.  Is it any wonder the guy thinks he has a shot with you?  What part of “No” don’t you understand?
 

Movie Review — Basic Instinct

I finally saw Basic Instinct (1992) this week, thanks to the wonders of Netflix.  This film had been on my “Don’t Watch” list for the last 20 years.  Due to the gay protests over it when it was being filmed and released, it was a big no-no to support this horrible anti-gay film about an ice pick-wielding bisexual murderess.

I’m glad I finally saw it, because that was a load of horse crap.  Or rather, twenty years down the road, it now looks like a load of horse crap.  At the time, maybe making an example of the film was the right thing to do.

I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area (to San Jose, an hour south of San Francisco) in August 1990, at age 23.  I had come out over the previous year in Eugene, Oregon.  I think my first trip to San Francisco proper didn’t occur until November or December of that year, for a Silicon Valley gay techies dim sum brunch.

(I still remember walking up the stairs into the cavernous dim sum restaurant, not knowing what anyone who would be there looked like.  I scanned the entire place and figured that the table of white people must be those there for the brunch.  And then saw many other people in the next half hour come up the stairs and do the exact same thing.  This was back in the days where we knew people online pretty much only by their name and e-mail address; there were no social networking or cruise sites where we could see a photo.)

Soon after that, I was regularly coming up to San Francisco at least once per weekend, to country dance at the Rawhide II.  After I joined the San Francisco Saddletramps a year later and eventually moved to San Mateo, halfway up the peninsula, my trips to The City would be three or four per week.  San Mateo was a great place to sleep, but a lousy place to have a gay life.

One of the first pieces of gay political activism that I remember was the stuff surrounding Basic Instinct, although as one of the first, it’s also something that I only have hazy memories of.  The biggest memories I have of the time are the involvement of the activist group Queer Nation, and that the gay country bar Rawhide II was used as one of the sets in the movie, and gay activists did drive-by paint bombing of the front door because of the “sell out” nature of the owner and the business.

Ray Chalker, the owner of the Rawhide II and the Sentinel gay paper, eventually earned himself a worldwide reputation as a jerk — I was once in Florida at a gay country-western dance event and met a couple guys from London who said “You’re from San Francisco?  Do you know the owner of the Rawhide?  We hear he’s a complete asshole” — but now I wonder what portion of this might stem from the Basic Instinct stuff?  That is, while running both a newspaper and a bar already put you at odds with some people in the community, when you get publicly branded as a sort of a traitor to the community and members of the community conduct repeated vandalism against your business, I can see how that changes your view of the community; you start to mistrust motives and you become a degree less pleasant to work with, and that can certainly spiral in intensity over time.  Add in the gay community’s institutionalized memory, where we hold grudges and refuse to take actions for years after the reason to do so has evaporated — like the Coors Boycott [see here] [and here], or dare I say it, avoiding seeing the movie Basic Instinct — and it’s easy to see an unfocused perpetual animosity toward Chalker and the Rawhide II festering in the community for years, continually being reinforced by Chalker himself in the way he reacted to things.

(On the flip side, Chalker’s anger and behavior eventually resulted in the creation of the Sundance Association for Country-Western Dancing, a strong non-profit which “owns” and directs the Bay Area gay country community now long after the Rawhide II ceased to be a gay country bar.  And Sundance has been an inspiration and model for Seattle’s Rain Country Dance Association, which formed after we lost the Timberline as a dance location up here.  Mmm, there’s a lot of stuff thet we can tag as possibly having some roots in this movie!)

Part of the fun with this movie, as with any one taking place in a familiar-to-you city was in identifying where things occur and what has changed since then, such as:

• Nick’s apartment is in North Beach.  Although I don’t know that neighborhood much from driving, that is also where some of Tales of the City takes place (Russian Hill is right next door; the TV mini-series was released the next year), so I recognized some of the street locations used in both.  (Alas, I don’t know that area of the city well enough to tell where they turn down a one-way street, or turn on one street and end up clear across town.)
   
• The construction pit where Roxy’s car crashes?  That is what would become Moscone Center.  You can tell by some of the other buildings seen on the other side.
   
• As noted before, the country bar is the Rawhide II.  The real one’s 7th-near-Harrison location isn’t what is shown in the movie, nor did it have a neon cactus.  It never had room inside for a live band where one is in the movie; the room was only 20–25 feet across, narrow and long.
   
• The looming freeways threw me for a loop at first, since I couldn’t place the locations as near the 101 in SOMA.  But when Nick is walking on the pier with the city behind him, I remembered that there used to be a freeway along the Embarcadero, damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 and torn down in 1991, after the movie was filmed.

Also fun was freeze-framing the scene in the country bar (scene 18), which according to the DVD notes featured as many as 100 of the bar’s regulars:

• Right as the scene opens, a guy with a bushy moustache and a white cowboy hat is seen dancing as the camera zooms through the ceiling fan.  That is Jeff Hines (d. 1998), longtime instructor at the Rawhide and prominent member of the San Francisco Saddletramps dance troupe.
   
• As Nick pays Gus’s tab, a curly haired woman is at the bar.  I think that was Jackie, whom I knew from the 931 Cloggers.
   
• As Gus and Nick leave the bar, they pass by the pool table.  Behind the black woman is a blond man in a black shirt, with a pool cue.  That is Tim, another of the San Francisco Saddletramps.  (Tim and I joined at the same time, in late 1991.)

20 years down the line, and with early 90s AIDS in the mix, a few other people looked familiar, but I couldn’t identify any of them by name.
 

Dolly Parton, the Coat Check Girl

This was my coat check ticket a couple weeks ago.

For the three people out there who don’t quite get the reference…
 

Is This Better When I’m Not Listening?

To date, there have only been three country songs that I actively despise.  (These would be “hit” songs, of course, ones with enough radio airplay to boost them from “I don’t like this but won’t likely hear it again” to “God, I hate this, change the station!  Make it stop!”)

Those would be:

• Tim McGraw’s “Don’t Take the Girl”, despised because of the bad poetry in the second verse.
   
• Colin Raye’s “That’s My Story (And I’m Sticking to It)”, his song about getting caught in a lie and just digging a deeper hole.
   
• Reba McEntire’s “She Thinks His Name is John”, about a woman who has a single instance of anonymous sex in her life and dies of AIDS because of it.

But they are now joined by a fourth, currently #1 on the Billboard Country charts, Blake Shelton’s “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking?” (also heard on Joe Nichols’ album from 2007, but not released as a single then — probably for good reason!).  Check out these first-verse lyrics:

My oh my, you’re so good-looking
Hold yourself together like a pair of bookends
But I’ve not tasted all your cooking
Who are you when I’m not looking?

Gack.  Make it stop.  Banal.  Insipid.  Lyrics that don’t add up to anything.  The second line doesn’t even rhyme.  (And I’m generally forgiving more forgiving about whether or not something rhymes when it is sung.)

No one has tasted all of my cooking, hon, not even me!  I keep making new stuff.  That pan-fried tilapia with paprika and bacon fat last night was nummy.
 

Trip Report: Portland for Alder Street Hoedown #2

Before the Trip

August 7–8 marked my second long road trip of the summer on the scooter, this time down to Portland.  I had intended to ride to Portland for Pride in mid-June, but that got stopped by needing scooter repairs (and given the heavy rain on the way down, no big loss).  I was then planning to ride in mid-July for the Alder Street Hoedown, but repairs were still underway, so I again had to drive.  Third time’s the charm, I guess.

Plotting my route, I knew I wanted to avoid the steep hill north of Olympia where I–5 climbs the Nisqually ridge.  After some online research, it appeared that Highway 507 would be my best bet, through Roy, Yelm, Rainier, and Tenino.  Looking further and comparing Google Maps time estimates, it appeared that staying off I–5 altogether until near Centralia was doable, adding only like 15 minutes to the trip.  Indeed, I could take Rainier Avenue through south Seattle and Renton until it turned into Highway 167, get off onto 161 and then 512 at Puyallup, and then off that at Parkland to head to Spanaway and pick up 507 there.

(I don’t think Google Maps does a good job of estimating times through the urban district of Parkland/Spanaway or the backroads of Highway 507, where you slow down every 6 miles for the next town.  The route took longer than I expected.)

This weekend was also Seafair in Seattle, with the Blue Angels roaring overhead and the hydroplane races on Lake Washington.  One of the major viewing locations is about a mile from my house, which means that traffic is horrific on this weekend, and thus I’m pleased to be able to leave town for Seafair.  I’ve only been in Seattle this weekend maybe 3 or 4 times in the past decade.

The Ride Down

This weekend, rain was threatening, with low overcast clouds.  (I’m told that the Blue Angels had to alter their routine to compensate for the clouds.)  I felt a little schadenfreude toward the crowds who were going to get rained up.  But of course, that tends to come back at you: I had to ride in the rain from home down to Southcenter Mall (about 10 miles), although then it mostly cleared up.

I rode down to Yelm, where I stopped for gas and decides to shed the rain pants.  I then continued out to pick up I–5 at Grand Mound, and then headed south to Centralia.  I stopped at the Centerville Western Wear store there and picked up a new western shirt — forest green with “WRANGLER” in gold thread on the pocket and the sleeve.  (I almost bought one in plum with silver threading on the pocket and back instead, but decided I look better in the green.)

After a pretty medicore French dip sandwich at Arby’s, I got back on the road.  From there, I had to deal with rain again until Kelso (most of an hour), where I stopped for gas again.

You Can’t Go Home Again

From 4th to 7th grades (over 30 years ago), my family lived in the Hazel Dell area of Vancouver, Washington.  (“Vancouver A.D.” I like to call it, vs. “Vancouver B.C.”.  Heh.)  Since I had the time, I detoured through north Vancouver, past Columbia High School and down to 95th Street, and tried to find the second place we lived.  The big tree I recall in the back yard wasn’t there anymore, but the juniper-laden planting on the corner was, so I think I found it.  I then rode down to 85th Street, to the first house we lived in, and I think I found it.  I think it’s even the same color as when we lived there.  I took pictures of both houses, plus Dwight David Eisenhower Elementary and Jason Lee Junior High, both of which I attended.  The latter looked basically identical, but the elementary school had been completely rebuilt, I think.

Time blurs all sorts of memories, but one of the biggest as you grow up is the sense of scale.  Things were vastly closer together than my memory has them.  The house on 85th Street was only a block from the Junior High (which I didn’t attend until we had moved 10 blocks away).  And it was only maybe a mile to whatever shopping area had existed back then and to the freeway.  Today I would walk that without thinking, but then it was vastly far away.  Makes me think that as I kid, I never tended to go more than 4 or 5 blocks from home, and often probably not even off my own block.  Weird feeling.

Alder Street Hoedown

This trip, I stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott near the Oregon Convention Center.  This was convenient to the PPAA for the dancing (more so that the Econo Lodge was in July), and the room was good.  I again used Hotwire, getting the room for just $75.

While DJ Crystal has been on vacation for the summer, Rain Country Dance Association in Seattle has been working with Reuben and Pamlin in Portland to put on dance nights to fill the gap — same space, schedule, lesson plan, etc. — dubbed the Alder Street Hoedown.  We want to ensure that Portland has a growing community, and two months with no dancing wouldn’t help.  Rain Country is providing DJs, some teaching, and some monetary support to ensure the events at least break even.

Terry DJed for the Alder Street Hoedown, and taught the line dances — Picnic Polka and Cowboy Cha Cha (partner flow dance).  When I got there at 9:00, they had just started the second one (which really should have been done at 9:00, but they apparently started late), but I didn’t hear griping.

The Alder Street Hoedown nights look to be a success, at least in terms of maintaining the Portland dance community during Crystal’s vacation and not losing money.  In fact, Reuben says they have had as many people as usually seen in the spring, which would be an uptick in attendance over what would normally be expected in the summer (given good weather pulling people away, and summer vacations), so that’s very good.  As a side angle, there has long been some dissatisfaction with Crystal as a DJ from some Portland dancers — if nothing else than because she’s the only one the dancers experience — and by giving them a little variety, perhaps some leverage can be built up to shift Crystal toward music selections which people will like more.

There will be one more Alder Street Hoedown this summer, on August 21 (past by the time I’m writing this), with Keith as the DJ.  Hope it also goes well.

Getting Laid

I loosely planned to go to the Eagle Portland after the dance.  As part of Oregon Leather Pride Week, they were hosting a uniform party, so I had brought a sailor shirt with me.  This meant that I also didn’t have to pack my leathers for the trip, which I was content leaving out of the scooter trunk.

(I am not really into uniform fetish — I’ve never been in the military and I’m not attracted to the look, the attire, or the attitude for roleplay.  The only military backgrounds I know in my family are late 1950s National Guard from my father, early 1940s Army from my mother’s father [who abandoned the family], and an early 19th century Prussian cavalry officer on my father’s side of the family.  I’m anal-retentive enough to know that I would need for any real uniform I wore to be as complete and accurate as I could make it, and I’m not about to try to put together that cavalry outfit!  So this shirt is one of the few concessions to that fetish that I have, enough to be “in gear” at such an event without worrying much about accuracy and completeness.)

But cruising on Grindr at dinner time, I connected with someone who apparently connected the red on the leather harness in my pic to other activities.  (He’s not the first to do so.  I’m actually surprised by this, since so many guys seem to clueless at times, but I’m happy when it happens.)  I had to go to the dance, and he had other early evening plans, but we arranged to get together later at his place.

Suffice to say, I did get laid.  Real good like!  Small hands, great attitude, and a Volcano Vaporizer — I was totally floating for the evening.  Now if we can just arrange a repeat visit, or have him come to visit me.

The Trip Back

After brunch on Sunday at the Village Inn, I rode down to Columbia Scooters to check out what they carry — which turned out to be Kymco (same as my scooter).  I talked to the owner for a while, who was (like many people) surprised that I could ride mine to Portland and Vancouver like I do.  He asked whether I hear engine strain noises, since I’m definitely pushing it beyond expected usage patterns, but no, haven’t heard any whines or the like.  I bought a lock-down cable, since I don’t have one of those.  I also drooled over the Kymco Quannon 150 sport bikes (the second branch-out of Kymco into motorcycles, following the Venox from a few years ago).  He said they haven’t sold well, so he’s going to be dropping the price in August.  (Hmmm.  No, damn, can’t afford one now!)

When I go to Portland, I usually like to go out to the nude beach at Rooster Rock State Park, about 20 miles east of Portland.  Facing a long scooter trip home, though, I didn’t want to go all that way out, and I had been there two weeks before and found much of the trek to the beach area a horrible muddy bog.  Portland does have a second nude beach, at Sauvie Island about 20 miles west of Portland.  I researched where it is and initially hoped to go there on the way down on Saturday, but the weather stopped that.  On Sunday, the weather report was for sunny but cool weather, making it not worth going then, either.

However, in the process, I had investigated an alternate route to Sauvie Island, to avoid going to Portland and then doubling back 20 miles north.  There is a bridge across the Columbia at Longview, and then state Highway 30 goes down the Oregon side of the river, through Rainier, Columbia City, St. Helens, Scappoose, Linnton.  So rather than take I–5 back through Vancouver, I took the road less travelled up the river the Longview.  (Interesting: I would go through Rainier in both Oregon and Washington, and through Columbia City in both states [it’s the neighborhood just south of my house in Seattle].)

The weather might not have been quite warm enough for nude sunbathing, but it was wonderful for riding a state highway.  I strapped my riding coat to the seat behind me (with that new cable) and just wore the new Western shirt atop my t-shirt.  Delightful ride.  Once I got through Longview and to Kelso, before getting on I–5, I put the coat back on.

Got gas in Kelso.  At Centralia, hit the usual grind-to-a-halt that haunts I–5 north from there to Olympia every Sunday afternoon.  (Literally, almost every weekend!  And for no discernable reason like an accident or a narrowing of the highway.)  So I got off at the bypass to Bucoda, which connected me up again with 507 at Tenino.  And then retraced my route from Saturday (with a couple more stops for gas and snacks along the way), but was able to ride through Renton and south Seattle now that Seafair was done.
 

Trip Report: VanQueerDanceDay and Vancouver Pride (July 30–August 1)

Before the Weekend

Several years ago, a couple guys from Vancouver, BC who were visiting Seattle asked me and a friend, “Where do guys from Seattle go when they want to get laid?”  We looked at each other and replied, “Vancouver.”  Not that Vancouver is any more a hotbed of sexy men than Seattle, just that “fresh meat syndrome” is true — a new face in town draws attention.

Vancouver is a 3+ hour drive north, and you have to have a passport or enhanced driver’s license to cross the border.  I get up there a few times a year, especially for Rubbout in April, but I’ve also been up for their Pride celebration a couple times in the past, once to march with their Leather contingent and once just to go.  I’ve also been there several times for New Year’s, just to not be at home at the usual local bar.

This year as well, Not So Strictly Ballroom was hosting VanQueerDanceDay, a day of same-sex ballroom, Latin, and country workshops, competitions, and dancing.  They invited me to come up to teach Country Two-Step.  Initially, Rusty was going to come up as well, and we were going to compete, but he ended up not able to go.  Klint was going up, though, so the two of us decided to compete — mostly just for fun, but also to support the event and get some experience under our belts.  (Our only real rule was to not embarrass ourselves.)  We got together a couple days before and practiced the various dances on my concrete parking area and called it ready (or ready enough).

Lining up a hotel was very difficult.  A week out, there was nothing reasonable available, and not even anything lightly unreasonable.  That is: nothing in the downtown core under close to $300 per night!  (You can usually get something around $100 at other times.)  I checked various sites and individual hotels, but nothing.  No availability at all.  But I also knew this was a lie: stuff was locked up with reservations which would cancel and other blocks which would free up if they didn’t fill.  Sure enough, by Wednesday, stuff was starting to show at about $200 a night (lightly unreasonable).  I had hopes that stuff would continue to drop, but by Friday morning, I was forced to go with the Best Western Chateau Granville (2 blocks from the dance studio, which was great) at what ended up being $225 per night including tax and parking.  With Klint sharing with me, doable if not nice.

The Trip Up

I rode my Kymco People S scooter up.  I’ve been looking forward to doing a long road trip on it again for some time.  (I had to pass up two trips on it to Portland this summer because it needed some significant maintenance — air filter, belt and rollers, rear tire, etc., not unexpected at 12,000 miles — that had it in the shop on and off for a few weeks.)  I did the ride to Vancouver for Pride on it two years ago, and last year rode to Bellingham for Pride, about 2/3 as far, so this wasn’t a new trip.  (And of course while I was dating Cliff, I took several trips on it to Stanwood, halfway to Bellingham.)

Two years ago, when I had only been riding 3 months and wanted to avoid the highway as much as possible, I had taken Lake City Way around the top of Lake Washington, then Highway 9 through Lake Stevens to Arlington, then Pioneer Highway through Stanwood (right past Cliff’s house, before I knew him) to Burlington, and Chuckanut Drive to Bellingham, with my only significant highway time being once I got into Canada.  That ride took 5 hours.

(Many people are stunned that I could or even would ride the scooter all the way.  The biggest thing is that they don’t realize that mine will go highway speeds, cruising along between 55 and 65 comfortably, barring hills or wind.  I just stay in the rightmost lane most of the time, since I’m going slower than most traffic but still at legal speeds.)

This trip, I did the highway all the way to Burlington (about 70 miles, stopped for gas in Marysville), then Chuckanut Drive through Bow-Edison and along the coast (I don’t want to do the Chuckanut Mountains pass, since I would slow down to sub-highway speeds there), and then up to the Lynden/Langley crossing (where I only had to wait for 1 or 2 cars).

(Somewhere on Chuckanut Drive, I took off my clip-on sunglasses and in the process, popped out one of the lenses and voomp, it was gone.  Toss those.  I also had a can of energy beverage in my pocket which wasn’t there when I got gas in Marysville; I hope it dropped out when I stopped before getting to the highway back in Seattle, rather than flying out at speed and maybe hitting another vehicle!  I also have a volume booster device that goes between my iPhone and my helmet speakers, to make the sound more audible, but it wasn’t working and was in fact working in reverse, bringing the volume down!  So I couldn’t use it on this trip.)

Once across the border, I made a mistake: rather than go to Highway 1, I decided to take 1A, the Fraser Highway, which eventually turns into Kingsway between Burnaby and Vancouver.  This is like taking Highway 99 through Seattle — fine on the viaduct, but then you end up on Aurora for miles of lights and 30 mph zones.  (Or like driving El Camino Real the whole length of the San Francisco peninsula.)  So what would have been about a 4-hour trip ended up a bit close to 5.5 hours.  I found that after about the 4.5 hour mark, my lower back started bothering me, probably due to the lack of support; at every light, I was standing up while stopped, dancing my feet around, stiff and sore.

But I eventually made it fine.  In the end, I’m not really sorry I took that route.  I had the time available and saw parts of the Vancouver metro area I never have before (although Cliff and I had hit some of the Burnaby thrift stores on a previous trip, so I recognized some parts), but I usually just want to get where I’m going (and repeated stop lights aren’t a lot of fun).  So while I’m likely to do Pioneer Highway and Farm Road near Stanwood again some day, Fraser Highway and Kingsway aren’t apt to get another visit to just ride them.

Friday Night

Friday night was the Vancouver Men in Leather Social at the “Leather Loft” at Numbers.  (That’s the name of the upstairs space on this leather night only.)  Usually, this would be on the 2nd Friday, but they did an extra one for Pride (or rather, moved the August one up a couple weeks).  Good big crowd, but I’ve only been there for the Rubbout ones in April, which is another special event, so I don’t know how it compares to a regular on.

The center of Davie Street was blocked off for a street party — beer and people and stage acts, I guess — which had traffic snarled all over the West End and had Davie way crowded.  After the Social, I went over to the PumpJack Pub, but there was easily 100 people in line at 10:45, so I gave up rather than wait for what could be an hour or more.

Went back to the hotel, and then to M2M to get laid.  I was apparently stiff or tense from the ride up though, so I didn’t have quite as much fun as I would have liked.

VanQueerDanceDay

Not So Strictly Ballroom, one of the GLBTQ dance groups in Vancouver (Vancouver Timberline Dance Society is the country-western one) hosted the VanQueerDanceDay on the day before Pride.  This was a morning of dance workshops, an afternoon of dance competitions, and an evening of awards and dance entertainment and open dancing.

Next year, this same weekend, Vancouver will host the North America OutGames (which happens on the two-year interval between the World OutGames), and DanceSport (which includes ballroom, Latin, and country) will be one of the 20 competitions being done.  So VanQueerDanceDay partly serves as a lead-in to the 2011 competition.

The morning workshops were Argentine Tango (which I skipped; needed the extra 30 minutes of sleep!), Country Two-Step (which I taught, with Klint’s help), and Salsa (which as a group lesson, merged into Casino Rueda, which is a “called” form of Cuban salsa — like square dancing, more or less).  I had probably 15 or 20 couples in the lesson.  Started with absolute beginner, then into beginner, and then into something more intermediate, to hopefully provide value for everyone attending.  We seemed to have some of each set.

During the lunch break, we got hot dogs from a vendor between the dance studio and the hotel, and Klint and I decided on what shirts to use (we had brought several), and I tried to nap.  Maybe got 20 minutes, tops.  (The fancy hot dog I got was wrapped in bacon; we referred to it as “uncut”.)

For the competitions, there was little actual competition.  Only about 6-8 couples total — Kirstin and Carol were also up from Seattle — mostly in either separate divisions (Newcomer [first time] vs. Intermediate) or in different dances.  So we competed to the same song/at the same time as Kirstin and Carol, but in a different division.  We did have another couple to compete against in West Coast Swing, and there was a trio of dances for ballroom which had two couples competing, but all others were one-offs.  Klint and I competed in Night Club, Jive (double-rhythm East Coast Swing), West Coast Swing, Country Two-Step, and Shadow.

After the competitions, we rode my scooter up Davie to go to Little Sisters bookstore, Priape (the leather and underwear store), and I got a beer at the PumpJack.  I cam back to the hotel for another try at a nap, and Klint hung out with some of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who were up from Seattle.  For dinner on the way back to the studio, I had a piece of pizza.  (Ooh, excitement.)

After dinner, in and around some open dancing, were three line dance competitions: D.H.S.S., MMMBop, and Chill Factor.  (All three non-country, I notice.)  The four of us from Seattle did the first one, then Klint and I and Todd from Vancouver for the second, and Marek joined the three of us for the last.

The awards were Mardi Gras beads with gold/silver/bronze stars attached to them.  Cheap and blingy, but just fine for this sort of a low-key competition.  Klint and I won all five of our couples dances, including the West Coast Swing.  I took gold in D.H.S.S. and silver in the other two line dances.

Our primary goal for the competition were to get a little experience at competing under our belts — I’ve done line dance comps for many years, but no couples comps in over a decade and even then just a couple Jack & Jill/Pat & Chris competitions (where you get paired with another dancer pretty much at random).  Secondary was to not look bad — that’s why we didn’t do Waltz; we knew that even if it was country, it would be too slow for what we are used to.  We also want to be able to take the experience back to Seattle and encourage people to compete at the OutGames next year, and then when we host the IAGLCWDC competition in 2013 in Seattle.

(Okay, we might have looked bad during the Jive competition, when a table-top move resulted in me head-butting Klint in the stomach and knocking off my glasses.  I left the glasses off for competitions after that.)

Overall, I was very impressed by the event.  It was fairly simply put together and Michel moved things along well (except for the brief power failure when we tripped a breaker in the middle of one of the line dances).  We’re talking about doing a similar one-day event in Seattle after next year’s hoedown, to push competition at the OutGames.  We should be able to do that pretty easy, I think.

Saturday Night

Dinner had been just that single piece of pizza on the way to the dance, so I supplemented with poutine at Megabite Pizza on the way back to the hotel.  The poutine from the Frites place on Davie near Gravnille is better.

The PumpJack has last Saturday leather nights (well, sort of — “we hope you’ll wear leather, but you don’t have to” nights), with line privileges for guys in leather (because there is always a Saturday line, so you get to jump to the front).  Line privileges last until 10:00 usually, 10:30 this weekend, so I tried to get there in time.  Alas, Davie Street was still blocked to traffic (no street party, though), so I had to park several blocks away and didn’t quite make it.  But I was still close to the front of the line and waited only 5-10 minutes.

Curiously, almost as soon as I got my beer, they closed the back patio (at 11:00, I guess).  Not sure why, maybe for noise reasons or maybe it’s harder to police when it’s dark.  Good crowd inside, though, and it turned out my ex Cliff (and his new boyfriend, Rob) were up for the weekend.  I’m sociable with them, but I’m definitely finding that the breakup still hurts when I see them together, so I sort of avoided them (that is, didn't spend much time hanging near them).

After three beers, I headed out, back to the hotel and then to M2M again.  Had a better time tonight, ride-up tension and dance competition stress were gone.

Pride Sunday

As noted above, I’ve attended Vancouver Pride twice before.  About 6 years ago, Rusty and I marched with the leather contingent.  I confess that I don’t really remember much about that year; it must have been okay but not particularly notable.  Two years ago, I just watched the parade from somewhere on Denman, a little past the halfway point.  Watching the parade, of course, gives you a view of only a tiny slice of the attendance; in comparison, of course, being in the parade gives you only a tiny view of the parade, no more than a handful of groups.

This year, there were apparently two leather contignents.  Knights of Mantra (previously known as Knights of Malta; link is for the Seattle chapter, since the Vancouver chapter’s site is dead) was the color guard, carrying the flags immediately after the Dykes on Bikes.  They sent an oddly worded invite to Seattle Men in Leather, inviting us to march with them (and for our President to possibly carry the US flag); oddly worded in that it seemed to have a slap at Vancouver Men in Leather as part of the invite.  The other contingent was a flatbed truck from the pansexual club Metro Vancouver Kink, with Vancouver Men in Leather and others marching along with them (including the current Washington State Mr. Leather and the crew from Rubbout, probably 10-12 leatherguys in total).

The parade started at 12:00 noon, although we didn’t step off until probably 1:00 pm; we we’re somewhere in the middle third of the groups.  Not So Strictly Ballroom also had a contingent, and Klint marched with them; they were in the latter third of the parade.

In the past, many parades have required vehicle wheel monitors for each vehicle in a contingent, something that has always seemed a little odd, given distances from the vehicles to the parade watchers.  No longer odd after this parade.  The first couple blocks on Robson was through a crowd of primarily Asian attendees.  Thousands and thousands of them, with no respect for staying away from the vehicles.  The gay attendees usually cluster on the sidewalk, sometimes crowded there or standing several deep, but these attendees came clear off the sidewalk, past the parking lane, and crammed into the first driving lane on each side of the street, leaving only a single lane for the truck and marchers to come through.  Wheel monitors were very necessary here, to corral the people back so they literally didn’t get run over!

After we were through that gantlet, things largely settled down to a usual placement of people, thankfully.  But I was very impressed by the number of attendees.  The route (Robson/Denman/Beach) felt twice as long as the Seattle parade route (but was really only 10% longer — I mapped on Google; I can’t say how far we traveled to the technical start of the route, though vs. the Seattle parade’s leather contingent’s path).  The number of people on either side, while it did fall off noticeably toward the end, appeared to be 3 to 5 people deep on both sides for most of the route, and was still a solid wall of people all the way to the end.  The official numbers said about 600,000 for Vancouver and 400,000 for Seattle, I think, but Vancouver felt much denser, at least three times the size of Seattle’s parade attendance.

After the parade, I wandered the festival booths and got some food (roasted corn! Carribean meat pies! mini donuts!).  Because I had got a blister on my heel the previous day, I had managed to buy a pair of cheap rubber sandals on Friday afternoon, which I wore the entire route.  I had my boots with me, and carried them over my shoulder with the laces tied together, but finally got a red shopping bag from Air Canada which made toting them a lot easier.

Eventually headed back up to the Davie Village, where I waited in line at the PumpJack for about half an hour and had a beer.  Said some goodbyes and trekked back to the scooter.  The parade route is U-shaped, so while I had walked a couple miles during the route and then back to Davie, my scooter parked at the front of the parade route was only about 6 blocks away.

On the way back to the scooter, I realized that Vancouver meters run on Sundays as well as other days.  When I parked, I was between two other cars, not in a clear meter space.  When I got back, both cars were gone, leaving my scooter by itself in the parking spaces, but for whatever reason, I had escaped any parking tickets.  Whew!

The Trip Back

Riding back was more straightforward.  I picked up my stuff at the hotel and left at about 5:45 pm.  (So that Klint and I could ride to the parade start, and store the helmets in the scooter, I had checked a bag of my stuff at the hotel, and stashed an additional bag in Klint’s car — the stuff I knew I wouldn't need for a few days until I got it back from him.)  I left an hour later than I wanted, so the heat of the day was already starting to fade.

I took Highway 1 out to Langley, where the Greater Vancouver Zoo is.  (I always wonder how much business they get, 45 minutes outside the downtown core, in the midst of wineries and farms.)  Saw a little coyote in the grass near the road on the way from the highway to the border; you never notice things like that in a car.

After crossing the border, I pulled off to get an extra layer on under my coat, since it was still cooling down.  I also had a touch of sunburn which was probably also making my temperature fluctuate.

Stopped in Bellingham for coffee and a snack, taking 20 minutes to sit and relax a bit.  Got gas, then went through Bellingham city streets to the north end of Chuckanut Drive; the highway to Fairhaven would have been a quicker route, but I wasn’t sure of where to go to get there.

I intended to stop for gas in Burlinton/Mt. Vernon, but missed the exit, so I ended up going all the way to Smokey Point, where I also had a hamburger at Five Guys; again, a 20-minute sit-down break.  After dinner, even though it had gotten a little warmer as I got away from the Sound, I added a leather vest under my coat, since the sun was down now.

Stopped again for gas at Northgate.  Stupid pump design would only give me one gallon (my tank holds 1.5+ gallons).  I’m concerned that my gas mileage — it dropped a lot in April/May/June and prompted the maintenance session at the scooter place — had popped back up but now seems to have dropped back down to right at 60 mpg.  I’ll have to monitor this, but there may be more work needing to be done.  Or it may just be an aging scooter thing.

Stopped in at the Cuff for a beer before heading fully home.  Got to the Cuff at about 10:15, so 4.5 hours since I left Vancouver.  If I hadn’t had the length of the two stops and the city streets jaunt in Bellingham, it would have been right around 4 hours, or about 45 minutes longer than the trip would have been in the car.  That’s reasonable for the scooter, I think.

After

Monday at work, I had a massive leg cramp that lasted a good 15 minutes and almost had me crying.  I’ve also had sore feet and calves for several days.  I think the latter are from all the walking on Sunday, in the rubber sandals (with no arch support), but the former may be from the long riding.  I’ll have to watch for that.  (A couple weeks later, no further instances of the cramp.)

This coming weekend, Rain Country is again supporting the Alder Street Hoedown in Portland.  I wanted to ride down for Portland Pride and for the mid-July ASH dance, but the scooter was in the shop.  I’m right now not going to the August 21 dance, so this ride will be it.  Weather looks possibly rainy in Seattle but sunny in Portland for the weekend, so we’ll see.

This will be my first long ride to Portland.  Portland is about 170 miles, a bit longer than Vancouver at 150, but with no border crossing, it should be about the same trip length on the scooter, 4 hours.  I have to study my route and find the right roads to take to bypass the plateau for Olympia, and plot out my gas stops, but it shouldn’t be too hard.  Looking forward to it!— Stay tuned for a trip report.
 

What Were They Thinking? — Mirror Mirror on the Mirror Mirror on the Mirror Mirror on the Phone

“What Were They Thinking?” highlights products and presentations which just don’t make sense.

Check out this screenshot from the music player on a not-yet-released phone.  (That’s a perk of my job, getting to test our software interactions with unreleased devices.  So no, I’m not going to tell you who the phone is by, but Verizon is their carrier.)

Apparently, it isn’t enough to just show the album art.  No, you have to make it way cooler than that:

1. You  put a border around it
2. Then you create a reflection of the art and border
3. Then you put a border around the art/border/reflection combo
4. Then you reflect that
5. And then you put a trendy fake reflection glare across the whole thing (which mostly serves to just obscure the art)

They could have saved processing resources and given the user bigger art if they just did art and maybe its reflection.  And no one would have ever wished for more.

Apologies to country artists Caitlin & Will who get caught up in this example.  (Then again, the duo broke up in late 2009 after releasing one single and having their album pulled.  Sigh.)  But here, go listen to some music from them.
 

New Zealand 2010: Wellington (Saturday, February 20)

Written on the ferry to Picton (on the South Island), 11:00 am on Sunday, February 21; and in the Sydney airport at 7:52 pm (Sydney time)

We started the day with a drive up by where the Interislander Ferry would leave in the morning, to be sure of our route and time to get there (about 10 minutes).  Then we went to the New Zealand Parliament buildings, including the one oddly architected one referred to as the Beehive.

We then drove by the botanic garden, but apparently it was walk-through only, so we couldn’t drive through.  So we went to Zealandia, the visitable part of the Karori Sanctuary, a valley once used as the water source for Wellington (when they dammed it), which a group is today attempting to restore to close to natural habitat.  This has included removing invasive non-native species, constructing a fence around the entire reserve intended to prevent rabbits, cats, stoats, hedgehogs, and rats from getting in, and re-introducing wildlife long gone from the mainland, including giant wetas (New Zealand crickets the size of a child’s hand) and tuatara (a lizard-like reptile largely unchanged in the fossil record from 60 million years ago).  We got to see a couple tuataras (tuatara? tuatarae?), but they were shy, so pictures came out lousy.

One attraction in the reserve was the remnant of a small gold mine (there had once been several, but this was the only one in the valley still safe to enter).  It went about 50 feet into the hill and then connected to a vertical shaft about 50 feet high.  The cave was usually just over 6 foot high, and we got to see a number of cave wetas and when the faint red torch (flashlight) was turned out, a handful of bioluminescent glowworms.

Pretty much every time we were out in a forested area such as the Karori Sanctuary, the bugs were out, too.  Not hopping around, landing on you, biting you bugs, just in the trees, making noise.  Lots of noise.  Loudest bugs I’ve ever heard.  We kept looking to see if we could see them (since it sounded like there must be hundreds of huge bugs in each tree to make that much racket), but we never saw the noisemakers.  I have this suspicion that they were really little ones which are able to make massively disproportionate noise.

Coming back to the hotel, Mom laid down for a nap while I went shopping.  I picked up albums from Barry Saunders (of The Warratahs) and a Noel Parlane (another New Zealand country singer) at Slow Boat Records.  Then I went looking for a scarf for Kent, as he had asked me to bring one back for him.  I finally got smart and started checking out the hiking and skiing stores and found one (part Merino wool, part possum fur), a short black one with a loop for tucking the end through.  I apparently snuck in just moments before closing, and by the time I had made a selection, they had closed the registers.  They called for approval to reopen one of them, and only did it because I was paying cash.

Heading back to the hotel, I picked up a small plastic replica of the famous New Zealand tiki for my boyfriend.  This weird design — the “pitau” version of “hei-tiki” (according to Wikipedia), it looks like a frog-man, with its head akilter and its tongue out — is one of the iconic images of New Zealand, seen on greenstone jewelry and t-shirts and so on all over the country.  Hei-tiki is technically a neck pendant, not quite connected to what Americans think of as “tiki (bar) culture”.

Mom and I then went on a drive up Mt. Victoria, the urban mountain in the middle of Wellington.  If you’ve ever had the chance to drive up Twin Peaks in San Francisco, you know very much what we got: very curvy urban drive, and a 360-dgree mountain view of all the surrounding cityscapes.  Mt. Victoria also has a Robert Byrd memorial, looking due south toward Antarctica (although you can’t see it from there; it’s hundreds of miles away).

They were gearing up for a rugby match in the big stadium we could see, but whether it was the wind or the geography, the sound all seemed to come from downtown Wellington instead.

Dinner was at Rasa, a Malaysian/South Indian restaurant across the street from the hotel.  I ended up having goat curry, and Mom had a dosa, sort of a south Indian burrito, usually done with potatoes as a breakfast food.  According to a restaurant review posted there, this dish is difficult to do right and only two restaurants in Wellington have it on the menu.

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Updated on March 9, 2010

Added links.
Added travel map.
Added section on insects.

Updated on May 17, 2010

Added better travel map.

Updated on June 8, 2010

Moved part of this post to the Sounds Kinky-er blog:
http://soundskinkyer.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-zealand-2010-wellington-saturday.html

New Zealand 2010: Rotorua to Wellington (Friday, February 19)

Written on the ferry to Picton (on the South Island), 11:00 am on Sunday, February 21; and some at Los Angeles airport at 5:15 pm on Monday, February 22

This was our big long travel day, about 9.5 hours from Rotorua to Wellington.

We left Rotorua a bit before noon and headed south to Taupo.  Mom needed to change some more US currency, and there was a CD shop I wanted to visit that had been closed when I got back from the kayaking the day before.  In the early 1990s, I had an Internet friend in New Zealand who I met because of a mutual love for Days of Our Lives.  She would send me New Zealand music, including several tapes and CDs from The Warratahs (a country group), and I would send her Calvin & Hobbes collections.  The Warratahs broke up around that time (I’m told), and I’ve always wanted to finish off my collection.  A buddy visiting New Zealand around 1997 picked up their last album for me, but it got ripped off from him in a hostel he was staying at.

Yay!  In the New Zealand music section, they had an 18-track Best Of collection, including several songs from that missing album.  I also bought a Welcome to New Zealand album, a Kiwi Country album (with two Warratahs tracks and one from lead singer Barry Saunders), and a John Denver collection (hey, I’ve only got one song from him in my DJ music!).  The store owner said he was partly responsible for that Warratahs collection being produced: he kept getting requests for Warratahs disks, so he phoned them up (the band, the record company.  I don’t know) and got them to put it out.  We also chatted about American country music for him to stock, and I turned him on to Randy Houser.  To hear him describe it, his distributor is baffled by why he would carry any American country music, much less order dozens of units of various artists.

(He also reminded me that New Zealand does have one famous country singer in its output: Keith Urban.)

(Woo!  I checked out Wikipedia and saw that The Warratahs did re-form and have released two further albums this decade.  Must find!)

We had ice cream cones — I had passionfruit (which they leave the seeds in, oddly), something you never see as ice cream in the States.  The primary ice cream company in New Zealand is Tip Top, and their stuff is indeed fantastic!

I also stopped in at a thrift store we spotted two days before, just so I could tell my boyfriend that I had done so. (Sorry, hon, nothing of interest for sale.)

Next stop was Turangi at the south end of the lake, for gas.  Then we headed down the west side of Tongoriro National Park, home of the three volcanoes (Tongoriro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu), which were given to the country by a Māori chief in 1887.  (The cynic in me wonders if that was magnanimous or an effort to keep them out of the hands of mining companies and the like.)

We stopped for pictures a couple times and at Chateau Tongoriro at the skiing town of Whakapapa, the main entrance to the park.  The Chateau was used as headquarters for the Lord of the Rings crew when filming the Mordor sequences, many of which were done in the park.

(Māori pronunciation: “wh” is pronounced as an aspirated “f” or “fh”, so there is a t-shirt out there that I didn’t see which says “Whakapapa – Your momma did”.  Also, a leading “ng” on words has the “g” almost silent; I think you press the tip of the tongue slightly into the soft palate at the top of your mouth, maybe 1/4" back from where an “n” sound is made.)

We continued down to Wanganui, on the southwest coast.  I slept for about an hour through very windy road; probably good so I didn’t use my phantom passenger foot brake on every curve as Mom drove.  (You know the one, I’m sure.  You use it whenever someone else drives.)  Heading south along the coast, we stopped for snacks somewhere outside Palmerston North (Otago, maybe?).  I got a bag of Bluebird-brand (with a penguin on the bag) “Rashuns”.  On the bag, they looked like Fritos, but inside, they were closer to Cheetos, but “cheese and bacon” flavor and truly foul!

At Foxton, we stopped for dinner at the “66 on 1” American-style diner, and then proceeded to Wellington, where we stayed at the Comfort Inn on Cuba Street.  This turned out to be a block from one of the two gay bars (S & M’s; not a leather bar!) and near a major pedestrian shopping area.  That night, I also tramped up to Dixon Street, which was incredibly loud and full of 20-something drunk straight kids.

New Zealand has sported more motorcycles and scooters than any place I’ve seen, including the good numbers we have in Seattle and even last summer in Europe.  I’ve been incredibly homesick for my own scooter (but in weather like we’ve had here in New Zealand, whether that’s slightly drizzly or super sunny), and envious of the guys (and girls) we’ve seen riding.  New Zealand is unquestionably well suited to riding.  My scooter could have easily handled anything we encountered in the Auckland/Rotorua/Taupo area, although it probably would have struggled with the hills south of Turangi.  I would love to come back in a couple years with my boyfriend and rent motorcycles for our transportation through the country.

We’ve also seen a lot of “Backpackers” hotels/hostels on the North Island.  Daniel, from the Lake Taupo kayaking trip, was one of them: they apparently do most of their travelling by bus (or train), staying in these cheap, small hotels along the way.  They are mostly under 25.  It sounds like a great way to encounter the country for someone of that age, someone less tied to luggage and laptops.  But maybe it could be good for motorcycle tourists, too.

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Updated on March 1, 2010

Updated on April 12, 2010

General updates and spelling corrections.
Added links.
Added travel map

Updated on June 7, 2010

Moved part of this post to the Sounds Kinky-er blog:
http://soundskinkyer.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-zealand-2010-rotorua-to-wellington.html

Dream Journal: December 4, 2009

On December 4, I was scheduled to start the Landmark Forum, an event I didn’t really want to do.  (More on that in a later post.)  I had a brief dream the night before:

I was in a building with a high arched ceiling with glass skylights.  Sort of haphazardly placed around the large room were false walls, the sort that went halfway to the roof but not all the way.  Each wall had landscaping — ferns, moss, flowers, trickling fountains — and barely audible New Age music was playing.

It felt like a 1970s/1980s sci-fi show set, something from Logan’s Run or Buck Rogers.

I was talking to two guys who were also there for the Forum.  We all had on name tags and one had a black bar on his, an indicator of someone having taken the Forum before.  His name was “Belief”.  The other guy was named “Don”.  (I’m not sure if we were all wearing form-fitting jumpsuits or not.)

Some chimes rang, signalling that we to go in to the start of the Forum.  As we filed into some other room, Don and I noticed that Belief had vanished.  When we sat down, Don had also vanished.

Then I woke up.

Jeez, talk about your blatant and ugly symbology: that Landmark was New Agey and sci-fi, that any “Belief” would vanish from me, and that anyone (anything) else I knew would also vanish and I would be left alone.

The next night, my dream was Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” repeated over and over and over.
 

Europe 2009: Copenhagen (Thursday, July 30)

This was my day for really focusing on the competitions.  First I put things together for the Mr. Leather competition — checked the outfits, finalized the performance, and practiced the performance at the contest space.

I snagged a Champagne Brus popsicle from the Elite mini-mart — lime and mint (I think) with a chocolate shell cap on the top third.  Looked interesting, but the flavor was too weak to be really memorable.

After that, I went to DGI-byen to practice my dances.  I brought the netbook and used the webcam to record, so I could watch the videos large enough to use them.  (Clever, huh?)  While I was there, Sherwin from Copenhagen came in to practice for Beginner, and I was able to give him some coaching and webcam filming, and then others in Beginner also came in and I gave a little coaching to them, too.  I had planned to be there for 30 minutes, but it was over 60 before I left.

I had to scramble out of there, over to Yam Yam at Central Station for some Thai yellow curry to eat on the way to the hotel, and visited the ATM.  Then back to the hotel, jump in the shower, jump out of the shower, jump into pants, and hurry back to DGI-byen for the Competitor’s Meeting.  This was when I found there would only be four in my division for overall, rather than the 10 or so I anticipated; Beginner was the one with 9 competitors.  This did relieve me some, since it meant I would surely bring home a medal or two of some kind, no matter how good the other dancers were (and I didn’t know how good at this time).

For the competition, with the Beginners division, they did a preliminary heat of all 9 dancers, then brought back the top 5 from each dance at the end of the competition for a final heat.  Not much of a surprise in the results: 4 of the finalists were the same from each dance, and the third dance had 6 in the finals, the other 2 being the 5th one from each of the other dances.

The floor was very slick.  I was not able to do the full turn and the Monterrey turn in “I’m Movin’ On” very well, but I didn’t mess anything up.  After that, we used shoe brushes to rough up the soles, and I also added a little water to my suede soles to further improve the traction.

End result for me: Gold in “I’m Movin’ On”, Gold in “Working It”, and Silver in “Soakin’ Wet”.  (That last was a bit of a surprise, since I came out easily on top in it in Tampa and DC, but here I tried adding some hat action which may not have worked, and the floor slickness may have worked against me.  (And I may have just been too confident about that dance and slacked it a little.)  I also won the Overall trophy for Intermediate Line Dance, an engraved silver (aluminum) cup on a pedestal.  (There was some question whether there should have been medals for each of the three dances on the division, or just for overall; they only did overall in Montreal, I think.  They did it here like at the competition in Washington DC a few weeks before, though; on some level, that produces medal inflation, but it also enables a dancer to compete in only the dances he or she wants to and still medal for them.)

The big surprise, I think, was Marcella from Seattle, one of only two women in the competition.  She won Bronze in “Downpour”, but then took Gold in both “Bar Room Romeo” and “D.H.S.S.”, and thus the Overall trophy for her division.  (Bradley from New York took three Silvers.  We joked that they matched the hat and boots he wore for “D.H.S.S.”)

I had asked them to try to not delay the awards.  The schedule was to finish awards at 9:45 pm, and then have a performance from the Teams winner from the day before.  I guess they were having difficulty figuring the final scores for the Beginners, but they had the Team performance first (and it was Madison Street from France, I guess the women from Trip the Light Fantastic could not all be there; but more appropriate for this night, perhaps, since Madison Street is a line dance team).  They finally did the awards and finished them just after 10:00, so I had to grab my clothes and really hurry to K3 for the Mr. Leather competition.

(Frankly, this should not have been delayed as long as it was.  I think Lee, the competition director, did all the score tabulation himself.  He should have had a scoring assistant who would do the scoring tabulation for each dance while the next one was running; that’s standard procedure for tally mastering at a leather contest.  With a two song break between each trio of dances and between the Beginner finals, there would be plenty of time to do the tallying.  Even better would be to set up a spreadsheet to do it for you; enter the values and it produces the answer.  Ultimately, though, they do it how they do it and I’m not privy to what adventures Lee might have had to deal with.)

After this win, it is not clear if Marcella and I have to move up to compete at Intermediate and Advanced in the future.  A recent discussion thread said we don’t, but these were the biggest competitions we have had in a few years for line dance and probably should force the move.  (Especially for Marcella, since the competition was much larger and stronger in her division.)  I will discuss with Marcella and probably recommend a rule change) in Atlanta this fall.  (Tony, the sole competitor in Advanced, really wants me to move up, to ensure he has some competition.  We potentially could have Tony, me, Sammy, Daniel, and Chris in Advanced next summer in Austin; wouldn’t that blow them away, with more Advanced competitors than lower levels!)

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Updated on February 25, 2010

At the IAGLCWDC convention in Atlanta in October, we updated the rules to have “international scope” competitions (like the OutGames and the Gay Games) qualify for level advancement for wins with an appropriate number of competitors, and made it retroactive to cover this year (since Marcella and I were the ones affected and we both agreed that we should move up after our wins).

Updated on May 14, 2010

Moved part of this post to the Sounds Kinky-er blog:
http://soundskinkyer.blogspot.com/2009/07/europe-2009-copenhagen-thursday-july-30.html

Letter of Comment — “Trapped in the Closet”

This letter was sent to the Seattle Weekly, in response to this February 27, 2008 article (titled “Seattle, You Love Your Mainstream Country Music” inside the issue, but “Trapped in the Closet” on the cover).  It was published in the March 19, 2008 edition, but the online  version only carries a portion of the letters.  (Which makes no sense: online is where you can easily print them all.)  The letter was edited slightly (which is fine); original content removed is [blue in brackets].  Special thanks to Spencer for letting me know the letter was published.

Brian Barr and the Weekly’s editor must be wearing their Wranglers a size too tight.   How else do you cover feature a story with a blurb like “Trapped in the Closet” without making any mention of the gay and lesbian side of things?

GLBTQ country-western dancing and music is alive and kicking [(up its heels)] in the Seattle area.   The non-profit, volunteer-run Rain Country Dance Association currently produces dance nights at the Cuff Complex on Capitol Hill every Friday night and alternate Wednesdays, providing both dance instruction and all your favorite country-western dance music.   Rain Country is also in an expansion mode this month: we are adding a classic country music night at the Seattle Eagle, and Monday lessons and dancing at Swank in Kent.  (Kudos to the Weekly for your recent story on gay life in Kent!)   We also produce a monthly non-bar dance night at a Seattle church.

[Rain Country’s biggest news, of course, is the upcoming Emerald City Hoedown on April 25-27, with a whole weekend of dancing and dance workshops, including guest instructors from San Francisco.]

And [since someone will be thinking the question,] no, you don’t have to show your “gay card” at any of our dances.   Everyone is welcome.   [We don’t care who you sleep with, so long as you like to dance!  Check us out online at www.raincountrydance.org.]

-- Jim Drew
   [President, Rain Country]

Ireland: Killarney (Saturday, February 23)

Written Saturday, February 23 at 11:46 pm, Killarney (upstairs in the cottage)

Coming back after dinner later, Mom missed the final turn to our cottage (inside the complex).  It was dark.  But she would miss it again at dusk on Sunday, too.  Turns out she was counting the speedbumps rather than the streets, and was remembering the original count from Saturday night.

Had quite good fish & chips for dinner, at a pub which eventually had traditional Irish music playing, after the France v. England Six Nations rugby match.  Watching that — I’ve never seen rugby before, and I still can’t figure out what prompts a new throw of the ball (a “scrum”?) — I can sure see why rugby is popular in the gay community these days:

• It’s a drinking game.  Every one of the British players (not so much the Frogs) looked like he’d be downing a pitcher of Guinness or Foster’s or something more British after the match.
• It’s hyper-masculine.  It’s like “tackle soccer” or “football without the rest break after every 30 seconds of play”.  Yes, Virginia, gay guys do fetishize extreme masculinity.  (Well, natural masculinity, as opposed to fake shit like pro wrestling.)
• It’s off the radar in America.  Gay guys have to be either bleeding edge or at least sharply non-mainstream, at least until the mainstream catches on.  Doesn’t matter if that’s facial hair, showtunes, or sports; rugby is so much easier to embrace when Joe Average Straight Guy has at best a passing awareness of it.
• Beefy boys in shorts and sweaty shirts tackling each other en masse, pulling at each other, unobtrusively grabbing who knows what bits of flesh along the way.  Good lord, it’s almost an orgy!  Who needs the bathhouse?
• September 11.  Rugby got a huge boost in the gay community due to Mark Bingham’s involvement in stopping the 4th plane on 9/11.  A genuine gay hero makes rugby a gay sport.

After the game was over, but before Mom was ready to leave the music (we had to eventually in order to get to the SuperValu before it closed), I went a-wandering.  Hoped to find an Internet café, but both I found closed at 10:00 (one had already locked up at 9:45 when I got there, grr), so I haven’t checked my e-mail yet and told anyone I’m actually here and intact.  Found a music store and bought some cheap CD reissues (4 for the price of 3 at €3.99 each): Pam Tillis, Dolly Parton, Mickey Gilley, and Charlie Rich.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow.  Maybe driving the Ring of Kerry (that’s some long route around the county) or going to the Dingle Peninsula; I think I read that there are some archeological ruins up there.  If not tomorrow, then later in the week.

Should find the train station tomorrow and get my ticket for Friday morning.
 

God Bless Chris LeDoux

Crap.

Crap.  Crap.  Crap.  Crap.  Crap.

Chris LeDoux, one of my favorite country-western singers, died on Wednesday.

I just bought his final album, Horsepower.  It arrived in the mail — you guessed it — on Wednesday.  I haven’t even opened it yet.  (Sorry, Loretta, but you’re getting the boot from iTunes right now.)

Now there’s one less tornado in Texas
And a saddle that’s empty tonight
There’s one hell of a cowboy in heaven
At that big rodeo in the sky
At that big rodeo in the sky

— “One Less Tornado”, from the album Horsepower
(by Aaron Barker and John Rich; sung by Chris LeDoux)

Guess I’ll be making a special request at the Timberline tonight.

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Updated on October 6, 2011
 

Conflicted about the Conflict: Ace in the Hole

I’m sure it’s purely coincidence.

There’s been this rumor for some time that the U.S. government has actually had both Saddam and Osama for a while, just waiting to announce their capture.  And now they have announced that they have caught Saddam.

Since a story like this can be expected to have good for just over a week, the date of Saddam’s capture looks suspicious: twelve days before Christmas and capture on a Saturday ensures that the story keeps hitting strong for the first couple business days following, and then slopes off just right to ensure that people have a good feeling about the conflict and the Troops (and the President, of course) right up to and thus through Christmas.

A few days earlier and there would have been a news focus gap before Christmas during which something anti-Bush could have snuck in.  A few days later, and the media would have had to force the story to die off quickly so as to not impact the feel-good crap that has to be projected for Christmas.  (Can’t have war impact the holidays!)  A few days further yet and it would have had to be reported at Christmas, which would be a double-big no-no.

Okay, fine, so they caught him.  Now would you please get the country stations to stop playing that damn Toby Keith song, “American Soldier”, every time I turn around?  How about a nice piece of Lee Greenwood über-patriotism instead?

[Weblog title reference: Hussein was the Ace of Spades in the deck of “most wanted” cards issues by the U.S. military, and Hussein was found in a “spider hole.”  “Ace in the Hole” is a country song by George Strait.]

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Updated on October 27, 2010
 

Dream Journal: Celebrity Dreams

I only rarely remember my dreams, and even then it’s usually just a single snapshot.  Of the dreams I do remember, a few have involved celebrities:

• Most recently (June 15, 2003), I dreamt that country music singer Terri Clark had died and her sister came by carrying a huge banner, asking people to be in a tribute show.
• Sometime around 1993 (maybe), I dreamt I was taking a tour of San Francisco, and we were underneath the Bay Bridge.  Our tour guide was Connie Chung.
• A couple years before that, I dreamt I was in a snow drift on a ski slope at Tahoe, strangling Annette Funicello.  (The memory snapshot I have of this dream is similar to Kirk strangling the shape-changing salt monster on Star Trek.)

As you can imagine, I try not to analyze these dreams too much.

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Updated on October 21, 2003

Updated on July 26, 2010

Added links, retitled to merge into Dream Journal thread.