6 Reasons You Should Get Into the Gay Rodeo

We’re home from the rodeo, and I’m proud to say we’ve returned having won rodeo experience, new friends, a belt buckle for chute dogging, and a pulled abdominal muscle.  I don’t know what was best about the weekend: the competition itself, hearing the announcer wish Sam happy birthday both days, or hearing him say “the Page boys are married… the family that rodeos together stays together.”

Lots of photos on Sam’s site.

Every time Sam and I go to the rodeo, on the way home, I have the same thought: there’s no good reason that more gay Angelenos aren’t getting involved in the gay rodeo:

1. Hot cowboys and cowgirls from all over, (who have the resources and sticktuitiveness to commit to a sport, travel for it, and keep livestock).
2. Not just for homos anymore.  You don’t have to be gay to attend, or compete in the gay rodeo.  Just ask Sam’s college buddy, Jeremy, a happily married straight man who had a blast dressing goats with Sam in Palm Springs.
3. A ready reason to get out of town as often as you like: weekly, monthly, or every couple months, and with a wide array of activities to participate in, or watch, once you get there.
4. As low-brow or high-brow as you’d like to make it, depending on your penchant for neon motels, dive bars, and early bird specials, or top-notch accommodation and food to match.
5. Centers on a serious athletic event that involves well-honed skills and large, dangerous animals, so debilitating partying is kept to a minimum.
6. The most heterogeneous group you’ve seen in years, gay to straight, masculine to feminine, and all points in between: the antithesis to the tired, ghettoized, been-there-done-him social scene that is gay LA.  Admit it, most everywhere you go in LA is boring, and the drinks are over-priced.

The last rodeo of the season is the finals in Denver.  Sam and I didn’t make finals this year.  Maybe next.

xo,
B