Our cowboy fall gallops full-speed and forward into October. Whatever happened to September is anyone’s guess, but a brief bit of its back-end glory may be found in our weekly blog recap, so read and click on…
The dusty porch of Levi’s Feed Store wound around the front and sides of the rickety wooden structure that formed the nexus of all transactions in the little town where I grew up. Named after my great grandfather Levi, on my mother’s side, who opened the store back when there wasn’t even a main road, it was more of a general store now, providing supplies for all the neighbors, not only the farmers and ranchers. Much more than that, and in all its iterations, it was the central location where people gathered to talk and gossip about the town news, which in those days rarely amounted to more than weather warnings and health issues for the regulars. Occasionally a transiting cowboy would ruffle some feathers and they’d have that to occupy their interest – cowboys being the most exciting thing about our town – but for the most part it was just a place to pass a few minutes of each day socializing. Small towns accustomed to solitude sometimes forget how much humans enjoy interacting with one another until they have a place to gather. My great grandfather Levi, the man after whom I was named and christened, a man who was dead long before I was born, never intended it to be such a space – a joke that my mother loved to tell people who were barely interested.
It was strange to see my name emblazoned in faded paint above the front door of the store once I learned how to read. No one else had such notoriety, and while everyone knew I wasn’t the Levi to which it referred, there it was – the same spelling, the same sound, the same family. To avoid any lingering or future confusion, my parents would call me ‘Leve’ – trading the last ‘I’ for an ‘E’, and pronouncing it like the word ‘leave’. Over the years it would come to be a wish, a command, and a promise, while in my mind it sometimes sounded like no one wanted me around. Leve. Just Leve.
Parents rarely mean to fuck up their children like that, and even more rarely manage to escape it.
It was on this dusty porch where I sat in a rickety old rocking chair on one of the first warm days of spring when I saw The Cowboy for the first time. I didn’t see him approach – he simply was there, walked by, and then was gone. Did he nod or smile? I couldn’t tell you; I honestly don’t remember. Locals would later expand their tales and claim that he walked into town with a swagger, a certain spring in his step that set some immediately at ease and others instantly on guard. He never would be able to reconcile the two; we never gave him that chance.
There was dust in his beard and hat, the way dust was everywhere that summer, and every summer. That’s what I thought I would remember about this spring and summer – the heat and the dust – the way they followed everyone everywhere, the way they got into the ground, into the air, into all the crevices and spaces might think could be spared – and the way they held there, stubbornly lodging and adamantly refusing to go. What I would remember instead was the middle-aged man who changed my life, striding into town for those all-too-brief seasons, and whose absence would never be filled for as long as we both lived. I remember the way his jaw moved with the steadied practice of a long-time tobacco chewer. That scent of menthol still prickles my skin, the strange phenomenon of smell triggering a physical response like no other I’ve experienced since. It makes me tear up as much as it raises my cock, and I’m powerless against both. Lately, it’s actively brought bile into my mouth – strange and awful the way memories morph over the years, turning the stomach and churning the mind until you forget what joy you ever felt in someone, or what thrill they ever brought into your existence.
He didn’t have a name – none that he revealed. The town came to know him as the Beasley Boy – the Beasleys were the childless couple who rented him a small room kitty-corner to their old unused outhouse – even if the lines of his face told all of us how far he was from boyhood. (I would come to discover he was ancient for what he was – all of forty – precisely twice my twenty years on earth, making me precisely half of him.) To me, he would always and only be The Cowboy.
On that first day he walked into town, he turned to survey the porch but I honestly can’t remember what he did first. A nod? A smile? I didn’t think to remember, but I was instantly transfixed on his countenance, and the strange feeling it gave rise to somewhere in my body. He had the look of certainty to him, like he knew exactly who he was and nothing would sway him otherwise. I aspired to have a small amount of such surety, but even all these years later I’m not sure of anything.
He couldn’t know it then, not consciously, but a few weeks after this he would tell me his senses were on alert as he walked by me on that first day, the way a dog pricks up its ears when the trouble or danger isn’t fully known, only felt. He would say his heart stirred a little but attributed it to the beans from breakfast, and then he laughed it off, and I’d never know what was real and what wasn’t.
Once he passed the porch my head turned to follow his; he turned around and gave a me a slightly grim smile. Too grim to make me smile back, so I looked down instead. When I lifted my eyes to find him again, he was no longer looking.
The ocotillo patch down the road from the store was barren of all but its spikes. Soon the leaves would appear for their brief season, and the scent of creosote would rise from the earth, perfuming the air like some enchanting fog. For now, there was still just dust, lifting from the porch as The Cowboy walked into the distance, into the sun.
Never in the bulk of my half-century of life did I envision embracing any sort of cowboy or Country-Western motif – be it style, music, decor or anything. For so long it just didn’t catch my fancy, aside from the occasional ‘Don’t Tell Me’ moment or a Beyonce foray into a funky little ‘Texas Hold Em’ song. Even Tom Ford’s Texas background and proclivity for cowboy boots wasn’t enough to persuade my feet into similar attire. Time, however, works its mysterious ways with us, and as a wise woman once noted, that which you resist is that which you eventually become. Up until now I’d never quite squared how that worked, but after years of avoiding and not being interested in or enamored of the country cowboy atmosphere, I’m fully immersed and loving every minute of it.
Granted, this is largely still a pose, but most of my lasting transformations began with just a pose, so I’m not sure this one won’t last. And it’s a refreshing switch-up from the razzle dazzle extra-excess in which I typically dwell.
In some ways, I’ve always been a cowboy at heart – or a disguised cowboy as my nephew would more accurately put it. There’s a rebelliousness and defiance of mainstream societal limits and boundaries that aligns with similar vibes in a cowboy’s life. The older I get, the more compliant I get in some ways (out of sheer laziness and apathy), but in others I seem to be growing more defiant and stubborn, embracing all that goes against the traditional grain of society, questioning our silly social rules and regulations. One must keep oneself entertained, and the mind sharp, even if cowboys don’t often live anywhere near forever.
In these parts, a gay cowboy is really just a cowboy. Cowboys have historically never much taken to identifying themselves as gay or straight or anything other than a cowboy. It’s a modern-day defiance of labels that runs back to a time long before being gay was commonly named. Here, we celebrate gayness and queerdom and all the diversity of the world, especially when it comes to cowboy living – because at his heart, a cowboy is all about living to let live.
To that end, this celebratory post features a favorite song by The Cowgays (see also Chris Housman in his Dazzler of the Day crowning here). It’s a hand-clapping exercise in self-acceptance and self-love for all us gay kids who grow up wondering if we were worthy of it.
Wish I wasn’t gay, wish I wasn’t gay I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more Clap your hands for Jesus, hallelujah, praise the Lord I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more
Used to lay in bed at night and cry myself to sleep Tossing and a-turning, wondering why Thought that damned old devil had a hold on me ‘Til the day I finally saw the light
When I think back to how absolutely lost I felt as a gay kid, with no internet, no gay visibility, and no idea that everything I was feeling wasn’t wrong or twisted or sinful, I marvel at how relatively well-adjusted I turned out in spite of that (while simultaneously marveling at how genuinely fucked-up I was in terms of how ill-equipped and unloved I felt when I dared to step into my queerness). Things cut every which way back then, and there are still repercussions to having grown up like that.
Wish I wasn’t gay, wish I wasn’t gay I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more Clap your hands for Jesus, I done shut that closet door And I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more
Without guides or support or the basic recognizance of seeing myself in just about anyone else, I made my way mostly alone, and at the worst time of one’s life to be alone. Those formative years, while difficult tin many ways, served to fortify and build a strength in me that most of my friends didn’t need to have at such an age, and that some lucky people don’t really need at any age. I’m grateful for having built myself up then, and glad, in retrospect, to have done it all by myself, because it taught me I could survive just about anything, even when left entirely to my own devices. That’s a striking sense of independence that I wouldn’t trade for any years of youthful ease; it prepared me better than most to deal with an awful and often unfair and unjust world. Gay people of a certain age are simply built stronger, because we had to be. It was that or die, sometimes quite literally, and I had my fair share of close calls. It’s hard to feel like you belong somewhere when you never felt you belonged anywhere, and if you don’t feel like you belong at at early age you do wonder at what value you have on this earth.
Preacher used to tell me I was headed straight to Hell For something that I tried but couldn’t change Had to walk through fire ’til I found myself Holy revelation, I’ve been saved
Wish I wasn’t gay, wish I wasn’t gay I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more Clap your hands for Jesus, hallelujah, I’m reborn I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more
Strangely enough, and it came from somewhere deep within me, some vain sliver of a belief in myself, I never once wished I wasn’t gay. It would have been easier in those days, it would have made things fit comfortably into place, it would have solved any number of issues that came from being closeted and repressed and forced into a life that wasn’t natural for me – but for some reason I never crossed into that particular realm of self-hatred. Oh I hated myself for many reasons, but my queerness wasn’t ever really one of them. (There was so much more to hate than the fact that I found men attractive!) Still, I understood soon and well enough that being gay would indeed be more than ample reason for others to hate me, so I wouldn’t admit it until the age of 18.
Thought that I was lost with no end in sight ‘Til I found my chosen family tree Any friend of Dorothy’s is a friend of mine So cheers to the queers like you and me
Once I did, however, there was no going back, and forging a way for my gay self at a time when not everyone did was forging an existence brazenly fired in the heat of defiance and courage. In some ways, it made everything that followed a bit of a cake walk – something I need to remind myself when I recoil from simpler challenges. It made me into the man you see before you – and in a lot of ways it made me the cowboy I’ve only recently discovered in myself.
Wish I wasn’t gay, wish I wasn’t gay I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more Clap your hands for Jesus, hallelujah, praise the Lord I don’t wish I wasn’t gay no more!
Before Chris arrived for our weekend together, I had a night alone – which is always a welcome and favored sort of night at a time when I’m just exasperated by people. The odd irony, or immaturity, of the scenario is that as soon as I find solitude and begin to savor it, I find myself seeking out people from afar – hence a little look-see out into the world from the safe vantage point of being behind curtains and one floor above the ground.
You see all sorts of things when you take the time to look, and little glimpse into the nighttime activities of others is a voyeur’s dream. I assume that most people are like myself and if they don’t want to be seen they’ll simply draw a curtain or close a blind. It’s usually the half-closed windows that give the most tantalizing peeks of real life carrying on without thought or concern of being watched; my windows are usually half-closed.
And sometimes I forget that windows work both ways. For every moment I might be peering out, someone else might be peering in. There is something vaguely unsettling and also inspiring about that. The truth is you’ll probablydefinitely see more here on this blog than looking into any of my windows, no matter where I might be, or what I might not be wearing.
Like the animals, flowers seem to sense an impending storm, putting on a last-ditch effort to bloom and show-off right before the Nor’easter arrived. Of course, this is all anthropomorphic nonsense that just feels more fun to entertain than existing in any very real or scientific realm. I’ll stop speaking now. You are so very welcome. Enjoy the show.
Taking a brief break from the cowboy motif at work here, I joined my friend Chris in Boston for an extra-long weekend of camaraderie and chillaxing at the condo – when and where a Nor-easter arrived right in the middle of the whole thing, testing the coziness and comfort of a condo weekend. Happily, it was a grand time – our typical 36-hour window of getting along swimmingly was extended and we made it out unscathed. In truth, my friendship with Chris has been one of the sustaining graces of my adult life – and after over thirty years of being in each other’s lives, he’s more like family than a friend. As such, we have navigated how to deal with each other’s idiosyncrasies, as well as how to appreciate our differences. Such as his proclivity to bring bad weather wherever he may roam.
I arrived a day early to decompress from the madness that is work and life, and the weather was still fine. Fall is usually brilliant in Boston, and this beginning was a beautiful and welcome day of sunny warmth with the slightest cooling breeze hinting at more to come.
I began the day with an early bowl of pho from my favorite place in Chinatown (Pho Pasteur) – the ideal fall weather companion. Fortified and warmed for the day ahead (the wind was already picking up) I procured some charcuterie ingredients to assemble for Chris and I later that day. It would be a weekend of mocktails and dining simplicity, with a dinner of charcuterie followed by a matcha ice cream run along Newbury Street.
When the Nor’easter finally did arrive, we kept mostly to the condo with a few dining exceptions, and while I departed early Sunday morning, Chris was staying the week to work on his projects. I envied him the stretch of days and nights in the condo, which is the coziest place to be during a storm or a cold night or an entire fall and winter.
Growing up in the small town of Amsterdam, New York meant I was more on the town side of things rather than the rural landscape that was on the outskirts, and the only barn I frequented as a child, and not very frequently at that, was a fast-food joint called The Red Barn. It actually looked like its namesake – a large open-aired barn-type structure of red that stood in a shopping plaza off Route 30, right next to the old-school drugstore called Fay’s. Nearby in the parking lot was a tiny little photo-development place called FotoHut or something that, which was literally the size of a closet. It’s where we would get family photos developed. At the dawn of the 1980’s, this is where my childhood was taking place, and if it feels quaint now, it definitely didn’t feel so at the time.
The Red Barn was supposedly one step up from McDonald’s and Burger King, and several steps down from the most basic of restaurants, and naturally as a kid I loved it. It was always a toss-up between that and Arthur Treacher’s when it came to treats our parents occasionally afforded us as children – kids loving anything salty and fried and coming with the possibility of soda. We rarely got such things at our healthy home-cooked kitchen, so the Red Barn was a rare treat and exercise in how the other half lived.
Class distinctions for someone of relative privilege, such as myself, didn’t go very noticed at the age I was when we visited the Red Barn, nor for some years after that. That comes with privilege, because comfort doesn’t demand notice until such time it is removed.
Cowboys often clash with culture and class, and this space is too small and limited to offer much more than passing glances and surface rumination on that. Instead, a pose before a barn painted red will have to suffice, positing its own questions based solely on imagery, and a pieced-together history that I can barely even remember anymore.
Willie Nelson gets some help from Orville Peck on this rendition of ‘Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other’ which was originally written by Ned Sublette way back in 1981 (yeah, this cowboy was alive then by a few years). It gained notoriety when Willie Nelson first covered it in 2006, followed by this duet with Orville Peck in 2024. Today it finds a proper place in the pantheon of cowboy songs we’re enjoying for the fall of 2026. A good song transcends time, bringing the listener along for every iteration and every generation. This one sets up the juxtaposition of the country western motif with the existence of gay cowboys – because when my biased mind used to think of cowboys, it hasn’t always been with the open acceptance we’ve been attributing to them here. My cowboy world is strikingly different from reality in so many elements, and it posits a new view and a new characterization, based on previous pockets of defiance, which is the very essence of a true cowboy.
Well, there’s many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas There’s many a young boy who feels things he can’t comprehend And a small town don’t like it when somebody falls between the sexes No, a small town don’t like it when a cowboy has feelings for men
And I believe to my soul that inside every man there’s the feminine And inside every lady there’s a deep manly voice, loud and clear And a cowboy may brag about things that he’s done with his women But the ones who brag loudest are the ones that are most likely queer
While the cowboy world of the Old West may at first glance seem inhospitable and impossible for a gay cowboy to make his way, there is a hidden history of people who had been ostracized as different who lived as they were – people of color seeking to escape social exclusion of other areas (particularly after the Civil War – and it’s notable that around that time one in four cowboys was black or Latino), trans people who sought the freedom of the frontier communities (as seen in Peter Boag’s book ‘Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past’) and cowboys who lived together, forming bonds of family and friendship and sometimes even love. The latter weren’t using ‘gay’ to describe their lifestyle or their actions – as action was it was all about. Many considered the act of two men living together and getting it on just that: an action not indicative of any defined sexuality. It was a way of living that lacked labels and somehow allowed for greater difference than the boxes we want to assign people today. Not that there’s anything wrong with labels or letters or anything that helps people understand each other better.
Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other What did you think all them saddles and boots was about? There’s many a cowboy who don’t understand The way that he feels for his brother And inside every cowboy, there’s a lady that’d love to slip out
I find it fascinating that so many so-called ‘fringe’ elements of society came together under the cowboy guise, and then were buried under years of white-washing and homophobic history-revision. We were there, we were part of that world, yet the rest of society has worked to erase us from that space. A true cowboy is welcoming and open to all people, largely living to let live, and not bothering with what people wanted to do at the end of the day. That’s my definition of a cowboy. It’s also the driving impetus of this fall, and if it turns the Old West on its head, maybe it’s time for a different sort of revision – one that puts the diversity and open-minded acceptance of a dream utopia back into the cowboy realm where it’s always belonged.
And there’s always somebody who says what the others just whisper And mostly that someone’s the first one to get shot down dead So when you talk to a cowboy don’t treat him like he was a sister You can’t fuck with a lady that’s sleepin’ in each cowboy’s head
While it’s nice to dream of such a scenario and work towards such a promise, the reality is much different, and often much more tragic. But I’m here for the fight, I’m here for the battle, I’m here for the war. And if I want to wear a cowboy hat and sing Willie Nelson tunes and maybe even learn a line dance or two (ok maybe not that) then let us have a cowboy’s life.
Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other What did you think all them saddles and boots was about? There’s many a cowboy who don’t understand The way that he feels for his brother And inside every lady, there’s a cowboy who’d love to come out And inside every cowboy, there’s a lady that’d love to slip out
The Fall of the Cowboy is off to a rollicking start, and on this first of October it feels like a fine and fitting place to pause for a spell and revisit how far we’ve already come. It’s been a long time since a new image/era/project had me feeling this inspired, which means it’s unfolding precisely how it should be – that the universe has finally aligned after years of feeling slightly out of sync. That doesn’t mean my demons have been eradicated – in fact, this only seems to have put them in clearer focus – and that’s good. You can’t vanquish what you cannot see; you cannot destroy what you cannot name. While nobody falls as hard as a cowboy, nobody rises as miraculously as a cowboy either. Let’s revisit where this cowboy’s already taken us…
Nobody knows what rehab is really like until they have to go through it themselves. It’s not the stuff of cuckoo’s nest movie depictions or dreamy theatrical representations – those might capture the surface trauma and the atmosphere, but they never quite get the ugly despair and haunted hopelessness that are too often found in such spaces. There are glimmers of hope and paradise as well – even if it’s just the paradise of relative relief – even if paradise is no longer perfection but merely the acceptance and acknowledgement of torment, and the terrifying notion that nothing might ever make it go away.
I imagine fame is a similar beast, so when you put together the white hot celebrity status that Orville Peck achieved just as he began a slide into addiction and alcoholism, you have the conditions that ultimately found him checking into rehab – and fueling the main emotional heft of his latest album ‘Mule’ – an exercise in musical therapy and catharsis that is as beautiful to the ears as it is to the analytical and introspective parts of us.
With a fine voice honed from years of classical vocal training, Peck has always seemed slightly larger and beyond the scope of what most of us would consider country music – hence his successful Broadway debut as the Emcee in ‘Cabaret’. Pushing the limits of country music – both in his openly-gay and unabashedly genre-pushing manner – Peck turns ‘Mule’ into a musical journey embodying the emotional rollercoaster of the past year or so of his life. A number of singers and songwriters have found fertile ground in addiction, though most aren’t able to translate it into something richer and more resonant, and certainly not as musically gorgeous.
It takes both a well-earned confidence and humility to give the opening song slot to the trio that sets things in motion on “Prologue (Eulogy of a Man Turned Mule)” – though I suppose when that trio is comprised of Emmylou Harris, Noah Cyrus and Allison Russell, the star-power and talent is well-matched, and an ideal beginning to the idea of what turns a man into a mule.
Peck’s rehab stint is given a stunning cinematic treatment for the video of ‘Already Gone’. One of the catchiest songs in the bunch, its ebullient surface and melodies are directly at gruesome odds with the ambivalent lyrics:
He’s everybody’s favorite but it takes a toll Leave him alone, he’s gonna end it all Lonesome heart by design Broken head in decline Tellin’ anyone who’ll listen, it’ll all be fine Just one more man at the end of his line
The circular hell of his circumstances finds disturbing and blunt exposition in ‘Rehab Blues’: “I hate it here, I don’t care and I wanna die.” It would be awful to dwell very long in such headspace, but when the music sounds this good you stick around to listen – and by the end of the exercise you realize one has to go through it to get out of it. For Peck, living in such a dark and low place seems to have marked the place to begin, and he begins his way back – or at least through – with the driving ‘Ring the Bell’.
On the contemplative ballad ‘The Fall‘ he works toward something deeper, some purpose in the whole awful experience – and it sounds like that might mean not doing it alone – which involves letting someone be there for you as much as being there for someone: “Take a rest right here/ And I will share your pain, I’ve seen it all.” Then it swings back into ambivalence before ending on a note of hope. It leads beautifully into the strongest stretch of the album – the gorgeousness of ‘Cowboy Heart’ and ‘The Breeze, The Grass, The Mourning Dove and Me’ before climaxing in the thrilling ‘Run Out of Road’.
Don’t come running back to me when you run out of road Expecting I’m still behind the door that you slammed closed The price of being wild and free can leave you more alone So don’t come running back to me when you, you, you run out of road My boots on the ground, blue skies You like how I’m moving on with my life? And I’ll admit you cross my mind, but not enough to cross that line You can have a change of heart, but you won’t break mine a second time
Lead single ‘Too Little, Too Late’ is almost an after-thought after this run – albeit an after-thought of absolute brilliance. A hand-clapping good time, this celebratory, carefree fuck-off to an unappreciative paramour (or perhaps a different sort of monkey on the back) works as a rollicking way to leave someone, or something, behind. It also sets up the gritty determination and strength required to really reveal all that comes in the final song, and title track, ‘Mule’:
Somebody save me from the night time Morning always feels okay And perhaps this need to run is my attempt to chase the sun I think about that every other day
His voice occasionally catching, the quiet and somber guitar work gliding exquisitely underneath it all, ‘Mule’ is the bit of grace that makes the ugly brutality of life worth living. It’s the moment you find yourself walking with a loved one – maybe not holding hands, but simply walking beside them – as friend, lover, or partner – in any of the meaningful ways we connect to another person. In that space and in that place there is, if we’re lucky – and if we allow it – the grace to make it through to the next morning. Sometimes such a friend comes in the form of a song, maybe a collection of songs, that let you know you’re not alone. Sometimes it comes in a melody that eases the mind, sometimes it comes in a turn of words that perfectly expresses what your heart has once felt. And sometimes it comes in an album called ‘Mule’ by an artist named Orville Peck.
And, oh, I still got a ways to go And, oh, it may seem like I changed, I know And, oh, it’s not change I think it’s more like coming home
And if it seems I’m losing track of what I’m saying Just don’t mistake me for a fool It may look like I’m fine, but you’ll realize in time You’ve been talking to a man turned mule.
Thirty days hath September – April, June and November…
Somehow the last day of September is already upon us – and I’m left wondering what the hell I’ve been doing for this month, other than transforming into the cowboy before you – a cowboy in name and spirit more than action and reality – for such has always been my life. The transition from September to October has often been marked by emotional upheaval – and next month will mark seven years since I stopped drinking, which no longer feels like the big deal it once did. Not that I’m not still happy with the decision, and thrilled with how much it freed and inspired me to work on myself in ways that alcohol was only ever going to mask and disguise – I’m just not sure how much more there is to say about it. Maybe I’m feeling a little tired and exposed, a little worn and weary. It’s too early in this fall to be anywhere near this exhausted; it’s too late in my life to be anything less than exhausted.
And yet… and yet. Whenever I find myself on the edge of a field – a field that stretches out into sunshine and shadow, a field that runs further than the eye can see, that disappears from sight before it ends – I find the desire and impulse to start running – as fast and as hard as I can, the way I used to run up the street as a young boy, trying to get away from everything that was wrong in my childhood. Then the exhaustion I feel as a fifty-one-year-old man slips away, and my boots strike out and into soft, lumpy stretches of grass. Exhilarated, the mind impels the body to keep going, until lungs burn, until legs sting, until I have to admit I’m human, until I have to admit I’m too old to do this, even if I’m not.
It’s strange how trying on the life of a cowboy has me finding out more about myself than when I was decked out in the feathers and sequins everyone thinks of as my true style. Putting on the damage of another persona may be the freedom from being myself that my overthinking and overanalyzing ass needs. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the books: distraction and fluff to allow for your mind to unwind. When you focus on something for too long and too intently, you completely lose sight of it. You need to get out of yourself. For me, getting into the cowboy is the best way of getting out of myself.
