Category Archives: Music

All right, all you buckaroos
Time to rope ‘em up
Ease on in to the ride…

Cowboys can be notoriously cocky because it takes a certain cockiness to become a cowboy. You have to believe that in some way you are different than most everybody else to take such a twisted and physically-tortured path. Not that you are necessarily better (though let’s be frank that that’s really what we’re saying, even if we never actually say it) – mostly that you are just built and made differently than most, because a cowboy’s life is not an easy one. They have to believe with all their heart that cowboying is the best choice for them – that it’s the only choice. 

Sun’s a-goin’ down?on?this cattle town
Leave?your boots under the chair
And play?me a song on the steel guitar
In nothing but your underwear
We’ll have a couple of beers and look up at the stars
While the old white porch swing sways
Then come inside and I’ll give you a ride
At the end of your honkytonk day

A cowboy has to be ready to die for their work, their way of life, and this is not a life for the hesitant or weak. There are far too many risks for this to be a passing pose. It requires commitment and dogged determination, and a desire for the freedom and way of life only a cowboy’s existence affords. 

Ride me, cowboy
Ride me good
(Won’t you ride, won’t you ride me good?)
Show me what you got goin’ on under that hood
Ride me, cowboy
‘Til the cows a-come home
(‘Til the cows, ’til the cows come home)
Look deep in my eyes, put your hands on my thighs
And ride, ride, ride

Nobody exemplifies the mantra of ‘work hard, play hard’ as well as the cowboy. Back-breaking days of cattle wrangling and bone-crunching dangers of steers and bulls and horns just waiting to impale make for nights of release that might astound the most practiced prostitute. Cowboys know how to use their bodies, skillfully throwing their heft and muscle around to successfully handle animals and beasts five times their weight. Couple that with the need for pleasure and release to offset the hard work, and you have the combustible legend of the cowboy as the ultimate love-maker. Bottom line: cowboys know how to have fun, and largely in a very physical sense. 

Moon’s a-shinin’ bright on this desert night
Back in town they’re all in bed
But here in the country we’re wide awake
The blood is rushing to our heads
Your hands on my chest and our clothes in a pile
As you press your lips to mine
We can sweat it all out, holler and shout
As the tumbleweeds roll by

They work hard, they play harder, and they fuck hardest. They take their examples from the very animals they are tasked with mounting and mastering  – a bit of beast-like wildness lies barely latent until they find some sort of inspiration or willing outlet in a lass or lad who pricks up notice at the slightest inclination. Then the game is on. 

Ride me, cowboy
Ride me good
(Won’t you ride, won’t you ride me good?)
Show me what you got goin’ on under that hood
Ride me, cowboy
‘Til the cows a-come home
(‘Til the cows, ’til the cows come home)
Look deep in my eyes, put your hands on my thighs
And ride, ride, ride

Historically, not many cowboys identified as gay – though a number of them fucked and fooled around with other cowboys – they simply didn’t label it as gay. Perhaps they’re still way ahead of their time – existing and fornicating without label or designation – a hole being a hole being a hole. And love finding no word for love – not even love, because how could it ever be contained in a single word?

Ride me, cowboy
‘Til the cows a-come home
(‘Til the cows, ’til the cows come home)
Look deep in my eyes, put your hands on my thighs
And ride, ride, ride
Look deep in my eyes, put your hands on my thighs
And ride, ride, ride

But this post isn’t about love – at least nothing so explicitly said or conveyed – it’s about a cheeky romp of fun and casual good sex – the kind extolled in this cheeky song about some pre-dinner romp and gleefully delivered by Paisley Fields. The kind a cowboy does best.

Hustle up now
We’re almost there
Don’t stop now
Use both hands
Not too fast, you don’t wanna make it home too soon
Supper’s waitin’
Mmm, I can smell it right now, ah…

Our day of ‘Rodeo’ inspired music comes to a gentle close with this rendition of the old cowboy tune ‘Goodbye Old Paint’, which Copland reportedly used as part of his ‘Rodeo’ ballet cycle. On a Friday night in this Fall of the Cowboy, after a day of rain and rumination, I’m feeling a touch more contemplative than I typically do at the start of a weekend. Time for a story song to take us out of our own heads and worries…

When I take my saddle
Down from the wall
Put it on my pony
Lead him from the stall
Tie my bones to his back
Turn our faces to the West
We’ll ride the prairies we love the best

A cowboy carries a certain sadness in their countenance. Whether it’s been beaten into them after one too many falls from the saddle, or whether they’ve beaten it into themselves – cowboys being their own harshest abusers – the tears of a cowboy run like little rivers through the dirty canyons of their hollow cheeks. True cowboys don’t get to indulge in the weekend either – animals requiring constant and daily care outside the societal limitations of human time. Friday night is as Sunday morning is as Wednesday afternoon and so on and so forth. A cowboy’s days are not often his own, and we haven’t gotten into a cowboy’s nights just yet… but we will.

It was my first time playing with an orchestra, and even though it was the Empire State Repertory Orchestra, I was still way out of my league. Not helping matters in the least was the fact that somehow we were late for this first rehearsal, throwing someone with severe social anxiety way off his game. As I sheepishly stepped through the orchestra already making its wild way through Copland’s ‘Hoe-Down’ movement of his ‘Rodeo’ ballet, I dodged the string-player’s elbows and squeezed into the second oboe’s spot near the front and center of the whole group. From that day forward, the conductor did not like me very much.

Looking back, I cannot blame him – and even at that time, I knew most of the blame fell on me – for not being good enough, not having the first clue about orchestra etiquette or decorum, and definitely not being prepared enough for the sort of talent that the ESYO family sought and sustained. My chosen instrument – the impossibly difficult oboe – was the only thing that got me into such a vaunted space; no one wanted to attempt a tackle and taming of that dreaded double-reeded monstrosity. I had only picked it because a girl I liked in grade school had selected that as her chosen instrument. Somehow, I’d made it into mine in the ensuing years of blood, sweat and tears – and all of them would be elicited from those rehearsals and practice sessions and weekly private lessons.

Aaron Copland – the brilliant, and gay, composer with ties to Brandeis University, where I eventually ended up matriculating – would bracket my years in the Repertory Orchestra and the Empire State Youth Orchestra. On this first night, his sixteenth notes gave my tongue a run for its barely-teenaged money, and my mind reeled at the speed and power with which the orchestra charged through the sheet music; like some wildly uncontrollable bucking bronc, it grabbed me by the jodhpurs and did its best to throw me off.

It succeeded a number of times that first rehearsal. I lost my place, couldn’t catch up with the rest of the players, and felt terribly like I did not in any way belong there. Like any good cowboy, however, some bit of fire inside of me refused to let me give up. Well, a bit of fire coupled with my parents’ insistence on not dropping out – not that I even proposed such a thing, even though I was in over my head. Over the next two years, I would focus on my practice, work with my teacher, and more or less master the oboe well enough to get me into the actual Youth Orchestra. It still wasn’t where I belonged, but my innate tenacity insisted on asserting itself despite grave social anxiety, crippling self-doubt, and all sorts of imposter syndrome set-backs.

On that first evening trying to capture Copland’s mad genius, I couldn’t hear the message he was trying to get across from all the stress I felt – and I wouldn’t hear his real music until my very last concert with the orchestra the following year. That much I regret about the experience – the competition, the five-hour double rehearsals, and the rustic weekend at Frost Valley stressed me out so much that any appreciation in music that I should have been developing was made impossible until I was at the end of my time there.

So yes, regrets… I’ve had a few… but then again, too few to mention.

The supposedly-macho and often-misogynistic history of country-western music is being turned on its antiquated head as we repurpose and reformulate readings of cowboy lore for this Fall of the Cowboy. As a gay cowboy in-the-hopeful-making, my own pose is one of retro-amusement – and while some may be quick to dismiss this as nothing more than a pose, there are deeper things at work here, such as the distillation of the essence of a cowboy and his primal make-up. Far more than the boots or the animal-caretaking actions, a cowboy is unbridled chaos and passion barely contained within the confines of his denim and rope. He carries the weight of a history almost obsolete and a tradition worth preserving in his dusty back pocket, surviving on a vision and the will of a heart still bound to this earth and all its physical machinations, purposes and pleasures.

The highway, she’s hotter than nine kinds of hell
The rides, they’re as scarce as the rain
When you’re down to your last shuck with nothing to sell
And too far away from the trains
Been a good month of Sundays and a guitar ago
Had a tall drink of yesterday’s wine
Left a long string of friends, some sheets in the wind
And some satisfied women behind

They’d ride me down easy, Lord, ride me on down
Leave word in the dust where I lay
Say I’m easy come, easy go
And easy to love when I stay

A restless spirit is part of many a cowboy’s operation in this life. A desire to be free and entirely unfettered, at odds with all the rope they require, adds to their allure. We mostly want all that we can’t have, and a cowboy carries that power with only the merest understanding of his pull. It doesn’t completely exonerate him from blame, but it lends a charm that makes some of it forgivable, or at least tolerable for those with a decent amount of patience. I’ve only encountered a few spiritual cowboys over the years, and I’m afraid I didn’t treat them well or with the respect they deserved – this was after a bad break-up in which I didn’t exhibit much good behavior. One day soon I’ll tell you about some of them – one of those spiritual cowboys who came into my life as a lesson, which I promptly failed and fucked up, then watched it all play out in the dim hurt of his eyes.

Put snow on the mountain, raise hell on the hill
I locked horns with the devil himself
Been a rodeo bum, a son of a gun
And a hobo with stars in his crown

In my own way, I was a love ’em and leave ’em type of cowboy at the time – unable to process my actions while wading through such a pool of hurt and heartbreak, I lashed out and ruined and destroyed with willful abandon, giving and accepting sex as a weapon and currency – those brief spurts of satisfaction attempting to become something more, and me refusing at every turn, then turning to another. I remember one sweet gentleman waiting at my door with a carved wooden rose in his hand – I came downstairs, opened the door, accepted the gift, then said something so cruel he never bothered coming in. The worst of it is that I no longer even remember what I said, and maybe that’s for the best. I’m haunted by enough of what I’ve done, and the more forgotten, the better I might sleep at night.

So ride me down easy, Lord, ride me on down
Leave word in the dust where I lay
Say I’m easy come, easy go
And easy to love when I stay
Ride me down easy, Lord, ride me on down…

Sunday night before a holiday is the best sort of night there is, taking away some of those Sunday scaries and giving us one last chance to party. Who better than to see us into this night of ridiculous revelry than The Cowgays and their giddy ‘Good Hoedown’ song and video? Let’s get into it. (Also, peep the now-poignant Dolly Parton reference at the start – aww…)

So I call my rowdy friends, tell ’em meet me in the sticks
There ain’t a bad day that tonight can’t fix
I’m one, two-stepping my troubles away
Three drinks in, in a purple haze
I’m on a hell of a roll, there ain’t no stopping me now
Can’t keep a good ho down at a good hoedown

Might be drowning in debt, but I’m swimming in beer
You can call me white trash, but I’m a queen around here
Now that I’m single, I can kiss who I please
Take a ride on my tractor if you know what I mean
There ain’t no telling what I’m gonna do
The good thing ’bout rock bottom’s there ain’t nothing left to lose

Luck ain’t a lady, and neither am I,
I’m more lit than the Fourth of July
Luck ain’t a lady, and neither am I,
I’m more lit than the Fourth of July

While the only sort of lit I’m getting these days is whatever happens beside a candle, I still know how to throw it down, light it up, and kick those bad days to the curb. There’s an underlying resilience and defiance to this song that belies its catchy trappings, and if you can gain some strength while shaking your booty, there’s no better way to live. So step to living and join me in my merry band of hoes – let’s get down!

Call my rowdy friends, tell ’em meet me in the sticks
There ain’t a bad day that tonight can’t fix
I’m one, two-stepping my troubles away
Three drinks in, in a purple haze
I’m on a hell of a roll, there ain’t no stopping me now
Can’t keep a good ho down at a good hoedown

Cameron Hawthorn gives a poignant and quietly powerful take on ‘Cowboy Take Me Away’ originally performed by the Dixie Chicks. A few pronoun switches and this is a gloriously-gay anthem and love song, a lovely little accompaniment to the burgeoning gay romance of our cowboy story just starting to unfurl here. Wistfulness is a key component of many a cowboy’s character. A certain sort of unrequited longing is part of it too.

I said, I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly
I wanna sleep on the hard ground in the comfort of your arms
On a pillow of blue bonnets in a blanket made of stars
Oh, it sounds good to me

I said, cowboy take me away
Fly this boy as high as you can into the wild blue
Set me free, oh, I pray
Closer to heaven above and closer to you
Closer to you

As much as a cowboy might believe in the solitude and independence of his lifestyle, there are those cowboys who want nothing more than to fall in love and make another person a part of their lives. Does it go against any tried and true cowboy code? No – at least nothing that’s written down. A cowboy doesn’t like to put anything in writing (and that’s a big fork in my cowboy path). Today’s cowboys aren’t bound to such old-world traditions, which largely established themselves due to the transitory and challenging life of cowboys of the past. Love and marriage are more possible now than way back then, and are in fact fostered by society’s questionable pushing of such traditions.

I wanna walk and not run
I wanna skip and not fall
I wanna look at the horizon and not see a building standing tall
I wanna be the only one for miles and miles
Except for maybe you and your simple smile
Oh, it sounds good to me
Yes, it sounds so good to me

This winsome song sweetly describes a young man’s search for love, which he seeks in the form of a cowboy who might sweep him off his feet. Ahh, youth and romance and the idealistic dreams of anyone who’s ever fallen in love in this mad world. In the beginning there is frenzied, tormented hope and promise, ever in danger of not being more than a passing moment, and if the object of one’s affection doesn’t quite feel the same, well, that hurts in a way most of us of a certain age have all but forgotten.

Cowboy take me away
Fly this boy as high as you can into the wild blue
Set me free, oh, I pray
Closer to heaven above and closer to you
Closer to you
Closer to you

I said, I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly

Some cowboys never forget, though – and I’m in that camp. Love has bruised and scarred in ways I don’t want to forget. Every bit of hurt and heartache was proof that the moment mattered – even when it was all in my head, it still mattered, it still felt like love, it still changed my life as if the love was real – and in that way, it was.

Cowboy take me away
Fly this boy as high as you can into the wild blue
Set me free, oh, I pray
Closer to heaven above and closer to you
Closer to you

Come on (whoo!) go ahead, and sing along (hey!) because everyone has done their cunty-cuntry turn – witness Madonna and Lady Gaga and now Beyonce (and we aren’t going to compare because comparison is the thief of joy). There’s enough room for all of us cowboys and cowgirls and cowpeeps – why destroy or attempt to diminish anyone else’s idea of fun? Temporary guise or permanent personality trait finally revealed after years of hiding it away? Keep ’em guessing (whoo!) keep ’em asking (hey!) and keep ’em coming back for more until we’ve peeled away all the layers and all the costumes and you finally get your full-frontal bare-naked body spilling out all of its creative juice…

Some have expressed surprise and wary disbelief that I could actually be turning a country corner, but then they haven’t been paying much attention – the only one true constant thing I’ve ever been is surprising, unpredictable, and slippery as quicksilver. My tastes change too much, my interests shift with the slightest wind, and my own sense of self is constantly evolving and transforming, ever on the hunt for something to inspire and entice. Besides, most people look better in a pair of cowboy boots and Wrangler jeans. Try it and see for yourself, you may be surprised too.

Even at the age of 51, there are still twists and turns in this thing called life waiting to be taken and navigated. And at such an age, I find myself craving just a little bit of whiplash, a little unsettling toss and tumble to remind me I’m still alive, still able to be interested and interesting, still getting back on the horse no matter how many times or how horrendously he might have bucked me off in the past.

Feeling a little reckless, a little restless, and a little feckless – because who the fuck needs a feck anyway?

Is it Irish or is it Southern?

Country-Western or Cocky-Cockney?

He’s every woman. He’s a man’s man.

Words are useless, especially sentences.

Don’t ever tell me to stop.

“If you wanna make it country, baby, that’s ok, cause I was born, I was born, I was born this way.”

Our cowboy foray into the country-western vibe finds some pop culture resonance in this countrified version of Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’. I remember when this came out initially as part of the track’s original release – at the time I was puzzled by it, but I didn’t hate it. All these years later, I’m finding even greater appreciation for it, particularly during this fall of the cowboy. It’s also a fun excursion from the more serious expositions that may be in store – when you have a moment for fun and enjoyment, you better be damn well take it. Especially on a Friday.

Driving, windows wide open, music fighting with wind, shadows fighting with sunlight – the day recalls the summer, the way some warm and humid fall days keep you guessing which way time is traveling: a mirror of spring, with the staleness of decay in the air the only tip-off as to which end of the seasonal year we might be nearest.

A cowboy’s journey is based largely on seasons, flying on the wind and the weather, seeking the sun and warmth, seeking some bit of hospitable land and atmosphere – it’s a journey of the moment – the journey of a Friday afternoon with the bulk of the weekend still and always ahead of him. He follows his own path – sometimes it leads to comfort, sometimes it leads to hell – always it leads to wherever he finds himself at the moment. There is not much in the way of planning or preparation, or so it seems. A cowboy is always more prepared than he likes to let on, and often less. The cowboy’s conundrum, with no resolution in sight or desire.

And every time a cowboy seems about to let loose on a Friday, there’s always a sliver of seriousness to his abandon – riding a little too close to the edge, ever-ready to fall even in the midst of all the fun. He burns and kicks and thrashes, not unlike the horse on which he rode into the sunset and away from the day. There will be time to rest later…

Loneliness is a funny thing for a cowboy. Funny as in strange and mysterious, not mirthful or merry. In my admittedly-limited and stereotypical broadly-stroked fantasy of this character, a cowboy both cherishes solitude, yet struggles with the loneliness such a stance often ends up yielding. A certain lonesomeness is part of many a cowboy – in the wistful restlessness that often leads someone to becoming a cowboy.

I look to the moon, she’s the only one
Who sees what I do, what I’ve become
I’ve fallen for you, they say it’s wrong
A carpenter’s son, who can hear my song

River of love, you carved your canyon
Carries me out, from the place I’m hidin
Will tonight prove, what I’ve known for so long
Don’t let me go on alone

A heart is a fickle thing you can hear it but you just can’t find it
Scavenging for your love through bones of what’s been left behind
To the stars and the moon, I’m howling for you
But an echo is the only reply
Tonight, the coyote ain’t the only one crying

This marks one of the darker turns of the cowboy’s journey, one that comes as the first fall nights turn cold. We forget how much night will come to dominate these next few months until it’s here and all turns dark so early. As much as I welcome the fall – and these days I largely do – it’s still shocking when it happens. The first hard frost is somewhere soon, like some foreboding promise lingering in the back of your mind, not letting you enjoy yourself fully until it happens, until the worry is done – and even then, it will have already become such a habit that it won’t depart so quickly.

The wind, cold, and dark, you feel the tension
You make your mark, in this all friction
Desert empty, I’ve never been so hollow
You leave the tracks, wherever you go I will follow

A heart is a fickle thing you can hear it but you just can’t find it
Scavenging for your love through bones of what’s been left behind
To the stars and the moon, I’m howling for you
But an echo is the only reply
Tonight, the coyote ain’t the only one crying

For this Hump Night of Wednesday, when the work-week is over halfway done, here’s a bluesy bit of music to see us through to the weekend. Heartbreak doesn’t allow itself to be bound or limited by arbitrary timeframes. A weekday or a weekend is all the same to sorrow. Duration matters only slightly less, and some would argue not at all. Sadness will persist as long as it wants, and as long as we allow it. Sometimes there is no choice.

Once you’ve tasted blood, then you’d understand it
Denying myself, would leave me out here stranded
A heart is a fickle thing you can hear it but you just can’t find it
Scavenging for your love through bones of what’s been left behind
To the stars and the moon, I’m howling for you
But an echo is the only reply
Tonight, the coyote ain’t the only one crying

PS – As we told our favorite Uncle to try to get him to stop smoking, ‘Smoking is rat poison!‘ We repeat it here despite the featured photo, which is only a pose. All of life is a pose, sometimes a dark pose, and sometimes a pose in the darkness.

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.