Fuck the sunset, take the horse

[whispering_surrender]

Wait a second.......

What about cowgirls? Hmmm? They are romanticized in American western history as well. Do they do the same thing for the guys? Just curious.....

Whisper

 

[Wills]

Whisper

The one I remember, with more than affection from being a wee lad - Doris Day. A filim cowgirl of course.

Boy did I love that gal in my pubescent memory.

When we played cowboys, we had a neighbour, Christine Willy, (believe it or not!), my first childhood love, looked just like the young Doris Day in my mind. I used to take her down to the local stream where we sit for hours catching 'tiddlers'...

Sorry, mind is wandering.

Thanks for bringing that back.

Will's

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[raphy]

I do understand where Perdita's coming from. I mean the Marlboro Man image of cowboys, as Zack said, started years ago and picked by up Hollywood even to the extent of Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke in the movie Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a very romanticised idea of cowboys. Obviously, that image is still perpetuated to this day, by Hollywood, advertisers and country music.

A strong man, willful, independant, courteous, not afraid of a honest day's hard work. Men who know how what The Right Thing is, and who aren't afraid to stand up and be counted. Of course, the tight jeans don't hurt, either

The reality, both modern day and historical, can be quite different, of course. But I suppose it depends on whether you define a cowboy by who he is, or what he does.

p.x. edited my post to say: McKenna said everything I wanted to say, but way better than I said it

p.p.s. Including the stuff about Chris LeDoux, a man who *is* a real cowboy, both in deeds and manner. The Cowboy's Hat is one of my favourite songs ever.

p.p.p.s Oh, and about cowgirls - As Vince Gill says - You know I'm a sucker baby, for what the cowgirls do

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[Guest]

I am so pleased with all these posts. This has been one of those rare times on Lit. when I have been made to think past myself.

Mack, I thank you for your eloquence. I’m glad it was you that spread my horizons (hmm, I like that phrase) about cowboys and their true environs. You drew a lovely scene, made me want to be there. I humbly accept your comment on generalizing. I was trying not to with regard to cowboys as people, but I had nothing to work with but the media and lore, so thanks for your insights. “Tulip Cowboy” – brilliant! Love it, love you.

Zack: I always wondered why the cowboy’s fag had such a posh name, ha ha.

Cake hombre: you’re a cowboy to me.

JJ: you summed up the appeal very well. However, I’ve gone way off Limbhugger due to his wacky politics

BTW, I had a cowgirl outfit as a little girl, wore it everywhere but school. My brothers (only two at the time) had matching cowboy clothes, we were quite a funny trio.

Perdita

 

[raphy]

Re: Re: Re: Fuck the sunset, take the horse

Raphy - hugs to you! Anyone who knows Chris LeDoux (who happens to live in Wyoming, by the way,) has earned a mark of esteem in my book. Some of his music is just poetry. In addition to The Cowboy's Hat I love Call of the Wild and, well, any of his songs about Wyoming. Oh no, here comes the nostalgia... *sniff*

*grins*

Yeah. I'm one of that rare breed, the Englishman who likes, no loves, Country music and everything that it stands for; yes, including the early mornings when you can't slide the bolts on the stable door because the frost has frozen them shut, the bone-deep tiredness that comes from stacking 300 bales in an afternoon when the truck arrives 3 hours late and getting up at 2am in your sweatpants because the damn mare decided that she wanted to foal NOW.

And yeah, I love to hack out across a field and to sit at home of an evening, with a good book in my hand and my loved one curled up beside me and just think about how good it feels to be alive.

I fly a desk for a living, but hopefully this spring I'll find more time to go outside a lot more.

Love it all, and I love the men and women who write and sing about it.

Pretty much anything by Chris LeDoux is worth listening to. Silence on the Line pretty much always makes me tear up when he gets to the end. Riding For a Fall has been a pretty influential song to me over the last 6 months. There's loads of good ones. I first found him because Garth Brooks mentions him in Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old), and I went on a google search for him.

Hugs and a back to you, McKenna!

 

[Svenskaflicka]

So what kind of reality is the appeal of the cowboy for literate women with brains?

Can't help you out, P. I always drooled over the Indians in the films.

 

[Mhari]

BTW, I had a cowgirl outfit as a little girl, wore it everywhere but school. My brothers (only two at the time) had matching cowboy clothes, we were quite a funny trio.

Funny...my sisters and I had matching cow*boy* outfits. They were a much bigger hit than the hula girl outfits we also had.

I'm not entirely sure what that means, and I'm not sure I *want* to know what it means.

As for your earlier question, Perdita, about what I'd find to talk about with a studly cowboy...I guess it would depend on said cowboy. I don't think they're all dumb as rocks. But for those with, um, limited horizons, I could always talk horses. Love horses. Live in horse country.

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Fuck the sunset, take the horse

Can't help you out, P. I always drooled over the Indians in the films.

Me too, SF, and still.

P.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Dances With Wolves - Wind-in-Hair, Kicking Bird, even that little guy, Laughs-A-Lot...

*drool*

 

[Guest]

Dances With Wolves - Wind-in-Hair, Kicking Bird, even that little guy, Laughs-A-Lot...

Ah, Last of the Mohicans. I adore Wes Studi, the guy who played the angry leader (scarred face). Someone remarked to me that he was so ugly but I think him gorgeous. P.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Ah, Last of the Mohicans. I adore Wes Studi, the guy who played the angry leader (scarred face). Someone remarked to me that he was so ugly but I think him gorgeous. P.

Haven't seen that movie.

Hey! Imagine Alan Rickman in a loin cloth, riding a horse, shooting with bow and arrow... wearing his Severus Snape-wig...

 

[raphy]

Last of the Mohicans is a great movie. You should check it out, 'flicka

 

[nokraenom]

McKenna, you sure do know how to make a man think of home


<--- Wyoming born and raised. I still keep a Joe Cowboy sticker on my truck Makes the locals cringe when they come down and beat Airforce

Hats off to you.

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

"I've seen that here in Stockholm, you have a lot of dating agencies, and I just don't get it. How come you city-folks have such a hard time hooking up? Back home, in my little town, far north in Sweden, where very few people live, it's very easy: if you meet a woman who's not a relative...












...OK, who's not a CLOSE relative..."

Swedish Stand-Up-Comedian Ronny Eriksson

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[Guest]

 

[shereads]

Scots-Irish cowboys, probably the predominate ethnic group, were hard workers, but would quit for the slightest imagined insult and tended to be lousy drunks.

I'm insulted by this slur against the Scots-Irish, and I quit.

There is also the sense that cowboys are/were one of the few laboring class types who would often work alone or in small groups without a foreman/supervisor hovering over him.

That's the beauty of it. As wage slaves, I think we can all identify with the need to work with less middle management.

Cowboys have a rep for taking independence to the point of willful stubbornness. A smart boss will never give a direct order to a cowboy. Instead, he makes suggestions. "Matt, why don't you and young Matt here, go check out..." The cowboy knows it's an order, so does the boss. But for both of them, the appearance of equality has been preserved. Both have tacitly agreed the boss and cowboy are equals but just happen to have different jobs.

I love that explanation. It reminds me of something the owner of a wolf-hybrid dog once told me about the "trainability" of wolves. "You don't tell him to drop the hot dog; you suggest that he drop your shoe in return for a hot dog, and he considers it."

Rumple "I didn't punch no doggie" Foreskin

I "helped" gather some stray cows in Montana a few years ago, and was delighted to learn that the official cowboy way of referring to those doggies is not yippee-yaye-yaye-yay, but "Here cow! Come on, cow!....You be good cows, now."

FYI, nothing looks better than Montana from the back of a horse. There's a little guest ranch that's on the historic register called The 63 Ranch, no more than a dozen guests the week I was there, located where "The Horse Whisperer" and "A River Runs Through It" were filmed. Fabulous horses, who loved to race and cross icy streams and who could be left to wander, reins loosened, when we stopped for lunch or cowboy coffee.

It was the end of September, and yearling black bears came to the cabins to eat berries every morning. There were two couples from Britain, one from Germany, and a software engineer from Japan whose English was almost nonexistent but who had the complete cowboy outfit, except for holster and cap guns. His name was Tsturo, which the cowboys pronounced as "Tits In A Row."

When I asked Tsturo why he chose Montana for his vacation (we communicated by repeating ourselves slowly, at different volumes, until the other got an "a-HA!" look and offered an answer) he pointed at his hat and said, "Cowboys. John Wayne."

 

[shereads]

I am so pleased with all these posts. This has been one of those rare times on Lit. when I have been made to think past myself.

And you, Perdita, are one of the rare posters who is able to say, "I've changed my mind." It's not only rare, but admirable. And damned difficult, especially for those of us who are right to begin with.



DR. MABEUSE: You're right about the tying up of the cowgirls. That may have started me on my road to...wherever it is I am now.



However, I can't give cowboys all the credit. Mighty Mouse was always rescuing that poor mouse girl from that clutches of that giant cat villain, and I used to feel a twinge of disappointment on her behalf - I was three or four, but I was curious: what was the giant cat going to with the girl mouse that he couldn't have done just as easily with any number of boy mice? If he was that hungry, would one small girl mouse satisfy his appetite?

WS said:

What about cowgirls? Hmmm? They are romanticized in American western history as well. Do they do the same thing for the guys? Just curious.....

Have I got a link for you. No, several. Yesterday in response to Perdita's thread, I went looking for a cowgirl AV. Sites galore, and a logo to kill for: Cowgirl Creamery (a cheese making company in California). Unfortunately, I don't have Photoshop to resize the jpgs or I'd be sporting one of these Vintage Cowgirl Pinups as my AV today.

So Perdita, Whispering Surrender, McKenna et al, and anybody who wanted to be a cowgirl or would like to be one now, if you can resize a jpg you should dress yourself up for the week with one of these. They're sexy as hell:

http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/pinups1/page42.html

And, if any of you would like to, um, offer to resize one for lil ol' me, I'd love to have an AV of this one. For Christmas. (hint)

 

[Quasimodem]

... I "helped" gather some stray cows in Montana a few years ago, and was delighted to learn that the official cowboy way of referring to those doggies is not yippee-yaye-yaye-yay, but "Here cow! Come on, cow!....You be good cows, now." ...

In all my experiences with cow herders, I mostly heard bovines referred to as "Bossy."

Of course, they were not cowboys. They were fifth-generation homesteaders.

 

[shereads]

CHAPS VERSUS SHORT-SHORTS OR PANTIES

The chaps, I learned, are to keep your legs from being jabbed by shrubs and berry bushes. These cowgirl panties and minis are cuter than chaps, but they clearly limit the kind of riding the cowgirl will safely be able to do. (By which I mean "terrain," of course. Get your six-guns out of the gutter!)

Oh - there are Indian maidens and gypsies and pirates also, at this vintage pinup site:

http://store.yahoo.com/countrytradedays/vicopinups.html

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[shereads]

McKenna, you rule!

Thank you so much.



I, um, have a gift for you too but I haven't wrapped it yet.

>>racing to Toys R Us store to look for cap gun 'n holster <<