The Cowboy Connection

[Katie77]

Was talking to Fiona over in Dev's Blog about our connection with cowboys, even before BBM, So thought I would start this thread about cowboys.

What connection did you have with cowboys before BBM, or after?

Who was your favourite cowboy on TV or in the Movies, and why.

Just tell us any stories about cowboys.

Do you wear cowboy boots or any cowboy clothes regularly?

[Katie77]

This is the copy of the post I put in Dev's blog, about my own connection with Cowboys before BBM.


And yes Fiona, I too have had a few memories stirred up, thinking about the cowboy connection in my own life.

My dad, who was gay, always wore jeans, and always wore riding boots or cowboy boots, and that was back in the 50's and 60's. I have photos of him in his thirties wearing a cowboy hat, and he even had the gun belt with holsters.  As I got older, I used to always say, that Dad should have been a cowboy in the wild west. His hero was Hank Williams who always wore a cowboy hat.

Even  when I got married, and he gave me away (in 1969) he did wear a suit, (which he did look very uncomfortable in), but the shoes he wore, were his cowboy boots.

[Jeff Wrangler]

It's been a long time since Westerns were popular on U.S. television. I really had to think a while about a favorite TV cowboy. When I was growing up my favorite actually wasn't a cowboy, it was the frontiersman Daniel Boone, as portrayed by Fess Parker, who is also famous for having played Davy Crockett. But looking back, I suppose if I had to pick one favorite cowboy it would have been Little Joe Cartwright (Michael Landon), of Bonanza. He was dreamy. ... 

These days I regularly wear "cowboy casual," as I call it, when I go out on a Saturday night. There has long been a gay community devoted to two-steppin' and line dancing, and those boys regularly wear cowboy boots and hats, but I haven't been and still am not a part of that scene. Still, it was also fairly common to see guys in cowboy boots and hats in our leather bar, which was my hangout for a good twenty years (we don't have a Western bar in Philadelphia). About a year before Brokeback Mountain came out, however, I began to migrate my casual wardrobe to a more Western look. The look was still masculine and a lot less work than the leather/biker gear I'd warn for years. And besides, most of leather gear didn't fit anymore! 

[Katie77]

Yeah, I have to agree with you about Michael Landon as Little Joe Cartwright.....he was sexy in his youthful boyish way, and very handsome. And he did wear those trousers very tight too. His brother Adam (Pernell Roberts) was very good looking too in a more mature kind of way.

I remember a cowboy show I used to watch called Broken Arrow. I know Michael Ansara played the Indian, but I remember I liked the cowboy very much too.

Oh, and who looked dirtier and rougher than Clint Eastwood in those spaghetti westerns.

[injest]

Yeah, I have to agree with you about Michael Landon as Little Joe Cartwright.....he was sexy in his youthful boyish way, and very handsome. And he did wear those trousers very tight too. His brother Adam (Pernell Roberts) was very good looking too in a more mature kind of way.

I remember a cowboy show I used to watch called Broken Arrow. I know Michael Ansara played the Indian, but I remember I liked the cowboy very much too.

Oh, and who looked dirtier and rougher than Clint Eastwood in those spaghetti westerns.

I was wondering when someone would mention Eastwood...

just about anyone in "The Magnificent Seven" but Yul Brynner especially...

[Jeff Wrangler]

Yeah, I have to agree with you about Michael Landon as Little Joe Cartwright.....he was sexy in his youthful boyish way, and very handsome. And he did wear those trousers very tight too. His brother Adam (Pernell Roberts) was very good looking too in a more mature kind of way.

For tight trousers it was, er, hard to beat the Lone Ranger, though. 

I've always been partial to that uniform-sort of look of tall shiny boots with the trousers tucked into them. 

[Katie77]

My favourite cowboy movie has to be Tombstone. Great acting by Kurt Russell and Sam Elliott, but the star of the movie had to be Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday.

Although there were a lot of historical in-accuracies, it is still the most accurate of accounts of the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday and the Gunfight at the Ok Corrall.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Even  when I got married, and he gave me away (in 1969) he did wear a suit, (which he did look very uncomfortable in), but the shoes he wore, were his cowboy boots.

Tell you what, I think a cowboy boots worn with a suit is hawt. ... 

Sorta like those ads Tom Selleck did, before he made it big as an actor, where he wore a tuxedo and cowboy boots. 

[Brokeback_Dev]

Tell you what, I think a cowboy boots worn with a suit is hawt. ... 

Sorta like those ads Tom Selleck did, before he made it big as an actor, where he wore a tuxedo and cowboy boots. 

Yum, Tom Sellek is hot in anything!

Sam Elliott is probably the best cowboy in movies these days I suppose. 

My favorite cowboy TV show was Allias Smith and Jones.  Does anyone remember that one?  who were those actors 

I think that my favorite cowboys in a movie are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid.  Robert Reford's AND Paul Newman could have melted me.  They were a couple of hawt cowboys!  You think the real cowboys they portrayed were a COUPLE??!

But no cowboy couple is, will ever be and positively go down in history are Jack Twist and Ennis Delmar

[optom3]

The chance conversation I had about a coffee table, over on Devs thread, opened a whole new batch of memories for me. I have always hung on to a pair of tan and cream cowboy boots that I bought on Ebay. They are so unlike anything I would normally wear,yet I stayed up half the night bidding for them.
I have even brought them over to Florida, yet most other winter clothing I sold on Ebay before moving here.As I was posting, it suddenly came to me where the cowboy connection was.It is from over 30 years ago.I was working a summer job at 16 in a hotel stuffed to the gills with Italians.Incidentally run by a very emotional gay Italian, with the most gorgeous specimen of manhood I have ever set eyes on as his boyfriend.Anyway I digress.

I had the most enormous crush on one of the Italians, who eventually asked me out.I had been flitting from one to another in order to try and make him jealous,what a trollop
 He was 26 so I felt sooo grown up, he also had a nice little alfa romeo sports car,white.The joy when he would come and pick me up from school in it. But here's the but,he lived in levis and tan cowboy boots,and a denim jacket.Hewas the first person to say I love you, actually he wrote it on a psotcard, from a trip back home.He gave me his denim jacket while he was away.It was so lovely, smelled of his aftershave.
I am going to have to ring my dad soon as I know I did not give it back to him.I used to wear it with hippy floral dresses.!!! I kept the jacket as he bought a new one,He broke my heart after a year.I am sure the jacket is in my parents loft.They never throw anything away.!!

Now the other thing that I remembered last night was that him and a group of friends used to watch, without fail, the saturday afternoon western.Some of them were so old they were still in black and white.I used to sit with them, and don't shoot me down,I hated all of them.But I was so besotted with him,I would have sat and watched paint dry.
He used to call me bella, amd say ti amo.Which in an Italian accent from an amazingly handsome man just had me melting.(this all followed on after the rape) so I was desperate for real love and tenderness.I got it all from him.For some reason Italian males, in particular,certainly of that generation just loved American cowboy movies.

I know now why I waited so long to see BBM, I associated cowboy films with him.Yet I still bought the boots and to this day I only wear Levi Jeans, apart form when I went through a really pretentious label phase.But it is back to levis now, and they have to be the button ones.
I find this to be one of the truly wonderful things about Bettermost, a cowboy coffee table can open the floodgates to a whole selection of memories.
I even remember his name,he was called Giovanni, Vanni for short, and it was in the days when my mother and I still got on.He sent me a postcard every day for the week he was away, always signed Ti amo, Vanni. I still have them all.But the jacket I am sure is at my parents house.My mother translated the Ti amo for me.I think she secretly had a crush on him.He really was drop dead gorgeous.

What is odd about BBM is that he was very similar in looks to Jake, and yet it was Heath as Ennis I fell for.He was also instrumental, in my love of all things Italian.Yet without the coffe table over on Devs blog, I doubt I would have remembered all this and pieced together, my odd asociation with cowboys.
My husband laughed, as the fist time we went to New York, I wore the boots with along tan suede skirt, and sorry, a fur coat on top.He is used to my peculiarities by now.

So I have a life long affection for all things Italian, including most of my furniture.I had never really thought about why,and yet I should have as it was such different taste to all my friends.Even when  went through my more money than sense phase everything I wore was an Italian label.The final thing that I realised is the the love of my life is a dead ringer for Giovanni, dark skin, blue blue eyes and brown. nearly black hair.

I have really enjoyed running all these wonderful memories through my mind.It has taken me back years, to what were really halcien days.It was similar to tht phrase in Candy, the afternoon of extravagant delight.It also happened to be the summer of 76 which was one of the hottest on record. Blissful memories.

Of course BBM opened up some much less well healed wounds.But hey, I just have to work through them. I tend to be a little negative sometimes, but now I realise my italian cowboy gave me a fantastic year.I will enjoy reliving some more of the memories.
What is even more strange, my ex husband the alcoholic, had 2 pairs of cowboy boots.Subconciously, I am sure I was recapturing those days when I fell for him.
O.K enough reminiscing, I will go and do the rest off line.