West Coast Rubber 2010 Review

What can I say about the amazing weekend I had in Los Angeles?  It was a fantastic experience and very exciting for me.  Not only did I get feted as the new Mr. West Coast Rubber, but I had a wonderful opportunity to catch up with a bunch of old friends, make lots of new acquaintances, and see some areas of the Los Angeles area I had never been to before.

I actually arrived in L.A. on Wednesday.  I stayed with my friend Rubberchris and his partner during my visit.  We went to Mickey's Bar in West Hollywood that night, which is apparently one of the best nights to go there.  The bar was packed by midnight; we had a lot of fun man watching, meeting some of Chris' friends and watching the interesting bondage demos going on on the outside stage in between go-go dancer sessions. 

Thursday and Friday during the day I had to work, so that took up a lot of time and energy especially since both mornings I was getting calls from Toronto at 6am.  Thursday evening we had a nice dinner at home, then Chris and I went to Syren to get fitted for outfits we were wearing at the Rubber Fashion Show on Friday evening, then returned back home and relaxed and played around in rubber a bit.

Friday afternoon, Rubberbuck (Mr. WCR 2008) who was also staying at the apartment arrived.  Once Chris got home from work we got ready and headed to the Army and Navy Surplus store for some quick gear and boot shopping, then got ready to head to Syren/Stockroom for the Rubber Meet and Greet and Fashion Show.  The hospitality room at Stockroom was geared up with lights, music, some artist displays and open bar for the group of 40 or so that collected to watch the rubber and gear fashion show hosted by Syren and the unveiling of the new Mr. West Coast Rubber for 2010.

The fashion show was a huge success.  It was organized by Eddie Hibbs, Syren's manager, past and present emcee for Mr. International Rubber weekend, a formidable personality on the fetish scene and a great representative of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Syren's latex fashions were highlighted by ten models presenting Syren/Stockroom's wrestlers, ladies' fashions, straightjackets, pony play and harness gear, aprons and dildo harnesses, and military outfits.  It was a very playful performance and everyone gave kudos to Eddie for his creative assembly of gear and clothing and the models for making the scenes sexy and fun.

After the modelling and fashion display was complete, it was time to unveil the new Mr. West Coast Rubber.  I had been sitting backstage throughout the fashion show and thankfully had lots of time to put on my Syren military shirt, cap, jodhpurs and 20-hole boots, and anxiously awaited getting onstage for the unveiling.  I was escorted out on stage by the eight male models, all in military latex, stumbling up the stairs onstage under the covers of a bondage sleepsack.  L8xdad of WCR announced me as the new titleholder, the shroud was taken off.  Lots of pictures, schmoozing and conversations followed. 

Afterwards, we swapped our Syren military gear for our 'going out' latex and headed to the L.A. Eagle for some drinks.  The bar was packed due to a Cub Scout party, however we ran into people we knew, there were a few rubber guys around, and one of our friends ended up blindfolded, gagged and bound to the Spiderweb in the bar.  We didn't stay too long due to the wall-to-wall packed conditions in the bar and the fact not too many of the rubbermen showed up after the fashion show, so we headed home for the night.

Saturday morning came around early.  Rubberbuck, Rubberchris and myself headed up to West Hollywood again to meet Loren (L8xdad) and Alex (L8xboy) for brunch.  The main point of our discussion was the future of the West Coast Rubber weekend.  As with many other gay fetish parties around the continent, WCR has been seeing numbers progressively decline over the past few years.  We discussed options for the future of the event.  It was thought that one of the best things to do might be to move the party back out to Palm Springs where it had originally been held, possibly rearranging the weighting of the Winter Warmup party in February to hold the Mr. WCR contest then and holding some smaller event on the Labour Day long weekend in Los Angeles. 

Some of the main concerns are the sheer logistics of securing venues to hold events in Los Angeles currently and the amount of time spent driving around the city to all of these events for those attendees who either buy the weekend packages or want to attend as many events as they can.  Weekend package purchases were down again this year, but a-la-carte purchases of single event tickets are going up.  This might be expected with a setup which we currently see in Los Angeles, where many men most likely decide to only attend a few events because of the effort involved trying to attend all the events scheduled and attended by weekend package-holders.  The desire is to be able to hold all the events in one resort, or at least have most of the events held in Palm Springs within walking distance of each other.  The Californians complained that it is too cold in Palm Springs in February; I tried to reassure them that most Northerners would still find the climate in Palm Springs agreeable enough to make the trip in February as part of their winter vacation plans.

The other main topic was scheduling.  Any other options thrown on the table for dates of the event either ran too close to other events which would possibly impact attendance at both, or ran into peak seasons or too hot of weather in either Palm Springs or L.A.  It was decided that the Winter Warmup weekend in late February would still probably be the best time to run the expanded Mr. WCR event in Palm Springs. 

This may mean that I might either be Mr. WCR titleholder for either six months or eighteen months or so, depending on what the final decision might be on logistics and scheduling.

We encouraged Loren and Alex to give up some parts of the organization of the event to other people.  I volunteered to assist with sponsorship and marketing, while Rubberbuck volunteered to do more of the overall event management, allowing Loren and Alex who have worked so diligently over the past five years to grow the WCR weekend to what it is today, to enjoy themselves more stress-free at future events.

After what was deemed a successful brainstorming brunch, Rubberchris and I headed to Rough Trade to do some shopping then headed back to Rubberchris' place with our wares.  We decided to forego the slime pit at the Eagle to have a nap and rest up for the play party in the evening. 

Rubberchris, his partner and I left their place to head up the 405 to North Hollywood.  The play party was held in the same location as last year, a great warehouse space where several L.A. fetish clubs hold their fetish, bondage and sex parties.  We got caught in horrible traffic en route and what should've taken about 45 minutes ended up taking 90.  We were exhausted but raring to go once we got there and ended up having a fantastic evening in the play spaces and common party area.  There was great music, horny bondage and sex demos, and lots of action going on in the theme rooms in the play area.  The time flew by (as expected) and I ended up in several great scenes with some sexy guys.  We hung around until 3am when the party ended to help the crew clean up the mess, tear down the equipment that wasn't permanent for the club, and pack it all away.  we got back into L.A. around 5am and gladly went to bed, satiated and exhausted.

Sunday was the pool party we were all looking forward to, as well as the Rubber Dinner.  We headed up to Altadena for a great party at a private home and grounds owned by friends of the organizers that is regularly rented out to fetish and sex groups.  Around 30 men showed up for what was a fun party and BBQ.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect - it was around 30C, the pool was great and the lounging areas were heavily used for socializing.  The grotto and private areas were initially used for play early on, but around 4pm the action moved into the pool and poolside, where some hot sex was being had by some hot guys!  The party officially ended at 5pm but we hung around until around 6:30 getting ready for dinner so that we didn't have to head back to Culver City and then turn around to head back to Silverlake.  We continued to have some sexy play right up until the end! 

My new custom 1920s-style bathing suit in white and transluscent blue was a huge hit at the party....something I have to thank James and Zann at Hypershine for putting together so creatively!  It got lots of compliments and I gladly gave out contact info for Hypershine to some of the guys that thought the suit was amazing.  Hypershine is a new Vancouver-based latex clothing company run by James and Zann, a couple of cute, creative, energetic Industrial Design students that are keen on making the Vancouver fetish scene even more glamorous.  I definitely intend to do some new creative outfits with them again in the future.

I donned my Libidex military catsuit (appropriate?) for the Formal Rubber Dinner held at a Mexican restaurant in Silverlake.  About a dozen of us ended up attending.  The conversation was light, the company fun, and the food great.  I got to say a few words as the new titleholder (something Loren apologized for not letting me do on Friday at the unveiling ;)), and talked about how I see the future of fetish events heading and how I intend to compete at the Mr. International Rubber contest in Chicago in November as representative for the West Coast.  After dinner, we decided to head home and relax.  Rubberbuck was heading home in the morning and we hadn't had too much of a chance to visit so we sat around until 2:30 in the morning solving all the problems of the world.

Rubberbuck left for the airport on Monday morning.  Rubberchris and I were originally going to laze by the pool in the afternoon followed by meeting the rest of the rubbercrew at Bullet Bar in North Hollywood, but we were already burned out by all the travelling around the city and the horror of the 405, so we opted to head to Faultline in West Hollywood, which is much closer to home where another Labour Day beer bust was going on. We dressed up in harnesses and latex and met some of our other friend there later in the afternoon.  We chatted up a hot German guy and four of us headed over to his place for a crazy night of piggy sex and play.  we got back to Culver City around 1am and crashed shortly afterwards. 

I didn't get out of bed until 10:30 on Tuesday morning.  Rubberchris and I were supposed to be at the Tom of Finland Foundation in Silverlake at 11 for a tour.  we got there a bit late but were treated amazingly by the foundation curator Durk Dehner and the other employees of the Foundation.

We had originally thought that the tour would be quick, but we ended up staying for almost four hours as we pored over decades of erotic gay male art that the Foundation has vowed to preserve, catalog and share with the world.  We also got a great lunch out of the visit!  The reason that we originally got the invitation was because Durk approached me on Friday evening after the fashion show and title unveiling and asked us to visit the Foundation.  He was amazing enough to offer me a limited edition first printing of a new line of rubbermen drawings Tom had originally drawn in the 1980s for different fetish events in Europe that were being transposed onto one print that is eventually going to be put on T-shirt designs by 665.  I fortunately get the first copy of the print and a certificate of authenticity by the ToFF.  What a great honour!  We had a fantastic visit at the Foundation and learned a lot about Tom's life, career as well as the career of many other gay male fetish artists, both past and present.  Rubberchris is an artist himself and found the tour particularly interesting, as he already knew quite a bit about Tom of Finland's life and career. 

Afterwards, we stopped at the HQ for Oxballs.  The owner is a good friend of Rubberchris and he showed us around the design and manufacturing center.  We met the staff and saw how they build the molds for their gear and set in the silicone to create their designs.  Business for Oxballs has been growing by leaps and bounds, and they now do lots of business selling silicone-based sex gear for men around the world.  Steven the owner was generous enough to give us some free swag from the shipping area.  Unfortunately we couldn't stay too long as the guys were busy and we had to head back to Culver City so I could pack and catch my flight back to Vancouver. 

I am now flying back to Vancouver among screaming babies and my music cranked up, preparing to return back to normalcy tomorrow morning.  Isn't the wind-down from these party weekends always a shocker/bummer?  Is is akin to falling into depression, from being immersed in sexual testosterone-driven overstimulation back to hum-drum daily life?  Sad, very sad.  I'm already looking forward to another party-fueled weekend in San Francisco for Folsom Street Fair in three short weeks.

...

I'm glad to say that on all fronts of my life, I'm a very fortunate, lucky man.  I'm not sure what I deserve to end up with such good karma in my life, I figure it's because I get these huge abrupt tragedies to deal with intermittently throughout my life to compensate for all the good that happens.  I try to be a good, honorable respectable guy among all the adversity.

My knees are healing nicely now that I'm finally on some effective oral antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, and I feel so lucky that I didn't get hurt worse.  I was sad that I couldn't attend the Seattle play party last weekend, but this weekend in Los Angeles more than made up for the things I missed.  On top of all that, even though there was a new format for the Mr. WCR weekend and no contest for Mr. West Coast Rubber this year and the titleholder was selected by nomination and committee selection, I ended up with three generous gift certificates from Polymorphe, E7, and Rubberdawg that will end up going towards some new gear to utilize at the Mr. International Rubber competition. 

I want to thank everyone so much for making my WCR weekend so amazing and memorable.  I look forward to my year as Mr. West Coast Rubber, representing the West Coast at MIR, assisting with the organization of the next West Coast Rubber weekend in addition to my duties planning and organizing Rubbout 20 next April.  I want to do as much as I possibly can to make these events bigger, better and sexier than ever before, while planning for a MIR performance that will blow everyone away.  I have the cards stacked against me in that situation, since I am potentially the fourth Canadian in a row to win the MIR title.  I am going into this situation unconcerned about the politics and more concerned about doing something novel and unique that everyone will remember and ultimately have no choice but to award me the title of Mr. International Rubber 2011! :) 

Now it's time for rest to make up for the sleep deficit incurred this weekend.  Funny how that always happens, eh?  I'm going a bit stir crazy not being able to run or cycle while I heal, but I'm finding this time is good to catch up with friends, foster a new relationship and get some gruntwork done around the apartment.