The crew in Chicago and the Chicago Rubbermen put on another excellent event and I was excited to actually participate in the event's success this year rather than just being an attendee.
As most of you know, preparing for this was sort of a rush job for me. I only became Mr. West Coast Rubber eight weeks before MIR, and for six of those I was still dealing with injuries and illness, so getting ready was rushed and probably a little messy ;)
I arrived in Chicago Thursday morning and because I was already taking vacation days from 2011 to do this trip and my following trip to Calgary I decided to minimize the actual vacation days taken and worked from the Hawthorne Terrace hotel room on Thursday afternoon and all day Friday. As a person who has lots of travel plans in 2011 this was a good idea but as a MIR contestant, this wasn't a good idea.
Thursday evening I went out with Chicago friends and a couple more that arrived from L.A. for a scotch tasting at a local pub on Broadway then went to Cellblock for a couple of beers before heading back to the hotel around 11pm.
Friday morning came around far too early but I forced myself to start work before 8am so that I could wrap up before 4pm. I had to run over to the Center on Halsted around 11am to drop off some Rubbout promotional postcards that were to be added into the weekend package bags. I then tried to quickly finish my work so that I could put on my first outfit for the Friday evening Meet and Greet and Rubber Image portion of the competition. I felt that as the workday wrapped up on Friday, I didn't have enough decompression time before arriving at the contestant desk at 5pm and getting ready for the Friday night events. My roommate from Toronto showed up mid-afternoon and we headed over to the Center together.
The greeters herded nine contestants together from the check-in counter into the auditorium where we met the other competitors, the judges that had already arrived and received a warm welcome from the event producers Rubberwilli and Kinkrubber. We were given a review of what was going on for the evening, got to introduce ourselves to the group, and review the stage presentation and backstage chain of events before we were taken to the changeroom area in the back hallway between the auditorium and the gymnasium where the Vendor Market was taking place.
Around 7:30pm we were released into the auditorium lobby where the Meet and Greet had already started. We mingled with friends, fellow competitors, judges, and new rubber acquaintances. About an hour later we were taken backstage again to prepare for the Contestant Introduction and Rubber Image part of the contest.
The program started almost right on time at 9pm. The speakers weren't on backstage, so we couldn't hear was was going on, but there were introductions of the judges, organizers, and sponsors, a blessing by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and a Celebration of Life for the rubbermen lost in the past year. I found out from Willi later that he had mentioned Murad in the list, which I thought was very special and was thankful that he came to me personally in between the stage portions to tell me that. I wish I had heard it firsthand.
Then it was our turn. We were brought onstage, allowed to introduce ourselves and then pulled the draw numbers out of the boot for which position we would be in for the rest of the weekend's events. I was first on stage, and also pulled Number One out of the boot. This is the infamous position that no one wants to be in during the competition. I tried to spin it in a positive light, more on this later ;)
The contestants for the 2011 contest were, in order of number draw:
1. RJ from Vancouver representing Mr. West Coast Rubber 2010
We were brought out onstage again and judged on our rubber image. Prior to the introductions we were asked to write down a three sentence statement on what we thought described how we thought of ourselves in respect of being a true rubberman. I had written something smarmy:
When I see rubber I get a bonerNot really knowing when this was going to be used, I initially regretted writing this, but now I think it was okay because at least I was able to act it out somewhat onstage when this was announced by MC Eddie Hibbs during the Rubber Image portion. I had heard afterwards that some of the contestants weren't able to really do anything with what they had written and just sort of stood there in that bright top lighting. This was my first taste of what the unknown territory of being contestant #1 was going to be, where I was told there was a place to stop and stand in the spotlight but didn't really know where that was supposed to be until I smacked into it.
When I touch rubber I get a boner
When I smell rubber I get a boner
When I taste rubber I get a boner
When I hear rubber I get a boner
We were also involved in one more performance where Mr. International Rubber 2009, Stephane Donaldson, was going to re-create his infamous football player shower strip scene from the 2009 contest. At the end Eddie was to jump into the shower with him, then were were all to come out on stage with water guns and douse them. This happened after the Image Round.
I met up with the crew and we headed over to Cellblock, which was already packed. I had a couple of beers, socialized with as many people as I could, then headed back to the hotel around 1am.
Saturday morning came far to early. I got up, brunched, packed my suitcase with all the outfits I needed for Saturday evening, dressed in my pewter military catsuit for the interview and headed back to the Center, suitcase in tow. The contestants were collected at 1pm on the nose by the Contestant Handlers and taken down to the interview room lobby at 1:30pm. We were all expected to stay here until all interviews were over. I was taken in first shortly after 2pm, introduced myself to all the judges and sat in one of the two chairs they had at the front of the room (one was for the contestant and the other for the translator), joking about a Freudian test about which seat I had to choose to sit in.
The first five or so questions were directly related to my application answers, and most of the questions posed were about what I wrote about bridging communities, event planning and dealing with new, high-maintenance rubberboys. Some of the later questions were 'what I would consider a perfect date?'. a 30-second elevator pitch to promote Rubbout, my thoughts on the experimental WCR contestant nomination format, and my worst (threatening) rubber experience dealing with someone reacting badly to me wearing latex in public. The last question involved four pieces of gear the judges had put behind me; which one I would like as my own gear and why. There was hood, a e-stim box, a gimpsuit and some bondage equipment. Of course I picked the gimpsuit stating that rubber enclosure was my favorite thing about the fetish.
I thought the interview went relatively well. Afterward I had to sit with the other eight contestants until everyone was done, which didn't end until around 5pm. I was starving, tired and cold. I went to the Market and bought the Recon Party tickets for the Jackhammer/Hole party and a thong for part of the contest later since no one seemed perfectly clear on the decency rules required on stage for a private function (some which sort of stressed me out), then went back to the hotel to change, lay down in the dark for 30 minutes and wolf down some fruit drinks, granola bars and bananas before heading back for 7pm.
We were shown the routine for the opening performance of the Saturday evening show, which was Eddie's parody of Sherry Vine's parody of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", which is "Shit My Pants". I think this performance was my favorite part of the entire contest! We had a lot of fun with it. Afterwards we were allowed to get ready for our first portion which was our audience question. I dressed in my white catsuit with white leather boots and gas mask. I was delighted (as were many in the audience) that three of the other contestants also dressed in white! Eddie was also dressing in a white catsuit for the Sherry Vine performance so it was going to be an interesting show.
So, off we were again to the stage. We ended up having to wait about 45 minutes longer than expected because the audience was taking so long to move into the auditorium from the lobby. Everyone was getting cranky and restless but we finally got started around 8:30.
The "Shit My Pants" performance went off without too many hitches. Eddie's headdress for the second part exploded behind the bathtub so he ended up a little less Gaga for the second half of the song! But it was the most memorable part of the entire contest and will set a precedent for something just as entertaining next year! The Rubberettes (Eddie's dancers) were awesome.
If you were shipwrecked on a desert island with one of the other contestants, who would it be and why?
I tried to put humor into my response saying that I would NOT have chosen Johnny or Jacob because they would inevitably kill us through some accidental explosion or landslide, but chose Francesco because he was a dark, mysterious Italian and that we could entertain each other in many ways while stranded and waiting for rescue. Once again, I missed my cues because we weren't told in detail what to expect. I think the contestants that followed responded in intelligent and insightful ways and also used their cues to their advantage.
Next was the the Mystery Bag Round. I wore my new cobalt blue wrestler with a red thong underneath. We were brought out for this part and told there was a change in the format. Now there would only be two items in each bag plus some additional items on a table beside Eddie's podium that you could choose to use or not but that we had to choose the item - if we were going to use it - before we opened the bag. Eddie was the first to do a demonstration on the hapless volunteer victim, GrooveCowboy from SLC. I came next, and decided not to use any of the jams, mustards, puddings, etc that were the additional items, only because Eddie had already done this, but most of the contestants afterwards were using these and picking them up after their bags were opened because everything was just getting sillier and sillier as the contestants progressed! I also had a bunch of thin balloons that I used for arm tying and gag, and a back massager that I turned into a ball crusher but didn't realize I was kneeling in front of Groove Cowboy when I was putting this on him and that most of the audience couldn't see what I was doing. Oh well! It was a fun round and was the most nerve-wracking for me to do so I was relieved when it was over.
We went back offstage and changed for the final presentation. I changed into my transparent black catsuit I just got with a jockstrap underneath. Everyone looked great, everyone was relieved. It was almost all over.
I went back to the hotel, showered, douched, changed and jumped in a cab up to Jackhammer for the Full Fetish party. I got there around 1am found my friends mostly down in the Hole, and stayed in the complex till around 4am until I went to a guys place for some fisting fun.
The time change really screwed things up, and with only a few hours of sleep we headed back to Boystown for brunch, I went back to the hotel to change into my 1920s bathing suit and back to the Center to spend the day in the Vendor Market. I spent the afternoon from 1pm until 5pm visiting with friends, shopping and having a few drinks in the social area while also helping Mitch out a bit with Rubbout promotion in the area around the Rubbout banner. Rubberwilli took me offside mid-afternoon to give me a thank-you contestant package, which included a few small items from Stockroom, Titan, a MIR2011 t-shirt and a gift certificate from Mr. S. We had a some nice parting words with each other. Willi is definitely a respectable guy I look up to.
I ended up buying one of the last remaining unsold Devil Dog rubber hoods from the Recon booth, a new pair of super sexy Polymorphe latex jeans with codpiece and butt hole with cover, and 5 Titan DVDs.
Just before 5pm, Dire from Rage Rubber approached me and asked me whether I wanted to buy their vacuum coffin that they had been demoing in all weekend for half price. Mitch and I discussed it and thought it would be a great idea to have this for Rubbout demoing in the future and it really was a deal too good to pass up. As we were talking to Dire while they were disassembling and packaging the coffin, Mitch asked him whether they wanted to part with the airtight vacuum cube and we made and agreement with Dire to get that for half price as well! So, suddenly the Vancouver rubbermen were the proud owners of two more impressive rubber bondage pieces of equipment! We ended up carting all of this stuff back to the hotel with the assistance of Rubber Rebel, Johnny and Ryan. We eventually decided we were going to ship all of this equipment back to Vancouver via UPS and get that all arranged on Monday before we flew.
By 4am the crowd was getting very drunk, sloppy and touchy-feely which in most cases meant unsolicited snaps of our rubber outfits. We were trying to tell people this was a big no-no but a lot of this was going unheeded. We collectively decided to leave and grab some food at a greasy spoon nearby and I got back to the hotel around 5:30am.
Sunday morning came early too. I was up around 10:30am, packing and trying to figure out what to do with all the purchases from the day before. We were checked out and packed into Marc's car by 1:30pm, went to UPS and got everything settled to ship the cube, coffin, banner and Marc's hip waders back to Vancouver. Mitch, Marc and I went to Ann Sather for lunch then had an appointment at an isolation tank boutique at 3:30. We were out of there shortly after 5, then Marc drove us to Logan Square where we caught the Red Line to O'Hare.
Two stations later, we were stopped at Belmont station due to a suspicious package and the whole Chicago bomb squad at Addison Station. Fearing we were going to miss our flight, Mitch and I went back up to the surface and flagged a cab down. We made it through some traffic jams to get to O'Hare around 6:45. Luckily the airport wasn't very busy and we got through check-in and security relatively quickly.
I am writing this on the flight home, exhausted but happy about the events that unfolded over the MIR 2011 weekend in Chicago. We had a lot of fun and I got to see the entire event from a different perspective this year. I have a whole new appreciation for the contestants of MIR that have come before me, and hopefully have some insight for those that come after me. The calibre of the event continues to grow, and the bar was set very high for next year's event! Everyone involved in the event this year must be commended for their dedication, perseverance and endurance to pull of another phenomenal feat of rubberiness!
Having said all of that, if I was asked to compete again, I probably would choose not to. Don't get me wrong, I feel it was a special privilege to compete, and it is definitely an experience of a lifetime and something anyone is considering doing should do. You should just be warned - it is something that is extremely exhausting and takes up well over half of your well-earned weekend away from home. You don't get any opportunity to really engage in high-jinks, socializing, and/or play until Saturday night, and by then you are so exhausted, hungry and drained that you don't really feel like doing much of anything anyways. I didn't get enough time to meet with old and new friends, or shop at the Market and participate in Demos, something I promised myself I would go this year. I have yet to get into a gimp-sack or hog-sack and that's something I want to do SO badly!
If you ever do decide to compete, you have to mentally prepare yourself to be fully and completely committed to the competition process. It needs to be adhered to without any distractions until the process is complete. Preparation is key and if you don't have the time or fortitude to do it properly, you're going to be shortchanging yourself during the competition and interview. Carefully review many times what you have written in your application and the implications of what you have written. It is going to be key to how you are seen and how your present yourself over the entire weekend to the judges. Get plenty of rest, otherwise you are not going to cover as much ground getting to know the judges and attendees over the weekend who hold your fate in their votes.
As for the contest itself, as everyone told me, being in position #1 is the toughest and shittiest position to be in. You are the leader into the fog for all the contestants that follow, and they all have the advantage of quickly learning from your mistakes. Especially in a contest like this where scripts and format are being changed on-the-fly, you need to be flexible - most likely the most flexible of all the contestants - in position #1. I was trying to make light of this reality of believing that I would also be the first to make statements and such, and that the ones that followed wouldn't be able to repeat my material, but this situation never really actualized. Being #1 is TOUGH!
The audience vote was sort of humiliating and would be the number one thing I would tell the organizers not to repeat again. I also don't think it is necessary for all contestants to be sequestered together all afternoon. They say this is the only way to make it fair, however giving everyone an interview time and releasing them afterward is also fair, and I think would be a LOT less stressful on everyone's systems. If someone misses their time, they have lost the contest. If they aren't there it obviously wasn't their mandate to be a serious contender. As it was, by the evening performance everyone was completely drained. By the end of the evening itself, everyone was just glad it was all over.
...
But by Sunday morning all was forgotten. I was SO happy to visit with all my old friends and connect with some (hopefully) new good friends. I love MIR and it is definitely one of the highlights of my year, every year. After a year with so much adversity, challenge and pain and sadness, it was just so wonderful to feel the energy and positivity of the tribe again that re-ignites the passion in me of why I love being a rubberman so much. The actual fetish, gear and sex is only part of the equation. The solution is only complete when the strength of the tribe and the love of and from rubberfriends is factored into the equation as well.
It all goes by so fast..and it is all so unique. I feel privileged to be part of such a rare and special community.
...
Whew!
So, now 42 hours and two workdays in Vancouver and then I'm off to Alberta for the annual family Christmas celebration at my brother's place before my folks snowbird off to Texas at the end of the month. Too bad I couldn't have done any shopping in Chicago...I haven't started and I'm still not Christmas-season motivated enough to start yet! Wish me luck as I try to cover that train wreck with some holiday cheer, more flights, rental cars, visiting with old friends in Calgary, dropping off Rubbout promo stuff at the Eagle there, the drive to Red Deer and working another day mobile in Alberta while getting all my Xmas shopping done before spending some quality time with the family! Yeesh! :D
All pics in this post are courtesy of Rubberzone. SO...MANY...GREAT...PICTURES! There is also great coverage on Leatherati and the MIR website should be updated with pictures and videos (can't wait!) by the end of the week.
How am I possibly going to pare down this entry for 3XL? A challenge in itself, indeed! ;)
