I dare you not to fall for the Rawhide Kid

 

The Rawhide Kid wore Guichi?!?

 

A Swing and Miss from the Rawhide Kid

Possibly my favorite frames from the Rawhide Kid

 

Metrosexual Mountain Man

I woke up today and went on my customary morning walk.  Since it was the first cold day of the year I had on a heavy Cabella’s sweatshirt over an Eastern Mountain Sports t-shirt and a pair of well-worn flannel lined jeans from LL Bean.  As cold weather and my scarred up chest don’t get along well I decided it was time to break out my new LL Bean clover sweater vest for work, but still struggled to figure out what it matched with.  I settled on slate dress slacks and a Joseph A Banks light grey/green shirt.  Before heading out I checked the mirror and moved my just shy of too long hair and beard into place, and laughed at the notion that my management never knows if I’ll come to work in khakis and flannel or displayed like a peacock.  No wonder I am so enamored by the Rawhide Kid.

Dress Up in Boomtown

Earlier in the year I mentioned playing a Facebook game called Boomtown.  One of the fun things about the game is the ability to reshape your character’s look however you like.  Here are a few versions of my gunslinger that I’ve made so far.

Lou Prophet

Louisa Bonaventure, aka "The Vengeance Queen"

Rawhide Kid

Tallulah Black

Looking for a Cowboy with a White Hat

I’ve been in the mood lately to read a sentimental, good hearted western.  You know, the kind where the hero wears a white hat, you can tell who the bad guys are, and you can get through the story believing that the lead didn’t pick up syphilis.  Not necessarily a simple story, but one where the moral compass of the hero guides him or her through difficult decisions and sees right and justice done at sundown.  You know, the kind of story the people think of when they make fun of westerns.

The problem is I can’t seem to find one.

The closest that I get are parodies of this kind of western: the modern Rawhide Kid comics, maybe the unsung film Rustler’s Rhapsody.  Fun, but I'm hoping for a novel, and the genuine article rather than a parody.  Whatever happened to that classic morality tale that makes up the stereotypical western?  Am I looking in the wrong place?  Advice, please, I could use some recommendations for a new book.

Handkerchief Code & Marvel's Gay Cowboys

In a past post I pointed out that not only is the Rawhide Kid gay in the current incarnation, but if you look closely at the old ones he pretty much rode that trail in the 70’s, too.  If you read the old Marvel westerns, you notice that almost every one of the Marvel cowboys wears a bandana.  They all stick to a single color bandana, and they always wear it on the same side.  Ever hear of something called the Hanky Code?  The Code is a way that gay men communicate their sexual proclivities, with color advertising what you like to do and which pocket you wear it letting folks know if you are a top (left side) or a bottom (right side).  Legend has it that the Code goes back to ‘49ers in San Francisco, a time and place where women were scarce and men did manly things with other manly men.  It came back around in the 70’s, when Marvel was still cranking out cowboy comics.  Coincidence?  I think not.  So how did Marvel’s cowboys swing?

It seems that gay cowboys are riding all over the Marvel Wild West. The Rawhide Kid wears a light blue bandana which hangs to the left, so he is an oral top.  Both the Two Gun Kid and Caleb Hammer wear red bandanas, which apparently means there is some fisting going on when these two traildust crimefighters meet up, and Hammer is the one walking away funny. They probably regularly meet up with the Outlaw Kid, who wears his red bandana around his face, which I’m guessing means he’ll play both sides of the field. With his blue bandana, Kid Colt seems to have a uniform fetish, fitting for a cowpoke on the run from authority.  Kid Cassidy's white bandana shows he is interested in safe sex only (or whatever the 1870's equivalent is); his partner Reno Jones, alas, has no bandana, so he may be the only straight one riding the owlhoot trail.  

Cowboy Yogi, Part 1- Krishna and the Rawhide Kid

Earlier this week I attended the first part of a meditation workshop at the Newington Yoga Center, which teaches Embodyoga, a modern style of tantric influenced yoga.  Throughout the workshop, I couldn’t help but draw connections between yoga traditions, the Rawhide Kid, and the Lone Ranger.

A large part of the workshop involved discussing the layers of human consciousness.  In classical yoga, the human experience is defined by a series of five layers, or Koshas, progressively moving towards our core being.  The first is Annamaya Kosha, represented by earth, which is our physical body.  Inward is Pranamaya Kosha, represented by water, which is the motion of our physical form.  Still further inward is fire, the Monomaya Kosha, the chattering thinking monkey brain that compels our body into motion.  Within that is Vijiianamaya Kosha, the air Kosha, which is the emotional heart that motivates our thoughts.  Finally, classical yoga has at its core Anandamaya Kosha, representing space, the central core of who we are, the perfect self that lies within us all that through leading a good and just life we are able to access.

In this understanding of the human experience, the Rawhide Kid (as seen in his modern interpretations) in touch with Anandamaya Kosha and achieved self-actualization.  He is the best.  Really, he tells people so all the time, and proceeds to consistently prove it.  The Rawhide Kid is the best fighter, best shootist, best horseman, chef, vinter, hairstylist, and military officer in the world.  Also, the snappiest dresser.  The Rawhide Kid, in the manner of a classical yogi, he has transcended this mortal coil and lives his daily life as the most perfect form of himself. The Rawhide Kid appears to have embodied the lessons of Prince Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.  At each quickdraw duel you can almost hear Krishna whispering in his ear, “Do not yield to unmanliness, O son of Prithâ. It does not become you. Shake off this base faint-heartnedness and arise, O scorcher of enemies!”

The Rawhide Kid, however, has no personal connection with anyone outside of himself. He rides throughout the West righting wrongs and defending the defenseless.  The Kid does these things not because he cares for the townsfolk he protects from bandits, but simply because it is right to do so and is within his capabilities.  In one exchange with the Two Gun Kid in The Sensational Seven, Two Gun asks Rawhide, “No offense, but do you think it’s possible that deep down you’re incredibly self involved and not terribly interested in other people’s lives because you feel certain that you’re the most fascinating person in the world?”  The Rawhide Kid’s smirking response: “It’s not even that deep down, partner.  I’m the Rawhide Kid.”  Although he has achieved pure sense of himself and is able to actualize this ideal, he still lacks a greater awareness.  That greater awareness is explained through the deeper Tantric Koshas, and achieved by the Lone Ranger.

 Tune in next time for the thrilling tantric adventures of the Lone Ranger.

Rawhide Kid?!?: The Covers

One of my favorite western comic book characters has been and will likely continue to be The Rawhide Kid.  There have been a lot of incarnations of the Kid, including the original lonely wandering cowpoke, the hardened gunhand, and the latest version (and my personal favorite), an erudite, sophisticated, arrogant, and narcissistic paladin of the plains.   This last version has caught some attention of the media, mostly because he is also homosexual.  The Kid came out way back in 2003, two years ahead of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist of Brokeback fame. 

Really?  Should we be shocked?  A sample of covers from the Kid’s earlier adventures shows him often in compromising positions with a wide range of, ahem, cowpokes.  Methinks the Kid rode his own path from the start. 

Regardless, The Rawhide Kid remains among my favorite comic books, period, and I hope to speak his praises more in future posts.