Cowboy Spank Inferno, or; Spanking, the Other Cowboy Way

I wrote a draft of this probably eight years ago, after stumbling across a vigorous spanking scene in a Zane Grey short story.  This is when 50 Shades of Grey was THE phenomena sweeping the literary world and the masses were seemingly just discovering the wonderful world of spanking and BDSM.  It was with irony that I kept running across spanking in so many vintage western comics, movies, and books, suggesting that the love of a spanking was not a new phenomenon. 

I knew that, of course.  I’ve read Anne Rice’s stories under her naughty pseudonyms, the Story of O, 9 1/2 Weeks, a lot of Victorian smut, an erotic novel that Oscar Wilde put out under a pseudonym, and even made my way through the Marquis de Sade back in a college political philosophy class (that was the only week that the class unanimously agreed to stay late- eventually the next class had to kick us out).  I know that…

I just never expected to see it so much in classic westerns.  Perhaps it's because I had never seen McLintock, the grand daddy of cowboy spanking.  For example, here's a good read:

Eight Lessons from John Wayne's McLintock

Is this just a hetero thing?  I wish I could remember where I found this (Reddit?) but this is from a gay cowboy dating page when someone objects to being asked if he likes spanking:

"WHAT THE FUCK? I don't get it. Any guy spank me will be picking teeth out of his shit for a week. I am strictly into man on man as equals. I need a good guy to turn me on not some game. Being my partner is not some role jut anyone can fill. But whatever it takes I guess?"

They don't call it "Slap Leather" for nothin'!

The title of the post is a friendly poke at the video "Lesbian Spank Inferno" that is constantly referenced in the British sitcom "Coupling".

https://vimeo.com/16922193

On Reading Jory Sherman’s Sidewinder While Ordering Chinese Food

On a trip through the Raleigh-Durham airport yesterday I found a used book store in Terminal B, and even more surprisingly it had four shelves of westerns.  With just a few minutes to look before boarding I spotted a copy of Jory Sherman’s Sidewinder.  A vague memory that some blog had given it a good review came to mind, I plunked down my $4.50, threw the book into the backpack that passes as my briefcase, and boarded my flight.  I bypassed Sidewinder, though, and read comics on my Ipod and half of Peter Brandvold’s Dust of the Damned (review forthcoming, I hope).

Today after a long day of work I stopped on the way home at a chinese takeout place.  Knowing it would take a few minutes for my order to come together I reached into my backpack and found Sidewinder.  The girl at the register laughed when I ordered my General Tso’s Bean Curd (what, there are no vegetarian cowboys in China?!?).  Taking a seat, I flipped open the book.

Chapter one, page one, paragraph one.  Already there is a square jawed hero.  No, really, he is described as having a square jaw.  The rest of the page is exacting descriptions of two characters.  Our hero, Brad Storm (seriously?), is given more visual description in this first page than the Kid was given in 327 pages of Blood Meridian.

On to chapter two, in which our hero beats nine kinds of shit out of a rattlesnake.  I think.  That happened really fast and I’m not sure exactly what happened to chapter one.  I go back and reread all of chapter one.  I’m back to chapter two and the snake is still dead and the hero is dying.

Is this the book that got such a good review?  I look at the cover.  Yeah, I think this is it.  I hope the writing picks up.  Wonder what’s taking the food so long?  I like how the delivery guy has his collar flipped up like a bad boy from an 80’s movie.  Is that woman cooking the same woman who took my order?  No, she’s older.  Oh, there’s the cashier, she’s sitting behind the counter playing with her phone.  I’ve really found some good comics for the Ipod.  Wonder if the cook’s married to that delivery guy, they seem to get along.  Can you believe that woman at the other Chinese place by the yoga studio is having another kid?  Amazing.  I don’t have any kids.  She’ll have two.  She seems so young.  Oh yeah, I’m reading this book.

There’s some woman, and she knows how to handle a gun.  Sherman really knows a lot about guns.  I wonder if he knows how to develop characters without direct exposition?  I bet this woman is the wife of the main character and she gets kidnapped.  Let’s read the back cover.  Yup, she gets kidnapped.  Huh, what’s that say:

"Jory Shreman is a national treasure"- Loren Estleman.  

Estleman.  That guy can write.  Didn’t I listen to The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion on my morning walk?  Yeah, I’ll have to listen more in my evening walk.  He writes a lot of good books.  So does F.M. Parker, I should dig some of those out.  Like that trilogy of interconnected novels all taking place in parallel during the Mexican American War?  That was cool.  Amazing how Riders of the Purple Sage turned out to be such a crisply written, proto-feminist, erotic read.  Man I love that book.  Can’t believe Mrs. Slap loved it, too.

Always trust the opinions of Mrs. Slap.

Man, this food is taking a while.  Had to go hunt up extra bean curd.  Where was I?  Chapter four.  Four?!?  Are you fucking kidding?  Okay, now there’s an Arapaho and a Navajo who are helping out the poisoned hero.  Wow, that’s some bad dialog.  Did this come right out of the 1950’s crazy racist Injun dialog book? 

There’s the table with a stack of free magazines.  I should read one of those.  Maybe I’ll leave the book here.  No, someone’ll just throw it away.  People really seem to like this guy’s writing.  I wonder why?  If I review it on my blog and he reads it will he be pissed?  Last time I published an article someone told me to never read the comments.  Then I read the comments.  One day I’ll publish my novel and people will hate it.  That sucks.  Got to finish it first.  First comes my yoga certification, then I’ll finish the book.  Where’s my food?

I really should be reading something better than this.  Ed Erdelac sent me a copy of Merkabah Rider, what, a year ago?  And I still haven’t read it.  I bet it’s better than this.  

Ah, my bean curd.  Smile at the Chinese girl, she’s laughing at your bean curd.  That’s fine, I don’t have to read any more of this book now.

Musings From Slap: Spanking, Kayaking, Quick Draw, and Zane Grey

Between what has turned out to be a lucrative and successful career, my pursuit of a yoga teaching certification, and cramming biking / hiking / running / kayaking into the moments in between, I have spent remarkably little time writing, much less reading.  I do want to take a moment and tell my faithful reader Oscar (and anyone else who reads this) about the western things on my mind.  Maybe I’ll get around to really writing about these in detail, but if not…

Quick Draw- Hulu is running a sexy, irreverent, and laugh out loud funny western series.  From what I gather it is almost all improve in the style of Party Down and the Larry Sanders Show.  John Lehr plays Sheriff John Henry Hoyle, a brilliant yet clueless Harvard trained criminologist who tries to tame a wild west town.  The straight man to his bumbling act is the town madam Honey, played by Allison Dunbar- you’ll tune in to see her fill out her old west prostitute costumes but stay for her deadpan humor.   It’s a short run of eight brilliant episodes, let’s hope Hulu makes more.

 

yeah, baby

Spanking- I wrote about it obliquely before, but in the weeks since I keep running into references to spanking in the oddest places, including classic western stories (like a Louis L’Amour Chick Bowdrie short).  I'm not the first one to notice it, as Steve Hockensmith wrote about it five years ago.  A lot of my “reading” has been audiobooks lately, and it’s got me constantly on the ready to hit pause when I hear a spanking reference.  My favorite so far is from Graphic Audio’s Great American Westerns rendition of Zane Grey’s “Amber’s Mirage”, where upon being advised that he should spank a wandering girlfriend the main character responds “that’ll be like throwing fuel on the fire!”  Speaking of…

 

Zane & his teenage mistress

Zane Grey- Ever read between the lines of a Zane Grey story?  He was one horny cowpoke.  Grey got a girlfriend pregnant as a college baseball player, and the family quietly paid off the now unknown mother.  He slept around while dating his future wife, and had a long string of mistresses throughout his life.  He once wrote:

"I love to be free. I cannot change my spots. The ordinary man is satisfied with a moderate income, a home, wife, children, and all that....But I am a million miles from being that kind of man and no amount of trying will ever do any good…I shall never lose the spirit of my interest in women.”

Wild West Con III- Still quite shaken by seeing a performance of Sleep No More in Manhattan last year, I am looking for something visceral and cool to follow.  I am considering going to, of all things, a wild west steampunk convention next year.  We’ll have to see.

Rivers- there is a calm and solitude in kayaking, even with Mrs. Slap paddling besides me.  I spend a lot of time paddling on the river that killed a good friend two years ago, but the waters keep on flowing.  Every time I head out I come back and read a few more pages of Call Down Thunder, Kerry Newcomb’s revision of the larger than life Mike Fink and love of the fickleness of the currents.  Speaking of which, it’s time to get the boats strapped on and the paddles stowed.

Vay con dios.

Four Stations of the Western Literary Cross

After a long, sweaty day of yard work, Mrs. Slap and I sat out on the back deck over moonshine and tea discussing what books we intend to start next.  After years on the sidelines, Mrs. Slap recently read Riders of the Purple Sage and liked it so much that she picked up Call of the Canyon soon after.  I was thinking of other literary westerns with strong character development when it occurs to me that there are four stations of the western cross, if you will, that create a well read western reader.  These include:

Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

Shane, Jack Schaefer

The Virginian, Owen Wister

What do you think?  What did I leave out?  Comments, please, comments!