lettered: (Default)
It's Lion Turtles all the way down ([personal profile] lettered) wrote2006-03-10 12:01 pm

La Vie De TKP: the rodeo chapter

It's time for me to speak up...about meat and milkshakes and mwriting! Look at my malliteration! Go me!

So yesterday I was looking forward to a day of vampire porn, this mustard apple porkchop recipe I wanted to try, and (*flips through planner*) oh look, more vampire porn, when my BFF calls and starts talking about the rodeo. I think it's understandable that it took a moment to orient myself. Not Anne Hathaway in a sassy little hat. Not Angel riding Xander the bronc and worst of all, not Lorna. No, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. So anyway, out of the blue my friend suggests we go. By out of the blue I mean we'd planned it for weeks, and by suggested I mean "let's meet at 3.30". (By friend I really do mean "friend". Yis.)

So, we go to the rodeo. Actually we go to Starbucks, but same difference really. Come to think of it, the rodeo is actually just like the Renaissance Festival (which is actually nothing like Starbucks. I don't deconstruct your segues!): people dress up, act old timey, and best of all: cater meat on a stick. Sausage on a stick, BBQ on a stick, shrimp on a stick, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup--oops, Bubba, wrong list. *rifles* Ah--brisket on a stick, scallops on a stick, and my new favorite: pizza on a stick. Yes folks, pizza. On a stick. I fucking love this earth.

In fact, yesterday for dinner? I had fried Oreos, a milkshake, and tater tots. I got the milkshake and the taters (PO-TAT-TOES! Boil 'em mash 'em stick 'em in a stew. How many lists of ways to cook different foods ARE there in cinema?) at the House of Pies but still. Fried Oreos. Actually, as for that, give 'em to us rrraw and wrrrriggling. You can't taste the Oreos for the fried. It's like a cookie inside a funnel cake without the cookie. [livejournal.com profile] hannasus claims the fried cookie dough is good, but alas, I couldn't find it. The other delicacy we didn't enjoy was eating brisket in front of the cows. It's a time honored tradition amongst me and my friends, but we just didn't have time. Those poor baby cows. Why do they have to taste so good?

The cowboys were very interesting. One of them wore a pink shirt with sparkly purple fringe on his chaps. Kroger and I.W. Marks won the wagon race. A lady in a sparkly purple (it was a theme) unitard (I wish unitards had been a theme) rode on a horse standing up with fireworks and the Texas flag. When they did that cattle roping thing with the kids, this one gal kept the calf pinned by keeping its head between her legs, but when they interviewed her her eyes were desperate and filmed over with tears, so we only laughed very hard on the inside and made noises of crooning sympathy on the outside, except when we were laughing on the outside too. Poor girl.

Maroon 5 was playing, and I think that one song is alright, but I didn't know they did that other song, you know, the song that really sucks? I had no idea that was them. But my eyes were transfixed by the shininess of the lead singer's buckle, which I think established a rapport between itself and my shining eyes. For some moments there, there was no one in that stadium but me and that buckle. Then, what should intrude upon my consciousness but the gleaming, glowing grill, the one the vendor had on his teeth and that was winking, winking, illuminating my tears of wonder into not only a glistening stop-light red, but gumball blue and orange as well.

This, this grill, that buckle, my shimmering eyes--this is what rodeo is. It's not about winning or losing or meat on a stick. It's not about stagecoach font or pig-racing or cows sniffing your genitals. It's not about the longness of Jack Gyllenhal's eyelashes or even the blondness of Robert Redford's hair. It's all about the shiny. Tacky commercialism, cowboys, and hey, enjoying yourself. Holy trinity, baby. *single perfect tear*

So anyway, the Maroon 5 guy, after making the transcriber spell onomonopea (sp?), says, "let's wrap up with a song by one of my favorite artists." And I say, "you're not going to play Neil Young so who gives a hardened yet strangely crumbly cow chip?" And then he played, "Rockin' In The Free World." Victor Hugo once said that it is no coincidence that the root of "irony" is "iron", and he musta knew something because boy was that irony burnished last night. Between that and the buckle and that grill I mentioned I was kinda blinded.

Then, House of Pies. It was a good day, I'm telling you.

*


So, I was talking to [livejournal.com profile] l_aurens and we got to talking about collaborative fics. I always thought it would be interesting to try one (sekrit message to [livejournal.com profile] a2zmom: OMG we have to!) but one thing I'm afraid of is that I'll be too picky and want to take over the whole thing. Anyone else have this fear?

Those of you who have written collabortive fics, how do you do it? One person writes one chapter?--How do you keep track of where the plot is going? (Or are you like, evil to each other, and leave a chapter with a cliff-hanger the next person has to resolve?) One person writes one character?--Then who writes the in-between stuff, and doesn't it feel back-and-forth? Who edits? Do you do it over im? How does that work, anyway?

And how have these experiences worked out for y'all? Did you quit? Did you keep going, dissatisfied, knowing you'd never do it again? Would you do it again? Was it an edifying experience?

And does anyone approach reading cowritten fics differently? Who reads them guessing who wrote what? (*raises hand*)
my_daroga: Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (lawrence)

[personal profile] my_daroga 2006-03-11 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Interesting responses. Scary, even. As in, daunting. We shall have to think about this.

As to the rodeo, when I lived in Houston we went several times. I was 5 or 6. They used to have this thing where the kids of a certain age would be invited into the ring to chase a goat. Whoever got the string off the goat's horns or whatever would win something. I never did.

Why is there a girl on a horse with a Texas flag at EVERY TEXAN EVENT EVER??
ext_7189: (Default)

[identity profile] tkp.livejournal.com 2006-03-13 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
We shall have to think about this.

Are we going to do one? *bounces*

I didn't know you lived in Houston!

And there's a girl on a horse with a Texas flag because Texas will never get over itself, ever. Until it gets split up into 4 states, which it really should be but never will be.
my_daroga: Mucha's "Dance" (Default)

[personal profile] my_daroga 2006-03-13 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)
I lived in Houston for 3 years, ages 4-6 or so. God, it was awful! I've been back to Texas since, and find it really scary. Well, not life-and-limb scary, but the other kind. The bad kind.

You tell me, kid. ;)
ext_7189: (Default)

[identity profile] tkp.livejournal.com 2006-03-18 09:31 am (UTC)(link)
If you mean politically scary, I personally find Houston is better than most of Texas--even though it's the south, it's very metropolitan, and while the actual people in control scare me sometimes the actual people I know are reasonable.

If you mean how everything is TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS OMG WE'RE SO BIG AND SPECIAL--same goes. Most people I know don't even have accents, much less big hair and scary make-up.

If you mean how there's nothing to DO here or the weather, I'm SO with you.
my_daroga: Mucha's "Dance" (Default)

[personal profile] my_daroga 2006-03-20 04:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, the weather DID suck. Man, everything was moldy all the time.

But the TEXAS WE'RE SO BIG AND SPECIAL thing did touch me, but I guess that was my folks trying to scout out the cultural opportunities and failing. Or maybe it's just that my most prominant memories are of square dancing, rodeos, and flags.
my_daroga: Mucha's "Dance" (girl)

[personal profile] my_daroga 2006-03-20 04:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, and I forgot: the WORST school I've ever attended. In terms of comformity, lack of educational imagination, etc. Granted it was only kindergarten and 1st grade, but the change was palpable when I moved. Lakewood was very much "march in line, desks in rows, no one does anything differently from anyone else" whereas the other elementary schools I went to were much more interesting in creativity and exploration.

These were all public schools, by the way.
ext_7189: (Default)

[identity profile] tkp.livejournal.com 2006-03-21 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
Schools I went to were awful that way too, but the kids attending were very diverse and different than me, and so interesting and education in a sense that way.
my_daroga: Mucha's "Dance" (Default)

[personal profile] my_daroga 2006-03-21 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
Hmm. I don't remember them well enough--the kids, that is. The school I remember pretty well. I think all the kids I remember were white.
ext_7189: (Default)

[identity profile] tkp.livejournal.com 2006-03-21 03:44 am (UTC)(link)
It was the area I went to school in. It was about 30% white, 30 Hispanic, 30 black, 9 Asian, 1 miscellaneous (yeah, I have NO idea what the misc. was, either. Eskimos and Native Americans, I suppose.)
my_daroga: Mucha's "Dance" (Default)

[personal profile] my_daroga 2006-03-21 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
LOTS of eskimos in TX, let me tell you. They just can't get warm enough.
ext_7189: (Default)

[identity profile] tkp.livejournal.com 2006-03-21 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
Well, if there're any in Texas they are in Houston. It's an extremely diverse city.