UNITED STATES
ARIZONA
Wyatt Earp Days in Tombstone
May 24-26, 2008
In honor of the West’s most famous lawman. Activities: gunfights, chili cook-off, hangings (!) & 1880s fashion show, street entertainment, Wyatt look-alike contest and more.
You haven’t lived until you’ve walked down the streets of Tombstone, scuffing historic dust on your sensible shoes. Large tourist families dress completely in western garb. Mean-eyed gunfight reenactors wait at every street corner, and every shop owner is a potential prize-winning cowboy poet. I bought some kick-ass cowboy boots from one of them, so I know.
Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo
July 30–5, 2008
See what all the ruckus is about—touted as the world’s oldest rodeo. Not recommended for animal-rights activists.
CALIFORNIA
L.A. RODEO
sponsored in part by the International Gay Rodeo Association
Rancho Potrero Equestrian Center and the Warner Center Marriott
June 20-22, 2008<
Ride ‘em cowboy!
NEW MEXICO
30th Annual Invitational Antique Indian Art Show
at the El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe
August 19–20, 2008
Featuring museum-quality historic antique art from the tribes of the Americas, or what Westerns rarely bothered to show.
NEW YORK/NYC
Every Sunday Songwriter’s Showcase Open Mic 7 to 9pm: Hosted By Jack Grace Sign up @ 6:45 pm. Songwriters, performers welcome. 1 drink minimum.
Sing your inner cowboy/honky tonk/cowgirl/swingabilly out. What are you waiting for? A horse?
Film Forum
Kurosawa’s Yojimbo
June 28. To see times, clink link above
Classic Kurosawa. Toshiro Mifune’s laconic sword-carrying samurai may have inspired Leone and Eastwood, but Tatsuya Nakadai’s pistol-packing punk is the one to watch.
TEXAS
6th Annual Roundup Cowboy Gathering
Seguin, TX. Hosted by Red Steagall at the Diamond F Arena & Expo Center
September 12-13, 2008
Celebrate Cowboyness with the awe-inspiring musicians Riders in the Sky. Proceeds benefit the Guadalupe Regional Medical Foundation, so put your money to work “the cowboy way.”
WYOMING
Cody, WY Buffalo Bill Historical Center
September 23–27, 2008
For the cowboy fashionista. A historic perspective on western design and showcasing works by today’s craftsmen, as well as lectures, workshops, studio tours, and yes, a fashion show. Polish up those Lucchese boots, baby.
(NOT UNITED STATES)
ICELAND
Country and Western in Iceland
Ride into the restaurant Kántrýbær in Skagaströnd, the only place of its kind in Iceland. Best time is during “opening season,” from the 1st of June to the 30th of August.
Kántrýbær is owned and run by Cowboy Hallbjörn Hjartarson. His Web site calls him the King of Icelandic Country Music, and no lie, this guy is country through and through. If you can’t make it to Iceland, listen in on his radio station.