It WAS a real leather weekend last weekend, with lots going on for leather aficionados. First of all, lots of leather people went out to dinner on Thursday evening to restaurants that gave generous proportions of their profit to the Desert Aids Project as part of the "Dine for Life" fund raiser. Nine of us went to Amici, which is leather-owned and gave a generous 50% of their takings that night to the cause. And the food was great!

Thursday also found Edward Espindola at it again with a fund raiser (non-leather and at non-leather Toucans, but a leather friendly crowd there to support him). Edward did it again and raised over $15,000 to send kids with AIDS to summer camp. This man never slows down!

Friday found leather folk from out of town gathering at La Posada East and West for the beginning of Avatar’s "Real Leather Weekend," as they named it. What does that make P.S.L.O.D’s nationally acclaimed Leather Pride Weekend, I wonder? Not a real leather event? Hello?

Friday evening saw the first of several get-togethers, a meet and greet at Cedar Creek Inn, where we all got chance to see old friends and make some new ones, (in fact I saw one couple who had just met making friends with each other VERY quickly!). There were people there from all over California; at least sixteen different clubs were represented. It was quite festive. The cocktail hour was followed by a formal leather dinner, at which the food was, of course, not to be compared with the gourmet feast we had had the previous evening at Amici. Cedar Creek does a good job and it’s inexpensive but it’s not gourmet.

After dinner and a time to relax, the gang gathered at Sidewinders for another meet and greet and leather demonstrations, which brings up another question. With two excellent leather bars here in the desert, one wonders why Sidewinders was chosen as the host bar for a "real leather weekend?" After all, Sidewinders is not what you’d normally think of as a "real" leather bar, it’s a karaoke/country western dance bar.

On Saturday there was a poolside BBQ at La Posada East followed by a "Family Feud" at Sidewinders, which the boys of leather won, and on Sunday the event came to a close with a "Meat a Pig, Eat a Pig" buffet at Sidewinders, unfortunately at exactly the same time as the notorious Barracks Beer Bust, so of course many people had to make a choice between the two, or grab a quick bite at the buffet and then head round the corner to the other beer bust, which was crowded as usual. One wonders, with all the strange things, the "real leather" title, the event happening at a non-leather bar and the conflicts with other events, whether there was some hidden agenda in action here. If so, this is too small a town for that kind of thing to be going on.

Also that weekend was the PS Pumpers’ weekend, with the host hotel sold out and a large crowd of people with that particular fetish. Several ended up at the Barracks beer bust on the new and enlarged patio and there were some amazingly large baskets on view. I’m glad there was the extra space to accommodate them!

By the time you read this the Maximus Cigar weekend will have taken place, as well as a beer bust by P.S.L.O.D. at The Tool Shed. Coming up in the next couple of weeks are beer busts by the PS boys of Leather, West Coast Rubber and the PS Boots and Breeches Division. More about those next week.