Awards

The Sweeney Family Band
- they gave The Laughing Horse Awards  Ceremony a fun start

"What happens in 'The Laughing Horse Tavern', stays in 'The Laughing Horse Tavern'," grinned blogger Adrian as he bounced two Latino ladies of the night on his bony thighs.

They were giggling like schoolgirls but I noticed that one of them was thumbing through Adrian's ample wallet and extracting twenty dollar bills. He had no idea. I think the younger one was called Conchita - something like that anyway.

Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" (1953)
not exactly The Yeti

This was just one snapshot registered in my memory from last night's "Laughing Horse Blog Awards" event held in "Betty's Laughing Horse Tavern" in Orlando, Florida. There are plenty of other snapshots - including the unexpected arrival of a dozen of the pub's regulars. You could hear their machines roaring to a halt in the car park outside and then they walked in, led by the "leader of the pack", a grizzly mean looking fellow called Gnasher Steelman. He was followed by The Apeman, Yeti, Adolf, Sad Sack and others whose nicknames I can't recall.

Betty apologised profusely about their arrival, stressing that she had agreed with Gnasher that they would vacate the tavern for the entire evening. "But only till midnight!" he insisted with a predatory grin. Moments before assembled bloggers from around the world had  been linking arms in a drunken rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" and then the bikers strolled in.

Their intentions were clear. They didn't want trouble. They wanted women and proceeded like tomcats on heat. Within half an hour the dark recesses of the tavern were taken over by the redneck motorcyclists and their chosen blogger "dames". Bottles of "Jack Daniels" were necked and there was much raucous laughter and coquettish giggling.

James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955)
not exactly Sad Sack

The Apeman was wrapped around Frau Meike from Germany like an octopus with their mouths clamped together like gurgling limpets. A couple of times they came up for air and I heard the gifted author of "From My Mental Library" gasp, "I will be your Jane... if you will be my Tarzan!" If you recall, she won the coveted "Blogger of the Year" award for 2014.

Gnasher Steelman himself had headed straight for Lee from Queensland as if magnetised. At first she tried to fight him off but soon she too was locked in a "loving" embrace with the rugged biker leader - over in the corner by the old Wurlitzer jukebox.

At around one thirty, the unlikely couples took their leave of the 2015 Awards Ceremony. They stepped out into the starry Florida night and clambered aboard various customised Harley Davidsons that were glittering in the car park. There was Carol on the back of Adolf's bike, Helen on Sad Sack's shiny 1000cc machine and Jennifer with a beefy guy called The Yeti. Jenny from Wales, Jan from northern California, Mama Thyme from Colorado, Libby from The English Midlands, Kate from New Zealand and Hilly from Washington State - they all had brand new boyfriends in leather apparel - gnarled and rather rough and ready men. Personally, I put it all down to the alcoholic beverages they had consumed throughout the awards evening. 

With the rest of the male bloggers, I stood helplessly outside the tavern with Betty and we waved rather limply as every single female blogger was whisked off into the night on throbbing motorbikes that roared like aircraft down the highway towards Tampa. We had no idea what would happen to them but they were all grown up women - adults. They had made their choices and given in quite readily to the bikers' crude advances. There was nothing we could do to stop them and besides if Bob Brague, Adrian, Brian Cutts, Canadian Red, Shooting Parrots, Steve and Dave and John Gray and The Prof and I had tried to gang up on the bikers our asses would have been well and truly whupped.

We went back inside the tavern to have a few more beers and a bit more friendly banter before heading back to our various hotels and motels. The disappearance of all the lady bloggers had rather put a dampener on what had been another memorable awards evening. Details of the awards winners will be provided in the next blogpost. I bet you cannot wait.