Palm Springs for Gay Men: Mr Cut/Uncut 2003
The nude contests started, we think, in 1998 with the annual Mr Nude Palm Springs, and the following year, in 1999, 'Palm Springs for Gay Men' was there with its camera, documenting it all for you right here on this site. Those contests were well organized, it was a great performance, a fine selection of naked bodies on display, well staged, well managed, a few glitches but overall most enjoyable. Cathedral City Boys Club (CCBC) had a great idea and they implemented it magnificently.
The success made CCBC realize that since they had a cash-cow it could be milked more than once a year, so after a while they added more nude contests. They came up with contests such as Mr Future President, Mr Easter Basket, Mr Cut/Uncut, Mr Hot Buns, Mr Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mr Palm Springs Pride, and Mr 2003, almost one each month, year round. We checked out a few of them, and we found that over time CCBC put less and less effort into them. It takes its toll to do the same planning every month, so one feature after another was dropped and lately the contests have became total routine. In the beginning they had imported a professional drag queen as MC from out of town -- no longer: it was much simpler to let a CCBC manager be the focal point. He puts on some carnival costume and does the job the best he can, but he can't. The drag queen did her raunchy routine with flair and finesse, while the local MC is just gross and tedious. The judges had in earlier days been selected beforehand for their skill and impartiality, as judges should be (viz. Clarence Thomas and William Rehnquist), but now the judges are selected randomly out of the audience at the start of the show -- much quicker, much simpler.
Due partly to the frequency of the contests and partly to the backhanded way the contests are done, fewer and fewer contestants take part, and this in spite of a prize money upped to $1000. Each time after attending and photographing an event we decided that we did not want to post it here in its disgrace. This time we'll do it, so here you have the 2003 Cut/Uncut Contest. You deserve to see what has happened to the great initiative that CCBC took back in 1998. You are invited to compare this contest to those early contests, which are still available on this site. Since this contest was not significantly worse than the other later day contests at CCBC, we have concluded that we will not attend any further contests at CCBC in their current shape. It is just too sad to see the good idea totally squandered.
The contest we report on here had seven (7) contestants, and we leave it up to you to identify their porn star qualities. And CCBC did not even bother giving them any instruction as to what to do on stage. For some reason they all carried a white towel, even during the naked parts of the contest, and they managed to jiggle that damned towel in front of their bodies almost all the time. The time allotted to each contestant was preciously short -- he was given almost no time to face the audience at all; there were no "camera moments" as we had had in the early days, and no time for the audience to sit and take in the spectacle of the naked bodies in front of them. But then, it did not matter that much, since the audience had shrunk to some 100 onlookers vs the 500 we remember from the first contests. Yes, we are not the only ones who find this show wanting.
In the first part of the show the contestants wore bathing suit or shorts, and we won't waste any words on that. The next part was naked: the contestant came in wrapped in his towel, was faced away from the audience and told to drop his towel. Then he was told to turn around, and at the same time he was instructed to walk off the stage and down to the judges' table. Consequently, he did not stand still for a second facing the audience in his phallic glory at all. Rush rush! Most did not even stop in front of the judges either but continued their march out, often with their big towel dancing in front of their body. Thinking about it, they probably felt a bit small, since CCBC has cut out the fluffers of the old days as well, another amenity gone.
Then came the "interview", seated in wicker chairs on stage, most with their towel wrapped around them. The MC had figured out two (2) questions: one was "When did you have sex the first time?" and the other "If you had sex with anybody here, what would you do and what would he do?. All of the contestants were asked these same questions, and even though all except the first one had had ample time to think up some witty responses, nobody managed to say anything remotely funny. After this yawning part, all the contestants lined up -- yes, with the towel on -- side by side. Since they didn't have any identifying number tags, the audience had no idea which contestant was which.
One can only guess if the judges could keep track of who was who, but they did reach some consensus it appears. However, the award ceremony was a bit awkward, when the MC could not decipher the judges' selections and gave the third prize to the wrong man before that mess was cleared up. Finally the three winners had been properly identified, and there they stood, clad in towels(!), not on the stage but off to the side (with the first-prize winner not in the middle) for an official photograph. In the earlier shows, people and cameras raided the stage in excitement at this time -- now nobody gave a damn. And then the whole thing was over. CCBC could now rest quietly until next month.
Whatever happened to Cut and Uncut? After all, the idea had been that one cut and one uncut guy would be selected as category winners, and then one of them would be the ultimate winner. Oh well, CCBC just forgot this, and cut and uncut was never an issue, never mind the contest name. In fact, there was such a deemphasis on the subject matter that most onlookers did not even know the condition of any given cock -- they got hardly a chance to see it at all. So much for the whole idea of the contest.
We are so happy that we managed to record one of the excellent contests that were held at the All Worlds Resort in 2001. Our old camera then was not great, but we posted the picures anyway, as you know, and that show was superb. Gorgeous hunks, well staged, funny, lively, sexy, plain erotic, lots of on-stage action -- just as a show of this kind should be. Too bad that the City of Palm Springs has decided to zone out day passes from the Warm Sands area and thus eliminate All World Resorts from staging contests and porn shoots for a paying audience. All we have now is the CCBC events, and they are just too awful for words. When will you see pictures of a local nude contest again on this site? We don't know; it is not in the cards, but one day something worthwhile will emerge again. Of course it will. It is a great idea, only temporarily botched.
