Looking So Hot in Them Silver-Blue Britches

There are two types of pro football fans; the ones who love the Cowboys, and the rest of us, who hate everything about them.  As if to rub salt in our wounds for any success they’ve ever had, some knucklehead once christened them “America’s Team” – a misnomer if ever there was one.  Fans of other NFC East teams will attest that it is in fact, un-American to be a Dallas fan, even if you live in Texas.

So, it was with a great deal of humor and a healthy dose of schadenfreude that I read about the latest controversy in the land of Romo.  Apparently fans of the team were greeted with an unexpected surprise when they clicked “cowboys.com” on their browsers.  It turns out that cowboys.com is not a exactly a pipeline to America’s Team.  It’s actually a gay dating site, dedicated to the Brokeback Mountain set, who are looking for a special guy in a Stetson hat.

The chaps aren’t metallic silver-blue, but you gotta love the hat. Git along, little dogie! (Image from gratuitousscience.com)

Likes: Camp fires, sleeping under the stars, show tunes.

Dislikes: Pushy people, replacement refs, the guy in the Village People who dresses like a Redskin – I mean really,  feathers?!  Girl -that’s so 1980’s!

Quite simply, this is the kind of thing that Dallas Cowboy haters everywhere will savor and laugh about for decades to come.  Sure you guys have Super Bowl rings.  Sure you have a shiny new stadium that’s bigger than the entire town of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  Before you brag any further, let me say these three words to you: cowboys dot com!  The team I root for may be under-achieving again and headed for another disappointing season, but at least no one confuses them with a gay dating site. Not to imply that there’s anything wrong with gay dating sites, they just don’t go especially well with the National Football League – kind of like pairing a crisp Pinot Grigio with a Denny’s Meat Lovers Breakfast Combo.

My favorite team’s owner, who’s as filthy rich and detested as every other team owner in the NFL, had the good sense to buy the rights to anything and everything, including websites, which he could possibly parlay into profit and/or publicity for his business…I mean team.  I don’t know how the Cowboys let this happen.  I’m guessing that Jerry Jones, the team’s owner and self-appointed El Presidente for Life, has already fired several people in the social media and IT departments over this little golden turd.

I can just picture him, furiously waving stacks of money in the tiny offices of the website.  A vein is pulsing on his forehead as if the Giants just blocked what would have been the game-winning field goal.  Perhaps he’ll send one of his underlings to do his bidding.  Savvy deal-maker that he is, I’m thinking that he’ll choose that guy Dale from accounting.  Tell him to dress up as if he’s going to a hoedown and walk in kinda bowlegged, like he has an Appaloosa tied to the hitching post out-front.

Can’t you just picture it?

Dale saunters in through the swinging doors, orders a bottle of red-eye and tips his hat to the cute guy playing the pie-annie over by the poker tables.  The room hushes at the appearance of the tall, handsome stranger in the metallic silver-blue chaps with the shiny star.  He tosses a dollar coin to the piano player and asks him to play “sump’n purdy”.  Shocked by his generosity, the musician bites the coin to test for authenticity and then asks the cowboy in the glittery drawers what he’d like to hear.

“Play me some Ethel Merman if you know any, if not, Liza Minelli will do,” he drawls.

As the piano player launches into a medly of songs from “Gypsy”, the cowboys in the room resume their hollering, drinking and line dancing.  The handsome stranger picks up his bottle of red-eye and walks back to the table to sit and discuss business with the domain owner, a chubby feller in a black hat with a little too much wax in his mustache to be from these parts.  There’s a big burly guy standing behind Ol’ City-Whiskers – must be the hired muscle.

“I didn’t know we wuz bringing pets to this here meeting” Dale says, his steely glance showing no fear of the bear of a man.  “If’n so, I’da brought a coupla O-linemen from the practice squad”

He stands and stares at the hired muscle.  “Why doncha run along, son?  Pa and Little Joe are waiting fer ya back at the Ponderosa.  They’re likely worried sick bout ya by now”

City-Whiskers turns and nods to the mountain of a man and he reluctantly leaves, but not before giving Dale a look.  Ooo, such a look!

Dale smiles thinly and sits back down.  He pushes his hat back on his head with two fingers to the brim and pulls the cork out of the bottle with his teeth.  He pours a shot for Ol’ City-Whiskers, then takes a swig right out of the bottle himself.  It’s time to get down to business.

The deliberations are short and not so sweet.  City Whiskers makes it plain that he’s not changing his site name.  For the record, he’s not selling his land for pennies on the dollar just to make room for no dang railroad, neither.  Dale angrily rises from the table and tells him that he aint seen the last of him, not by a fer piece he aint.  He stalks out of the saloon, hops in the saddle and gallops back out to the Jones’ ranch to tell the boss man the news.

So yeah, my team might not be so hot, but Dallas fans know in their hearts that every away game for the next several years will include something witty about Cowboys.com written on a bed sheet hanging from the upper decks.  The cameras won’t likely show it, but the fans will see it and have a good chuckle.  Sarcastic T-Shirts will be worn, bumper stickers will be printed.  Not all victories show up in the win/loss stats.

As for the website, I wish them well.  Hopefully the massive surge of hits the story has generated will propel them to huge success.  Everyone deserves the right to find a date, including lonesome gay cowboys.  Giddyup!