Googling suggests the rodeo was held until 1986, and one particularly popular event involved a bag of cash affixed between the horns of a bull. (Only marginally better, really.) Sounds like someone might have genuinely attended but been misinformed or misremembered the prize.
(Of course with 252 county jails in Texas I could imagine someone putting on a local imitation involving practically anything.)
In cities at least, nail polish for women seems like a class marker. There are probably grooming equivalents for guys-- facial hair, using hair products, shoes maybe? Car styling is a thing for some guys-- newish polished sedan with an alumni or kids private school sticker vs buff black tuned civic with all the factory logos removed.
Cashiers and other women who deal with brick-and-mortar store customers seem to like them, handpainted flourishes are nice but seem crazily impractical for daily life. Maybe they were done for a festival or a gathering or something, that makes sense, but an elaborate ritual in order to leave home seems, well, like driving something that's too expensive to park.
Don't most women paint their nails at least for an occasion?
I've probably told this story before, but I had a funny conversation way back when I was a summer associate talking to a court reporter who'd been on a number of depositions on a case I was on. We were chatting on a break, and she brought up that I and the other women on the case had short, no polish fingernails, and asked "Do they tell you that sort of thing in law school?" And I apologetically said no, I individually was just kind of a slob and the senior associate, while much better groomed than I was, was also a very subtle about that kind of thing. But she was definitely doing anthropology on women in law firms -- what were our norms and why.
5: I'm not sure because I don't do it myself (both because I'm shockingly ungroomed in general and because I have weirdly soft, weak nails -- to have long painted nails I'd have to go all the way to getting acrylics), but I don't think elaborate nails are that time-consuming, because they're fairly durable. Even with fancy decorations, I think you spend some time on them maybe once a week, you don't redo the whole thing daily like makeup.
I get regular pedicures, and I do occasionally get a manicure.
I had my nails done for my wedding. Some of the newer regular polishes have extended wear so that you can get 7-10 days. Then there are the soak off gels, like shellac, which give you about 3 weeks of wear. Those are still considered natural nails. You can go back to a salon to soak them off or you can do it yourself.
Acrylics are a whole different deal. Those are artificial and that's what you're seeing with a lot of the really long nails. I don't understand the other old school kind of gel. Those do require a fair amount of maintenance by a professional. You have to go for fills every 2 weeks, I believe.
Any men here get their nails done on occasion? Are there benefits you perceive?
I was at a tennis tournament recently and we watched a match on one of the side courts and got great seats immediately behind Ostapenko's coaching box. Her coach and trainer were seated in front of us, and then another woman sat down next to them. I then went through thinking "she's tall and looks like a doubles tennis player, I wonder if that's her doubles partner" and "but do tennis players during tournaments really have their nails done like that?" Yes, yes, they do.
Car styling is a thing for some guys-- newish polished sedan with an alumni or kids private school sticker vs buff black tuned civic with all the factory logos removed.
As near as I can tell, almost everyone has an SUV and no one has ever taken the factory logos off of a car. I admit that I'm not that great about automotive maintenance. I drive an SUV with a piece of fender trim that is partially detached (stupid parking garage pillar) and alumni stickers (my wife's schools).
11: People would always tell me that I could get my nails done without polish or with clear polish. They say this as a helpful tip for me to stop chewing my fingernails. But I enjoy chewing my fingernails. The problem is that sometimes I forget that other people are around.
i don't know if it is still a thing but black ladies working at the dmv in sf & oakland often had really amazingly long elaborate & not acrylic nails, like impeding your ability to use your fingers long. awe inspiring & good at stylishly making the point to all supplicants that efficiency was decidedly not the goal.
On the amateur rodeo thing, I recall my dad being asked if he would be on a team for a wild cow milking contest. His clerk was a rodeo clown in his spare time. No prisoners were involved.
9 and 8: There are paint-on hardeners, some more natural than others. I believe that there are people who take biotin. When you take a lot of biotin, it can mess up the accuracy of some medical tests, in particular TSH.
Is there a way to make your nails less thick? Mine have been getting thicker as I age and it is getting harder to chew them.
When I live in Houston (on and off 1977-1985) the Huntsville Prison Rodeo was a pretty big deal. Surprised to see it died so son after that (immediate cause was stadium being condemned). Apparently it was the site of Johnny Cash's first concert.
In my experience people would love to point out how it was better than regular rodeo because the inmates were desperate/not as concerned for their safety.
It also reminds me of the rodeo star from Iraan, Texas (a tiny place in the west of Texas) who changed his listed hometown in 1979 after getting booed during introductions.
19: Maybe it's time to switch from toes to fingers.
I can't even reach my toes with my mouth.
I thought most women painted their toe nails in the summer, but I guess I don't know. With Only Fans, feet pictures are always extra.
re: 1 - 3
Prison rodeo is literally a key part of the plot of the Wilder/Pryor movie "Stir Crazy".
20: That's just grotesque. "Better than regular rodeo because the inmates were desperate"
23: I get the pedicure, because I'm not good at cutting my toenails, and the pedicure keeps the calluses at bay. The polish is just a bonus. It's also relaxing. Less expensive than professional podiatry.
re: 11
I used to sort of do mine, but that was a guitar thing, not an aesthetic thing. I have longer nails on my right hand for playing guitar with, and when I used to play a lot of classical guitar, the nails could get a bit chewed up, so I used to file and polish them and then put on this protective coating (it was clear). These days I file them now and again so they don't get horribly long, but I don't play enough to wreck them any more and they are fairly tough anyway.
I don't think I know any women who really have very "done" nails. Even when my wife worked in fashion retail, she'd file/shape them to keep them neat, but there was nothing else. Lots of women I know paint their toe nails in summer, and a couple very occasionally have some single colour polish on their fingernails, but I don't think nails are a "thing" in my local circle. That said, there's a TON of nail salons locally. I think there's at least 3 I could walk to within 10 minutes, so someone is using them.
My podiatrist used to use a literal Dremel tool on my toe nails.
27.last: So many nail salons near me also.
Amadea has a friend who does really elaborate nail designs. (I'm not sure what type they are; probably acrylic I guess.) Amadea gets hers done every few weeks. They're astonishingly durable and look amazing. This friend's life is kind of a disaster in every other way, so it's good that she's got this nail thing going for her.
16: same as aristocratic Chinese ladies and indeed men back in the day - the idea is to show that you are high enough status not to need to work with your hands.
I hated having my fingernails polished, or longer than the ends of my fingers. Something about how it felt (both of those) really annoyed me.
My kid, OTOH, loves painting his fingernails in weird designs, and he also wears his longer than I am comfortable with (though not that long), and has ever since he got too big for me to cut his nails. These kids today.
I hated having my fingernails polished, or longer than the ends of my fingers. Something about how it felt (both of those) really annoyed me.
My kid, OTOH, loves painting his fingernails in weird designs, and he also wears his longer than I am comfortable with (though not that long), and has ever since he got too big for me to cut his nails. These kids today.
One of our twins is really into painting their nails. The other does it occasionally but is less into it. (Both are nonbinary and masculine-presenting.) Their grandmother was delighted to find this out because it meant she could give them a bunch of her old nail polish. She's pretty conservative in general so I thought that was very sweet.
I have no idea whether they still do it, but as a young journalist I twice covered the prison rodeo at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. One of the events was as described in Minivet's 4.1.
I couldn't get them to tell me how much money was involved, and they were also tight-lipped about the various ways the inmates were incentivized to participate. At Parchman, you literally had inmates volunteering to pick cotton for some absurdly small amount of money because it got them outdoors.
"What planet is this?"
"Forget it Heebie, it's Texas"
I don't at all think it's strange for grown adults to enjoy having their nails painted, for the record. The anthropologist part of me was murmuring over the teaching of it as an obligatory part of femininity.
That's what I'm curious about - were any of you taught this, growing up?
30: This friend's life is kind of a disaster in every other way, so it's good that she's got this nail thing going for her.
Well, that's the funny thing about a lot of grooming activities. For some people, these things are oppressive, but for others they provide structure and relationships.
The family at the nail salon I used to frequent knew all of their regular customers.
My paternal grandmother had a lot of really bad depression - bad enough that she was hospitalized when my Dad was a kid in the 50's. She wasn't an intellectual at all, and I don't know what interested her or gave her a sense of purpose, but I do know that going to get her nails done or her hair washed and set gave her pleasure.
Well, that's the funny thing about a lot of grooming activities. For some people, these things are oppressive, but for others they provide structure and relationships.
Yeah, definitely. It's all totally alien to me like it is to heebie, but people clearly get a lot out of it.
I vaguely know I'm supposed to want to get rid of my cuticles, but they seem useful, is it really a good idea? (It doesn't matter what you tell me, if it didn't stick in half a century I'm not likely to change.) But I guess I was taught that much -- also literally buffing them across the nail, in case of ridges? And maybe clear polish if your buffing didn't make them smooth enough? This may be a leftover 1920 standard, my family was slow.
I don't like having my nails painted because I like being able to see dirt under my nails (to remind me to remove it). I'll let them grow out a little for fancy occasions though.
42: I don't think removing them is necessarily recommended. Softening and pushing the back is probably safer. I find moisturizing them with a purpose built cream with a mild alpha hydroxy acid (when I remember) helpful l. It keeps them from getting dry and hurting. Ok, now a I want to get a manicure but I can't justify the expense.
I cut my cuticles off with a little pen knife.
Good grooming is chewing the sides of your fingers by the nails till it looks like a nesting gerbil got ahold of you.
Though I can't say I've bitten my that skin around my toe nails to compare.
I can't stand having fingernail polish on and I was definitely never taught how to do it. My mother did not wear it. Even when I was in weddings I refused to get my fingernails done. It's a personal preference; I don't mind and can even enjoy others' elaborate nail art (as long as they are not in a job like food prep where the bacteria thing becomes a big issue).
I did agree to toenails for a summer wedding, and for the last few years I've gotten a professional pedicure once at the start of every summer. Well, not during Covid. Honestly I wouldn't do even that, except I was going to indoor yoga a lot and in the 30 seconds when I still had my glasses on before class I eventually noticed that everyone else had much more cleaned-up looking feet.
As far as men, I once knew a fish-shop owner who was on his feet all day in sneakers that quickly became gross with fish juice (technical term). His kids got him a pedicure one year for Christmas and he LOVED it, got them semi-regularly after that. I am fairly certain he was the only white, working-class man in the shop getting his toes done.
48.1: You don't feel gel on your nails in the way that you feel regular polish
48.3 There were a lot of older men who came into my old salon for pedicures. My town was one which had switched from working class, lower middle class to yuppy over the past 20 plus years, so I'm not sure how they identified. Once there was a couple getting manicures together before a date. He was a painter (as in houses, not fine art), and he wanted his nails to be clean before dinner out.
37: I learned growing up. My mom (and sister) has long beautifully shaped nails and she really liked painting her nails for going out. It would correspond to when she wore makeup and perfume; not daily, but every couple weeks? She's take it off pretty quick because it never wore well. My grandmother on my dad's side got her nails painted in hospital just before she died. Bright red. Donated her body to science and I like to think the med students got a kick out of it. My aunt painted her nails with her mother that day and refuses to do it again.
The real learning curve with nail painting is doing your dominant hand. I like the new trend where you only do fancy nails on your non-dominant side.
Oh, and I still have a big container of every colour of nail polish. I don't paint them any more because they chip so fast. And unlike clew, I would paint my nails for fieldwork so I couldn't see the dirt.
I like the look of my feet with a pedicure but hate having my feet touched so the process is mildly torturous instead of relaxing.
I think it was a cousin who tried to teach me how to paint my nails as a preteen, but I've never had a steady enough hand to satisfy my perfectionism.
I keep my nails really short, even when manicured (with gel polish), and get them done somewhere around 3 or 4 times a year, usually around holidays or conferences. I'll get pedicures slightly more often than that.
47: oh my god I think I've done that why would I have done that
I guess because people have more toes than fingers so it's easier?
I hope that was a memory from early childhood. But still: have I ever had any dignity?
"I still have a big container of every colour of nail polish"
Shame ti let it go to waste. You should use it on Airfix kits.
My mother (for some reason) didn't teach me any of the "beauty" stuff she knew (I found out when having makeup done for prom that eyebrows are supposed to be shaped? Mom nodded knowingly and I wondered why she hadn't clued me in because clearly my eyebrows were hideous and needed fixing immediately! /teenage angst). When I was about 8, I was VERY into nail polish but never figured out how to apply it really nicely, and she just let me do whatever. That went on for a few years; then I sort of gave up. I'd remove the whole thing at the first chip, and re-doing nails near-daily wasn't even practical for a vain/obsessive kid. I bet most of the "learning to do" teaching is mothers seeing their kid kind of fuck up stuff like makeup and nails when the kids gets interested and steps in to show them how not to do a lousy job.
My eyebrows are heading toward what I call "background wizard in a cheap SF movie" but my barber stopped asking and now just trims them.
||
Important sports update: John Updike's son just kicked my ass in a tennis tournament.
|>
I learned how to do my nails from my mom, but not how to be the sort of woman who has her nails done, or needs to have her nails done - it's SES/regional thing and it didn't seem to be part of our circles. Definitely not true of friends who grew up near Dallas. Anyhow I like nail polish alright but can't stand chipped polish, which I manage to do within a day.
Utah's culture tends to elaborate hairstyles on little girls (the braids and ponytail designs one sees on Facebook, e.g..) and very made up/polished/full face - almost to the point where one can track religion based on how made up someone is to go shopping.
I had a good get on a drop shot and was tempted to say I ran like a rabbit on that one.
Apparently, I had confused Updike with Upton Sinclair.
almost to the point where one can track religion based on how made up someone is to go shopping
There's probably a good book to be written on how wearing lots of makeup became a symbol of religious conformity. If it exists and someone reads it, I'll read a comment about it.
I did too! My doubles partner told me who he was I said Oh the guy who wrote about slaughterhouses?
The person who does my nails occasionally also waxes my brows. The manicure portion can be pleasant even without polish. I went once when my hands were dry to have a manicure with a paraffin treatment and skipped the polish. My nails were cleaned up, and it helps moisturize your hands and is soothing. I think you can get gizmos to do the paraffin soak at home, but that's kind of messy.
Wax gloves is fun. My brother had to do a paraffin soak because he broke his finger. Maybe his doctor was a quack?
I think that should have been '"Wax gloves" is fun' or 'Wax gloves are fun'. Sorry.
70: they have paraffin foot baths you can buy for home. I think some people find it helps arthritis (maybe because of the heat?)
Boy the US Open has been exciting.
The youngest players to reach the Men's US Open finals in increasing order of age: Sampras, Alcaraz, Borg, Djokovic, Agassi.
My mom didn't teach me about makeup either, but she did bring me to The Body Shop for a free makeover and lesson in makeup application prior to my eighth grade formal. I then had refresher lessons from older girls on my HS debate team and with my belly dancing teacher during college (though not at the college).
John Updike != Upton Sinclair != Sinclair Lewis != Lewis Carroll != Carol Channing.
Channing was good in "The Lost City".
Elijah Wood was great as the bad guy in that.
I think Moby needs a full-time fact checker. 77 confused me because it was almost accurate as long as you didn't refer back to 76 and think it was Carol.
So I was ready to accept 78 as true, but apparently it's some kind of joke that Moby can't tell Harry Potter and Frodo apart (?).
(cross-posted from Standpipe's blog by popular demand)
80: Proves my point. Unfogged needs to hire someone full-time to stop you from spreading misinformation.
As long as I don't commercialize it, I'm fine.
Apparently the url space does nothing now?
The url space hasn't done anything for a decade has it?
My father-in-law gets pedicures often enough, I gather, and he's definitely blue-collar. He's also left-wing politically if that affects the odds at all, though. I tried a pedicure once and found it was too painful. I don't know if that was a bad one or they aren't for me in general.
I want to try the one where fish eat the dead skin on your feet.
Great photos for the upcoming celbration of grito del Dolores. They are of manicures.
https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/de-ultima/disenos-de-unas-increibles-para-celebrar-las-fiestas-patrias