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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Chicago Mud Queens Wrestle at Reggies...



Truth be told, I am more than a little too old to be doing silly shit like going to see women's mud wrestling. My excuse for going then? Every man is actually a 14 year old boy at heart and 14 year old boys can be forgiven for wanting to see women flopping around in mud. It's a genetic predisposition on our part, I think. 


I was not familiar with Chicago's Mud Queens. A Face Book friend joined their ranks a couple of months ago and she sends out invites whenever they are scheduled to wrestle. I'd been meaning to get to the city and check out a show or two, but the scheduling was always off. The timing worked out perfectly for me last night though. 


The two dozen or so Mud Queens use their shows to raise money for different women's concerns in the Chicago area - their first basic rule seems to be that if they are playing, it's a fund raiser. Their second basic rule seems to be that it's all good in the mud. 

If you've ever worked a fundraiser, you know there's usually a lot of tedium involved. But if there was any last night at Reggie's - an excellent venue on South State Street - you couldn't see it. You'd think smiling while being pasted with mud would be counter-intuitive, but such was not the case. At the least, the women hit the mud with a serious look, determined to win perhaps? But all too often you'd see them smiling as they bit the muck. 


Front row was a dangerous place for electronics. My camera still has smears on it. Several times during the show I had to spit liberally on my lens and wipe splatters of muck away so I could get back to photographing. I attribute some of the focal problems experienced in the latter part of the show as coming from trying to wipe the crap off the glass with an already dirty cleaning rag. 


If I could make suggestions, I'd make two - friend the Mud Queens on your Face Book. And keep track of the schedule. Sharing an evening with two dozen of your newest, dirtiest friends is a lot more fun than you'd imagine. 


(As an aside, if you're interested in a book on the subject, check out the Art of Mud Wrestling.)