The Wine Commonsewer

Coyote Ugly

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

We'd watched a few episodes of The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search and it seemed like a tough gig. Like Dallas Cowgirl cheerleader boot camp morphed into So You Think You Can Dance AND you think you're the next American Idol, tossed with a dry Martooni, shaken, not stirred, and a dose of attitude from Hell's Kitchen (that guy needs Prozac, man).  The payoff is this.

Ducking through the crowd at.....

.....headed toward Houdini's Magic Shop with said chillen' in tow, TWC stumbled to a crawl. I'm thinking that here is the real thing, removed from the imagery of TV.

TWC: Look, there's the Coyote Ugly girls dancing on the bar.

House Blond: Dad, I REALLY don't want to look at a bunch of bras hanging from the ceiling.

TWC: Is that what those are?

Dangling like so many scissored ties at Pinnacle Peak (Garden Grove: RIP) were dozens of BRAS. I'm thinking it's time for Lasik because I missed that entirely. Well, I saw SOMETHING, but bras? Course, the glasses were off so that the twenty-somethings wouldn't notice I was old. Hey, works for me in the mirror. Lose the specs and I'm still 27.

The House Blond was even less impressed with the trucks cruising the strip with twelve foot lettered signs inviting all comers to call 702-Sluts-R-Us to line up a Real Girl to come strip for YOU in the privacy of your hotel room. Also grateful to those in need, passing out smut fliers on the street, for sparing the kids. Just a little decorum, but a nice touch anyway.

Then there's the upscale smut............

Note to parents: You just got to 'splain that some things are icky and that the daughters need to stay off the pole. They're brighter than you think.

What exactly is Coyote Ugly? This. Or if it's really bad you chew off the other arm because she'll be looking for a one-armed man.

As Ever,

TWC

Live From New York.... (Biggest City In Las Vegas)

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Frankie notwithstanding, pretty sure Las Vegas is actually the City That Never Sleeps. And, yes, what happens in Vegas really ought to stay right here. Like the ostentatious display of bare flesh on the casino floor last night. Hot Tip: The life size rose indelibly tattooed on your upper thigh ain't hidin' a decade of Supersize fries.

And....to those five little twenty-something hotties waiting to get into Coyote Ugly in the skimpy black cocktail dresses: Thanks for not smiling at TWC like you smile at your dad.

Don't know what the record is but the House Blond and That Boy rode the roller coaster 43 times. Keeps them off the craps table. TWC? Nah, last time I did anything like that  I was in traction for a week.

Still Smokin?

Gentle Readers,

Nevada recently enacted some clean air act that gives smokers the boot in most places except bars and casino floors. Course the indoor ozone level at the cheeseball Circus Circus Adventuredome was worse than LA on a bad day in August. But, so the sign said, your kids are safe because nobody is smoking.

Legislating smokers into the pariah class makes it tougher and tougher for us match book collectors. If nobody can smoke then no bars and eateries have matches for our matchless friends.

I did manage a cool matchbook today, but that is a score that is rapidly going the way of the brontosaurus.

We're off for some Italian.........

And, are you still smokin'?

As Ever,

TWC

End of An Era

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

In the days of my vagrant yoot there was a shopping center across the street from Pacifica High School. Dottie's Beauty Salon was to the right, just before you plowed through the double glass electric automatically opening doors of the long-gone supermarket that is now condos. If you glanced inside on your way by, which we instinctively tried not to do, you could see those women. Hands animated, waving in the air. Smoking, snipping, gassing about the neighbors, and who was sleeping with who's husband.

The doors seemed like they were always open, leaking cigarette smoke and chemicals now banned by the ever-vigilant EPA. Dottie was the good looking red-headed southerner, but I didn’t know which one she was at the time. Later on I knew her because I knew her daughter Viv (who did not go to Pacifica). Viv was a fargin’ 10 (kid you not, man) in her day and is still pretty decent looking, even though she’s almost as old as El Jeronimo de Crow.

Dottie's is still around, too, down on Garden Grove Blvd I think, but it’s a mere shadow of its former glory. No faux Grecian urns, no web site, no potted palms just some hangers-on, clientèle that like things the way they once were.

Vivian left a tearful voicemail today, mama passed yesterday. 

Just a little piece of our lives, boys, forever and unchangeable......

Rest easy, Ma'am.

Joe (and Viv). Our thoughts are with you.

As Ever,

TWC

No Child Left Behind ('cept if you live in a bad part of town)

Gentle Readers,

Mrs TWC was in Sacramento today for a press conference and to testify in favor of a bill that would give lower income parents a tax credit to help out with private schooling if their kids are stuck in failing public schools by virtue of the neighborhood they live in.

As modest a proposal as this was, the teacher unions and other assorted cohorts rolled out the howitzers. Prognosis: Likely to be stillborn in committee, but it's for the children you know.

Mrs TWC is Director of Education at Reason Foundation, a free-market libertarian think tank. I don't know where those guys came up with that picture, but it doesn't look much like the chick I'm married to. She looks more like this.

As Ever,

TWC

Daddies & Daughters

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

TWC and The House Blond off to the Daddies & Daughters Dance at Eagle Glen Country Club.

As Ever,

TWC