From the Flying Saucer to Jerry Lee’s to a floundering finale at Coyote Ugly, Frank Chin followed the Stumbling Santas, Saturday night. Here are his pictures of the silliness.
Tag: Coyote Ugly
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Navel Intelligence
Do you have what it takes to be the Ultimate Coyote? That’s the question Country Music Television (CMT) reality show The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search asks in its second season.
Memphis’ Coyote Ugly opened on Beale last May, and has enjoyed success on the street that bar owner Liliana Lovell refers to as “the Urban Bourbon.”
Lovell was in town last week for the taping of season two’s finale, which follows girls from five cities (New York, Charlotte, Nashville, Fort Lauderdale, and Memphis) in their bid to outsmart and outshine one another for the coveted Coyote gig. The competition pairs the “wannabes” with bar veterans as they compete for $25,000 each and, of course, reality-show celebrity.
Memphis Coyote Bri teamed up with wannabe Sandra, and, well, that’s about all I can tell you, as I was threatened with bodily harm if I so much as hinted at the outcome. The show doesn’t air until March, and the winner won’t be revealed until May.
But Saturday night, the Beale Street bar was packed for the final taping, and by 10 p.m., the place was raging.
As a crowd of mostly male patrons screamed their approval, competitors jumped atop the bar to dance, sing, and cajole onlookers to drink more. A blonde in cutoffs and a red bustier sings and boot-scoots across the length of the bar with a little help from Kenny Rogers. Then Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie” cranks up, and the bar is now host to two Coyotes in matching stars-and-stripes bikinis. The patriotic duo work the crowd into a frenzy as they hold buckets high above their heads and pour water over their arched bodies. More buckets appear, and it’s time for a full-on water fight. Not to be outdone, two more gals climb atop the bar for a “catfight” that results in their shirts being ripped off. Hey, this is a competition, and all’s fair in love and reality TV.
When they call for female bar patrons to join them, non-Coyotes pile onto the bar. After one of the women clambers down, I ask if it was fun.
“Hell, yeah!” she screams. She and her husband have driven up from Booneville, Mississippi, to be part of reality-TV history. I ask if she gets jealous having her hubby gawk at the scantily clad ladies.
“No way. They do all the work, and I enjoy the benefits later,” she says with a grin, one eyebrow shooting wickedly upward. Seems there was a payoff that night for more than just Coyotes, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
CMT’s The Ultimate Coyote Search premieres March 30th.
Categories
Bust a Move
When the barn doors of Coyote Ugly swung open last week, a throng of Memphians packed the new Beale Street club to watch the bartenders dance atop the bar. But due to a vaguely worded city moratorium on dance permits, there was a chance the bartenders wouldn’t be able to strut their stuff.
Last week, the City Council voted to extend the six-month moratorium on compensated dance permits — the kind required for strip clubs and shake joints — that they enacted last December. The council also specified in the updated moratorium that it only applied to “adult-oriented businesses.”
Because Coyote Ugly serves alcohol and employees are paid to dance on the bar — even though they do not remove their clothing — the establishment had to get a compensated dance permit. But because the permit moratorium was for any business with compensated dance, not just adult-oriented businesses, it couldn’t. And they would not have been the only ones.
“We need to ensure that the language only applies to adult business, not Coyote Ugly, not The Orpheum,” deputy city attorney Elbert Jefferson told City Council members at a committee meeting last week.
The dance-permit moratorium was extended six months to allow Duncan Associates, the consulting firm hired to revise the city’s zoning ordinance, more time to study the problem.
“They’re looking at the language of the ordinance, the fines, and how much criminal activity is perpetrated in that industry,” said council chair TaJuan Stout Mitchell.
According to Eric Kelly, vice president of the Texas-based Duncan Associates, enforcement of the current dance ordinance is fairly lax.
“There appears to be a lot more contact between customers and performers in the Memphis clubs than we have seen in other cities,” said Kelly.
He also pointed out that although the existing ordinance requires dancers to wear bottoms, they seldom do.
“It appears that it’s worth it to these clubs to pay the fines for the dancers so they can go on performing,” said Kelly. “We’re not just looking at the ordinance language. We’re also looking at enforcement and legislation. In theory, the clubs are supposed to be topless clubs.”
Kelly said the company’s findings should be presented to the City Council and the County Commission in October. A new ordinance stemming from the findings should be drafted by December.
“The problem is that this ordinance is so broad that we’re just making sure it doesn’t affect us at all,” said Coyote Ugly owner and founder Lil Lovell at the club’s opening. “We’re the new kid in town. We’re just trying to let people know what we’re all about. We’re completely the opposite of a strip club.”
But even though the dance-permit moratorium now distinguishes between adult-oriented businesses and those that aren’t, the line between the two may be as confusing as ever.
The city attorney’s office re-issued a compensated dance permit to Charles Westlund last week for a proposed club at 616 Marshall Avenue.
The permitting office had originally issued Westlund a permit last September. He planned to open a topless bar in the space, but the brouhaha surrounding the proposed downtown strip club led the City Council to re-examine its ordinance. Westlund’s permit was revoked by the city shortly thereafter due to the club’s proximity to churches, schools, and parks.
But the permit was re-issued after Westlund said he would operate the club in a manner similar to Coyote Ugly.
Lovell’s bartender/dancers are quick to say that they’re completely different from strippers.
“If you watch the dances, it’s nothing like strip dancing at all,” said Latasha Sims, a Coyote Ugly bartender. “It’s hard to learn the dances. It’s really choreographed.”