{"id":1711,"date":"2016-11-02T19:56:28","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T19:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/?p=1711"},"modified":"2018-07-28T12:52:33","modified_gmt":"2018-07-28T19:52:33","slug":"woodshedding-exotic-dancers-ukuleles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/woodshedding-exotic-dancers-ukuleles\/","title":{"rendered":"Woodshedding, Exotic Dancers & Ukuleles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AntelopeI took a well-needed break from the wall-to-wall drama swirling in my life these days with a road trip to the high desert of Southern California and the Antelope Valley Ukulele Festival.<\/p>\n

\"calis_class-4\"
Ukulele For Beginners. Photo by Craig Brandau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is such a sweet gathering of folks who love the ukulele and it\u2019s a blast teaching the workshop for beginners. Then I get to hang out in \u201cthe green room\u201d with its wall-to-wall mirrors, munchies, bathroom and jovial conviviality up the kazoo. Fred Thompson and I commiserate over chips and dip. He is a wonderful ukulele player but more than that, this eighty-plus year old can sure spin a tale.<\/p>\n

\"cali-and-fred\"
Cali and Fred. Photo by Craig Brandau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He regales me with his show biz stories starting with one \u201cTempest Storm<\/a>,” the uh\u2026exotic dancer\u2026who once wowed audiences in the showrooms of Las Vegas. It\u2019s another time, another era.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"tempeststorm\"
Tempest Storm in 2006<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apparently Fred and Tempest are appearing on the same bill and the performers hang out backstage waiting their turn. He tells me that, between sets, Tempest grabs onto a pole and\u2026um\u2026does her \u201cbreast exercises.\u201d Fred describes how she\u2019s flexes one boob and then the other. Over and over again. Working those pecs. And God knows what else.<\/p>\n

\"Woodshedding
Woodshedding in Webb’s garage, Sheffield, MA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

She\u2019s woodshedding, by golly. I tell my students that in order to learn a new technique, a new song, a new something<\/em>, you have to do it over and over. Like chopping wood. I never quite thought of woodshedding in terms of \u201cexotic dancing\u201d but of course it\u2019s true. You gotta keep your instrument\u2014and it\u2019s parts<\/em>\u2014tuned up. After that, maintenance is everything, right?<\/p>\n

The following Thursday I tell The CC Strummers about Fred and ask them if they\u2019ve ever heard of Tempest Storm. Most of them nod and laugh. But it\u2019s \u201cMr. B\u201d who grabs my attention because the most beautiful\u00a0smile is washing across his face, like sunshine. I think maybe he\u2019s having \u201ca moment\u201d and ask him about it. He tells the class that he saw Tempest Storm perform way back in the 1960\u2019s and she did\u2026like\u2026the most amazing things while she held onto the curtain. He goes into more detail but I shall leave that to your<\/em> imagination. Let\u2019s just say I am now glazing over.<\/p>\n

Recently Richard, another one of our CC Strummers, told me that he found a \u201cCali Rose\u201d on the Internet and she is a pole dancer.<\/p>\n

Are you kidding\u2026?<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course I do a Google search as soon as I get home and there she is! Miss Exotic Dancer, Maryland 2014. That\u2019s<\/em> impressive. Then I find another \u201cCali Rose\u201d and wouldn\u2019t you know it, she\u2019s a pole dancer too and a fashionista. In Australia. Are we seeing a pattern?<\/p>\n

\"SecretI think about pole dancing sometimes. Really I do. Every time I drive by this scene on my way to the 405 Freeway, right here in my homeland, Culver City. It\u2019s the Secret Pole Dance Studio. Yeah, BIG secret. You can bet the customers at Winchell\u2019s and HoneyBaked know about it\u2026 As for me, my frequent \u201cdrive-bys\u201d are as close as I\u2019m going to get to swinging on a pole.<\/p>\n

But back to the Internet. I think there is no mistaking a fully clothed, middle-aged ukulele player for one of those blond bombshell Cali Roses.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut can they play the ukulele?\u201d you may ask. And I\u2019d say, \u201cum…does it matter?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took a well-needed break from the wall-to-wall drama swirling in my life these days with a road trip to the high desert of Southern California and the Antelope Valley Ukulele Festival. This is such a sweet gathering of folks who love the ukulele and it\u2019s a blast teaching the workshop for beginners. Then I get to hang out in \u201cthe green room\u201d with its wall-to-wall mirrors, munchies, bathroom and jovial conviviality up the kazoo. Fred Thompson and I commiserate … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentry"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Secret-Pole-Dance-Studio.jpg",640,329,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":5,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":138,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":138,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1711"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1728,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions\/1728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}