Xavier Cugat made Roman Polanski look like Ashton Kutcher

The shit that happens when you look up “Charo” on wikipedia because you don’t know the correct spelling of gootchy…

Did you know that Xavier Cugat falsified her age on her work visa? His “protege” was only 13 years old! I taught junior high for a year. It’s a bitch when you can’t find a synonym for “yuck.” I guess abstaining from child molestation gives Desi Arnaz the trump card. Although, it would be kind of funny if the Cug-ster got the sitcom. Can you imagine, “I Love Charo”? Most. Uncomfortable. Sitcom. EVER!

Actually, it’s “cuchi.” I try to make a point of learning something new every day. I’m allowed a fucking mistake or two. I fucking know the BJ and the Bear theme song! BY HEART!

I saw her in Hawaii once. True Story. I don’t mean I was hiking in Hawaii and bumped into her at a waterfall. Didn’t see her snorkeling or tanning. I don’t even mean they were shooting a Love Boat reunion and we crashed the set.

Lono and I paid actual money to see that. We share a morbid fascination with icons of 70s and 80s shit television. To date, there have been only three people I know of that can keep up with me on TV Trivial pursuit: my brother, Carl Cleaver, and Lono.

So it wasn’t surprising that the first thing he told me, upon moving to Hawaii, was that Charo performed regularly at one of the hotels there – to be followed by, “Taj Mahal has a place on one of the islands too, but he doesn’t perform.” That is how Lono is. Naturally, he got to the beaches and rain forests, but anybody can talk about that. It’s, like, right fucking there in front of you!!!

I remember there was some kind of hang-up in getting tickets to Don Ho, but I digress.

You know the old saying, “When you assume, blah, blah…” Yeah. That.

The room was packed, which is not a bad thing. However, Lono and I were two of five people in the room under seventy. Before we get on this “Vinehamner’s an agist” bullshit, the collective age of the room wouldn’t be a problem either. I mean, a conga-line’s a conga-line, no?

We’re not talking about Helen Mirren, Sean fucking Connery, or even those fun-loving seniors you see in commercials. I didn’t know about the world of seniors’ sightseeing tours. The things where they schlub a bunch of semi-erect codgers around in a bus because they worked their asses off for three quarters of their natural lives and goddammit! They’re going to see HAWAII before they die.

That would be a great slogan for the tourism industry:

Hawaii – see it before you croak!

So the rest of the room was basically a George Romero picture without an editor. We had drinks with umbrellas. [Coincidentally, the Charo revue is about the only place in Hawaii you can get a big, colorful drink with an umbrella in it. The locals don’t cotton to that bullshit.] We’d also had several joints, several more drinks at another hotel, and a couple lines prior to even reaching the place. WE WERE SET TO CUCHI-CUCHI MOTHERFUCKER!!! FUCK YEAH!!! CUCHI ON!!! The rest of the room had split-pea soup.

That wasn’t how we behaved, actually. I mean, we started dancing and everything, but it just got depressing watching people fall asleep at their tables. So, of course, we just sat there and drank more.

What can I say about the act? You think Charo’s going to go out there and play “Stairway to Heaven” and blow your fucking mind? Didn’t know about her juggling talent, did you??? SHE’S MORE THAN JUST A BODY!!! Coincidentally, Charo is one of the best guitarists I’ve ever seen. But she only did one of those songs. Frankly, if it was an evening of that, I fucking-ay would tell you it was one of the best shows I’d ever seen.

So the act was, well, cabaret. Not particularly good. Not particularly entertaining. A couple of show tunes (she had a chorus of 4 guys behind her) ; a couple sets of badly written, Catskills material (but I wasn’t exactly expecting Carlin); one very beautiful tune on the classical guitar [I understand Cugat’s attraction to a girl who can wield an axe – but… thirteen, dude.]; and about twenty minutes – I shit you not – of “The Cuchi Cuchi Song.

“Why twenty minutes? Well, the seniors who’d plunked down a lot of bones to be shuttled about in an insulated, pollution-spewing tube across some of the most beautiful land on the globe (hey – just because I don’t tan don’t mean I don’t love the outdoors!), also got a picture with Charo. Imagine a rave where somebody locks the doors from the outside and puts “Barbie Girl” on a perpetual loop. It’s like that, but without the x to get you through.

We were getting excited. She was going around to every other FUCKING table in the place, taking pictures with people. Except the five people who were actually dancing. Little old ladies were pulling their husbands’ heads out of the fucking soup to smile at Charo! It’s like Movieland Wax Musem without the energy! She bounced her geriatric tits at every other FUCKING table in the place. Except the five people that were dancing.

Fuck you, Charo. Fuck you.