Panorama of San Bernardino

Friday, July 23, 2021

Leather and me

I'm a little girl watching Happy Days with my dad. It's one of the Leather Tuscadero episodes. I'm standing up dancing and pretending to play a guitar. 

I'm fascinated by the image of Leather Tuscadero, a girl, wearing all leather, scarf around her neck, playing a bass guitar. Her hair is layered. She is hard and soft, masculine and feminine. She is rocking it. She goes high, low. 

Even her name is cool. 

On Happy Days, she plays a relative of Fonzie's girlfriend Pinky Tuscadero, who is an all pink, red haired, female sex bomb of a girl. But I want to be Leather Tuscadero. 

That night I dream myself into her. I'm standing in a 50's style cafe playing a bass guitar and screaming into a microphone. Everyone's dancing.

I wake up groggy. It's time for school. Bells to hear ring. Books to read. 

But no guitars to play. 

I put on my baby blue Dittos instead of leather pants, but that day walking to school, I have a little more swagger in my step.



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