RUSH: Ken in Tulsa, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Good morning, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Never better, sir. Never better despite the cultural rot all around me.
CALLER: Well, first of all, let me say that it’s an honor to be on your show, and please keep up the good work.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. I shall, because only I can really do it.
CALLER: Sir?
RUSH: Only I can really do it. Everybody else is a pretender.
CALLER: Yes, that’s true. This is in regard to your piece yesterday on the Heart Attack Grill in Arizona and Eye Candy Cuts in Tulsa Oklahoma. My wife and I own and operate Eye Candy Cuts in Tulsa.
RUSH: Well, we got a phone call from a woman telling us about your place.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Was she accurate? What’s the actual name your business?
CALLER: The actual name is <a target=new href=”http://www.eyecandycuts.com”>Eye Candy Cuts</a>.
RUSH: Eye Candy Cuts.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: All right, and so anybody can go in and get their haircut?
CALLER: Well, anybody can go in and get their haircut as long as they are male and over the age of 18. We cater to the male population.
RUSH: Well, that’s good enough for me.
CALLER: The clarification that I wanted to make was that it’s not the neighbors that are upset with what we’re doing at Eye Candy Cuts, and to my knowledge there’s no group that is lobbying the Board of Cosmetology concerning the attire of the stylists at Eye Candy Cuts —
RUSH: And what is that attire, just to be clear.
CALLER: The caller pretty well described it. We have costumes that the girls wear that show cleavage. We have thigh-high stocking. They’re in high heels. They may have exposed midriffs.
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: It’s nothing that you can’t see at the beach or a swimming pool in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the 4th of July.
RUSH: Yeah, but it’s December. Good for you, sir.
CALLER: We just turn the heat up.
RUSH: (Laughing.) In more ways than one. You know, I’m thinking here, if I walked into your store to get a haircut, I know one of the key things that’s required when you’re getting your haircut is you gotta keep your head still depending on what implements the stylist is using. Eye candy does not lend itself to keeping one’s head still.
CALLER: Well, even if you’re getting your haircut, that doesn’t immobilize your eyeballs, and so, you know, we have mirrors in front of the stations and —
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
CALLER: — the eye candy is available for your viewing pleasure at such time as you can move your head.
RUSH: Yeah. I see that. I forget about the mirror aspect.
CALLER: The point that I wanted to make was that it is not a group that is lobbying the Board of Cosmetology concerning attire. It is the Board of Cosmetology itself that wants to include the verbiage change in the regulations that says the attire of the licensees must cover from the shoulders to mid-thigh, including armpits, and that short sleeves are acceptable.
RUSH: Oh. So it’s not the public that’s upset with you? It’s a regulatory body?
CALLER: That’s exactly right.
RUSH: Now, can people drive by your shop and see what’s going on in the window?
CALLER: No, they cannot.
RUSH: Well, then what’s the beef?
CALLER: Well, that’s a good question. We’d like to know that also. I went to a meeting last Monday in which the board voted yes to include this verbiage into their regulations, and the assistant attorney general that was also present at the meeting told them that they had no jurisdiction concerning attire but that they had the authority to rewrite the regulations if that’s what they chose to do, and that is what they chose to do. So they are willing and wanting to include verbiage in the regulations that would affect 30,000 licensees within the state of Oklahoma.
RUSH: What are you going to do?
CALLER: Well, there’s a long bureaucratic trail that this thing has to take. Right now we’re not doing anything. I think that we want to see what the final result of the —
RUSH: Let me tell you what you need. Let me tell you right now, Ken, let me tell you right now what you need to do. The Heart Attack Grill is a great model. There are so many real people who are in support of the Heart Attack Grill, patronizing the place, reacting to the state attorney general’s office trying to get them to change the attire of their nurse waitresses in there.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And that’s what you need. You need a public groundswell of support for your freedom to run your business as you want. You are not oppressing these stylists. They’re choosing to work there based on what your requirements are. Nobody is being hurt. Nobody is being harmed. Nobody can accidentally walk by or drive by and see what’s going on, and even if they could, yippee, it’s like going to the beach, as you say. So what you need is a groundswell of support to overwhelm the regulatory body. Don’t insult the regulatory body, that’s just going to rev ’em up even more to teach you a lesson.
CALLER: Oh, exactly. Well, and furthermore, Rush, we’ve been inspected by the city of Tulsa, the neighborhood inspection division, and our information has been submitted to two different city attorneys, and neither city attorney found us to be in violation of any of Tulsa’s city ordinances. What they’re wanting to do is make it to where that manicurist that’s performing a manicure cannot wear a tank top or a sundress. It gets pretty hot in July and August in Oklahoma. That stylist would not be able to where a sleeveless blouse to work —
RUSH: That’s absurd.
CALLER: — it would be in violation of the regulations.
RUSH: Well, we’re happy to help out, Ken, publicizing your plight there. A lot of people are uptight about things that they don’t see and that they don’t confront and that they don’t have to see. Don’t let ’em get away with trying to portray what you’re doing here as corrupting anybody. You’re talking about adults and so forth, and you’ve got a business to run, and a hair salon is a hair salon. Any business that’s in competition with another has to do things to stand out. There’s a lot of noise out there and you have to be louder than all the other noise. Sounds to me like you’ve found a fun and cute and stylish way of doing this that’s harmless, particularly when you look at other things. What’s the crime rate in Tulsa? What is being taken seriously there that is representative of cultural rot that is perhaps not getting the full attention of authorities down there and they’re now focusing on you because you’re an easy target and they think easy to defeat and they can notch their belt with you, but hang tough.