2 days in at the Steel Ponies express. The bar has done very well. The event itself is definately not as busy as last year. We paid for a parking permit that extended the whole block so we could have parking for hundreds of motorcycles. Of course the city showed up yesterday claiming that a movie production company had the permit. They are totally fucking us. I think Aaron is going to have a coronary. Now we have had to share the block. I get a call from chantel this morning saying that they parked a movie trailer right in front of the bar. So we are fighting with them to move it. What a fucking nuisance. Today is yet another 90 degree day. Tomorrow is November. This is fucking ridiculous. I can't lie between the weather and this parking issue, I hate it here today. I'm definately not staying in New Orleans next summer. I can understand why people go on shooting sprees.
On a good note, the girls are trying really hard. Michelle beaver from Austin and Seth from san Antonio came down to pitch in. They are doing great. Very proud.
I can't wait to take jackson trick or treating!

It seems like there is a bit of a competition going on. Yesterday evening the San Antonio girls sold 81 body shots. Last year New Orleans sold during a day shift 78 bodyshots. Ok I'm not trying to play favorites because I am so proud of the San Antonio girls. They are really starting to get it. And they are so dedicated to the bar. I love them for that. But What was the total for both day and night shifts? Was it 81 bodyshots over the cross of two shifts ( day and night)? Or was it just night? I hate playing favorites amongst my own bars but there are 8 girls working on Friday night in San Antonio and only 3 girls working a saturday day shift in New Orleans. ( let me repeat I love the San Antonio girls, just trying to be fair)
If the managers of my bars want to make this exciting. We can make a wager on it. ( sorry there can be no betting within a liquor licensed property) Let's call it a bonus. Ok Aaron, Marshall, Jacqui, and Kelly. Anyone game?

I just erased my whole blog. Aaron told me about a girl who was taking off some time for something pretty serious. Now, many years ago I would of responded " Aaron, that is so tough for her. I hope she's alright." Now my response is " you're kidding me? Do you buy it?" Of course his response back " I don't know" I can't print what the excuse is or who the girl is. If there is any truth to this and I print this, God will strike me down dead . But if it is a lie, it is a doozie and I will write about it in a few months.
Steel Ponies Bike Fest starts today. I'm pretty psyched for it. We did very well last year at this event. Aaron who never gets emotional about anything , spoke to me yesterday and he was absolutly giddy. Finally after months of complaints, lawyers, and anyone who would listen, we got the Dumpster moved that was right next door to the bar.
Knock on wood, I don't want to jinx anything but san Antonio is doing unbelievably well.
I've been getting a lot of compliments about the New York bar. I love that bar. It's the smallest, it's the grungiest, it even usually smells, but the girls are great, the customers are loyal, and it's just a fun time for everyone.

Jackson's birthday was yesterday. 5 years old. They grow up so fast.
I'm so fucking pissed at our merch company. Steel Ponies is this weekend. We sell tons of merchendise during this bike fest. Aaron ordered merch for this 6 weeks ago. He gets an e-mail yesterday that they can't supply a few items in XXL. " Why the fuck didn't you tell him that 6 weeks ago?" Bikers wear XXL. I have steam coming out of my ears right now. I'm sure there are other companies who would love to have our business.
I'm getting very excited for Nashville.

Aaron told me something yesterday that is so funny yet so disturbing. As a mother raising her child in Louisiana this makes me very confident about my decision to put jackson in private school.

Tara asked him the other day " Is Thanksgiving on thursday this year?"

Steel Ponies is this weekend. I've got Kyle coming in to train and work. I've got Michelle Beaver coming in from Austin. And I have Seth coming in from San Antonio. I hope the weather holds.

I wish I had gone to the nascar race. Kyle told me that at one point our car was in fourth place! How exciting. But unfortunately the car spun out and ended in 22nd place. Damn!!!

The New Orleans girls lost to the Bud girls in Volleyball on Thursday. Supposedly it was close. Tied one game each and we lost in the tie breaker. 2 years in a row we lost to them, Chantel you need some ringers!!!!

Coyote Ugly Saloon has teamed with Team McClure and Wide Open Performance & Enhanced Formula Energy Drink to field a NASCAR Busch Series entry in the Sam's Town "He Dared To Rock" 250 benefiting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Driver Eric McClure, 25, is an up and coming driver in NASCAR. Eric most recently competed in the Aaron's 499 NASCAR Nextel Cup race in April 2004 where he qualified 35th and finished a respectable 26th and on the lead lap. See our car photos here.

Qualifications on the mile oval are scheduled for Friday afternoon October 22nd followed by the race, televised on TNT at 3:30 p.m. (ET) on Saturday afternoon October 23rd. Radio coverage is provided by MRN -- beginning at 2:45 p.m. (ET).

I have 218 e-mails from the web site. Most everyone who e-mails me asks me when I am going to put a Coyote in their hometown. It is just impossible for me to answer everyone. All I can say to people who are curious about various cities is I promise you will read it on the Lil Spill or in the Ugly news section. I'm constantly sending scouts out and when we land a deal I will write about it.

I will still answer my e-mails but i just can't answer everyone.

I enjoy some of the letters I receive from my trademark attorneys. They seem to all start with " Lil, please do not post this on the Lil Spill." Jeff actually laughs about it. There is possibly a new project that fell into our laps. Jeff e-mailed me today and asked if we should put new guy Tim on it. Tim worked 90 hours last week, I don't know how much more he can do. "What doesn't kill you makes you strong"
I think Kevin found us our pick up truck. I'm not sure what it is. He came to me yesterday saying he had narrowed it down to two. I asked the prices and one was almost $7,000 more. Well , problem solved . We'll take the cheaper one.
I'll be out in Denver in early November.
I'm so pissed at Lee for changing the girls search in Nashville. I was prepared to go the day after Thanksgiving. That would have made me happy. ( Kitty cringes when I say would of instead of would have) We have a few leads on some new spots.
Jackson requested that we decorate the outside of out house for Halloween. This has become a neverending project. Everyday we add something new. But then someone elses house looks better. Yesterday we put up flourescent lighting, a huge spider, and more webbing. This morning Jackson states " our house isn't scary enough we need some ghosts." I've exceeded my domesticity level on this project. I've been painting, glueing. I actually enlisted a friend to help. I said to him yesterday " I can help you." his response " how can you help? What are you going to make some sandwiches?" After I simmered down from that comment , I went in and made a cheese and antipasta plate. " Here you go. I'll be upstairs working"

Kevin purchased himself and I two training computers for the Aloha POS system. We did this so we could become more proficient on them without having to be at one of the bars. Also if a manager trains with me in New Orleans , which doesn't use POS, I can still train them with my computer.
So, I get my computer and it is running very slowly, not starting the program properly etc. Jacob ,a bouncer at the New Orleans bar, is a bit of a computer wiz so I asked him to take the computer and get it running properly. Well I get the computer back yesterday. Lastnight I start using the aloha program. While I was working on it , all of a sudden it quits and internet explorer starts. The last few weeks of history for the computer start popping up. It seemed to me that the computer had been used to surf chat rooms, porn sites, webcam shots of naked girls. ( You get the picture.) This morning I call him up and I say 1. the aloha program isn't running properly and 2. this is a fucking training computer you need to erase all this fucking porn . For god sakes there was even a girl pleasuring herself with a boat oar. Now don't misunderstand me I love porn just as much as the next person but " what the fuck!" So I hear him talking to his roommate, Will, another bouncer at the New Orleans bar. Then I can hear Jacob start yelling. It seems that Will and Kerry had downloaded Yahoo instant messenger, aol instant messenger, and visited every sub par porn site while Jacob was working the other night.
Just another day at the office.

Comments: Hey Lil its Jimmy from NYC. It was a sad day for me yesterday in the bar. It finaly hit me that there is no more kyle. We all took him out last monday to a great steak house in NY, and on friday I drove him into the bar. But it was only yesterday when it realy hit me.
Kyle is a great friend of mine and I will miss him so much. I just want you to know that you made a great move by giving Kyle his shot as a manager. we are all so happy for him but we will miss him a lot.

I asked kyle to be one of the managers of the Nashville bar. He's worked for me for a long time and I trust him implicitly. Other then me or Jacqui , Kyle has been a fixture in that bar for 7 or 8 years. Now granted there are regulars who have made daily appearances since the first day the bar opened . But as far as staff goes, Jacqui is the only one who has been there longer then Kyle.
All I can say is "dry your eyes and go down and visit him." Nashville is a great city.

Kevin has convinced me! We are purchasing a Coyote Ugly pickup truck. We end up renting trucks in every city for the buildouts. Its time we had our own. Well I learned a lot about diesel trucks today. Diesel trucks can last for 400,000 miles . Diesels have never had to have emission testing. But there is a new law that means trucks in 2007 will start having new emission systems. Hence emission testing. ( good for environment) But this will change everything in the diesel world. The old diesel feul was 500 parts sulfer to gas. The new diesel fuel has only 15 parts sulfer to gas. What does all this mean? Who the fuck knows! I just know after doing the research I think it would be prudent for us to buy a truck that is not diesel.

I just got off the phone with Aaron. He had Chantel work extra for him because the Yankees are winning. But it's not that the Yankees are winning. It's that he is superstitious so the fact that he started watching the game and they were doing well means he can't stop watching the game. He won't even sit down because he wasn't sitting down when they started scoring.
I can respect that.

Last night was the inhouse New Orleans bartender competition. This competition was to pick one of our girls to enter the Budweiser budtender of the year competition, which we have won two years in a row. Angel won but she is leaving for her new home, I think DC, in early November and can't make the actual event. So by default Laura won. I have to say the only funny part of the evening was Laura's speed round. She was asked to make a rum and coke, a chilled vodka, and a miller light. She got the beer. Made the mixed drink. Then she poured vodka in a shot glass and threw in an ice cube. I thought that was pretty funny.
Jacob and Kerry told me a story last night about a Scottish man who was asked to leave the bar by the bouncers. They said after he left he just loitered in front so they kept on screaming to him " You can take away my barstool. But you can't take away my freedom." With a Scottish accent. Very Braveheart like. Mel Gibson would be proud.
Today. The surprise city is either breathing some new life or it's breathing it';s last breath. I'm not getting my hopes up. We have a line on a place in LA.
We have a nascar car running next weekend in Memphis. That is correct, a Coyote Ugly race car. I'll get more info tomorrow. We just signed off on it yesterday. I hope we do well.
I spent the afternoon at my accountants office, Mary V. 3 hours later feeling a bit deflated. As I always say the more money you make the more you spend. Blah, blah, blah. Well I get out of her office building and get into my car. I drive 2 blocks before a cop stops all the traffic and we have to sit there for 1 hour while a parade goes by. Freaking New Orleans, all you have to do is pay a small fee and you can have your own parade. Accountants then stand still traffic, I'm in a pretty sour mood.

" Out of the ashes the phoenix rose" That is the embodiment of how I feel today. I was pretty depressed about the surprise city's deal falling through. At the very last moment the landlord pulled out asking for some ridiculous new stipulations for sale of the business ( sale of his business to us). Well last night all of us regrouped and today miracles are happining. I have been invited to Tokyo to meet with some investors and see some possible spaces, I have another possible site close to the surprise city and I'm feeling good. And it was finally a beautiful day in New Orleans. I'm ready to go. Bring it on.
Tonight Laura was competing for the finals of the bartender competion through "Where ya at" magazine. I gave her a lucky Coyote belt buckle. She said she wanted to represent. Good Luck Laura.
Tomorrow night we are holding a bartenders competition for the girls at the New Orleans bar to compete for the budtender of the year competition. Should be fun.

Surprise city died. I'm so pissed. I was planning a december 15th opening. Poor Kevin is heart broken. He had already planned to move there.

I just had a girl write me from norway . She told me she works at an infridging Coyote but would like some advice. Are people insane or just plain stupid? Now that letter will cost me god knows what because I will have to go after them. How many lawyers are making a mint off my name? I had to hire a lawyer, Jeff, to coordinate all the other lawyers I have to use. I am sickened thinking about it.

Jeff: "Woman who wrote to you is related to some guys who applied for TM in Norway. We got rid of them in Norway TM office about 2 years ago, but they went forward and opened anyway. They are currently closed down due to insufficient fire protection equipment (or something like that). We are sending a cease and desist letter and giving them a week to stop. if they don't stop we have to bring an infringement suit in Norway. "


Tomorrow there should be an article in the Wall street Journal about my company. The writer called me today and said " barring any presidential scandals or financial collapses, you should be in tomorrow's paper." I hope it is a good article.
In the two seconds that I finished my blog, I received an e-mail stating that some big story broke so we are getting bumped out of tommorows paper. C'est la Vie

Christopher Reeve died. Very sad.
Kevin , Lee and I spent the weekend in Nashville. Very fun town. I enjoyed two stepping with Lee.
So much to do so little time. Sometime in October our girls are playing volleyball against the Hooter girls in New Orleans. Chantel has gotten together a monster team. Blood match!
It's late I'm tired. I'm going to go cuddle up with jackson.

I'm in Nashville checking on the space. The space is very interesting. It is big, 8000 sq. feet. This space, according to Tennessee restirictions must have food, so we actually have an area that is entirely set up for dinner service. The ceilings are low so Kevin is having the floors dropped. It has the same stone walls that Austin has which adds a nice texture . It actually helps with swag ( decor, bar stuff), you don't need so much. What is actually unnerving, the manager's office is so nice, it is nicer then mine. I told Kevin to make it obnoxious so the managers don't spend so much time in there. The beauty with NY and New Orleans is that the offices are essentially stock rooms so they are not inviting. In New Orleans Aaron lives in the building so he uses his own computer. The managers at those two bars have no real offices to go into. So they stay on the floor when they are working. In Austin the office is so hot and miserable, you don't want to stay there. But all the other bars have nice , comfortable offices so we catch management spending way too much time in the office. It drove me nuts in Tampa how much time the old manager spent in the office. The San Antonio staff has been getting too comfortable and I catch them in the office too much as well. With all this high tech expensive security, I would think Kevin could rig something that acted like an alarm when the managers were abusing their office time. Something realy loud. Resembling a fog horn. LOL What is also interesting is the signage rules here. In most cities you have to adhere to certain rules " perserving the historic integrity of the neighborhood" No Neon, nothing too large or gaudy. Well in Nashville they won't allow wood or plastic and encourage neon. Weird. We worked on the design of the sign this afternoon because our logo will be hard to fully create with neon. So we are trying to figure out how to make it work.
Marshall called me yesterday . He told me about a girl who was there to train. She came in and went behind the bar. Her trainer was getting on the bar and ask her to get up as well. She turned to Marshall and said " I don't think this is for me." He said it was all of 17 seconds. New record. A lot of these girls want desperately to be Coyotes but when it comes down to it they don't have the internal spirit to really do it. I don't think it is a record because I have had girls apply and then quit before training saying the same thing.
Marshall

Kerry and Will ( New Orleans bouncers) gave me a very nice present. They gave me a belt buckle that is shaped like a Nintendo game control. Their comment was: (I hope I get this right), " Lil you've got more game then nintendo." How sweet. I wore it all night. The buckle weighs more then me.
Austin had a great weekend. Sunday night was awesome. Marshall told me that there was a beauticians convention in town. He also told me that he and all the bouncers had bruises on their butts from all the women pinching their asses. He used to always tell me that he could identify which girl was behind him by how they pinched his butt. Marshall is a very conscience driven man. He would rather cut off a finger then fraternize with a girl. A rule is a rule with Marshall. I think that just encourages the girls to go after him more. I remember when he worked at the New Orleans bar he actually told me that there was only one girl on the staff who hadn't told him that she had had a sex dream about him.
In Austin they are more aloof. They giggle near him, try to brush up next to him. In New Orleans they were more upfront " Marshall, when are we going to motherfucking sleep together?"
I am laughing so hard. I just read an e-mail Marshall sent me.
" The girls were all on their period-going to go home and shoot myself in the crotch so there is no chance I'll have a daughter who can inflect such pain on an innocent man."

Jackson went to the dentist for the first time yesterday. He was so cute.

Chelsey, Coyote from New Orleans, has been getting rave reviews. That's pretty impressive considering she's only worked for 1 week. I haven't even met her yet.
The surprise city is killing me. We are very close to signing the lease. We just want some financial assurances on a very old roof. If we sign the lease this week, we are looking at a Dec. 15th opening. That will probably open before Denver. Lee and Kevin get very antsy with January openings. Traditionally January is the worst month in the bar/restaurant industry. They are correct, it is the slowest month. But if construction, permits, licenses aren't ready until January, I'm not going to stall opening until March. Three of my bars, including NY, have been opened in January. They are all doing very well.

Demolition has started in Nashville. Kevin is spending the next 3 days in Memphis getting build out bids for a particular space we are interested in. I'm crossing my fingers.

Long week. I went into the Austin bar on Friday night. The girls are always trying hard. " JJ stop harassing the customers for tips"
other then that the girls are very funny and it's one of the prettiest staffs.
San Antonio: They finally are starting to shine. I'm so proud. Seth beat 3 guys with her clap in between push ups. She did 44. Unbelievable. For the first time I felt the girls have gotten their rhythm as Coyotes.
I spent an ungodly amount of time with Tim, the new corporate guy. Let's just say that after the last two weeks, the S A staff now calls him the "terminator"

Comments: Lil, I have a bone to pick with you. I find it stupid and very bad business to refuse to allow paying customers into your bars because one happens to be dating one of your workers - and not even a bartender (of which I can understand your rule about their always appearing available) but a barback? I see that your company has that reputation to uphold, of the "available but totally inaccessible" women but your security personnel and your barbacks? I mean, get real here Lil. I find it hard to believe that you think it would help your business to never allow certain persons in because of whom they are seeing. The manager was quite rude about my not entering and made it apparant that I am NOT welcome at your establishment. I never had this problem at another of your bars, where everyone there knew who I was and no one ever seemed to have any problem with my presence there, regardless of whom I was dating. If you're not going to want me to be in your bars because of who I date, you can be sure that I no longer want to be a patron of yours. I'll remember that I'm a Coyote barback's girl and take my money and my business and my friends' money & business and go somewhere I'm welcome, as I was forced to do tonight. Sorry if I'm coming off as a bitch, well no-I'm not sorry about that, but I do apologize if this may not have been the proper outlet to vent my frustrations, but you might see how my night and my plans were ruined when I couldn't get into the bar I wanted to get into and perhaps understand my sentiment. Thank you for that Coyote experience-it most definitely won't be one I'll be forgetting.

My professional response to this letter: I'm sorry but it is company policy that girlfriends and boyfriends do not come to the bars while their significant others are working.
My personal response to this letter is: Get a fucking life, psycho. Do you want your boyfriend to be labeled " guy with Psycho Girlfriend"? Respect his job. Respect his space. You just e-mailed his boss. How embarrassing for your boyfriend. I feel for him.

Seth is becoming a little super star in San Antonio. It's nice that finally one of the girls is getting it!! I had a meeting with Tim, my new corporate guy. We met at the new orleans bar. He has only spent time at the San antonio bar and was a bit surprised. " Lil I wasn't expecting the bar to be so downscale." " Why Tim do you mean to say that your calling the New Orleans bar a DIVE?" " Lil, I was expecting something more like the San Antonio bar which is so nice. It wasn't an insult." Blah blah blah. I love dives! That's why I feel so comfortable in NY and New Orleans. They aren't quite dives , they are just not as ornate as some of the other Coyotes. But he seemed impressed by the girls and how hard they worked the happy hour crowd. Off to Austin tonight. It will be nice to see the girls there. Marshall has had quite a week with the new Aloha POS system being installed. He keeps on e-mailing me "Aloha Lil" Yesterday I got an e-mail from marshall stating that he is Alohaed out!