Fine, Fresh, Fierce, I Got It On Lock

Show of hands: who gets really, really excited to hear "California Gurls" on the radio?

Anyone? Anyone?

It was kinda cute the first few hundred times, but like this summer's heat here in Kentucky, it wears on you after a while. Now when it comes on the radio, I find myself changing the station with a lightning speed previously reserved for any and all Nickelback songs.

While I appreciate Katy Perry's pride in her California girl assets, I feel other states have something to offer, too. We Kentucky girls may not be quite as glamorous as a California girl sipping gin and juice underneath a palm tree, but we can be quite charming drinking a bourbon and Coke from a Mason jar out on the trailer porch. (I kid because I love.)

I am no song writer, but here's my prose ode to Kentucky Gurls.

California girls may have sun-kissed skin so hot it'll melt your popsicle, but we Kentucky girls turn bronze, too. Especially around prom season when every girl between 15 and 18 buys a month of unlimited tanning from the local Fantastic Sam's.

Kentucky girls wear Daisy Dukes, too. Just instead of a bikini on top, we like to wear layered tanks from weekend sales at Old Navy, sweet little homegrown t-shirts with sayings like, "Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky!", or perhaps a Hooters tee. "Tacky, yet unrefined" could really be our state fashion motto and not just the slogan on the ubiquitous Hooters shirt.

We may not have a coast line, but we've got water a-plenty. Kentucky girls aren't getting sand in their stilettos, but on any given summer Saturday you can find them tubing down a lazy river, drinking beer on a pontoon boat at Lake Cumberland, or reading a magazine while sprawled on a plastic lounge chair beside the neighborhood pool. We don't need a Pacific beach to be warm, wet, and wild.

And believe you me, California girls have not cornered the market on partying. Find a big backyard, get a few Kentucky girls, a bucket of Original Recipe, a cooler full of Coronas (or even a gallon jug of sweet iced tea; we don't always approve of the liquor), a cornhole set (it's a game; get your minds out of the gutter), and some country music on the radio, and you've got yourself a shindig.

We may not have west-coast sophistication. We may not have beaches and palm trees. But we're a whole lot of fun with nary an ounce of pretentiousness. Once you party with us (or at the very least, sit down and watch a basketball game or the Derby with us), you'll be falling in love... Oh, oh-oh-oh, Oh, oh-oh-oh....


(Oh, and while I'm singing the praises of my state, let me defend it, too. There's a Popeye's chicken ad out now where the main character says that Popeye's chicken is better than KFC because Louisiana is known for its cooking, whereas Kentucky is known for racing horses. Pshaw. Offends me to my core. Popeye's might have done better in a taste test, but that's still restaurant fried chicken. Don't tell me someone from the land of red beans and rice and jambalaya, wonderful though those dishes are, can compete with us in the fried bird arena. Fried chicken is the pride dish of many a Kentucky cook, and don't you forget it. We'll come down there with a chicken and some seasoned flour and totally kick your a$$. That is all.)

Some of you are neither from Cali nor from Kentucky...what do the Gurls in your state have going for them?