BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Have you heard the crazy rumor--that B. Don Magness, the beleaguered former head of the Miss Texas Pageant, is behind the racy Vicki Charmaine Bunch for City Council poster? Suddenly everybody wants a pound of flesh from Fort Worth's 65 year old director of public events, the subject of an EEOC investigation into complaints of sexual harassment.

"B. Don makes Clarence Thomas look like a choirboy," said my best friend Brandi who was runner-up for Miss Axel in 1973.

"Face it, Brandi," I said. "Without him, most of us women would go around looking like something the cat dragged in."

I used to be homely like many of you. My lips were as pale as a white man's butt and I hardly ever showed thigh. B. Don changed all that.

I'll never forget the day we met. It was at the Fat Stock Show. I was minding my own business, checking out the pigs, when I heard a voice say, "My rubber broke."

I looked up, expecting to see who-knows-what act of bestiality--always a concern at stock show time. Imagine my surprise when I recognized Magness. The "rubber" was a rubber pig snout with an elastic band.

"Don't worry," I said. "You look just fine without it."

"I wish I could say the same for you," B. Don replied.

My whole life changed that day.

He whipped out a garbage bag full of hand-me-down hussy clothes, like the ones Barbara Stanwyk wore in Stella Dallas. Lots of ruffles and rick-rack, gaudy doo-dads, and daring decollete.

"Try this little number with the sequins," he urged. "And while you're at it, get some collagen injected in those skinny lips of yours."

Sure, I could have complained when B. Don told me to start wearing thong panties and fish net hose but I listened to the man. I had my swimsuit area waxed and began going through a case a week of blue eye shadow.

Today I'm a startling-looking woman who is constantly mistaken for people like Diane Sawyer and Susan Carpenter-McMillan, the big haired blonde who's with Paula Jones all the time.

Once again the President's sexual harassment case has reared its ugly head. In a case that rivals our local scandal, everyone is wondering: Did the President harass Jones in his room at the Excelsior Hotel in 1991? The truth's as elusive as a greased pig. And the details are as juicy as a greasy sausage link.

According to Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker, Jones' former boyfriend sold semi-nude pictures of her to Penthouse, and her new lead attorney--Donovan Campbell, Jr. from Dallas--is known for trying to reinstate Texas' anti-sodomy statute and for picketing a theater production of Torch Song Trilogy.

Jones' first lawyers filed an $800,000 lien on any money she receives.

Lucky for her, an organization called the Lumpy Rutherford Institute--whatever that is--has been picking up the tab for her expenses. The judge has everybody under a strict gag order--but I'm not sure what that means in this particular case.

I would have advised Paula to take the money and run but now apparently it's too late. But it's not to late to get a new adviser--somebody who would at least do something about that hair. And I know just the fellow.

I've been in Paula's shoes. My reputation got ruined when State Rep. Oscar Trammel walked in on me in the unisex rest room at Morty's Taqueria in Austin. I demanded an public apology--in front of the United Nations. I can talk like this because I have confidence about my appearance, thanks to B. Don Magness.

I'm waiting for my apology. In the meantime, I've been trying to get in touch with the Lumpy Rutherford Institute. Does anybody know the number?