The first time I went to Hooters

and until recently, the last, was in the spring of 2003. We went to the one in Santa Monica, and I remember that some people in our group asked our Hooters girl, very sincerely and very innocently, why she would work there. They didn't dream that she would answer tersely and all in a huff, although in retrospect in made perfect sense. They just wanted to know why Hooters - simple question.

Anyways, that's what I remember most about my first Hooters trip - that and my pleasant surprise that it was "delightfully tacky, and yet unrefined," more so than it was sleazy. Last Monday I finally went for the second time, to the Costa Mesa Hooters. The impression I came away with this time was how much more hilarious it was before, not just making fun of its tackiness but really putting on a show. The South Park Raisins episode was dead on, I thought...

Then it occurred to me that I didn't remember this much exaggerated self-parody from the Santa Monica Hooters. When I first saw the Raisins episode, I thought it was funny, but not particularly accurate; its humor derived from taking certain elements to the extreme, such as all the Raisins girls having the names of luxury cars. But Costa Mesa made a veritable mirror of accuracy out of Raisins: the way the girls greet you, the dancing, the hoola-hooping, and the flirting.

I checked, and as I was beginning to suspect, the Raisins episode aired on December 10, 2003, a few months AFTER my Santa Monica trip. This Hooters phenomenon then represents a very interesting philosophical moment: whereas it is typically the case that (traditional) art imitates life, in the case of Hooters/Raisins, life has imitated art.