True West in Ukraine and Rancho de los Putos

February 2, 2012

So I'm proofing John Boessenecker's historic travel loop from San Francisco to Virginia City and he mentions checking out Rancho de los Putos and I do a double take. Surely that can't be correct. Puto is Spanish for male whore and puta is whore. After some fact checking, Meghan Saar came up with this:

"I believe the Los Putos part of the name comes from the nearby Putah Creek, which was called Rio Los Putos. That came from the Puto tribe of Indians living on its shores. (p.8 History of Yulo County, California by Tom Gregory, 1913). The Spanish did dub them that, according to Stephen Powers' book Tribes of California (p. 219), 'on account of their gross licentiousness.'"

Wow! I understood it when our local Pima In-dins wanted to change their tribal name, since it was allegedly bestowed on them by their enemies (I believe it means "bean eaters") but this level of insulting monikers takes the cake. The Whore Tribe. I swear you can't make up ANYTHING funnier than real life. Gee, I wonder what the native dress of Los Putos looked like? I think I know:

News From The Front Lines
"Iurii Chaika from Kiev, Ukraine, called to subscribe and order two issues (Jan 03/Historic Photos and May 11/Historic Ranches). I asked how he heard of True West magazine and he said he went to Cheyenne Frontier Days last year and the hotel where he stayed had TW in the rooms."

—Carole Glenn

Is This Eighties Enough For You?

Cleaning in my studio I found this pen and ink done for Boots Niteclub in the early eighties.

Boots was a trendy club created by John Riskus in the Colonnade Mall at 20th Street and Camelback and exploited the short-lived Country Swing phenom that grew out of the movie Urban Cowboy.

"How do you make a hormone? Don't pay her."
—Old Niteclub joke