Toddlers and Tiaras: Yes, Jesus Helped You Win

Again, how much do I love tiaras? Almost more than George Clooney.  Almost.

Well, here we are again, Gasmii!  We start this episode of Toddlers and Tiaras with Lisa Boyer, Pageant Director of “America’s Best” (SUBJECTIVE!) pageant in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  Yeeee-ha!  This pageant is considered a “low-glitz” pageant, meaning a “five year old should still look like a five year old,” Lisa tells us.  Oh, you mean instead of looking like little whores like they usually do?

This pageant has 103 contestants including boys, and if you win ultimate grand-slam supreme with extra cheese, you get a custom crown (meaning they just bought it from a different Chinese factory than the other crowns), a sash (whooptie-shit), and a $500 savings bond (snore).  Also, they plan to give out 65 crowns, so once again…participation rules!

In Ashland, Kentucky, five year old Jasmine has her mother in a headlock.  Finally!  She says when she grows up she wants to be a Disney princess who waves.  Uh, you can do that now, honey, and the drug testing is probably much easier at this point.  Mom Christina tells her to say “Every girl needs her fashion accessories,” and when she does Christina mouths the words along with her.  Anal much?

“My daughter Jasmine loves the glitz and glamour of pageants,” she says.  Actually, I think YOU do, but let’s not split hairs over this one.  Then we go down memory lane where Christina asks Jasmine if she remembers getting the teddy bear, “Nope!” – the big trophy, “Nope!” – the special crown, “Nope!”  Okay, she’s either got Alzheimer’s or she’s just being difficult.

Christina tells us that she’s type-A personality and she likes things to go a particular way, “because I am overly anxious.”  Oh, good, she’s on meds or should be.  Nothing can go wrong here.  She actually cries when she says she’s proud of Jasmine.  Pull it together, bitch!

She says to Jasmine, “You’re Queen Jasmine, what are you going to do?” and Jasmine waving a wand says, “Turn you into rich!”  Wait – what?  Turn you into rich?  Wow, greeeeat values you’re teaching your kid there.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m coin-operated too, but she’s awfully young to be worried about turning everything into cash.

Damn, that is one angry bitch.

In Southhaven, Mississippi, we meet seven-year-old Lauren who claims to have her own entourage, but without the greasiness or mercury poisoning of Jeremy Piven.  Mom Debbie has helmet hair and tells us Lauren is “Big crown-bound and we’re going to rock it out!”  Okay, points for originality on that one.

“Which one is your favorite crown out of all of them?” she asks and Lauren says, “This one,” pointing to one on her dresser.  “I know,” her mother says, “but which one is your FAVORITE one?”  Okay, clearly Lauren chose poorly.  I know, tell her which one she should like, MOM.  So she does and Lauren agrees.  Way to let her voice her opinion.  And she’s holding that Pomeranian like it’s the cat from Austin Powers.

In Perryville, Missouri, Julie says her three-year-old daughter Taleah is a “Rising star in the pageant world,” and she says it without enthusiasm and more like a flat-lining patient.  Super-fun!  Let’s find out why.

Taleah has done about 10 pageants in the past year and they are commemorated in a nice big heap of sash-and-trophy snake ball on her dresser.  Jesus, get a hanger for some of that stuff.  She tells us that the pageants are expensive and have prevented them from moving to a larger home.

Okay, hold the f*cking phone.  You can’t move to a bigger house because you are too busy parading your kid around like a poodle?  I just want to make sure I’m understanding this correctly and unfortunately, I am.  She says she’s spent around $15,000 in the past year on pageants, which we all know is code for $25,000.

She continues to say that pageants are more of a priority than upsizing because “It’s almost like it’s her destiny.”  Uh, I think destiny is when something happens because that is what is supposed to happen, not because you paid the entrance fee.  I’m just saying, don’t be abusing the destiny situation or it will come back to bite you in the ass.  Wait, no, that’s karma.

I’m sorry, are you old enough to work in the casino?

Back in Kentucky, Jasmine is dressed in a racially questionable Native American outfit and headdress that she calls “Indian.”  Honey, if it were Indian, you’d be sporting a Nehru collar and saying, “Hello, this is Sanjay.  How may I provide excellent customer service to you today?”

Christina continues to show us her crazy side by saying it takes her a long time to decide what Jasmine is going to wear because they have sooo many outfits to choose from.  Seems odd, since kids grow like weeds, but the closet-o-glitz does not lie.  The worst thing?  Bring it!

“Every single one of Jasmine’s costumes is handmade and costs between five and ten thousand dollars,” Christina says.  I gasped and almost fell off the elliptical when I heard her say that.  That is a college education, or at least one semester.  I realize people need hobbies, but how many computers could that buy a school or how many Habitat homes could that help build?  More importantly, how do I divert some of that money to the recapper’s retirement fund?

Over in Perryville, Taleah is having NONE of it and not practicing.  Julie says that Taleah started doing pageants because “Her personality demanded such.”  Again wait – what?  I’m not sure that sentence even makes sense because what three-year-old personality demands competing in a pageant?  They are barely potty trained at that point.

Vinegar and water formula, this one.

Taleah’s dad, Boone (‘nuff said), is the real treat.  As I mentioned in the About Last Night weecap, he is one of a kind – a dumb Asian guy.  And he’s not just dumb, he’s carrying-around-box-o-rocks dumb.  Dumber than a bread box.  Dumb and Dumber combined.  “I like to give my family crap, just to keep them going.”  Wow, what a good husband and father.

He says he likes to tell his daughters they suck, even when they think they’ve done well.  “Whatever, you suck,” he says.  “That ain’t how you do that.”  Seriously, it’s really throwing me to see hilljack Asian.  It’s like Carry-Out Fortune Cookie Deliverance or something, I just can’t wrap my mind around this.

“I mean, I don’t tell my kids they suck and mean they suck,” he says.  Ah, how the bon mots just drip from his mouth like honey.  “I kind of wanna see her lose…come home with nothin’,” he says.  He must be unfamiliar with the “participation award” situation.  “I want her to lose,” he says to his wife in front of Taleah.  No wonder Julie is dead inside, this guy is a total and complete ass-munch.  Chomp! Chomp!

“Get a mohawk,” he tells Taleah, “I don’t care.”  Then he interviews to us, “I just hate to pack that BLEEP trophy all the time.”  Yes, I’m sure it is such a hassle to pack up awards your kid wins.  Douchebag!  Quick!  What’s two plus two?  Chirp chirp!  You are a disgrace to your ancestors 10 generations back!

Sweet, merciful crap, what the hell is that coming through Lauren’s door?  Oh, Coach Brandi in her Grizzly Adams coat, dyed beige.  Brandi competes too, in the Mrs. division, and she will be competing in America’s Best with a bunch of little girls!  Super fun!  Guess we know who’s winning in the cleavage department…

…AND HOW!  Lauren’s dad cannot keep his eyes off of Brandi’s boobs as she takes off her polar bear and mom Debbie would have noticed if she weren’t talking to the powder-puff dog in her arms.

Slurp!

Coach Brandi tells us she did pageants from four to eighteen and got back into them a few years ago.  I think to fill some kind of hole in her life…did anyone else get that vibe?  “I’m so glad that God brought me back into pageants,” she says.  Yes, because he’s really not that busy doing anything else.  Those f*cking Africans deserve to starve if they aren’t smart enough to live near you know, McDonald’s.  And water.

Coach Brandi says it would be nice if they could both win but “I teach Lauren it’s more important to find the crown in her heart than have one on her head.”  Yep, she’s a born-again lonely housewife who doesn’t have her own kids to dote on so she dotes on Lauren in the hopes of killing mom Debbie and moving into the house when she marries cleavage-lovin’ dad.  I’ve seen it on Lifetime like a million times.

She’s dressing Lauren and she says, “Remember what I told you about nerds?  That’s who you want to marry because they make a lot of money.”  If everyone could excuse me, I’m going to go have a stroke…from horror combined with excitement because how can I not make fun of these southern belles who would rather have a man take charge, make the money and the decisions instead of taking responsibility for their own pea brains?  That peroxide must really do a number on these bimbos.  I guess that tells us why Coach Brandi is such a sad figure, she married for money and his wang is too nerdy to please her.  Sniff.

Even I feel sorry for this poor nerd-marrying blonde ambition bombshell!

”You wanna be a trophy wife,” she says to the camera, laughing.  Oh, Brandi, you getting-chunky, Mrs. division, stayed-too-long at the party, sad-sack.  How does the butt of the gun taste in your mouth when you put it there every night?  I just get this image of her shutting all the blinds and shaking in a little ball, saying, “It’s going to be okay, okay, OKAAAAAAAAAAAAY!” then going shopping at Forever 21, which she isn’t and won’t be.

Oh crap!  Flipper time!  Christina says if Jasmine’s dimples aren’t showing (can they hide?), she makes her wear a flipper to enhance her smile.  This is also an easy fix because Christina is a dentist and can make them herself.  Well, that’s one way to save money for those extravagant Imelda Marcos dresses.

Over at her dentist’s office, Christina is taking an impression of Jasmine’s teeth.  This makes me gag because it reminds me of having to do that at the orthodontist and getting those goddamn dental x-rays each year with the cardboard you have to bite and it makes you gag and let’s move on to the cute part before I actually do spit up from gagging…to the part where Jasmine so sweetly pats her mother on the head and says, “She’s a good mom.”  Oh my God, I would imagine for a parent that would be like hearing the best thing ever.  Damn these kids for being so good this week, makes it hard to make fun of them.  Not impossible, but you know.

Oh my God, that is sweet.  Dammit.

Team Lauren is in full swing and includes Helmet-Hair Debbie, Coach Brandi (a.k.a. My new mommy), Adrienne the hair dresser, and husband X who is really there in a ceremonial role because the women folk just don’t let him have an opinion.  Any real man would be in watching sports but I think he’s really here to support the girls.  And by girls, I mean Coach Brandi’s boobies.

The best part of the Team Lauren meeting is when they school dad X in the difference between a glitz dress and pageant dress.  Small, small lives, people.

Jesus, it’s like the Bataan death march.

Back in Perrysville, Julie tells us that both of her daughters are in dance class and they are tapping their feet and clapping their hands to the rhythm of a death toll.  I’m not kidding, it is sooo slow and so low energy, I can see why Julie seems like such a downer.  “We don’t see talent like that very often,” says the dance teacher.  No, you certainly don’t.  Snore!

Here’s where Julie really shines.  She and T. Boone Pickens talk about their kids and say their son is going to be a professional athlete, Taleah will be a superstar, and older sister will be Taleah’s agent, which is code for she’s the ugly kid who understands math.  “We’ll see if that happens,” she says.  Spoiler alert:  It won’t.  And if advertising has not steered me wrong, your kids have a better chance of being autistic than successful.  Enjoy!

Facial time!  Because if there is anything a seven-year-old needs, it’s a facial.  Oh, and guess who the esthetician is?  Coach Brandi!  My, she certainly has insinuated herself nice and tidy into this family, hasn’t she?  Debbie says it’s rare you’d have your own esthetician and have her also be your pageant coach.  Yes, Debbie, good observation.  You didn’t sign a pre-nup, did you?

Coach Brandi asks Lauren if she has any concerns with her skin today.  You mean beyond it being peaches-and-cream gorgeous and all the old ladies at the home jealous of it? Brandi says she’s molding her into a “mini-me.”  See?  Watch out, Debbie!  Debbie says she thinks it’s important that Lauren be thankful for what the Lord has given her.  Yeah, two mommies.

What the hell kind of pageant is this? Or are we doing Toddlers & Trannies?

Over in Jonesboro, Arkansas, it’s pageant time.  Brandi actually interviews with “tissue hair rollers,” which really?  Get the hot ones, they’ll leave your hair boing-boing curly.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if Brandi and that crazy bitch Sabrina from last week got a show together?  Like a cop show or something, where they fight crime but always lose the criminal because they have to stop to put on makeup or a ridiculous wig.  I would totally watch that.

Don’t worry, I’ll be your new mommy when your other mommy goes away…permanently!

Julie is concerned that they are using someone new for hair and makeup, but it’s our old friend Coach Christy!  J’adore her.  Wonder if she brought wonder Yorkie with her this time?  Meh!  Looks like they brought the wonder d-bag with them, Boone.  He says Taleah should get a mohawk next.  Why don’t you curl up and die, douche?  Taleah tells her father he sucks and he says it back.  Julie says he’s there because he’s helpful.  “He carries the bags in,” she says, completely defeated by life and her dickbrain husband.

“You got your brains from your mother but your looks from your dad,” he says.  Julie gives him a look of death because she realizes she’s attached herself for the rest of her life to this less-than-zero sperm donor.  She must have been f*cked up when she got pregnant, that is the only way this could have happened.

I f*cking hate you and can’t believe I ever let you at my naughty bits.  Douche!

Brandi’s mother Evelyn is there to do Brandi’s hair and complains that since her daughter is 31 she thought they’d be putting grandchildren in the pageant by now.  Don’t worry Evelyn, you will be once Debbie’s out of the picture.

Then something weird happens.  They start joking about the drugs they take…Evelyn says she has her valium and Xanax and Brandi says she’s doubled up on her Prozac.  Lauren jokes that “Miss Evelyn tries to give everybody medicine.”  Evelyn says, “We don’t drink or smoke, but we believe in pills.”  I believe you!

Brandi interviews that sometimes she does win grand supreme over little girls in the competition and she does get some “flack” for it.  No kidding.  Why would they put adults and under-18s in the same category?  That seems rude and not really fair, what with Brandi’s ample bosom and all.

Oh Lord, Christina is starting to freak out about the dress she picked out.  The pageant paperwork says semi- to low-glitz and Christina brought a pink dress with zebra stripes and lots of, you know, glitz.  She bemoans the fact that they weren’t prepared for low-glitz (although they did come with a low-glitz outfit) so she’s not sure what to do.

So Christina does what any woman in this position would do…she runs through the halls asking people their opinions on the two dresses she’s hold (slutty zebra and chaste blue), including the pageant director, and when everyone gives their opinion that the blue dress is the right one (except some dumb guy who chooses pink because that’s what he thinks girls should wear), she chooses the pink dress.  HER ORIGINAL CHOICE.

Oh man, Brandi is leading mom and Team Lauren through a prayer before the pageant…”Lord, I pray that you will calm our nerves and calm our hearts, and let us go out there and be the best that we can be…for you,” she says.  Way to throw that last part in.  Then she starts a cheer, “We’ve got glitz, yes we do, we’ve got glitz, how ‘bout you?”  Well, right now I’m sporting wrinkled shorts, unshaven legs and lots of mosquito bites, thanks OFF with DEET made completely of sugar water.  So to answer your question, no, I don’t have glitz.

Thank you Jesus for my double Ds.

The pageant begins with a girl who “loves her paci” (pacy?) and really, who doesn’t? and a boy whose favorite person is his daddy in heaven.  Oh, way to get the sympathy vote, partial orphan!

Three year olds up first…Julie tells D-Bag to yell for Taleah and he says, “I ain’t gotta yell BLEEP.” Shakespeare he ain’t.  Why the hell did you bother to come to this?  You are an idiot and they could have gotten a bellboy to carry the bags.

Okay, she’s adorable, but that douchey accessory she brought with her needs to go.

Taleah is onstage and is very cute and I totally covet the color of her dress – that coral color that looks great on tan people in Bermuda.  She’s a little stiff and her movements aren’t very smooth, but she gets them right in theory.  Still, not bad for a three-year old and at least she didn’t pitch a fit today.  Dad puts his hand up for high-five and says, “You suck.”  Man, is his middle name Summer’s Eve?

HOLY SHIT.  Did you spend five grand on that?  I sneeze classier things.

Five year olds…Jasmine is in that hideous pink and zebra concoction and Christina forgot Jasmine’s number.  They are running late and if Jasmine is late to lineup she won’t be eligible for any of those extras like best smile or best fake teeth.  Christina says she wishes she hadn’t wasted time looking for the director earlier. I second that motion.

Onstage she smiles but looks stiff.  Also, that dress is hideous.  Perhaps her name is Lola and she was a show girl?  With faded feathers in her hair and a dress cut up to there?  At least Christina takes the blame for Jasmine being late.

In Lauren’s group, she’s competing against 16 other girls and of course, Coach Brandi.  Lauren is wearing a wonderfully sherbet-y orange creamsicle and strawberry glitter dress and she does a great job.  How can she not with Coach Brandi aiding and abetting her every move?

Or I’ll ship you off to boarding school faster than a von Trapp child.

Brandi tells us she’s not happy with her hair but her mother did it so what can she do?  Then she says she didn’t take any medicine today although her mother tried to ply her with some, “unless she slipped me some, but I don’t feel any different.”  Hope her mother isn’t trying to give her X.

Brandi looks nice onstage and the announcer says, “Brandi’s favorite person is her pageant doll Lauren,” which makes Debbie cry.  Dammit, pull it together Debbie!

Boobs boobs boobs boobs boobs and more boobs.  Good for you!

Talent is next and you know it’s going to be a snore.  There is a lot of “dancing” and “singing” and one girl is “playing” the violin, although it’s pretty clear she’s never had a lesson and is just dragging that bow across the instrument like she’s sawing the head off a baby doll.

The quiet training of a serial killer.

One of the adults is waaay too large for the outfit she’s wearing and it almost looks like a joke the way she is jumping around the stage but not getting a lot of life.

Wow, someone needs an age-appropriate hobby.

The best part of the talent show?  Some little boy is dancing and falls right off the back of the stage through the backdrop.  Jackpot!  People gasp but he’s alive and people cheer!  He looks very unhappy.

HAHAHAHA!  Oh, I bet the pain is real.

Taleah gets onstage but hangs onto her mother for dear life because she doesn’t want to sing.  D-bag says, “You suck,” as she leaves to change into her tap outfit to do that instead.  Yes, muuuch better.

Christina is having her own crisis because there is no microphone stand, so she has to hold Jasmine’s microphone and the poor kid does a terrible job because her mother is too close.  Christina bitches that they have never had so many things go wrong.  I blame it on the pink zebra dress.  It’s like a cursed monkey paw.

Taleah gets back onstage and taps/shimmies and D-Bag says he prefers her singing to her dancing but either way you know deep down, he thinks she sucks.

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, Coach Brandi is dressed like Glenda, the good witch of the north to be in the talent competition with Lauren as Dorothy.  She gets into this waaay too much and dammit, I must have that costume when she’s done, Glenda is my favorite (or at least was until I was old enough to realize she really screwed Dorothy by not just giving up the power of the ruby slippers in the first place!).  They actually call Coach Brandi Lauren’s “prop.”

If you click your heels three times and stab your mother with this wand three times, I can be your new mommy!

Wow, Coach Brandi is really getting into this.  I guess her nerd just ain’t giving it to her good and she needs a bigger fantasy life.  Her safe word is “Munchkin.”

CROWNING!  Prettiest smile…Taleah!  Princess…not Taleah.  Queen…not Taleah.  So, does that mean she might get a deep dish supreme title?  These are so confusing without the garlic bread.

Christina is crapping her pants because Jasmine isn’t eligible to win any of the optional prizes since they were too late to lineup.  Sucks to be you, and D-Bag could tell you that.  Jasmine’s dad is there, fresh off the set of Boogie Nights. Ick.  Anyhoo…division queen…not Jasmine!  That means she got a supreme title.

Just…ew.  He doesn’t plan on exterminating the contestants, does he?

Lauren’s group…Debbie and Brandi are holding hands-ish.  Prettiest eyes…not Lauren.  Prettiest hair…Lauren!  Princess…not Lauren!  Queen…not Lauren!  She loses!  So she wins!  Dad leans over Debbie and asks if Lauren is placing higher, but really he’s just looking down Coach Brandi’s cleavage.  Again.

There’s the money shot!

Overall talent…not any of our girls!  Overall personality in zero to three…Taleah!  YAY!  You suck!  Julie says she’s destined for pageants and the judges like her.  D-Bag just says, “Let’s go.”

Doesn’t “best personality” usually mean you’re ugly?  Well, they are wrong, she’s adorable.  Dammit!

Four to nine photogenic…Jasmine!  Christina is upset because she always gets supreme and now the pizza store is closed.  Sucks to be you and maybe next time bring a less tacky dress.  High priced does not equate to high class.

Mini-Supreme individual pizza…LAUREN!  Debbie bursts into tears and she looks like Lisa Rinna with a scrunched up face.  More scrunched up.

Yeesh.

Also mini-supreming?  Coach Brandi!  Debbie, be careful, your face may freeze like that and no one likes that except Harry Hamlin.  Now…who do you thank?  WHO?

That this episode is almost over!

“Thank you, Jesus,” Debbie says and Coach Brandi says, “God answers prayers.  This is awesome, this is the best outcome I could possibly imagine.”  Jesus Christ is right…like God has nothing better to do than make sure women win small-town beauty pageants.  Yes, answering your prayers is priority one after making the image of the Virgin Mary appears in a potato chip in Guatemala and keeping Dick Cheney alive.  Meh!

Christina says it all while crying.  “We like our life.  I don’t want a normal life, this is the life that I love.”  Well, there you have it.  Next week, we’re in Brooklyn for another version of Darling Divas.  Please let there be a diva, oh please!