DanThat'sCool!

 

I might need a moment here.

There’s a storm approaching, and it’s gonna call for focus.

Focus…and some seriously stocked Coupon Queen snacks.  Because it’s almost here.

The Summer of The Perfect Reality Storm.

Mob Wives: Chicago.  Big Ang.  Dance Moms.  Honey Boo-Boo Child.  All that sobbing Bachelorette nonsense.    Even that new cheerleader sumthin or other show that I know absolutely nothing about but will be glued to for an hour.

And now it’s all topped off with a giant glitter ball splat right to the face.

Toddlers & Tiaras is back!

Halleloo! Everyone’s guiltiest pleasure is returning with a new season of spray tans, aerosol beehives and enough pixie stix buzziness to make anyone spit their flipper across the Ramada ballroom.

Now you know I love me some Toddlers.

And I really love me some Pageant Mom Krazy.

The Moms I’ve met who are actually normal and have a wicked sense of humor are going to love this one.

The Moms who lean a little more to the Krazy side of the scale, however…well…I’ll do you all a favor and clear my inbox asap so you can commence spamming my site.

For everyone else who has ever wondered what happens when that last finger kiss is blown and the cupcake dress finally comes off…here you go.

The answer?

Well.  Sometimes it just doesn’t come off.  Ever.

I give you Adults & Tiaras.

 

 

 

 

Seriously? That Alaska chick again?

 

 

 

 

 

Friends, family and your health are so highly overrated nowadays.

 

 

 

 

I smell ‘em, Pa. They’re out there. Bugs. Bees…and Biebers.

 

 

 

 

 

I meant Facial Beauty and Free Puppies. Duh.

 

 

 

 

 

Trust me honey,   you ain’t alone on that one.

 

 

 

Well, sheeeoooooot y’all.

It’s time to load up your tanning gun, snap on that flipper and mosey them pretty feet down to the Circle City Wild West Showdown, cuz there’s trophies and crowns and that nervous little Taco Bell dog all yours for the takin’!

That’s right.  Toddlers & Tiaras went Western this week and it was everything you would expect, complete with more glitter than Porter Wagoner’s Opry jacket and enough inappropriately naughty Cowgirls to start a brawl at any pre-school saloon.

And to add to the tension, the Showdown pitted three kinda sorta long distance BFFs against each other…and then topped off that sparkly dessert with yet another appearance by that scene-chewing piece of arrogance better known as pageant girl Alaska.

Pageant Director Max Mason, best known for his receding faux hawk and amazingly perfect porn name, got us all wound up from the start by showing off the shaking little bug eyed puppy that the lucky Ultimate Face winner gets to take home as a prize and then housebreak.

Trust me…nothing makes me want to enter a pageant more than the potential to win a freakishly over-sized crown and then have to go home and clean up nervous chihuahua pee.

Where do I sign up?

Max was the only other one I was worried about wetting the floor, because that dude was seriously excited about this pageant.  Not to get ahead of myself, but by the time he was reading off the winners at the end of the Showdown, I’m pretty sure I saw one of the judges put newspaper down under the podium.  But more on that later, if you make it through all this…

First off we got to meet 8 year old Spacy Jacy and her Mom Gina.

Jacy was a little tightly wound and couldn’t sit still for a second.  I’m fairly certain that she was supposed to have been born as twins, but something happened and she ended up as one kid with enough personality for two.  Since I don’t actually have access to any medical records, there is a good chance I could be making some of that up, but regardless, Jacy was a hoot.  Two hoots, actually.  In order to make room in her tiny body for all that personality, something else had to give.  And it was focus.  But you can’t have everything.

She shimmied in her Peace Sign groovy chick outfit, demonstrated so many voices and hand jives that I lost count, and generally just made me smile.  Mom needs to strap a monitor bracelet on her ankle soon just to keep track of where she is headed next.

Then we were off to meet 8 year old Daisey Mae and her Mom Amanda, who was either Mother of the Year or on sedatives.  If it’s the latter, I want to know where she gets the good stuff, because Amanda was redoinkulously calm in the middle of what can only be described as khaos.  Yes.  Chaos with a “K” it was so Krazy.

Now I know I’ve used this analogy before, but it’s so perfect for this house that I’m going to recycle.

Have you ever been on a plane when it’s about to land and the change in cabin pressure makes all the babies wake up and start crying at the same time?

Replace the stewardess with Amanda, replace a full coach seating section with Amanda’s house and then put in your ear plugs, pull down the oxygen mask and enjoy.

I don’t really know how many kids she has.  I don’t even think she really knows anymore.

It was wall to wall…to wall…kids.

And crying kids and kids screaming and babies throwing Cheerios and one kid with his head stuck in the couch cushions and another one scooting around in one of those baby scooting wheelie things.

So.  Daisey Mae.

She told us that she had 8 brothers and sisters, but yet when they ran through the opening credits montage like we were watching the TLC Brady Bunch, it only came up to 7 kids total.  Even when you filled the middle spot that used to be for Alice.

There was also a photo that was ready to fall out of a frame at any second, which also had less than 8 kids.  So I’m not sure if they can’t do math, or if the missing kid(s) were still back in the couch cushions…I don’t know.

But it was a lot of kids.  That’s the short version of the story.

Daisey Mae was so chilled and calm that it was almost a medically induced coma.  Like a Star Trek Borg.

We will Assimilate.  And Sparkle.

She had a great grin when she hit the stage, but the lack of attention that she receives at home seemed to have sucked the smile muscles out of her face.  There’s only so much quality time you can get when you’re just one pickle in the barrel, I guess.

She addressed the lack of attention, and then proceeded to declare that Facial Beauty is the most important thing in Life.

I’m gonna leave that one to the parents and the counselors, thank you.  Not touching it.

Besides, we have bugs to squash.

Over at 5 year old Bridgett’s house, she and Mom Amanda#2 were goin’ huntin’ in the backyard for some bugs and worms.  Slimy ones, little ones, medium sized ones and the biggest, slimiest worm of all…Justin Bieber.

Turns out that when Bridgett is not finger kissing and making that Taylor Swift up and around heart shaped thing over her head, she is in her Carhartt garage mechanic coveralls looking for things to kill.  She wants to be the world’s first triple threat pageant princess/exterminator/destroyer of all teen heart throbs.

When pressed on what member of the food chain she wanted to kill next, she set her sights on Justin and it all got dark for a second.

For being only 5, Bridgett has really raked in the crowns.  So much so that Mom had to start hanging them from the ceilings in what can only be described as a one room Liberace Planetarium.  After the sun goes down, with nothing but the glow from a Hello Kitty nightlight, that room must be like an acid trip.  A faaaaaaaaabulous acid trip.

All three contestants knew each other and seemed to be friends, and were also all being coached by Katie Boyer from Katie’s Kuties, the home of Pageant Winners and BeDazzled logo tees.

(Side note: I figured Katie must be a pageant girl herself so I Googled it to be sure, figuring that just this once I could try giving you accurate information.  She is.  And honey, the music on one of the websites is so loud it woke up at least ten of the Daisey Mae babies.  For real.  Turn it down…it’s not worth going deaf just for a puppy.)

Anyway.

Daisey Mae lived 6 hours away from the studio, so she Skyped her coaching via a laptop, which was kind of like watching someone in Iraq pretend to wear a cupcake dress while enemy artillery rained down around them.  But again…it is for a puppy.

Locally, Bridgett stopped ripping worms in half long enough to practice a little, and Spacy Jacy demonstrated the youtube planking fad on some folding chairs.  Later on she also had a photo shoot that brought out another couple of voices when she discussed playground paparazzi and how VERY pretty she felt.  She almost drowned out Katie’s website.

But not even for a puppy will that girl focus.

Packing for Pageant Day was a sight to behold in all three households.

Daisey Mae’s entire…entire…family follows her to every pageant like Aerosmith groupies, all crammed into a Scooby-Doo van packed with diaper wipes and Tupperware containers.  Any bets on how many times they have gotten to the first toll booth before realizing that a few kids were still on the front lawn or that the baby car seat was on the roof?

I bow to Amanda and her organizational skills.  Full disclosure…her voice made me chuckle, and she swears a lot which is a wicked pissah…but she can organize the crap out of that Khaos.  I salute you.

When they all made it to the Ramada, Max had already soaked one set of newspapers, and word was already out on the street that the self proclaimed Pageant Diva herself…Alaska…was there gunning for their Western crowns.

You will remember, as one of the Top Dawgs in the Glitz Globe right now, Alaska had recently begun trying out both a new hairstyle and a new arrogant attitude.  She roared back earlier this season proudly proclaiming her fierce-ness and general better than you-ness, much to the chagrin of many.  For those of you who do not commit my every word to memory, feel free to read all about it here….I’ll wait till you come back.

As always, the makeup rooms were a hot mess.

Spacy Jacy was MIA for the Beauty portion, which set off more alarms than a leak at a nuclear plant.  As everyone tried to put her together in the hotel room, she cracked under pressure and started to cry, which undid a lot of the spackle that was just applied.  For a young girl she had already mastered the soap opera kleenex dab under her lower lashes, so as not to smear the goop.

After running and crying and crying and running all the way to the stage, Jacy turned it on and worked the judges, even though points had to be deducted.

Daisey Mae actually smiled.  That was nice.  For the first time since this show began five seasons ago, the room was actually filled with no empty chairs, thanks to her 25 brothers and sisters and two hitchhikers they picked up at the city line.  Team Daisey all the way!

As each girl graced the stage, Cowboy Max (…who refused to wear the cowboy hat that was right in front of him on the podium because it would flatten his faux hawk…) would smooooothly announce…”As we stop to admire Macaroon…she has lovely brown hair and blue eyes…..”

Stopping to admire a little girl in makeup?  All I could picture was a dirty old man slowing his Buick down as he’s passing a school bus stop.

Cowboy Max needs a new catch phrase, asap.

Then it was Wild West Wear time.

Bridgette pulled the Q-tip out of her nose in time to rock her pink Cowgirl Couture.  She also called out her own Mom for being “so jealous to me,” which in 5 year old exterminator talk means that Mom wishes she was up there on stage.  Well that ain’t gonna happen, lady.  Suck it.  That’s what that meant in 5 year old exterminator talk.  I looked it up.

Jacy blew the doors off her red barn prop and line danced around in what appeared to be her 4th of July parade costume.  Unfortunately she forgot to take off her denim jacket before she got on stage, and the judges made a note.

Daisey Mae smiled again and then ripped her own skirt off which was so unexpected that it woke up a few more of her brothers and sisters.

When the awards came around, Bridgett didn’t get called, which in PageantLand means you get pulled for a higher title.

I’ll be honest.  When her Mom said that “Pulling Out Is Always A Good Thing,” I spit my drink out though my nose and immediately began the process of putting that line on a t-shirt.

Coming soon to a skeevy corner store near you.

Then some kids won some stuff.

Jacy ended up winning Grand Supreme even though she didn’t make it to the stage on time, which made Amanda#1 swear again.

The evening was capped off by Alaska scoring the Ultimate Face title, snatching up the Taco Bell dog like it was candy and instantly BitchMorphing into a mini Paris Hilton.  She clutched that sissy dog like she was trying to sneak through an airport with drugs and told all the other girls to give her some space.

Alaska completely dissed her supposed friend Daisey Mae, which made DM feel lousy and made me want to write something nasty on someone’s Facebook wall.

But even Cowgirls get sleepy when they’re out past their bedtime, so everyone headed out of Dodge before sunset.

Mark my words, Sheriff…they’ll be back.  Nobody takes their puppy and lives to tell the story.

 

 

When I tear up the stage, my hair can’t ever be bigger than my attitude or ego. Cuz I’m all that.

 

 

 

My goal is Ultimate Supreme…and to wear these earrings every day until they bury me in the backyard.

 

 

 

 

I got your Facebook ‘thumbs up’ right here, bitch.

 

 

 

 

Girrl, pleez. Then she was all up in the audience spying on my baby girl! I seen it with my own eyes.

 

 

 

Can I get a Woop Woop for my new flipper? Gabby’s in da house.

 

 

 

Step aside, Sarah Palin.

There’s a new Alaska on the map.

Maybe your Alaska was a nice place to visit and all, with all that great scenery and the whole glacier thing…but this Alaska is colder, bolder and capable of freezing out any competition that dares cross her border.

Being able to wave at Russia from your kitchen window doesn’t seem so special now, does it?

This week Toddlers & Tiaras brought two more classic Pageant Rivals together again, sparkled them up, sprayed them down and tossed them out onto the Ramada stage to go head-to-head at the Southern Celebrity: Fairytale Winter Pageant.

It was Alaska vs. Gabby locked in mortal combat for the crown.  The ultimate Glitz Rematch as it were.

To put it into the kind of military warfare terminology that the adults in Alaska’s life like to toss around during dinner…it was Mom vs. Mom with the kids used as human shields.

Pageant Director Maxine set the tone for the evening as she explained that to be in pageants you have to be cute.  (Pause for all the ugly people to change the channel.)

As if catching herself midstream, Maxine then backtracked a little and clarified that ugly people could potentially be cute if they endure a few hours in the makeup chair before they head to the salon for a new hairdo.

I guess the morale of the story was that cute people just don’t have to work as hard as ugly people if they want to do pageants.  At least that’s what I got out of it after I picked myself up off the floor and worried about the future of our country.

The first contestant we met was 6 year old Ava.  She kind of had a little mini Jennifer Lopez kind of thing going on, except with no bootay or front teeth.  I immediately liked her for no other reason than the resemblance, and the fact that she declared right away that people can’t beat her.  So there.

She was pretty darn cute, and her Mom Jennifer NotLopez seemed really nice and level headed.  Probably not what the producers were looking for, but sometimes you have to go with a little normal just to balance off all the Crazy that is coming to the table.

Jennifer NotLopez was proud to be a West Virginia Anti-Bumpkin, and was out to prove that some people in the Virginias actually have their own adult teeth and watch the Style Network.  Probably not enough to get Verizon to run Fios cable down Main Street, but still…point well taken.

Then it was on to 8 year old Gabby, accompanied by some random nameless girl who was always hanging around that I assumed was her sister or wardrobe assistant, and Mom Beth.

If you’re keeping score, right about now is when it started getting good.

Turns out that Gabby, all decked out in her fuzzy Rachael Zoe knock off vest, had previously gone up against the infamous Alaska in a number of pageants.  In the unwritten Rules of Glitz, that makes them instant rivals.

It also makes the Moms bitter enemies, so it was time to get snarky.

Beth was sewing up all new costumes for Gabby, which made her 8 year old chipmunk voice squeak even higher.  Beth was rather vague about the rivalry at this point, and only squinted and did a little jaw grind every time Alaska’s name came up in conversation.  So you knew sumthin wuz up, and she was not going to take any prisoners.

New clothes, new routine and a new flipper…all at once?  It was a veritable Pageantgasm.  One that could potentially be the extra artillery needed to finally take down Alaska.

And speaking of arsenal…it was time to go directly to the War Room and see what Alaska and her Mom Lori had planned for this attack.

According to the press release, and unfortunately Alaska herself, this kid is back.  And better than ever.

Her hair is a little longer, her mouth a whole bunch sassier and her ego has inflated to nuclear reactor proportions.  Nobody thinks Alaska is all that and a bag of chips more than Alaska herself.

Well, except maybe her Mom.

To ensure Alaska’s eventual takeover of the entire planet, Lori had created her own version of a military outpost in their home, which she referred to as her Pageant Arsenal.

Like a small country hoarding guns, bullets and illegal passports, Lori has amassed stacks of those Target Christmas ornament containers stocked with anything and everything that a 9 year old would ever need if she was suddenly called to Pageant War.

She also had to double up on the glue gun firearms because Alaska’s brother Braxton is also a soldier in the Glitter Brigade.

Braxton is the dude who was spotlighted in a previous T&T episode.  His claim to fame at the time was a Dorothy Hamill bowl cut and the Burger King crown he always seemed to be photographed wearing.  Somewhere along the line Alaska came out of his shadow, eclipsed him on the pageant circuit and left him behind like yesterday’s newspaper.

Tragic.  Even her own brother was a victim of the Pageant War.  We did get a glimpse of him this time around sitting in the barber chair, and a quick shot of him wearing that BK crown again at the actual show.  But this was Alaska’s spotlight…hit the road.  You’re blocking my shot, boy.

Lori claimed that she was not a crazy Pageant Mom.  Just Passionate.  That seems to be the hot go-to label lately when Moms try to weazle out of their noodle behavior.

Passionate is your Mom’s meatloaf recipe.  Love it.  And no one cooks it better.  That’s passionate.

Crazy is Lori.

We got to witness a little bit of LoriLunacy while Braxton was getting his bowl trimmed.  She sat in the salon and claimed that Beth and Gabby had paid to get into some GlitzGlamFest pageant to spy on Alaska and photograph her outfits with hidden infrared cameras.  I think she also said something about Beth swiping a sample from her daughter’s tongue to research her winning genetics, but I was too distracted by Lori’s earrings to focus.

Turns out those are her favorite earrings.  Or I assume they are, since she wore them everywhere, in every scene.

Even when she risked potentially blinding Alaska by dyeing her eyelashes with a sloppy Q-tip soaked in L’Oreal , those gigantic reflectors were dangling from her lobes.  You know she is totally wearing them in her drivers license photo.  The PTA ladies are probably keeping a tally when they talk s*** about her after the meetings.

As Alaska screamed that her eyes were burning due to Lori not being able to paint within the lines, some comic relief was there to lighten the mood.  Stepdad Jay.  The ultimate sidekick.

He’s always there.  Sitting in the salon.  Sitting in the kitchen.  Sitting at the pageant.  Sitting and sitting.  Then he gets up, moves to another chair, and sits down again.

Lori exasperates him a little I can tell.  He loves his kids, even though Alaska is slowly morphing into a Diva.  And not the good kind.  But he’s always there, if for no reason other than to do the heavy lifting when it’s time to move the arsenal into the van.

I swear he is on a WB sitcom, I just can’t remember which one.  If he’s not, he should be.

While Alaska was talking about how fabulous she was, and how she has no competition and tossing shade like a drag queen, Ava was practicing her car hop routine.

The only reason I mention it is because her little pug dog was wearing a t-shirt onesie thing, and dogs in clothes make me smile.

Finally it was Competition Day.  And that’s when it hit the fan.

We got the dirt on what happened between the Moms, and it wasn’t pretty.

Two words: Online.  Or is that one word?

How about Facebook Online?

Don’t these people ever learn?  You never show your junk online, and you never pick on the fat kid online.  Come on.

Seems that Beth was having a Facebook conversation with a friend, and Lori hacked into her Facebook page and read all about it, when it was not intended for her eyes.

Umm.  Newsflash.  That’s how Facebook works, Beth.

Whatever was said made Lori cry, and Alaska saw her cry, and it just got ugly.  So it sounds like they’ve been having an online war ever since.

In my absolute new favorite part of the show which I demand be in each episode from now on, they cut to all three Moms sitting uncomfortably side by side talking smack.  Like the Anderson Show, but without Anderson Cooper, who we love.

I assume they do this set up after every show is taped, kind of like when the Apollo astronauts splash land and have to go through that detox before they are released back out into the Real World.

As Lori and Beth get all bitch faced, poor Jennifer NotLopez is trapped in the middle just praying for a sink hole to open up and swallow her into the hot molten bowels of the Earth.

Classic TV Moment.  You could smell the snark.

Lori finished that scene up in style by stating that “You can’t fix stupid.”

Maybe not, but you can fix your teeth.  Oh snap.  Two can play this game.

The pageant itself was no big shakes.  Seen one Holiday Winter Extravaganza…seen them all.

But the judges were a gift from the Reality TV Gods.

Since the Ramada was booked solid for the event, it seemed that they needed to find something to keep the 80′s cover band busy.  So what better deal than judging?

Seriously.  Shut.  Up.  Where do they find these people?

Johnny Browning, who has either the best rocker name or the worst porn name ever, was head to toe 80′s Chess King from the Mall.  I’m not even sure where you find a salon that will still do that kind of haircut.

And he had the nerve to pick on Ava’s ginormous weave?

The other 80′s guy never spoke, but went to the same salon.

Third judge was Mrs. West Virginia, or Mrs Beckley, depending on which press release you read.  Either way it meant that they must have had to close the library for the day since she was moonlighting.

The last judge was just a judge.  Sorry, honey.  Nothing personal.

The bullet points:

Gabby got her flipper glued to her tongue for a second or two, and Alaska had the most faaaaabulous makeup boy evah.

Lori got all nasty about how she had seen Gabby’s dress “several times” and that the color was…well…if that’s the color they want to put her in…blah blah bitch.

Alaska again noted that she had no competition.  She also had no sense of time because she was late for her Winter Wear Rockette shimmy thang.

Her Diva shtick would be cute on a 3 year old, or even a Honey Boo-Bo child, but on Alaska it’s just her Mom’s DNA resurfacing and it’s not a good look.

Gabby’s Winter Wear was just wrong in so many ways.  When good vintage goes bad.

Lori still had those f***ing earrings on.

Alaska had a DivaFit when her hair was too big.  I would have been more concerned that the fake part didn’t match the real part, but that’s just me I guess.  And she was seriously tanned.  Baked Alaska.

Beth and Jennifer NotLopez took the high road and really showed some mad Mom skills when they taught their kids how to clap and be thankful for any crown they received.  They both teared up when discussing the effect of the pageant on their daughters.

Lori, on the other hand, rubbed Alaska’s Ultimate Grand Supreme crown in everyone’s face and stated that everything turned out just fine.  Right when the show ended I think she was about to do a Victory Lap around the Ballroom with her finger in the air.

Alaska, of course, noted that she would always be gorgeous but would get plastic surgery by the time she was 100 maybe.

Pretty hurts.

But not as much as the slap that someone is gonna give her if she doesn’t dial it down.

Kids today.  Don’t they read Facebook?