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.
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, which 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?
