Dat’s my baby. When he be on stage, them girls just ’bout spit out their Mountain Dew.
Yeah. I’m a pretty big deal. When my ‘do is tight and right, the bitches line up on the playground.
He so Krazy.
Hey, Girl. This all tastes like Tootsie Pops, Bazooka gum and smooth Yahoo. You hungry?
Oh. Hell. No. Bitch stole my look, my moves and my lady lines?
Girl, if you’re feeling a little light headed or dizzy, you ain’t just coming down from a Pixie Stick high. No, ma’am.
You just got some Traven all up in your face.
Toddlers & Tiaras got a shot of sparkly testosterone this week when Missouri hosted The International Fresh Faces: Beautiful Fairy Princess Pageant.
In that special spray tanned land usually reserved for painted up little girls and disoriented preemies, it’s rare to see a dude take the stage. But somebody was about to change all that and show everyone how you put the Playa back in Pageants, and the Swagger back in Supreme.
If you do a Google search for “way too into his job,” the first result that should pop up is Mr. Todd, the Pageant Director. With his overly excited mannerisms, which were an odd cross between a late night news anchor and the guy who narrated all those grade school film strips on coffee exporting, Mr. Todd explained in detail how everyone dreams their entire lives of being a Princess.
And then he paused, which was either to get himself out of an awkward moment of self reflection, or simply because he forgot there was a boy coming to the hotel this week.
Then he added…”or Prince”…and everyone exhaled.
Right from the starting gun, it was clear that Mr. Todd lives for these weekend extravaganzas and could possibly be the first one to give all the vicariously living Pageant Moms a run for their money. Things that make you go hmmm.
The first contestant we met up with was the aforementioned 6 year old Traven and his Girrrl head snappin’ Mom LaNesia.
Traven is a Ladies’ Man. Mom knows it. Nana Vert knows it. Everyone at the barber shop knows it, even though he got busted for lying about having 1,000 girlfriends. And Traven made darn sure that we knew it.
For a little wiener of a kid, Traven had already mastered the high school hallway strut as he worked it down to other end of the trailer into his toy filled bedroom.
I’m the Man of the House! I’m the Grown Up! Ladies looooove me! You Do What I Say!
That’s relatively cute when a 6 year old squirt runs around with his chest puffed up, but a few years from now he needs to knock it off before that trailer finds a restraining order taped to the front door.
I thought I told you to dust my crowns, woman!
A pageant kid since he was in diapers, Mom had started Traven out early because he looked like a little girl. She was kind of vague on whether or not she dressed him up as that fake little girl, but she was such a freakin’ riot that I didn’t really notice the omission until it was too late. I loved her right away.
LaNeshia, besides having a name that sounds like she could whoop yo’ a** on The Bad Girls Club, has one of those crazy In Living Color smiles that just makes you smile.
She was all MmmHmm You Go Work It Pop It That How You Win Them Girls from the first second she showed up on screen. If I get blown off for my lunch date with last week’s Salt & Pepa sisters, I want to go to Longhorn with LaNeshia.
Aside from his ginormous love for the ladies, Traven’s other personality trait was his ability to snap from Angel to Demon in 0.2 seconds, according to LaNeshia’s stopwatch.
This was the first episode I can remember witnessing a Toddlers & Tiaras exorcism as Traven clutched his throat and collapsed to floor in an effort to purge the devil from his 6 year old soul. Twitching like a fish that had just flopped out of the net onto the loading dock, Traven begged for the devil to leave his body before he went airborne like Linda Blair and spun backwards into the display shelves full of pageant crowns.
Lawd have mercy.
Then everything went pink. Except for the pig, which was black.
It was time to meet 4 year old Ava-Cate and Mom Emily. Again with that Name Generating Machine. This is the second time I have asked where I can buy one, and still no answer. I’ll even settle for a rental.
Mom made it clear from the get go that as soon as she saw that first Polaroid sonogram, she started planning for her Pageant Baby. Emily was a pretty normal Pageant Mom on the scale from Normal to Hooters Waitress I guess, but there was something about her eyes that made me think she could definitely blow a nutty or two if necessary. There was just a little bit of that Stepford Wife hair pulled back over one ear with the other side all hair sprayed down nice and frizz-free with wide white eyes that just told me to stay on her good side.
Ava-Cate was a cutie and still on the young side of 4, so she rambled a lot and didn’t always seem to have control of her tongue. But she’s going to grow up to be a looker, and anyone who names her pet pig Buddy Crazy Sunglasses is already my new BFF. She’s the good kind of baby crazy.
Buddy CS just squealed and ran around a lot. Not sure what else I expected a pig to do, but I was a little disappointed for some reason.
Our last visit was to a home full of bleached blonde hair and spray tans. For miles.
The first two blondes were 7 year old Samantha and Mom Amy. There were a bunch of other blondes that were either randomly stacked up in a human cheerleading pyramid (…shout out to my Cheer Moms!…) or just hanging out in the living room, but they were never really explained or introduced. So I’m going to make up a story that they were cloning blonde pageant girls in the barn behind the house. Run with it if you want.
Samantha is hardcore. She’s in it to win it. She’s always a winner and the prettiest girl in the whole entire world. And she is looking forward to wiping the floor with Traven, and Mom would probably be more than happy to hold him down since she doesn’t feel that boys should be allowed in the competitions. Something about not needing hot rollers.
Whatever. Try shaving your face every day lady, and then we can talk beautification hardships.
Back at Klub Traven, everyone was getting down with their bad selves during pageant practice. Traven loves to work that chest pop and Ne-Yo hip action, and it got Nana Vert all worked up to the point where she had to join in and shake what she gave her daughter, if you know what I mean.
Traven was so impressed that he recommended Nana go work at The Pony. A strip joint.
A 6 year old knew the name of the town’s local strip joint. How…wha…?
When I was 6, my school bus driver could have pulled into the parking lot and left us all sitting in our seats while he disappeared with dollar bills clenched between his teeth, and I would still have no clue what was happening. How does this kid know The Pony?
I love me some LaNeshia, but she needs to take a different route to the barber shop from now on before Traven spends all his lunch money on lap dances.
It would be cheaper to just go to Ava-Cate’s and watch her do the booty spank.
Again. How a 4 year old knows how to wave one hand over her head and slap her a** with the other is beyond me. And this wasn’t a little Chuck E Cheese birthday spank next to that inflatable bouncy room with all those germ infested plastic balls.
This was full blown Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy. And Ava kept doing it all through her practice session, much to Mom’s chagrin. Hopefully she gets it out of her system before Pageant Day.
And high school.
Traven arrived at the hotel poppin’ and lockin’ his way into the lobby, checking out the ladies and giving them all a little taste of what’s to come. All the other boys had dropped out of the competition as soon as word leaked out that the T-Man was bringing his Game, so Traven was guaranteed to win something since you know they had a box full of boy stuff in storage.
Ava-Cate showed up all raring to go, but then quickly needed some blue Pixie Sticks stat, before she fell asleep on her jacked up hair.
According to Mr. Todd’s borderline Dateline creeper explanations, there were three portions to this pageant.
Beauty. Fairy. Denim.
Traven’s planned shtick was to dance and unleash his dude scent all over the stage for each portion. That probably made Amy tug at her roots a little, don’t you think?
Ava’s plan was to hopefully not ride a cowboy and make it through the day with a PG rating.
Samantha’s plan was to win and continue being beautiful.
Turned out that someone forgot to snap Ava-Cate’s dress together before she left the makeup room. The skirt seemed to be staying up fine from my angle, but maybe once she started pretty feeting around she would run the risk of losing the ruffles. I don’t know. I’m not an authority on little girls’ clothing, which probably makes own Mom breath a sigh of relief.
So Ava was a little late to the stage. It happens.
I figured out pretty early on that the only reason they needed three segments to the pageant was so Mr. Todd could change outfits three times.
Our boy was in full Diana Ross mode, changing clothes every other song.
Like a pig in mud. A pink one this time.
The Fairy portion required everyone to dress up like fairies or princes or princesses. Maybe it’s just me, but knowing that I was going to have to compete in anything called the Fairy portion probably scared off more boys than the press release that Traven was going to be in the hizzle. Try explaining that one to your bunk mate at Summer Camp.
Traven’s cousin Princess, as opposed to princess Cousin if LaNeshia had come from royalty, was brought along as a prop for his Fairy number.
After bickering out in the hallway like George and Weezie Jefferson, they made it on stage and froze up. Not even one of those stuffed animal pony heads on a stick between his legs could save Traven this time.
(Please tell me he didn’t get that thing at the strip club…)
Ava-Cate did a Boogie Fairy kind of thing, while Samantha’s production could have opened the Summer Olympics if Mom had remembered to use the correct CD.
Bummer.
The Denim portion was pretty much just a Sears Back-to-School fashion show in the Food Court.
Traven danced again, Ava ripped off her Minnie Mouse skirt, flung it around her head like she was roping a steer and Samantha just wandered around the stage in white denim.
Pretty boring, but on trend for the season, so she scored highest on that one. Lucky for her it was before Labor Day. I wonder if they’d deduct points for that?
(Side note: PLEEZ tell me someone else saw the sleeping old man in one of those Mall t-shirts that are made to look like tuxedos? Classic. I’m starting to think that the producers are required to toss one of those Easter Eggs into each episode now, because over the last few episodes we have already had the pleasure of that crazy guy in the wheelchair and the thug in the doo rag. It’s like a party game each week. Way better than Where’s Waldo?)
Then some kids won some stuff again.
Unfortunately, because he spaced out a little and couldn’t keep the pony between his legs, Traven didn’t go home with the Top Dawg trophy. But he still had swagger, and vowed that we had not seen the last of him.
And don’t you worry. He still got mad love for da ladies.
Consider that an extra gift that you got to take home this weekend, bitches.
True dat.
