So, Saturday, instead of sitting on my sofa enjoying the first full weekend of college football, my girlfriend and I attended a beauty pageant at the Opryland Hotel. The name of the pageant was “Dixieland Dolls and Darlings”, and for anyone who has seen Little Miss Sunshine, the pageant was just like that. For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, sadly, the only other comparison I could make that people who are not involved in this type of thing could recognize is Jon Benet Ramsey. That’s right, it was a beauty pageant for kids. All the kids, to my knowledge, were ages six and under.

Now, I went to this thing because my girlfriend’s cousin entered her baby in the pageant. Her baby is eight months old and adorable, and before I go into my rant, let me say that I thought the baby portion of the show was great. Little toddlers dressed up in bedazzled little outfits, smiling out at the sparse crowd. They even had little boys probably between the ages of two and three up there. One little guy had on a little golfing outfit. It looked like something Ben Hogan would have worn. Old school, you know? He walked out there holding his miniature three wood, beaming at the crowd, seeming to be happy in his surroundings. Very cute. What was even cuter was when he decided to heave his club at the judges. I’m sure they loved that. I did. That part of the show was great.

What startled and sickened me were the little girls in the show. Like I said, if you have seen Little Miss Sunshine (and if you haven’t, you should), it was exactly like the movie. The film did not exaggerate. Three and four year old girls were dressed in tight little swimsuits. They had long, fake hair and were slathered in makeup. Some were even tanner than the chicks on Baywatch. What the…? They trounced around the stage looking coy and mugging for the crowd and judges. Behind the judges stood the little girls’ mothers. They directed their daughters with hand gestures, spinning back and forth, raising their arms and blowing faux kisses. The girls mocked their mothers,  seeming confused at times because sometimes other women stood by the mothers and wanted to instruct them as well. Imagine being a kid on stage, watching two or three pitiful grownups trying to tell you when to spin and mug for the crowd. It was ridiculous. I couldn’t help but look at the mothers and wonder what their stories were. Were they rejected by the cheerleading squad? Were they the ugly ducklings in their high school? What compels a mother to put fake hair and makeup and a bathing suit on her four year old little girl, spray her with some kind of tanning solution and shove her in front of a bunch of people to perform a little minstrel show.

One positive about this whole thing was that it appeared that the only people interested in watching this sick circus were other participants. Because, to be perfectly honest, I would have thought that shows like this would be a pedophile’s paradise. In my mind I could only imagine the back row of seats being filled with men with scraggly bears and dark sunglasses, their hands in their pockets and saliva glistening from their chins. Perhaps that sounds bad, and maybe I shouldn’t be saying it, but that’s how I felt. What kid asks for this? What three year old wants to be painted up like a miniature strumpet and put out in front of people who do not have the best interest of children in mind. Maybe someone can explain it to me, the beauty of the whole thing, because I certainly did not see it.

If I ever have a little girl, it’s gonna be pigtails and overalls, dollies and tea sets. Tomboy or prissy, I don’t care. Boy or girl, I just want my kid to be a kid. I never made the football squad, but I’ll be damned if I force my son to attain the glory I could never achieve. And I’ll be damned if I dress my little girl up like a streetwalker and shove her out into the world of the lascivious. Let a kid be a kid. Let them have a little fun before the crazy and the depression and the melancholy and the pain takes over. There’s plenty of that waiting for them in the world of adulthood.

Due to losing a chunk of cds last week (see here), I wasn’t really in the mood for downloading new music from EMusic or ITunes. I just felt mopey. I am feeling better this week and downloaded quite a few tunes. Plus, a good friend of mine contributed some music to my collection, so there is a great wealth of new music coming in this week. No MySpace adds this week, but I am getting some new cds in the mail soon and I will add them as soon as I get them

New this week

Ben Webster
Sonny Stitt
Perry Como
Nat King Cole
Artie Shaw
Louis Armstrong
Dean Martin
Stephane Grappelli
Don Byas
Ray Charles
Billie Holiday
Ray Charles and Betty Carter
Bill Evans
Rosemary Clooney
Fred Astaire
Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars
Coleman Hawkins
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Carmell Jones

Blue Mitchell
Richie Cole and Art Pepper
Ella Fitzgerald