Confessions of a Beauty Pageant EmCee

Few jobs in America are so vacuous as that of the Beauty Pageant Emcee. For many years, the post was exclusively held by Daytime Game Show Hosts and Local Radio-TV Personalities until a species even more craven was found -- that two headed monster known as Regis and Cathy Lee. It is with some trepidation that I reveal that I, too, am part of this pantheon. I have hosted beauty pageants and I continue to do them. I know no shame.

I began my career as the sacrificial lamb for the Alpha Zee Delta "Miss Beautiful" pageant. It was one of those men-dress-up-in-drag things where men act like women. Or, more accurately, how a woman would act if she'd just drunk a case of beer and chased it down with a bottle of paint thinner. Part of the fun is watching the contestants attempt to grope the Emcee. I now publicly thank my father for providing the genes that made my long arms possible.

The winner of the contest was a homosexual who faked an orgasm while writhing on fake zebra pillows to the song "Pillow Talk" by Sylvia -- an act so tawdry that no one doubted he was a shoo-in for the title. I must confess that for days after, I felt unclean. The supply of water and soap on campus fell precipitously as all who witnessed the scene attempted, like Mac Beth, to wash off the spots.

In appreciation of my work, they gave me a cigarette lighter with my initials engraved on the side. I still have it in a box of strange odds and ends that hold the history of my earlier life. It is there to remind me to always ask for cash up front.

From that beginning, I moved up to a few "serious" pageants. Real serious. There is something twisted about women who allow surgeons to rearrange their body parts in the hope of winning a loving-cup and a lifetime supply of Toni Home Permanent. It is one of the wonders of the age that a beauty queen is considered the girl-next-door while Howard Stern is considered a freak.

This is why my regular gig is an Annual Future Homemakers of America Beauty Pageant. Its like pageants used to be before silicon implants - pure, wholesome, down home fun. They've asked me back every year for over ten years and I'm looking forward to twenty more. Best of all - in just one evening's dose, you can fulfill the minimum adult yearly requirement for irony as set by the US Government.

While each contestant goes down the runway, I get to read a card about her life that is mostly true. Her activities, her prospects have all been carefully "spun" for best effect using cliches that are rounded at the edges from use. Here are a few of them and what they really mean:

Every year someone aspires to go to the local state university and major in Cosmetology -- no matter that doing hair is taught at Beauty College and not at a state university. I was wicked once and changed that to Cosmology -- creating a philosopher-queen at a stroke with no one the wiser.

After the runway, we come to the question. The moment of truth. A slip of paper is pulled out of a cigar box and I read the question twice. And, if she hasn't fainted, she answers. If she is smart, she answers with the soggiest of platitudes while keeping a perfectly straight face.

There was the night, and it will stay with me forever, that one would be queen took a chance on the truth she knew to be true. Her question? "What is more important: book learning or common sense?"

Staring down at the judges she came out with a spirited and courageous defense of common sense and its superiority to compulsory public school education. What made this so delicious was that each judge on the panel was a teacher. They stiffened like they had been struck. And they had been. The crowd went wild over this recitation of every rationalization they had ever uttered to defend C's and D's on their report card. Rationalizations they had not only used -- but had taught to their own children. In revenge, in high dungeon, and with immense satisfaction the judges marked big fat zero's by her name. A shocking lack of common sense getting its comeuppance from a number two pencil.

The judges were able to act with impunity because they were imported from out of town. They were not introduced by name and pageant organizers made sure they were ushered from the gym before the winners were announced. There is always the risk that the elegant girl with the charm school manners that they have picked is actually somewhere below the cockroach in school popularity. Better that they are safely beyond the city limits before the results of their labor is known.

My favorite time is when they hand me the envelope and I get to see what everyone else wants to know -- how it all came out. Lifetime enmities have flowed from these results before and will again. There have even been displays of temper right on the floor. The crowd finally becomes quiet for the first time in the night as I call out the numbers of the court and then the number of the hapless first runner up.

The end from there is quick. The crowd roars, young girls cry, and I head for the exits patting the pocket with the really important envelope full of carefully folded twenties. The guy who couldn't even get a date to the Jr-Sr gets to play Burt Parks for the night and gets paid in cash. No cigarette lighter. No cross pen. I can't wait for next year.

© Copyright 1998, Merrill Guice, All Rights Reserved