live! from miss universe

Yeah. I supposedly gave up pageants a long time ago, and yet … I’m watching this one right now. I’m too swept up to feel the self-loathing right now. Plenty of time for that later.

So here is what you need to know:

— Miss USA just fell smack on her little sequined bum in the evening gown competition. Dammit, Miss USA. Don’t you know you’ve just shamed our entire country and lost this pageant? But … oh, here we go …. she gets up quickly, tight Vaseline smile momentarily dropped, and claps for herself. What is that all about? The clapping? I’m unsure what it means. What does that mean, really: Look at me! I’m up! I stood back up again! I’m UP as opposed to DOWN! I mean, I could have stayed down and slid around the stage on my ass or maybe rolled offstage but …. I didn’t! (Clap clap) You know, lots of other people might trip and fall and just stay down but not me! Think about it, world! Of the split-second choices I had just now to: 1) get my live-on-TV butt back up to vertical or 2) never get up, ever, I got back up! So if you ever fall down in the future and go through a dark split second of the soul and contemplate not getting up ever, think about me and get up! Clap it out! I mean, do I want to die right now? Sure I do. This is the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. But I want to show people that you can have the worst thing in the world happen to you and live through it even if you don’t want to or even if other people think you won’t. I mean, to anyone out there thinking, “Wow. Look at that. I bet she doesn’t get up ever. I sure wouldn’t” see how crazy and negative and doubty that thinking was? You too can fall down and get up and live to clap it out again! Of course, I just totally tanked this pageant and I want to die but tomorrow I’ll be all over YouTube inspiring people with my indomitable spirit! Clap clap ….

— So I really didn’t like the clapping, I guess.

— Sometimes a big ol’ swear word is just more human, you know?

— Miss Dominican Republic is wearing a gown of mirrors. I kid you not. It’s like Liberace’s piano. Lord. Teeny tiny mirrors all over her, you know, assets. Men in the audience all go mad with applause. I can see myself in her boooobs! Woo-hoooo!

— Miss USA doesn’t make the top 5. She falls to the floor in despair and doesn’t get up this time and Donald Trump drags her offstage by her hair and marries her.

— That didn’t really happen.

— The not-making-the-Top-5 part is totally true, though.

— She FELL and then clapped it out like a robot, okay? Of course she didn’t make the Top 5.

— Plus, her dress was lame. It looked better before she stood up.

— Also this is LIVE! from exotic Vietnam, so they have to play a video of the girls sightseeing, naturally. The group visits the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to “pay their respects to the father of modern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh,” host Jerry Springer intones.

— “Pay respects,” really??

— It’s down to Miss Colombia and Miss Venezuela. (Insert your own political comment here.) Miss Colombia is pretty and when asked What would you change about your life so far, responded, “My family is so supportive and I am always happy and I would not change a thing. It’s perfect.” Miss Venezuela is smokin’ hot and when asked Who has it harder in life, men or women, responded, “Men think the fastest way to a place is a straight line; women know the fastest way is to go through all the curves”; so, of course, with this totally nonsensical, non-responsive answer AND smokin’ hotness …… she WINS.

Fine. Whatevs. But can she do something about the price of gas?