Generally, I find pageants absolutely repulsive. The performance numbers make me cringe, and I am bored to pieces by the talent competition because everybody either plays classical music or sings goddamn show tunes.
This year is different.
I know Miss California, Rita Ng. I know some of her family, actually, since my last job was in Tracy, CA where the Ng homestead is. The future Miss California and I had lunch earlier this year. Sadly, when I e-mailed her and called her to see if we could have lunch again, I heard nothing back from her and concluded that I evidently did not interest her in the least. So be it. But it’s still pretty cool that I know one of the contestants. And she won in the talent competition (playing – AARGH! – classical music), so she has a good shot at making the Top 10.
If you want to have her date you, just act like Donald Trump and build a few things with your name on them. It’s all borrowed money, so it won’t cost you out of pocket.
I knew last night’s Miss Kentucky. I used to work with her on the Student Activities Board at UK. She was our “Communications Director”, although can’t remember her doing anything–I made all my own posters, print ads, press releases, etc. She could only be bothered to be in town two days a week, as the rest of her time was spent at home in Louisville doing “pageant stuff”.
Beauty pageants were all she ever talked about, thought about, or put any effort into. When they announced her name as Fourth Runner-Up last night, that was the peak of her existence. She’ll pretty much have to start over now.
I graduated from UK a few years ago. I had already graduated, but was still living in Lexington, when the Wildcats beat Syracuse for the NCAA basketball championship.
I visited the campus this past July and was horrified to discover that my two favorite record stores, Cut Corner and Bear’s Wax, had both gone out of business. I spent countless hours in those two places when I was at UK – they were right across from my dorm, Holmes.
So, howzabout that Jason Parker, assuming you’re a basketball fan?
[continued hijack]The two NCAA Championship seasons (1996 and 1998) were my sophomore and senior years of undergrad. (I’m still here, in med school.) Both were quite the experience. I live right on the famous Celebration Corner now, but we haven’t won another one since I’ve lived here (bad for the team, but good for my personal safety ). Haven’t checked out Parker yet myself, but the buzz is good.
Cut Corner went to hell about two years before it closed. Some company from Chicago bought it and put a guy in charge who either didn’t know how to run an college-crowd alternative record store, or had no desire to do so. The torch passed to CD Central, which was then in South Hill Station. When Cut Corner finally, mercifully closed, CD Central moved into the building. It’s everything Cut Corner ever was and more. I still miss the video store, though, and it is a shame about Bear’s Wax.[/continued hijack]
I know that the university is going to grow and change in my absence, obviously, but Cut Corner was going to be, I thought, one of those cultural touchstones that I could go back and see a decade and beyond the time I left Lexington. Combine that loss with the fact that one of the few people on campus that I kept contact with – the guy who ran the Kernel – left the Kernel, and I really felt my connection to the university slipping more quickly than before.
So, did you ever take Chuck Staben for genetics? He rules. Now he’s pretty much the only guy left on campus who I really have much connection with.
). Haven’t checked out Parker yet myself, but the buzz is good.