Here she is. Miss Syracuse.

For the past couple of years I've been able to emcee the Miss Syracuse pageant. I've never been that closely connected to pageants, but having grown up with 3 sisters I've observed a thing or two about girls getting ready for important events, girls judging other girls on their appearance and abilities, and girls dropping everything they're doing to view televised beauty contests. This only compounded when I married my wife who grew up in a house with 6 sisters who all took pleasure in watching the Miss America and Miss USA pageants. Shortly after I accepted my first opportunity to host, I soon realized how important it would be to perfectly observe everything my mother ever told me about treating girls. I grew up being the biggest tease to each of my sisters and I still am, but a pageant is the worst place to kid around with the ladies around you; especially the likes of mama bear. There is nothing quite as scary as the mother of a pageant contestant. To me, she looks as if she is ready to pounce on and kill anyone that could possibly hurt the feelings of her contestant daughter. Beauty pageants are longer than they need to be. Everyone sits around to watch contestants wear all sorts of outfits, applaud, share a talent, applaud, hear about the sponsors, applaud, hear each person answer one question, pause then applaud, watch them line up, applaud, watch the group number, applaud, applaud, applaud, applaud. At the close of all this activity, special judges submit contestants' scores to be tabulated by real auditors so they can determine the pageant winner. This is the time that needs to be filled with something other than awkward silence, or jeopardy theme music. The pageant directors usually ask me to come up with something to fill this time. Some jokes, little factoids, anecdotes, or a song will work. It seems to be wise to me to stay away from pageant jokes just in case mama bear decides to take offense, so I've typically defaulted to a musical number of sorts. This year, rather than perform a song for performance and time filling sake, I decided that I'd plug the musical production that my wife and I are rehearsing for right now. It made total sense to do so since it was a Syracuse community theater announcement at a Miss Syracuse pageant. I wanted to do something memorable that would ring in the minds of pageant goers as to cause them to remember to attend our actual performance in August. The production we're doing is Sondheim's 'Into the Woods'. I get to play Cinderella's Prince. The marquee song for this character as well as one of the most well-known songs of the musical is entitled, 'Agony'. The number is sung by two princes who are reeling in their sadness for being unable to capture their desired princesses. I thought this would be a great selection for the pageant, although it is sung by two people. Solving this problem was a bit serendipitous. A few weeks before I'd watched the movie documenting Kevin Clash's puppet creation 'Being Elmo'. Anyway, I was inspired to create sock puppets with my kids and put on a puppet show. It was in the wake of our amateur puppeteering that I determined that I could create puppets for each prince and sing for each of them as I performed the song at the pageant. At first it sounded like a really great idea. Wife didn't think so right away, but I think she was impressed with my resolve to at least create some hand puppets and try the idea out. The closer I got to having to perform the more nervous I got. Sounds silly, but for the novice puppeteer, it was hard to sync my hands with words, and all the while remember the right words for the right prince and sing on pitch. I knew I could get to a point where I could pull it off though despite having no ventriloquist skills; I would just have to play up the ridiculous fact that I was wearing socks on each of my hands postured as princes and that I was the most terrible ventriloquist in the world. I'd have to lead with the disclaimer, 'Focus on the puppets and not my mouth for the full effect.' This plan and my limited time to rehearse in our under-the-stairs playroom made everything seem like it should work out. Performance time came in duplicate. I had an afternoon Miss Teen Syracuse, and an evening Miss Syracuse pageant. Each went very well and got better as the night went on. I think I was able to impress the audience with my vast 'history of pageants and Syracuse' peppered through the talent portion of the competition. I have to thank Google for that. It is amazing the 'factual' information you can find on such short notice from the world wide web. I'll have to hang on to those factoids in case I have the chance to host again. That week, when it was all said and done, there were four winners: Miss Rhode Island (from the Miss USA pageant the week before, I guessed she'd be the winner), Miss Syracuse (I guessed the winner in my mind during the pageant dress rehearsal even though I can't prove it), Cinderella's Prince, and Rapunzel's Prince (They each remembered the words and got the laughs I'd hoped for). Congratulations to all. The video below is my very first complete attempt at a performance. Other than being puppet taunted by a toddler, and forgetting some of the words, my hands were nearly in sync with the music most of the time. Enjoy.