"...On Dignity...and Dipwads..."

Mickey and Sylvia were absolutely right.

If you’re not a pop music loving baby boomer and/or don’t have a clue who Mickey and Sylvia are, let me save you a trip to the Google.

They are the very entertaining voices behind the classic fifties pop hit.

“Love Is Strange”.

And, like I said, I think they were spot on in their assertion.

I don’t think any of us would dispute that particular pearl of perception.

At the same time, I think, if Mick and Syl were still looking for material, I would be inclined to throw the idea at them that a sequel to their hit would also resonate.

“Life Is Strange”.

That thought popped into my head this morning as I found my medulla bouncing back and forth between stories about Carrie Prejean and Farrah Fawcett.

Here’s the necessary McBackstories, respectively.

Carrie Prejean is the reigning Miss California USA who is trying to use her bully pulpit to advocate in opposition to gay marriage and whose crown was in jeopardy this past week because pictures surfaced of her posing in “less than wholesome” attire.

Farrah Fawcett is the former poster girl phenomenon of the seventies who went on to establish some reasonably deserved acclaim as a serious actress and is reportedly, at this writing, mere days away from dying of cancer.

Okay, first, despite my genetic predisposition toward carnality (read: I’m male), I’ve never really been much of a beauty pageant fan.

While I can intellectually appreciate the idea of healthy competition between young ladies who can morph, right before our eyes in the course of a single evening, from environmentally conscious college students to virtuoso pianists mesmerizing us with their Mozart to high heel wearing bimbettes showing just enough T&A to make it A-OK, I’ve just always had the underlying feeling that the whole thing was nothing more than a cattle auction where the cattle happened to have nice asses.

The whole concept, in my eyes, should have long ago been filed away in the folder marked “anachronism”.

As in, “well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but, these days…”

Like bleeding people with leeches, for example.

Or avoiding the exploration of the seas cause the world is flat.

Or boxing.

That’s a whole other rant. Don’t get me started here.

Historically, beauty pageant contestants have to not only deal with the pressures of competition, but, more and more “these days”, the stigma of the stereotype comic minds have been milking for generations.

”…I hope to work for world peace…to save the whales…to make our schools safer and our dairy products more nutritionally sound…oh…and I am committed to my goal to become a veterinarian because I am passionate about the needs of our returning veterans…thank you…and now, I would like to offer “Flight Of The Bumble Bee” on my alto sax….wearing these heels and this spandex...”

These things have really made American Idol start to look like College Bowl. (you might have to Google that one.)

Now, in addition to the silly syntax and sorry sax playing, we find ourselves faced with a generation of “contestants” who feel the need to offer to guide us to enlightenment on the relevant social issues of our time.

As if four minutes of Prokofiev and perky boobs were all the qualifications one needed to save us from ourselves.

In this case, Ms. Prejean is an outspoken advocate in the cause of banning gay marriage.

Personally, I love a good, spirited discussion on relevant issues with someone who clings with passion and conviction to the moral high ground.

In between events where she struts her stuff to win cash and prizes before dashing off to photo shoots on the beach where the slightest of breezes can inadvertently bare her chest for all to see.
Well, that’s her story…and she’s sticking to it.

Two words come to mind here.

Puh.
Leeze.

I remain optimistic in my cynicism that anyone with half a brain doesn’t think this girl has half a brain.

So, let me just offer that the real victims in this whole fracas are the folks who are still trying to make a living by putting on these meat parades they still call “pageants.”

I mean, come on, if the goal was ever to make these things relevant to our times, then the continued enlistment of garden variety airheads aint gonna help much.

That said, here’s the other shoe.

And the point I was going to make about that sequel to Mickey and Sylvia’s hit song.

Not so many years ago (and, to be honest, off and on ever since) Farrah Fawcett was symbolic of the stereotypical “bimbette”, long on hair, prolifically perky and short on any apparent ability to understand the difference between veterans and veterinarians.

Of late, tabloid vulture bites aside, she has demonstrated, in what we all instinctively know is her farewell to this life, a class we would all like to think we will possess when our time comes.

And compared to the “like, well, you know, like, gays shouldn’t, you know, like, get, like, married…oh, the wind is, like, blowing my, you know, top off again” cultural contributions of the reigning Miss California USA, Farrah Fawcett is Eleanor Roosevelt.

Hmm.

Farrah Fawcett.

Symbol of grace and dignity.

Trust me, Mick and Syl, this idea is surefire.

Because life, truly, is strange.