Talent Show

The talent show was a diverse group this week. There was a lot of patriotism invoked, perhaps because of Canada Day and the nearness of the Fourth of July. The winner of the Junior Portion was a ten year-old girl who sang “You're a Grand Old Flag” while her closest competitor sang “Proud to Be an American.” A young man with Downs Syndrome danced to “Let's Get Loud,” and dropped down to a full split at one point. Other than that, it was fairly standard fare. “The Sunshine of My Life,” “At Last,” “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” (the ultimate winner), and some Tony Bennett song that I can't remember were also on display.

There was also a special dance performed after the competition while the judges deliberated. Three sisters who were rumored to be Budweiser girls danced to “All That Jazz.” The ostensible reason they weren't part of the competition was that since there were three of them, they didn't fulfill the two or less group requirements of the competition, which strangely didn't seem to affect the five high school girls who danced to a Michael Jackson medley last week. I'm guessing that their long bleach blond hair, enormous chests (rumored to be enhanced but who knows), and provocative outfits made their act a little too provocative for the standard talent show fare. Censorship is everywhere, I guess.

The ladies had been the topic of much speculation by passengers this week, as people debated whether they were actually sisters, what kinds of surgical enhancements they had received, and what exactly being a Budweiser Girl meant. There was even a rumor early on that the three were actually a mother and two daughters, but a closer look proved them to be all the same age, but what that age was no one could agree on. Yet something about them being so much in the public- or shiplife- eye helped them bring the passengers together. A large family clan, comprised of several parents in their thirties and their toddler to middle school aged children, sat behind me at the talent show. One of the mothers, a bright-eyed woman who wore her hair pulled back by a banana clip*, had to bring her daughter to the bathroom during the show. When she sat back down, she leant over and anxiously asked her husband, “We didn't miss The Boobs, did we?” She was assured that she hadn't and she settled back in to watch the show.

Anyway, the ladies weren't particularly good dancers, and maybe not surprisingly, their dance wasn't all that sexy. They had the wooden quality of the fat kid stuck in the back line of a high school show choir, and I think they were more interested in being dressed up than anything else. People were unsure how to respond to their performance. It's tough to reconcile a show that includes a middle-aged mother who probably runs her church choir singing “You'll Never Walk Alone” with three future NFL player's wives twirling around in their ruffled mini-skirts (Beth claimed she saw their underwear at one point). But I think people were just grateful to be able to gawk at them one last time and they were enthusiastically applauded at the song's end.

I did have one run-in with one of them on Friday night. I was walking to the bathroom at the bar when the youngest one stopped me and gave me a high five. “Hey, dancer boy,” she said. I was unsure what she meant but figured she had just been able to sense that I was a really good dancer. Then she told me I had been “awesome” in the show that night, and I realized she thought I was one of the dancers. I didn't have the heart to take an unearned compliment, so I told her that that had been someone else. I should point out that the guy she mistook me for is seven years younger than I am, has the tips of his hair dyed blond, and is Canadian. She then saw the rest of the cast behind me and realized where she recognized me from and told me how much she had enjoyed the show. By that point, I was too taken with the idea of pretending I was a 21 year-old Quebecois dancer to properly register the interaction, but she seemed very nice.

*I had to call Sue and ask what the right term for this accessory was. She thought I wasn't serious at first, but I assured her it was for legitimate research purposes.