Iraqi troops aren’t puttin’ up a good enough fight for you? Your teams didn’t make it into the Final Four? Your need to engage, even vicariously, in tales of the life-consuming urge to win is going unmet? Read Anna Ditkoff’s under-the-skirts, behind-the-scenes look at the Miss Gay Maryland pageant. [via Romenesko’s Obscure Store]
[Doing sultry, smoky ballads instead of the more common, flashy, diva dance numbers] is a risky gamble, and in the four times that Jenkins has gone to Miss Maryland he has never placed higher than fourth. “In a contest, it’s about the crown, it’s about the name, it’s about the recognition, it’s about all these things that some of these insecure girls really, really have to have. And they’re willing to do anything for it,” Jenkins says. “For me, if I win, I win. If I don’t, I don’t, but you’ll remember me. You will remember my name.”
Drag competitions, drill team championships, Westminster, rhythmic gymnastics, ice skating, track, cricket, baseball– I better stop there for now. Jennie Livingston‘s amazing 1990 documentary about Harlem drag balls, Paris is Burning, is currently only available on VHS.