How Mary Lou Retton's Bladder Ruined the State Fair
by Patrick WensinkFrom 2007
Gold medal gymnast and 80s icon Mary Lou Retton tells a crowd she has to take a piss every minute of the day and it smashes me in the face: The State Fair is the saddest place on earth.
The State Fair has, for years, been a symbol of all things American. It’s where your state comes together and salutes its flag, rides tilt-a-whirls and judges beauty pageants for teenage girls and Holstein cows alike. On a good day, it’s where everyone learns something new about home and eats something fried. It’s a place where hard-working carnies, in my opinion, the V-8 engine that drives America, hold your life in their scabby hands.
It’s not the place we come to see how American culture is stepping on its own neck. It’s definitely not the place we come to hear a midget with a gold medal talk about her bladder.
The Oregon State Fair held a lot of promise for me. This state is weird and I assumed this would be some sort of Bizarro State of the Union. Hell, the commercial for the fair involved Donald Duck (The University of Oregon’s mascot), a Sasquatch and Art Alexakis (The blonde dude who sang in 90s alt rock stars Everclear.) cruising down the highway in a convertible. This was a big freak flag and it looked to me like it was flying high over our state capitol, Salem.
It wasn’t until we were in the parking lot when my wife reminded me that Portland is the only bizarre place in Oregon, the rest of the state is very rural and very redneck. She had a great point, but I didn’t let it slow down my lust for one-eyed carnival workers, pie eating contests and America’s sweetheart, Mary Lou Retton.
In a one-two punch that seemed like proof to its wackiness, Friday’s big draw was American redneck supreme Ted Nugent and this afternoon offered everyone’s aforementioned favorite gymnastic legend. I assumed Mary Lou would perform some floor routines and maybe even a number on the uneven bars, tell us to stay in school and cartwheel out the door. In the meantime, I planned on having a love-in with our delicious state fish, the salmon, and poke the Ferris wheel operator with a stick to hear him growl about how, “This town ain’t no Sacramento.”
Man, was I wrong.
By now, everyone’s heard endless liberal white noise about how capitalism and the American way of life are, well, killing the American way of life. While I agree with a lot of that, I’m not going to preach. I will however sermonize about how capitalism and the American way of life are killing my beloved State Fair.
Things start off fairly promising as we walk through a maze of old rides clanking and screeching and causing vomit. Further down the path, we’re boxed in by the usual array of shooting/tossing carnival games. But we didn’t come for the rides and games, we are adults now and damn it, we’ve come for things like the bearded lady.
The first fair-like thing we see is a lonely trailer that claims to have a 13-foot alligator inside. Somehow even the one dollar asking price seems a little much, so we pass. Bigger fish to fry, I tell myself. Next was an elaborate booth provided by the Highway Patrol about crystal meth. While it was meant to scare kids, it more or less gives step-by-step directions how to make it in their basement. Oddly, right next to this, the Highway Patrol offers a game which boils down to, “Guess which dead animal’s fur is which!” I don’t see the connection, which must mean I’ll never cut it as a radar gun jockey.
Things pick up steam with, “The Great American Spam Championship.” Here a representative from the canned meat king accepts recipes; the winner gets theirs on a can of Spam. While the judging takes place he and his assistant play twenty-questions of Spam. This consists of, “Can anyone tell me how many cans of Spam it would take to equal the weight of the Statue of Liberty?” A man in the front row has the highest guess with one-billion, while I have the lowest at seven. The truth is somewhere around seventy-million. The winner gets a t-shirt.
We also learn on your thirtieth anniversary working at Spam you don’t get a gold watch, but your likeness carved in gooey pink meat. Wow. “This,” I start to think, “is what America is all about.”
I look at the rest of the schedule and see our little gymnastics dynamo is sandwiched between the Home Depot Tool Contest and the Hermiston Watermelon Seed Spitting Championship.
I start to feel embarrassed. This woman was the first athlete on the front of a Wheaties Box and now she’s second banana to seed-spitters? Where’s the justice?
To add salt to my rapidly opening wound, she’s here to talk about taking charge of your health. I’m disappointed there will be no pommel horse, but decide it’s probably a good topic since everyone is eating elephant ears and deep fried Snickers bars. Sadly, I didn’t read the fine print under her picture.
I’m starting to suspect that the wife is right, the Oregon State Fair isn’t a haven for the beaver state’s weirdest. The remainder of the pavilion is filled with the 4-H baking competition, and it’s safe to assume the brownies here aren’t “Special.” There’s a cake decorating contest, some kid’s pocket knife collection (At 77, while impressive, I fail to see how this warrants it’s own booth.), a quilting bee, a dress making contest (I actually get a little hope when one of the entries is made of Duct Tape!) and possibly the world’s most boring exhibit: The Oregon Table Setting Competition. Yep, you guessed it, a contest to see who can put the salad fork in the right place.
We leave the pavilion kind of wondering why we spent nine dollars each to see this. Though, I now have a new goal in life: to be an official 2007 Oregon State Blueberry Pie Judge.
The rest of the fair goes nowhere but downhill and in a tilt-a-whirl-type hurry. As the wife describes in another dose of common sense, “The fair is a place you pay to get in so you can pay for more shit.” Everyone is selling stuff, from chickens to dairy cows to cheap t-shirts to farm equipment to gourmet wine. This is starting to look like Oregon’s Largest Swap Meet…with a fried food court.
If the food court at the State Fair doesn’t make you seasick, I don’t know what will. It’s exactly what I expect: lots of overweight Americans eating things that shouldn’t be fried. “This”, I start to think, “is what America is all about.” I’m always interested to see how far the carnival pushes the culinary envelope every year. Corndogs and elephant ears are old news, they’re your grandma’s fair food. A few years ago stomachs ached across this country when an industrious redneck deep fried a Twinkie and sold it for four dollars. I’m psyched to see what’s new.
What catches me this year, aside from the Ketchup Udder—a ketchup and mustard dispenser that works like a cow udder, is the MONSTER Fry Brick. For five bucks some dirty carny chef fills an entire deep fry basket full of French fries. By this I mean they pack it full of potatoes until it’s a solid brick. Then they dunk it in scalding oil. What comes out is a giant fried lump the size of a bread loaf.
The family next to us sat down with one brick. The wife and I quietly eat the only healthy thing available, a chicken skewer with rice (Surprisingly, not fried rice) and a coconut shaved ice. Normally I wouldn’t be embarrassed about this, but at the state fair eating healthy is like admitting you were a communist in the 50s. I assume at any moment the Carny CIA will take us away and force feed me chilidogs. Before we leave, the patriotic family next to us orders another MONSTER Fry Brick.
After lunch I start to chip away at the carny illusion at the Oregon State Fair. And, if we’re shooting for a sociology project, what’s happening to this country in general. Yes, it’s becoming fat, but America’s also being ruined by efficiency and capitalism. The proof, you ask? Funtastic Traveling Shows.
I practically have a seizure when I realize all the carny booths are painted the same. None of the workers have facial scars or tattoos or prosthetic limbs. Every ticket taker is well-groomed and clean…and worst of all, wearing uniforms.
Now I’m fine with a Starbucks on every corner and TIME/Warner owning pretty much everything else. Every consumable product in America can be traced back to five or six parent corporations. Whatever, that’s fine…at least it was before this mentality crept into my beloved STATE FAIR.
Funtastic’s slogan, “Quite Possibly…the World’s Finest Carnival,” is their corporate rally cry. It says, “No more independent carnies. No more bearded ladies. No more grizzly, smoking pedophiles behind the controls of the Tilt-A-Whirl.”
The noble carny is the last pioneer, the last nomad of this quickly shrinking nation. They go from town to town, don’t give a damn about anything and feed your fried foods. They’re heroes, they are what’s great about America. And like every other brilliant aspect of this country, someone figured out how to turn a profit by draining all the character out. Funtastic has its fingers around the carnies’ throats and it’s not afraid to squeeze.
My mouth is sour from noticing this. These are the same kids that work at the mall, now they encourage you to shoot water at a clown’s mouth. I’m in a horribly sweaty place and only one person can save my day—1984 Women’s Gymnastics All-Around Gold Medallist…you know who.
Sadly, the Oregon State Fair, already staggering around like a drunken one-legged carny, comes crashing down back in the pavilion. On the same stage where I dreamed about having my face carved out of salty, canned meat, Ms. Retton stands.
She’s tiny. I could easily squish her into a French fry basket and make a MONSTER Lou Retton. She still has the growth-stunted voice of an 11-year-old. And she’s not here to stress the importance of an education or how staying away from drugs is cool. In fact, she’s here selling drugs.
She’s now a representative for corporatized, All-American, pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer. If Funtastic Traveling Shows sold drugs, it would be called Pfizer.
Little Mary Lou talks into the mic wearing a business suit, she doesn’t even have the courtesy to slip into a leotard. She never jumps or spins or flips. She just wraps her life story into a well-rehearsed drug commercial. Looks like Mary suffers from an overactive bladder. Her whole life, even when she was whipping Russian ass at the Olympics, she’s had to piss really bad. It caused a lot of anxiety and suffering in her life. But now, thanks to her friends (and sugar daddies) at Pfizer, she is no longer a victim. She’s working on a campaign called, “Life Beyond the Bathroom” and is encouraging people to come out of the water closet to admit that they, too, need to pee.
Pissed off and sad, Leah and I leave before she’s done. Mary Lou has thrown the last shovelful of dirt on the State Fair’s grave. The annual celebration of Oregon’s awesomeness is ruined.
We’re paying to spend money.
And even when we’re not spending money, we’re being sold corporate urine medicine from an American hero. Now I realize the seed spitting contest is sponsored by a watermelon producer. The Spam Championship is a fancy, traveling commercial. Shit, the 13-foot alligator is probably sponsored by Sea World.
Not even the Tilt-A-Whirl can bring a smile to our faces, especially since the operator’s never seen the business end of a tattoo gun. There is no uncharted corporate territory. “This,” I tell myself, “is what America is all about.”
But still, staring this evil money machine in the eyes, we have to laugh. Any company that gives away free Post-Its that say “LifeBeyondtheBathroom.com” can’t be all that bad, right?
Posted on 2009-09-16