If you listened closely enough, you could hear the four-inch platform cry out in pain.
There’s no way the tiny stage at Acre 121 could accommodate them, the seven men gyrating, flexing, and thrusting, the 1,500 pounds of lactic acid and spare tires writhing, the shockwaves rippling over over-indulged paunches, through meaty thighs and cankles, into the vulnerable wood paneling. A full drum kit stands behind them, and you get the feeling that the tambourine on the floor could be the feather that descends onto the car at cliff’s edge in a Wile E. Coyote bit, sending it toppling over. I want to spare the men and this stage the calamity, but my Daisy Dukes are snagged. One false move and I could face indecent exposure charges. I reach into an unmentionable place and produce a notepad.
On April 12, Vanessa McDonald—she’s an account executive at Washingtonian magazine—launched "A Cure is Vanessesary" as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man and Woman of the Year competition. She has 10 weeks to raise $100,000 and has scheduled Derby parties and guacamole-eating contests in New York City and Washington. The Dad Bod Pageant is her third event, the realization of a contest she dreamed up when she learned the term at a birthday party last year.
"I pictured Perry’s Drag Queen brunch [D.C.’s second-best drag queen brunch, per Yelp], but with dad bods," she tells the contestants before the pageant begins.
Dad Bod is a nebulous term that gained steam when Leonardo DiCaprio was photographed looking like a 43-year-old instead of Leonardo DiCaprio. Some in the crowd think obesity is the key, while others see it as the "Before" photo in a Nutrisystem ad: Golic and Marino sticking out their guts while maintaining a hint of tone in their arms and chests. A dad bod occupant is molded from wet clay rather than chiseled from marble. When he flexes, the skin doesn’t angle—it oscillates.
"It means it is a manly body, but it’s still got a little bit of a belly to it," says hotelier Judit Nikolov. She sits at the bar with Sofia Cruz. Cruz left her native Barcelona to take a pharmaceutical marketing job in Washington two months ago, which means she missed out on last year’s greatest Two Second Controversy. A Clemson University co-ed penned a 500-word listicle about her preference for dad bods in the spring of 2015 (sample: "no one wants to cuddle with a rock") leading to a string of histrionic responses and over-serious think pieces that emerge any time something goes viral (Time printed a thousand-word diatribe from Vice’s "gayest writer" arguing that older men putting on weight is a "sexist atrocity").
"Men are thin in Barcelona, so I’ve never heard this term. I can get used to it though. I’ll be selling hypertension drugs to dad bods in a few years," she says.
Finding the contestants in the oversize crowd is simple. The first round is formalwear. Adam, 25, wears a black three-piece suit with a perfectly knotted purple bow tie over his 215-pound frame. He found out about the pageant while doing a costume change during an Acre 121 competitive karaoke contest. He can do a killer B.O.B. or Louis Armstrong cover, which has me glad that organizers nixed the talent portion of the competition (I was going to chug three beers and recite the alphabet backward).
"Swimwear is my talent. I tested four variations [of my costume] with my roommates. That’s my competitive advantage," he says.
I had an ace up my sleeve as well. Amy Johnson Yount, Ms. Petite Arkansas (1994) and Mrs. Illinois International (2003), is a friend. Five hours before the contest started I received tips that would deliver my Albino-Snake-Swallowing-A-Live-Pig-Whole physique the coveted crown.
"Winners stay on stage 11 seconds longer than anyone else, so take your time on stage. I would tell you to make sure and use butt glue if you were competing in swimsuit lol. Butt glue keeps the suit in place," she says in a Facebook message. "Usually girls practice and prepare for a pageant for weeks if not months in advance!"
I trained relentlessly for the competition, adding four pounds of pizza and beer in two weeks, but found myself in the hole. I discovered that I don’t have a bathing suit, so my wife cut my yard-work jeans into Daisy Dukes. Then I asked her where she keeps her butt glue. She still won’t speak to me.
Lack of butt glue and swimwear is a major setback. Things only got worse when I arrive in the dressing room, Acre 121’s loading dock. Despite my binges and shapelessness, I am woefully underweight. The four beers, two hot dogs, two bowls of cereal, one plate of pasta, and one bacon burger I ate the day of the competition bring me to 177 pounds, a personal best—but I’m still a middleweight standing in a room full of heavyweights, all but one of whom exceed 210 pounds. Nearly half of them have facial hair expertly groomed to separate their faces from their double chins. None of them are fathers.
McDonald comes back to explain the rules: We’ll be judged on formal, swim, and casual wear on a 1-10 scale. Each round we will be asked one question, our responses ranked on a 1-5 scale. After the swimsuit round, we will descend upon the crowd and humiliate ourselves for dollar bills. Don’t be shy, we’re warned; shyness would reflect our love of blood cancer afflicting thousands of children around the country.
My money is on Jeremy from the get-go. He’s clean-shaven with almond eyes, a chin prominent enough that you hardly notice the loose skin hanging below, and a perfect coif. He’s wearing a dark blue suit cut to mask his round belly with a red power tie befitting a certain presidential candidate. The ensemble lives up to the "Vote Dad Bod" placard he holds. He expounds on which Masters golfers have dad bods. Consensus: everyone but Jordan Spieth, and you saw what happened to him.
Two buckets of beer arrive and disappear. "To mediocrity," Eric Campbell (5’11, 225) says as the emcee leads the crowd in a "Dad Bod, Cancer Sucks" chant. The first round is easy. Adam undoes his bow tie and reties it effortlessly while singing Alicia Keyes’ "If I Ain’t Got You." Eric performs sign language. Jeremy comes out to "Hail to the Chief" and when asked about his physique says "I want every child to have the same opportunity to have a dad bod as I did." It’s masterful.
We’re hurried off stage. No one’s there for formalwear. We return to the loading dock and are met with a tray of whiskey shots and orders to get in our swimwear. I change into my makeshift Daisy Dukes and see that they are truly original. Jeremy’s in a lifeguard outfit. Gordon, 30, is in board shorts. Adam’s in a towel.
We take our shots and are beckoned on stage one by one. I take my shot and grab two beers. I’ve never been embarrassed by my body because only one person sees me in a state of undress and Pope Francis just told her she’s stuck with me. There’s something unsettling about a pageant, though—something no amount of butt glue can reverse.
You walk a serpentine path through the crowd to get from the loading dock to the stage. You try to strut and count to 11-Mississippi, as Mrs. Illinois International told you, but you can’t help but plow through because there’s an overflow crowd gathered for the distinct purpose of laughing at you. When you take the stage the emcee asks you to sum up your dad bod in one word, an act of mercy if I’ve ever seen one.
Adam: Yes
Eric: Mediocrity
Gordon: Silence as he performs a belly roll
Grant: Excellence
Jake: Comfortable
Jeremy: Snuggly
Jesse: Unforgettable
Billy: Ummm ... Catholic birth control.
Scorecards obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon reveal that I finished dead last. Gordon’s silence netted him a perfect score. Adam’s secret weapon turned out to be a pair of Daisy Dukes. He’s staring bullets at me.
The contestants are then ordered onto the stage to … writhe, wriggle, and flex. They’re sent into the crowd for 15 minutes to mingle and have more than 300 dollar bills pumped into their waistlines. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation researchers appreciate the cash, but they’re going to need a lot of hand sanitizer.
The casual wear round is next, and contestants are asked to hit on a victim onstage. The pick-up lines are crass and awful—as all pick-up lines are—until Jeremy comes out in a flight suit. The bar explodes into a rendition of the Righteous Brothers’ "You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling."
The emcee tries to dismiss us, but then gets a signal from the judges that they already have a unanimous choice. I now understand the stunned feeling that gripped O.J.’s lawyers when the jury came back after only a couple hours. Gordon wins with the top score in swimwear (common boardshorts) and casual wear (a soccer jersey). They give him a blue sash with yellow lettering that spells out Best Dad Bod and a beer-helmet tiara.
"Thank you, it was a lot of hard work," Gordon says.
Jeremy is robbed; the Washington Free Beacon is fourth-runner-up. Investigative instincts kick in and the Washington Free Beacon learns that Gordon is a close friend of the McDonald family. Then it learns that the Washington Free Beacon is pretty much the only person on stage that isn’t friends with the McDonald family. The Washington Free Beacon, still clad in Daisy Dukes, feels pretty stupid.
The pageant is McDonald’s most successful event to date, netting nearly $3,000 for the foundation. She’s got seven more fundraisers planned in New York and Washington to chase down the rest of the money.
"I could’ve brought up muscle-bound men, but I don’t think we would’ve gotten the response we did," she says.
Army Maj. Mike Erlandsen is in the crowd to support his wife Sandi, a judge. Their son Michael cracked a little league ball two years ago but couldn’t leg it to first base. He was diagnosed with allergies and sent home to rest. Two days later, a scan revealed a large growth in his chest.
"You go from admitting your kids for allergies to 30 days of your kid receiving chemotherapy," Major Erlandsen says.
Michael Jr. is in remission now, but has nine more months of treatment. He takes pills daily and visits the hospital once a month. Even if all goes well, he won’t be out of the woods for another three years. There are bright spots amid the torment, most of which come from the foundation. Reigning National League MVP and foundation benefactor Bryce Harper hosted Erlandsen and several other families at Nationals Park a couple years back. He spent half an hour with the kids fielding questions about baseball and his dog.
The veteran officer marvels at his son’s resilience.
"We’re thankful everything’s working out very well for us, but you can’t get those two years back," he says.
I wish I got on that stage and danced for more cash.