Lay down, Sally. And rest you in His arms.

I just got Aunt Sally's holiday card. I saw her yesterday on the way to the airport. In a coma. She'd had a stroke. I don't believe she lasted the night. I managed to block that out this morning, then the mail came.

White Christmas

I haven't blogged at all this trip as there is little time and too much to say. It's just past midnight on Christmas Eve, and it is snowing. It looks like we'll have a rare white Christmas, which is magical. The white and the hush both seem to grow out my window.

And yet all I can think to write is "It snowed on Christmas Day the year my father died."

Thankfully, not yet. But as sure as spring, it's coming.

want

Oh my big Black Santa.



And it kills me that these rhinestone wonders are in the window of a high end shoe store in a Nashville mall and not in a drag shop.

malled

These have always brought me luck.



Seriously? No.

I loathe the mall at Christmastime. But I am comforted that I am also easily amused and often distracted by shiny objects.

I've got my love to keep me warm.

These are some clever holiday booze cozies.

it was just ghastly

Books are so decorative.

stop right there Santa,

You had me at "ho."

Clued in

Last night's 25th anniversary screening of Clue was hilarious, and a ridiculous good time. Even if Ben and I only had popcorn for dinner. The Q&A with Writer/Director Jonathan Lynn was interesting, but it was a greater treat to sit behind and chat a little with Jane Weidlin (Go Go and Singing Telegram Girl). Here we all are with Cookie Dough (Jane's Golden Girl's co-star) after the show.



I was furious with myself for cleaning, setting out, and then completely forgetting to change into one of my favorite t-shirts for the show:



Curses!

Santa visits Sundance Saloon

The Sundance Saloon Holiday Ball is always a boot kicking great time. This year, Dave Hayes went full Santa and totally made the night.  Super happy holiday funtime!








And, this may be my favorite photo of the holiday season:

Getting Corralled at A Christmas Carol

Cora Values, proprietor and chef of the Gas-N-Gulp in Rectal, Texas, invited us back this year for another holiday treat. This year she and her neighbor/performers provided an "illiterary adaptation" of Dicken's A Christmas Carol at Cora Value's A Christmas Corral. As the one sheet says: We beat the Dickens out of it but kept the spirit."

Looking back, I did not read the Facebook Event materials closely (I always buy a ticket if there is a Sean Owens or Cora Values holiday show). The online blurb includes:

EXIT Theatre's holiday hostess Cora Values is back, direct from the Gas 'N' Gulp out on I-19! And she's unearthed a 'forgotten literary classic,' Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Sadly, Cora has several pages and a few cast members missing-- and possibly a few marbles.


But at "Cora Values' Christmas Corral," there's no Ghost she can't wrangle, and no audience member she won't rope into the action! Join a merry band of truck stop regulars for a deep-fried retelling of this beloved holiday story, featuring brand-new original songs from the songwriting team of Don Seaver and Sean Owens. All that's missing is the perfect stooge-- er, Scrooge!

Yes, well, I was that Stooge. After the show started and the exposition set, as it were, Cora began asking certain male audience members to read a line from the Christmas Carol script. It was the single line "Bah!" A man a few rows in front of me gave it a shot and Cora asked if he felt he sounded strong and commanding with his bah. Waldorf turned to Statler and said under his breath "I think he sounds like a sheep."

Then Cora asked me to read, so I gave the "Bah" line my best "Baaaaah." (oh ewe!) I was then pulled on stage, sent behind the curtain and bedecked in a red velvet robe, "wig" and wool hat (and it was already hot in there). And so I played Scrooge, script in hand, for the entire 90 minute show. Some times as straight man and sometimes as the joke.




Sean (Owens, Writer/Director/Cora) and I can play well off each other in conversation and can banter cleverly with one-upmanship of quips fairly endlessly. And we have a shared affection for ridiculously deplorable puns. I really can lie about this: I had a BALL. I had a hard time gauging how big to play it, and settled on a 7. Of course, a Hardcastle 7 is an average persons 13. But I finished the show with rave reviews and most of the audience thought I was a plant and it had all been meticulously rehearsed. High praise indeed. (I was also pulled from backstage to front to join the entire cast for the final music number, which of course I did not know. I was reading over Cora's shoulder and keeping up pretty well, enough for him to break character and say, "He's just sight reading this and my copy doesn't even have any music!." Luckily Tiny Tim's did and she opened her script for me.)




And to think just minutes earlier I was feeling all down and nauseated and flushed and thought "If I can just make it through the show..." I don't know what cured what ailed me. Kevin thinks it was the Guinness, which he had prescribed medicinally. I think it was the stage.

in other silliness

tragic

Sadly, while a family came in from the cold and the rain to enjoy the decorations at the Hyatt Embarcadero (as we did), one of their toddlers wandered off and fell into the fountain's drain trough. When found, he was revived via CPR, but later died in the hospital. I hate family tragedies at Christmas. So terribly, terribly, sad.

AngelFlake

Something about this image struck me.

stability

Papa John update: They haven't beeen able to find out what's causing the "episodes," which could be siezures or mini-strokes, and the excellent wound care people are still working the leg. Dad is still in the ICU, but stable. You know, for a Hardcastle.

lightfall

Sparkle fight!

You better watch out...

Bear with me.

It's true. I love bears.

And the Master of Silly that is Paul Day.

Santa, Baby

for my friends facing fierce budgets

Use the force.

Unshelved.

Papa John Update

Hi kids. Some of you closer to me know that Dad went into the ICU yesterday. It was s huge scare for me and a big deal all around. He fell and banged up his knee severely just before Thanksgiving, and his enormous hematoma finally opened up and the wound care people are helping. He finally moved to the rehab part of Richland (from VUMC), but then they couldn't wake him up yesterday morning. He became more alert while in the ER with lots of fluids so dehydration and the trauma likely sent some other facet of Parkinsons into hyperdrive. Regardless, he's in and out of it, but better. And I am reassured that mom has been referring to his care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as "excellent." Two things: (1) Mom knows how to assess these things and (2) I don't think anyone has ever rated above "very good" for her, so that she's referring to the team of neurologists, nurses and particularly the wound care "kids" as excellent is significant.

Brother Mac called me after his visit with Dad this morning and he was a little groggy, but I think that's just the morning. But according to Mac, Dad is much, much better than he was yesterday. Thanks be.

Side note: I am all fascinated by the Wound Care people now. Apparently at Vandy they are the best at what they do, and even they keep saying that they have never seen anything like it. Other experts are coming in to see. (I'm also told some seasoned nurses have to look away.) I really want to know what this looks likes but no one will take photos for me when they are in action. Mac said he watched for a little while and if I take a horrible mental image from my imagination I'd need to times that by about ten. He said when they were taking some clots out it looked like they were picking blackberries out of his leg. I may have to send Margaret McAllister in with her camera phone—without her I wouldn't even have the "before" photos. Mom said they removed a liter of, we'll call it "stuff" from his wound last night. While a painful procedure I'm sure, he has got to be feeling better with all that nastiness out.

Of course, now I'm worried about these clots getting into his system and doing damage in other places. But one worry at a time.

It also sucks being so far away with no real-time news updates, opportunities to just hang out with Dad while he recuperates, or be any practical help at all to my already previously over-burdened and sainted mother.

Shilpa and Paul have been great support and I have tried to continue our previously scheduled holiday frivolity as planned. Which has successfully taken my mind off things which could overwhelm me yet I can't do anything about.  And at times I feel guilty for having fun while Dad is in the hospital, but I also recognize that that is crazy—my sitting at home working myself into a worry does nothing to help anyone, least of all Dad.  We had some fun times last night taking holiday photos around town (and wonderful comfort food at Burger Bar) and I'll post about that soon too.

soccer coach kicked

Jeff Pearlman of Sports Illustrated.com has a wonderfully written article on the reprehensible firing of a women's soccer coach at Belmont University in Nashville. She was fired because she let her team know (they were asking) that her not-legal-in-the-eyes-of-the-State-of-Tennessee wife is pregnant with their child. For acknowledging the open secret that she is a lesbian, the superbly successful and much-beloved coach was fired by the University administration for not being Christ-centric enough. You know, because of the gay.

I've been following this story casually for a while, but a friend in Nashville posted a link to this article and I think its great that SI.com is giving it some national attention, and I think the author is a good writer. (And you know how much i love a well-written piece of journalism.)

His lede is wonderfully poetic: "One of the greatest things about morality is how those who claim to act on its behalf are often the ones drinking from the emptiest cups."

Here's the article: Belmont gets it all wrong in ousting woman's soccer coach Lisa Howe

Thanks! It was a gas!

Sigh. On it's three year anniversary, last night was the finale of Brain Farts Trivia with Pollo Del Mar at the Lookout. We were a fun bunch of not-it-mostlys, and in a fitting end, it was me against Mark, team Cerebral Quifes versus team Janet Wood If She Could, in the lighting round. I lost by a half point, erroneously shouting Richard Geffen when it was (of course) David Geffen. Oh what fun it's been! Thanks Pollo!



We will never forget the Joyce Dewitt Rule.

(Of course, I had to wear something to sparkle for the occasion, although I did not manage any face paint.)

tis the season!

Last week we were enticed downtown for Drag Queens on Ice, but we a bit disappointed to find one Guy In a Dress which does not a drag queen make. Two of the staff skaters had neon nylon wigs, and there were two Sisters, but that was about it. I have been spoiled by my drag elite in this City. Also sort of disappointing was that among my cohort, I was the only one who was willing to actually skate. But it was great seasonal fun and really put me in the spirit. And Union Square at Christmastime is ridiculously festive and totally inspires the jolly. Add me and mine and we totally make the yuletide gay. I'm not as sleek on my sakes as I once was, and while this rink was in fact frozen water, it was a both of a stretch to call it "ice."

But again, much fun and all holly jolly. And as I expected the Drag-Capades, I dressed accordingly.









After skating we took a little tour of the hotels around Union Square and had lots of fun with the over the top decorations, including the myriad of trees at the Saint Francis and the wonderfully enormous Sugar Castle.



I hear that the Fairmont has the largest gingerbread house. We had so much fun on this mini tour that we've planed a proper hotel decorations tour for this week. If we can stand the hike, we'll take Nob Hill. Clearly, we get into the Christmas cheer.






I tried to get a shot the Christmas Tree with the Starlight Room's neon sign but I had a hard time getting the exposure right, and staying still enough without a tripod. Still, some lovely shots, and good for monitor desktop backgrounds.


By the time the weekend came around, Coco and I were too tired, individually, to make the SantaCon massive thousand-strong all-day Santa-suited bar crawl across the City. The cold and the rain and the way-too-much-to-do didn't help matters either. My cheap Walgreens Santa suit will keep until next year. I do have to applaud this amazing Santa costume featured in Laughing Squid and the SFist. The photos look like a Photoshop filter was applied, but they are untouched. She calls this Desaturated Santa. So, so amazing. Santa from the black & white era!




(Photo credits BrodyQat and Tom Hilton, click through to their Flickr streams.)

This first weekend in December also brought the annual Elegantly Wasted birthday party (six years running now!), and opening weekend to the very funny drag version of the Golden Girls, the Christmas Episodes!




Go see it! Birthday girls & boys get a lap dance from Blanche.