Jan. 7, 2009

Happy New Year to all my darling prairie dogs!

My celebration of 2009 started a few days early at the Blue Moon in Rehoboth Beach, DE. Those crafty homos have transformed this Methodist Church Bible Camp into just plain campy fun on the boardwalk! And it’s also one of the very few patio gigs I secure each December.

I find such enthusiastic fans in this area of the state, commonly-known as the “lower, slower” Delaware which makes it possible to do my Christmas show after the holidays without anyone noticing. These folks seem to understand Richfield, even though they claim to never have set foot in Minnesota. What a compliment to this first state of our country!

Here I sang the praises of Proud Mary, shared my favorite Jell-O recipe and, of course, led my Christmas carol sing-along! This joyous group of music honors Jesus’ birth and also the other pretend holidays like the Jewish Chanukah Christmas, the Muslin Ramadan Christmas, and the Afro Kwanza Christmas, which is usually spelled with an “X.”

Shortly after my time at the Blue Moon, I had to ramp it up a bit and make tracks to New York City, where I welcomed in the New Year of 2009 at the Cutting Room. I carried no cash and literally ran from the Port Authority to the cabaret for fear of my life! But soon I found that the people of this godless mecca are quite welcoming!

It was a real treat for me to do a New Year’s gig in the Big Apple, because the last one I did was in 1978 for the WWII vets at the VFW in Richfield. It was a fun evening, but we had to do the countdown at 7:15 because the bus for the home was picking everybody up at 7:30 p.m. sharp!

In NYC, however, I found out quickly that these big city folk insist on staying up until Midnight and have this very strange tradition of dropping a ball during the countdown. I’m sure that such a display must not draw much of a crowd, but if that’s what they wanted, I gave them twice the fun by dropping two glittering spheres! It was a real class act, as both of my balls lowered right on schedule, even though the left one was larger and hung persistently lower.

XO and a wish for your New Year to be like my hair – large, in charge and teased to Jesus!
Miss R