Christmas Countdown Continues with Jimmy James as Bette Davis

I want to wish ya a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart! Feliz Navidad!

Here's impressionist Jimmy James as Bette Davis singing "Feliz" on our Christmas Countdown this year.

Season's greetings!

A Bay Ridge Christmas with Buddy Beaverhausen & His Friends

Presents under the tree

This year, we're living large in Bay Ridge, at Kevin's Christmas dinner party and isn't it grand!

Last night, my friend came up to exchange gifts with me as we gnoshed on jumbo shrimp and cocktail sauce, and drank strawberry wine. Shortly after going back downstairs to his apartment, Kevin -- in the midst of cooking the turkey for our Christmas Day feast -- discovered his recently repaired oven refused to shut off! Bread was burned! Drama! Firemen were summoned, the oven shut down, and all the oven cooking had to be done in my apartment today. My stove and refrigerator were also utilized as there was much cooking to be done.

Below is a photo of Kevin (right) and his friend, Jim, up in my kitchen, preparing food this afternoon. Kevin's Superman apron was one of my Christmas gifts to him last night. But he truly was a Superchef in the kitchens today. Jim, who hails from Colorado, made a fabulous brie with berries baked in pastry!

 

Friends arrived.

Friends Jo Ellen & C.J.

Lisa, C.J. & Janet (ex-Wanda of Wanda & the Way It Was)

The hors d'oeuvres were fantastic; the turkey, ham, mashed potato, green bean, cranberry, and every type of salad imaginable made for a very fabulous holiday feast; the desserts were divine. What really made the dinner party, though, was the combination of positive energies all around.

There was a tour of my apartment (the floor-through over Kevin's), and most guests followed Kevin on a tour of the famed Christmas lights on the homes of Bay Ridge. (I just saw these last week, so stayed at home.)

After desserts, once everyone was reunited, I received an unexpected but fantastic Christmas gift from from C.J.:  a great print of the Supremes at Lincoln Center poster and an 8" x 10" girl-group publicity shot!

What a great Christmas! In the end, a lot of work, especially for Kevin who says, maybe next year he'll go to a Broadway show. But it was great company, a great time was had by all, and now it's my time to slide into tomorrow and return from the magical to the mundane. But only for a while.

As for tonight, Merry Christmas to all!  ~~ Dj Buddy Beaverhausen

Hark! I hear reindeer on the rooftop!

The Final Countdown 2012: It's Christmas!

Joan adores a good Christmas wreath

So ends my Christmas Countdown for 2012 as it's Christmas Eve. And what says "Merry Christmas" better than the famed Joan Crawford radio interview? It was recreated in the movie, Mommie Dearest," abridged, with Faye Dunaway infamously assaying the part of Joan. Here is the full, original 1949 broadcast. "From tomorrow on, they earn their gifts!" Merry Christmas to all my viewers!

Joan Collins on My Christmas Countdown 2012

Here's the "And All Through the House" episode from the 1973 film, Tales from the Crypt, starring Joan Collins. May your days be merry and bright! I'm not so sure about your nights.

(Note: I posted this last year but that link has been removed & the image quality of the new link is better anyhow. Hope you like.)

A Very Bay Ridge Christmastime

Tracey & Merv by my kitschy Kristmas tree

My friends, Tracey and Merv, joined me today for our Christmas get-together, and the season was wrung in with great cheer. Then, downstairs friend and neighbor, Kevin, joined the party, returning from his Bistro Awards committee meeting.  Great friends, great food, fabulous gifting -- like the chic pair of chairs Tray and Merv brought over and assembled for me (see directly below). They complement my glass, three-tiered art-deco coffee table beautifully. And they're so comfortable! They actually give, or rock, a little bit and are perfectly contoured for any pair of buns to nestle into. I also received a set of wine glasses and two bottles of strawberry wine from Jones Winery in Connecticut.

New chair

White-wine-flavored salami, salmon, cheeses, crackers and jumbo shrimp were on the menu, along with an assortment of drinks. The shrimp were huge, meaty and came cooked, un-shelled and de-veined from Bay Ridge's Frank & Eddie's, complete with their own cocktail sauce. The living room was artificially scented with a pine spray to match my artificial tree and spread the holiday spirit via Odorama. My Soul Christmas cd played, as did my Merry Happy dj-promo-only dance mix, a popular downtown Manhattan bar-and-retail-store player since 2010.

At dark, designated driver, Merv, transported us all through the neighborhood, with Kevin navigating. Again, the burg is aglow with awe-inspiring lights on houses and landscaping that I first experienced last year, but on foot. Car is better.

Below are some pics from our adventure in sight-seeing:

Tracey in front of a Bay Ridge Christmas-crazy home

Dj Buddy B & a glowing Santa Claus

Tracey & I at the house of blue lights

Kevin & I washed out by the lights of this house

Kevin & Tracey in front of another beautiful display

We came back, from our tour, to gingerbread men, cookies and egg nog spiked with just a little Southern Comfort, chatting and once again eating, this time at Kevin's new dining room table. And I loved being with my besties, supportive, schmoozing and laughing, happy.

I moved to Bay Ridge last year, on the day after Thanksgiving, so I was in no way prepared to do a whole Christmas thing. Plus, my mother had just passed away that October, so I just wasn't in the mood.

This year is different. This year is relaxed and happy. Christmas is a time of joy and love. I experienced that with my friends tonight. Bless us all and Merry Christmas! Tonight, I'll count my blessings instead of sheep.

Pearl Bailey on my 2012 Christmas Countdown

Oh, yeah, Santa honey, just like Miss Pearl says, lay some $$$ under the tree for me! And seriously, when I was a child, honeys, I -- for honest -- thought her name was Elephant Gerald! Yeah, for real! But I love her! Loved her on tv. Now, Santa baby, get busy on that money for the 2 of us!

Bette Midler on my Christmas Countdown 2012

Bette Midler sings Mele Kalikimaka from her 2006 Christmas album, Cool Yule. I love this version! And the Harlettes doing their "Optimistic Voices" schtick on back-ups. Mele Kalikimaka is not a native Hawaiian phrase for Merry Christmas, by the by; it's a phonetic interpretation of the English "Merry Christmas." So, Mele Christmas everyone!

Cyndi Lauper ~~ A Memoir: New York Times Review

I'm currently in the middle of reading A Memoir by Cyndi Lauper, which I find very moving and candid. Although co-authored by Jancee Dunn, Cyndi's voice certainly seems to be right there in the prose, as if  you could hear her reading it to you. 

“Most of us think of Cyndi as the free-spirited girl who just wants to have fun and her many die-hard fans will be surprised to know her real life story,” said her publisher, Judith Curr, quite accurately.

Cyndi will be doing a holiday benefit show for homeless LGBT youth this Saturday, December 10, at the Beacon Theater in New York, with a roster of celebrity guests including Adam Lambert, Sarah McLachlan and Roberta Flack, among many others.

I read the book review that appears immediately below from the Sunday New York Times and thought it was so on the nose and concise, I decided to share it with everyone. Personally, I would recommend this sensitive and emotionally real, down-to-earth autobiography as a holiday gift for anyone who enjoys Cyndi's music.

’80s Pop

‘Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir’

By DAVID HAJDU

Published: November 30, 2012 

Cyndi Lauper’s memory speaks with a Queens accent. The crudely endearing charms of Lauper’s book, a memoir of her unglamorous outer-borough upbringing and not entirely glamorous life since MTV made her a pop star in the 1980s, are its unpretentious attitude and its blunt, brassy voice. “Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir” is boisterous, erratic, sometimes goofy and — very much like its author’s music, in all this — not quite as dumb as it may seem. 

Unlike recent books by Patti Smith, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards that have come to be regarded as models for the art of rock literature, Lauper’s memoir makes no attempt to be the least bit literary. Lauper essentially lays out the events of her life in something close to straight chronology, with digressions, in the rhetoric of lunchtime chat. Lauper grows up in a two-­family house with “shingles that looked almost like the color of Good & Plenty candy.” She struggles as a young woman, so hard up at one point that she skins and cooks a squirrel for dinner. She works almost anywhere that will have her, including as a hostess for a Manhattan club catering to Japanese businessmen. She develops as a singer and songwriter, loses her voice, regains it and pampers it ever after as the precious gift that it is. She endures a vile sexual episode with her own friends and bandmates. She becomes famous, then gravely ill with endometriosis, and she proves to have a habit of saying “the wrong things to the right people” — like the time she told Steven Spielberg, in a meeting, that he wasn’t being very ­creative.

Lauper’s book seems untainted by the influence of other books. It comes across as true to Lauper’s colors, which are those of an eight-pack box of crayons. Never academically inclined, Lauper struggled horribly in class and was eventually expelled from Richmond Hill High School in Queens. (After she became a celebrity, the school gave her an honorary diploma.) Lauper guesses she had attention deficit disorder, and she writes as if she still does. Intellectually skittery, but blessed with a sense of style as strong as her singing voice, Lauper has the ability to recall every outfit she has ever worn. As she describes the day she went to watch the Beatles’ motorcade drive along the Belt Parkway on its way to Shea Stadium: “So I started screaming, and I shut my eyes, and by the time I realized I should open my eyes, I’d missed it. I was all dressed nice, too. I had dark jean clam diggers with pointy shoes and a sleeveless green, blue and black plaid shirt with a man-tailored collar. I’ve never actually met a Beatle, but I saw Tony Bennett once when I was a kid at the 1964-65 World’s Fair.” You have to marvel at the wonder of prose so vividly loopy.

Raised as a Catholic in a matriarchal Sicilian-American family, Lauper was the second of three kids born to a culture-hungry waitress whose second husband, a sexual predator, so taunted Lauper that she left home in her teens. Lauper portrays her mother, tenderly, as an earthly counterpart to the many watchful spirits she has felt helping her throughout her life. When Lauper was a young singer, playing in a string of cover bands that worked the bars in Long Island beach towns, she was once thrown from the van on the way to a gig. “I was flying with an angel above me,” Lauper writes, “and I passed these dead musicians who were on the side of the road just watching — Duane Allman, Berry Oakley. Then the angel said, ‘That’s a good place for you to land,’ and it was a bush.”

Wherever she landed, literally or figuratively, Lauper saw divine purpose. She has been nominated for 14 Grammy Awards, and won as Best New Artist in 1985. After her first couple of Grammy losses, she consoled herself: “Maybe it’s God telling me that it’s nice to be recognized but awards don’t make the person or the singer.”

"Feels Like Christmas" by Cyndi Lauper, produced by Junior Vasquez:

Bette Davis & Andy Williams on My Christmas Countdown 2012

Photo: Cecil Beaton 1940

Bette Davis sings and dances with chorus boys on this Christmastime 1962 Andy Williams Show.

Dj Buddy B's Holiday Tobogan Ride

With Thanksgiving but a week away, it's time for me to make like disco Santa and distribute my perennially popular "Merry Happy," in time for the holidays, to the coolest bars, lounges and shops in NYC. I put the cd-r on my boom box tonight to have a listen and, damn, if I didn't impress myself! This strictly dj-promo-only 2010 cd-r continuous mix isn't for sale. It includes dance remixes of Charo, Julie Andrews, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, The Carpenters and many more. I know it will rock the season for those exposed to it.

Friends who may be without it may request a free copy by messaging me:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dj-Buddy-Beaverhausen/121433544617989


I hope to pull a brand-new 2012 promo together over this weekend that will include Donna Summer, Andy Williams, Darlene Love, Bananarama, Al Green, Mae West and Joan Crawford! Give people something fresh for the holidays. Hope it souffles. Wish me the best with this endeavor. And, of course, I'll be working my blog's Christmas Countdown once more, after Thanksgiving.

I always say that, once you hit Halloween, you're on a wild tobogan ride down till you hit New Year's Day. Ok, here Dj Buddy Beaverhausen goes down that slippery slope, headed towards the holidays! In the meantime, happy shopping and partying, y'all!

Bette Midler - Cool Yule (Official video)

MERRY CHRISTMAS DAY!
It's Bette with this very cool version of the magnificent Steve Allen song. Very divalicious video, y'all!

David Letterman - Darlene Love's 'Christmas' Mash-Up

Tonight, Christmas Eve, Miss Darlene Love will be belting out "Christmas, Baby Please Come Home" on The David Letterman Show for the 25th year in a row. Unbelievable!

Well, this is the end of my Christmas Countdown and I want to wish everyone a very happy holiday, whatever your beliefs, wherever you are tonight. It's that time of year; feel it in our hearts. May we move towards greater world peace in 2012.

This video link was put together by the Letterman people. A wonderful, expert mash-up of Love's Letterman performances over the years. She's a gal of many 'dos.

Enjoy! Love, peace and happiness!

Joni Mitchell - River

Today's Stocking Stuffer is a companion piece to today's Cyndi Lauper's Christmas Countdown number. From the classic album, Blue, it's another blue Christmas, this time for Joni Mitchell. Ok, break out the Jack Daniels, it's time for some good ol' holiday self-pity!

Enya - Oíche Chiúin (Silent Night with Lyrics)

Let's ease into Monday with a beautiful carol. It's "silent Night," done in Gaelic, a Celtic language. My great-grandmother spoke it. Enya sings it here in a traditional carol you otherwise know so well. For all you Irish and Scot descendants, you may not understand the words (as I don't), but you'll understand in your collective unconscious. Oíche Chiúin! It's Christmastime.

Dolly Parton and The Girls - Hard Candy Christmas

It's Sunday so, naturally, I thought Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for today's stocking stuffer on my Christmas Countdown. It's a hard-candy Christmas for Dolly Parton and the girls in this touching song that's become a Christmas perennial. Maybe I'll dye my hair and lose some weight and hit the bars!

Cher feat. Rosie O'Donnell - Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)

Made for Rosie O'Donnell's holiday album, here's the full version of Cher's cover of "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)." Rosie on it, too, seriously auto-tuned. Now, Cher sang back-up (amongst many others) on Darlene's Phil Spector-produced original, back in the '60s. But here she makes the song her own, Cher style. (Beats the shit outta the recent Michael Buble cover.)

A Scary Mary for Christmas

I love this video that's been around for five years now, but it's still brilliant. So, today's stocking stuffer is this trailer for Mary Poppins that markets the family, Christmas-appropriate Disney classic as a horror film. I already posted Julie harmlessly remixed, doing "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music. But be afraid, be very afraid of Julie Andrews this time around, especially all you Marys out there!

Judy Garland's Christmas Song

Judy Garland always comes through, always astounds us. No matter what condition she's in. From her CBS Christmas special, here she is with her three adoring kids, Liza, Lorna and Joey. They seem to have lived in Rob Petrie's house from The Dick van Dyke Show.

Guess what? Carolers come to the Garland residence and one of them happens to be Mel Torme!

Unclear what medication with what alcohol Judy was on that day, but she seems to have a difficult time with her lyrics. Mel even gently comments on her first big gaff. "Rainbows," not "reindeer," really know how to fly? I thought Judy was already over that damned rainbow!

You'd think, in her condition, she'd be very relaxed, but she's still a jangled bundle of nerves despite her meds, and a bit of a mess in this. Still, she's an all-time wonderful talent (though, I'm sure, CBS brass were worried during this taping), so here's Judy at Christmas to entertain us all, all these years later.

Cher at Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas

Cher's moment on the Pee Wee Herman Christmas Special from 1988. Sadly, she does not get to sing, but she shows up at the Playhouse looking fabulous nonetheless.

"Merry Christmas" from Joan Collins

We all know Joan Collins is best when playing evil, scheming, even murderous slags. And it's no different come Christmas season. So, here is Joan, on Christmas Eve, in the 1972 British horror film, "Tales from the Crypt." It's an anthology film and Joan's segment is first up and a classic of sorts. It was later redone on the American tv series of the same name, both film and tv show having been based upon the golden-age EC comic book.

The name of this episode is "And All Through the House," and it's mostly Joan fighting an escaped psycho from the local asylum who is dressed as Santa. However, it is in this opening minute and a half that Joan once more re-establishes her credentials as Bitch with a capital B. Isn't that heartwarming?