* Chyna is my adoptive showgirl mother. She took me in many years ago, when I felt like I had no one and no one wanted to help me become the person I wanted to be. She walked me through my first show, my first pageants, my first bookings… She gave me a couch to sleep on and handed down evening gowns, jewelry and dance moves. She has been one of the most important friends in my life, and I just love her to pieces.
* This is a clip of her modeling a custom evening gown in the 1999 Tennessee Entertainer of the Year pageant at the old Connection in Nashville. I still can’t believe I won that pageant… she’s untouchable!

* Here’s yet another video from my showgirl days. I’ve had this one for awhile, but hadn’t uploaded it to YouTube. I used to love performing songs by Garbage, and my performance of their #1 Crush song was the inspiration for the scene in Soldier’s Girl. You can see my other #1 Crush outfit compared to the one in the movie:

* Wow, here’s a blast from the past. I have several bits of old video footage from my days at the old Connection. The problem was that I could never videotape myself, I always had to depend on someone else to run the camera and whoever I could corral into doing it would invariably shake like Katherine Hepburn in an earthquake if they ever even had me in frame at all. This footage of me doing “True Colors” is particularly, staggeringly shaky, which made it pretty much unwatchable. But I’ve been fooling around with it, and after keyframing the HELL out of it and using a few cheats to minimize the impact of the shaky camerawork, here’s a version of the number. I’ll probably fool around with it more as time goes by… archiving things is a hobby of mine, in case you haven’t noticed.
* Aside from the technical aspects of the footage, it does document a fun time in my life. I was well into the comfortable period of my career as a showgirl here… I had won my pageants, been on cast for a few years and had a loyal and generous groups of friends in my fan base. I made my own clothes for the most part, wore my natural hair color (brown) and felt very comfortable on stage. Ahh, such fun! But those days couldn’t go on forever… actually, they could have, and I know showgirls who are still working after 20 or more years of it, but I just wanted more for my life. This was also the club where I met Barry, and after everything happened as it did, I just had to get out.
* I’m very glad that I was able to grow into myself among the kind and generous people of the Nashville club scene. I remember every person you see me bend down to kiss in this video, if not by name then at least by shared moments in the lights and music during and after the show. And I’m very glad that I was able to move onward to the next phase of my life, here in Hollywood. What a journey this is!

* Tonight I was at Bar Sinister in Hollywood to model some of the latest designs from my friends at Pretty Pain. It was lots of fun, as always. Tonight was one of the rare times it rained in LA, so the models’ changing area was all damp and leaky, but as a veteran showgirl I can get ready in a broom closet with a compact and the light from a cellphone if I have to. Luckily, the conditions were not quite that dire here, ha ha.
* The show went well, and I was flattered by the audience’s loud reaction to my time onstage. I got to spray everyone with silly string at the finale. Later I went upstairs to rest my feet and hang out with my girls. Everyone was buying me drinks and the boys were chatting me up, so all things considered I guess you could say I had a good night. =)

* I hate this song. It always comes on a the worst times. Grrr! If you can’t tell what it is by listening to the clip, I’m not gonna say it, ha ha.

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