Yule flip your wig.

Who needs the Rockettes? Dragsters Justin Bond and Jackie Beat kick up their own New York "holigay" spirit

Move over, Dame Edna, and watch out, Santa--two of downtown's hottest drag stars are redefining New York City's famous holiday traditions. At the hip rock-and-roll joint Fez--the onetime venue of Hedwig and the Angry Inch--Justin Bond and Jackie Beat are the wicked elves in the velveteen frocks.

The smoky-voiced Bond is taking a boozy warhorse--his drag persona Kiki--on a yuletide ride in "Kiki & Herb: Do They Know It's Christmas?" Meanwhile, Wigstock: The Movie star Jackie Beat follows up last year's seasonal smash "Jesus Christ, It's Your Birthday!" with his latest slayer, "How the Bitch Stole Christmas!" They're hitting the holidays with their cannons full of nondenominational slap shots. (Throughout December Kiki and Herb appear weeknights except Thursdays, and Beat does two shows on Sundays.)

"We're lancing the Christmas boil," Bond deadpans. Paired with accompanist Herb (Kenny Mellman) on the piano, Bond's Kiki is a showbiz survivor sure to outlast Cher. With a repertoire that madly mixes Britney Spears, Broadway show tunes, and REO Speedwagon in presenting a journey of two Jurassic lounge lizards crawling toward the millennium, Bond and Mellman have been packing New York clubs such as Flamingo East and Fez since 1996. Yet Bond's song-spewing, monologue-pattering Kiki plays more like musical theater than camp cabaret.

And their Christmas show especially, Bond says, "somehow resonates very strongly with people. I think it's because there's just such a dearth of [holiday] material. And even though at times we're making fun of it," says the androgynous honey-blond singer in a husky baritone, "our hearts are always in the spirit of the event." "Do They Know It's Christmas?" ties a seasonal twist on the Bee Gees' song "Holiday" and makes the carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" sound more like Led Zeppelin than Rosemary Clooney. Bond solemnly calls Kiki's bruised yet celebratory interpretation of Tori Amos's "Crucify" "a tribute to the holy mother."

Bond and Mellman believe that what their characters Kiki and Herb share with gays and lesbians is a keen "outsider" vision. By embracing the season yet seeing the irony in its hype, Bond says, lesbians and gays "have an eye that is able to separate ourselves and look at [Christmas] as `the other.'" Anyway, Bond says, "everything is so fake [at Christmas] that drag just seems to be a natural extension. It's like America's time to go Vegas."

While Kiki and Herb deconstruct the season by sticking to the songs' original lyrics, not so with Jackie Beat. Zaftig actor-writer Kent Fuher--who's been honing his sarcastic and surly drag persona for nearly a decade in nightclubs, indie films (Grief), and on the legit stage (Valley of the Dolls)--says Beat's approach is "taking songs that have been associated with suburban holiday perfection and turning them into something just vile. I mean, I do love Christmas," he confesses, "but it just needs to be knocked down a notch." His show, he says, "is out to resuscitate the 12-year-old gutter-mouthed little boy in you."

Fuher--whose mother was reared in a Milan convent and whose father was an avowed atheist (which means I'm an atheist who prays a lot")--describes the show as a "Donny & Marie Christmas special meeting an episode of Cops." In the title piece Beat transforms Dr. Seuss's villainous Grinch into a Rubenesque "bitch" who seeks revenge on the buffed boys of Chelsea--stealing "Rollerblades, workout gear, bronzer, and more/Skimpy little slut shorts and tank tops galore!" right out from under the gym bunnies' IKEA-trimmed trees.

Beat's kitschy mix of pop parodies also includes flipping Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" into the Kwanza tribute "Black Christmas" and rendering "Silver Bells" as "Go to Hell," a revision inspired by the frustration Fuher experienced as a gay man attempting to do his holiday shopping among hordes of heterosexuals. "It's something every queen has thought," he sighs--then he turns threatening: "Like, Would you get your screaming brat away from me--I'm trying to buy Barbie collectibles for my last three tricks!"

Indeed, a whiff of violence seems to permeate the seasonal drag Fuher and Bond envision. "Kiki's Christmas dress will be blood-red," Bond declares, "just like the afterbirth." Fuher is keeping Beat's outfit a secret, but considering how he'll whip around North America in December--with gigs in Chicago as well as New York, plus an RSVP cruise--"possibly a neck brace," he cracks. "Of course, I'll have it bejeweled."

Drake is a writer and performer whose The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me will soon be a feature film.

Find more on Jackie Beat and Kiki and Herb at www.advocate.com