I AM the Cheerleader

I KNEW it, I KNEW it, I AM the cheerleader, dear reader. This not only means that I get to sleep with the captain of the football team but also something that we've all suspected for a while - Peter Petrelli really does love me. Oh, and I get to have a sexually ambiguous best friend. This also explains all those nights out that I've completely blanked. Until now, I'd blamed the vodka but NO!! In fact, a mysterious Haitian has been wiping my memory. Could life GET any better? To take this highly scientific (my italics) test, brought to us by Entertainment Weekly, click on the pic. (via Felipe Anuel)

Fabulous Sport

In a bid to restore Britain's national sporting pride, I will tell you that Darren's (he's on the left) new footie show starts on Canal + Sport TODAY at 12:45 p.m. He's even put in a slot called "La Leçon d'anglais" ("The English lesson"). This is his first "solo" venture, plus he's a mate, so get watching if you can (Lecteurs français: à vos télécommandes, s'il vous plaît!!).

Peter Petrelli- Because He's Worth It

"Heroes" - dontcha just LOVE it?? At last, something to set the TiVo for on a Saturday night. Beautiful people with small bottoms, shiny hair and SUPERpowers battling the - equally attractive - forces of evil. An epic struggle packaged in 45-minute chunks, who could ask for anything more? I don't care that I don't really understand the Nikki/Jessica thing (I can never tell which one's which). Or that Claire, the cheerleader, looks about 30. Even the bits in Japanese don't get on my nerves (true!!). There's just ONE thing that spoils it for me: Peter Petrelli's hair. It's just a little too artful, a tad too "product"-heavy, dontcha think? I've become obsessed with it. When he's on screen, I can look at nothing else. I judge entire episodes on whether Peter's having a bad hair day or not. Am I alone in this? Help me people!! (Obviously, I love him and this is just a cunning ruse to stick a big fat photo in a place where I can gaze at it all day). P.S. OMG, I am informed by my VOX buddy Felipe that even better things are on the way.

BearForce1

Just when I was wondering what my next career move should be, I find these guys, who claim to be the world's "first true bear band." They also have a rather fab website. Marvellous. (via Absolument Gauthier)

Hang Out with My Friends!!!

While I'm busy tagging and untagging pictures of myself on Facebook and furiously listening to music on Last.fm, some of my friends are actually out there DOING stuff. Cool stuff, too. So if you're in Paris over the next few days, you should go along and watch them.



First up is the ever-lovely Nardac, whose band Blutschwester (check out their MySpace) will be playing this evening at 21h00 in the 20th arrondissement. If you can't make it along to La Féline (6 rue Victor Letalle, 75020) tonight, they're doing another gig June 13th at Le Cave de Zorba (137 rue Faubourg du Temple, 75011), plus one in Amsterdam on June 8th. Here's a pic of her in action, sorry, sorry, I meant HERE'S some pics of the band from their gig in January.





Now, Saturday may be a write-off, but by Monday you should be raring to go again. Which is good news because the equally lovely and talented Sandrine is going to be performing in "Cabarets Furieuses" - I suppose it's like a series of sketches, really. Anyway, I've helped her learn her lines for a couple of them and they're really good, sharp, quirky and a bit offbeat. Plus, she's a terrific actress.
They're performing at the "Mélo d'Amélie" (4 rue Marie Stuart, 75002) at 20h30 on June 4th, or if you can't make it then, again on June 24th at 20h00 (that's the one I'm going to).
P.S. I shall, of course, be doing my own little piece of performance art this weekend i.e. the traditional Saturday night trolley-dash round the Monoprix food hall just before it closes. Something of a Marais institution, it normally starts around 19h45, but please remember, it's NOT suitable for small children and there are no subtitles for the hearing-impaired. Come early, come often.

She's My Man

Last night, dear reader, I found myself in Ana Matronic's shoes. Not literally, thank goodness (I've never been good in heels). But when she told an anecdote about how she'd watched the New York Dolls perform on the very stage where she stood, just for a moment there she became one of us, a simple fan. We could relate. And that made me love her even more. Because, as far as I'm concerned, she was the lynchpin of the whole Scissor Sisters show, a pure charisma bomb. She even spoke French. I only had eyes for her. Well, her and the rather swoonsome Del Marquis (there's something about an axeman, I always say.) Don't get me wrong, I love Jake and he was giving it his all but, somehow, he was still outshone by his bandmate (though both the Captain and I remarked that he seemed taller than we expected - whatever that means). We'd been building up to last night's gig since December and the potential for disappointment was high, but NO, it was everything we could have wanted and more. For me, the highlights were - in no particular order - "Everybody Wants the Same Thing", "Filthy/Gorgeous", "Take Your Mama" (totally my idea of a night out) and "Laura". Honestly, I haven't sung and danced all the way through a gig like that since Madonna's "Reinvention" tour. It was tight, it was slick, it was almost exhaustingly energetic but they still looked like they were having fun. Tremendous. Afterwards, we found Meg and Petite and ran round to the stage door in the hope of getting in a little post-show screaming as the band left the building. Unfortunately, this wasn't so successful. Apart from ourselves, there were only four teenage girls and a boy with a tambourine. And the only person we saw leaving the building looked like support act Snax's dad. So after about 15 minutes, we gave up and went to McDonalds instead. Of such nights, dreams are made. (BTW, I didn't think Snax was quite as awful as everyone else made out, leading to the - frankly libellous - accusation that I'd bought his €10 CD. I thought his "Your friend called me a faggot" was quite catchy really.)
P.S. This wonderful photo was taken by Tolivier, who was a) even nearer the stage than we were and b) kind enough to let me use it here. What a star! See more of his pics from the concert and what he thought of it on his blog, either by clicking on the pic or here.

Not Much Punch

"Performing when you're feeling less than 100% is VERY Judy Garland," Rufus Wainwright informed us at the start of his tribute concert in Paris this evening. Well, yes and no, Rufus love. With Judy, you knew about her life as a child star, the strapped-down breasts, the diet pills, the failed marriages, the drink and the uppers and downers. Watching her perform was thrilling not only because of her immense talent but precisely because there was always that risk that it would all get the better of her and her guts would come spilling out on stage. With Rufus tonight, well, we knew he had a cold. A bad cold, bless him. I felt for him, I really did. But there was no melodrama there, no crackle of electricity, no DANGER. Don't get me wrong, I had an excellent time and I certainly don't hold the cracked notes and slight dip in energy against him. Anyone who goes on stage when they're feeling like death and tries to entertain a crowd is a real trouper. And when he's on form and performing his own songs, Rufus is very, very good. Hearing him sing "The Man That Got Away," tonight, however, just brought back long-buried memories of the Sunday lunchtime drag cabaret at the Royal Oak in Hammersmith. You know, however much he shouts it, that Rufus hasn't "been through the mill," in fact, you very much suspect he's got someone rather tasty lined up backstage. Ditto sister Martha's HOPELESSLY overblown "Stormy Weather" - you can't stand snogging your boyfriend in the wings and talking about the price of fish and then potter on to tell people "Can't go on, everything I have is gone". Of course, you can fake it, lord knows even Judy faked it, but it has to be convincing. Otherwise it's just karaoke. Rufie was at his best in the uptempo numbers such as "That's Entertainment", "Chicago", "San Francisco, Open Your Golden Gates" where, whipped up a little by the FANTASTIC band behind him, his natural showmanship, humour and general pizzazz came to the fore. He almost had me convinced. I was tapping my foot and swaying in my seat. Then Lorna Luft came on and - in one song - showed them how it should be done. I wasn't even aware that I was giving her a standing ovation until I tried to sit down and found my annoying seat had folded up on itself. THAT'S Broadway, that's how those songs should be sung. Marvellous. Get well soon Rufus, I still love ya, but stick to what you do best, hon.
P.S. The Gayterati were out in force, naturally - you could hardly breathe in the loo at half-time for "designer" scent. I even indulged in a little air-kissing myself. I do love these "community" nights out - arf!

"It's so funny..."

"...how we don't talk anymore," sang Sir Cliff Richard, Britain's self-styled Peter Pan of Pop (see left). I don't know to whom he was referring but it could easily have been us, dear reader. For which apologies, but the problem with this New Year's resolutions business is that it's just so time- consuming getting them all going. I'm exhausted already and I still have to sort out my two main ones. However, if all goes to plan I shall be over-achieving on such a MASSIVE (my caps) scale, international fame and fortune can surely not be far behind. Fingers crossed. But I digress. What on earth is a big poster of Sir Cliff doing in my local metro station? By that I mean, why is he doing a concert in Paris? In all the years I've lived here, never once has a French person asked me about, or indeed made any reference to "zis Cleef Reeechard." I've never heard any of his music on the radio. So who's gonna go?? The Palais des Congrès is pretty big, after all. I'm worried. Given that he's now Sir Cliff, will they round up all the British people in Paris and force them to buy a ticket? Will we all have to do the Shadows guitar-walk? Actually, the Cliffsta, as I call him, and I go back a long way (doesn't everyone in **showbiz**?). In my London days, I'd just popped into Fortnums to pick up a few bits, as you do. I remember I was rooting through the wine bins looking for a choice bottle of claret when, all of a sudden, I noticed that everyone was looking at me. I put it down to the old Rhino75 charisma and tried to continue my search. But now I'd noticed them, I could sense that they weren't just looking, they were staring - and when I looked up then I saw they weren't actually staring at me (hah!) but just to my left. At Sir Cliff. Looking very unlike the Peter Pan of Pop and more like an old turkey. And why was he in the wine section? I thought he was teetotal. True story. Oh alright, I KNOW that anecdote had a slightly less satisfactory ending than Abba The Movie, (i.e. we didn't shoot off into space in an elevator to the strains of "Bachelor Boy") but it still counts as a Rhino75 celebrity encounter (just like here, here and here). Still to come: how I once had Jeanne Moreau nestled in my armpit and discussed accountancy with Kristin Scott-Thomas in a lift (not at the same time though, I hasten to point out - otherwise it sounds like some bizarre gender-reversal version of "Jules et Jim"). Peter Ustinov eat your heart out.

Something for the Weekend

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new Holy Trinity: George, Derek and Alex. Can you think of a better way to round off the working week? PHWOOOAAARR, is what I say. I've spent the last two weeks watching Season 1 and half of Season 2 of "Grey's Anatomy" and I'm now seriously hooked on surgeons. Now, ever since I can remember I've had a thing for hospital drama, going all the way back to that wonderful Aussie soap "The Young Doctors" (fabulous hair). I even like "Casualty" and there's no-one even remotely hot in that. If Amazon sold blue "scrubs" and surgical masks, they'd be top of my wishlist and no mistake. Of course, the genius (my italics) part about GA is that it isn't really about medicine at all - 'cos, let's face it, that would be really dull and possibly a tad depressing. No, it's about people with small bottoms and shiny hair shagging each other in lifts and in stairwells and feeling miserable when it all goes wrong, all set to a fabulous folksy-pop rock soundtrack. It's a Coke ad with heart-attacks. It's Dawson with defibrillators. With the added bonus of Patrick Dempsey (yes I know, what else HAS he been in?) as God and Everyman. And that girl from "Roswell" (which was all about people with small bottoms and shiny hair turning out to be aliens - OMG, do I see a bit of a theme developing here?). Anyway, I plan to spend my weekend staking out my local hospitals, paying particular attention to the lifts and stairwells. I'll let you know how I get on.

Dreamgirls

Am I the only person who's excited about this? It has such HUUUUGGGE potential. I've been listening for the last month to early Diana Ross & The Supremes just to get in the mood. I think it's going to be a corker but I'm starting to wonder if I'll be going to see it on my own when it finally opens here (probably 2010 or something). In an effort to drum up some support for my lady B, have a look at what she has to say about gay men here. Another reason - as if we needed one - to love her.