I'm An Actor!

So maybe not exactly – but I did just dance for three hours at Backstreet in Detroit. On film. Next to two of the leads in Lifetime's "Prayers for Bobby." And, when we wrapped after the four-hour shoot, I felt like I was reliving a recent incident where some random kid squirted me with his water gun. Yes, I was wetter than you during your last sexual episode, but being a sweaty extra is totally worth it. And I'm not just saying that because of the 75 bucks, or that I got my hair did, and my face powdered (and de-oiled – hot, huh?). I'm saying it because I got to see Scott Bailey's bare chest for three hours. 

At "Prayers For Bobby" Set

Sigourney Weaver's chair! Where she sits!

Sigourney Weaver tries to stay warm on the set of "Prayers for Bobby" 

Hair and make-up at the Farmer's Market in Royal Oak

Never had I been so close to a filming crew, or Sigourney Weaver, until the team of the Lifetime telepic "Prayers for Bobby" shot a pride parade in downtown Royal Oak today. In between the assistant directors calling "Cut!" and telling the almost-1,000 extras to pretend Sigourney was not indeed Sigourney (or someone with an icky alien bursting out of her chest – which he never said, but I thought they might imagine that), I witnessed the A-list actress walking from prop tent to the shooting site with her umbrella assistant, sipping from a Biggby cup and doing a little dance, presumably to heat up her 6-foot figure. Were you an extra? How'd you stay warm in those cut-off shorts!? 

For more on the shoot, check out my story in Between The Lines in the June 26 issue. 

'GOLDEN GIRL' Interview: HELP!

On Wednesday, I'm gabbing with Rue McClanahan (the sex-crazed Blanche on "Golden Girls") about her part in the July-premiering "Sordid Lives." Wanna ask her something? Leave a comment below and I'll ask our beloved Blanche. 

True Colors Tour: The Most ‘Color’-ful Moments

The crowd’s clothes were like a box of Crayola crayons when the second annual five-hour True Colors Tour stopped on June 11 at DTE Energy Music Theatre – but vibrancy wasn’t just colored on a T-shirt. Host Carson Kressley was “smitten with the mitten.” And we were smitten with a certain Cyndi Lauper lover, the B-52s still-random moves, and 10 other bright affairs.

THE WHITE TIE AFFAIR

They’re still no-namers (even a security guard stopped cute lead singer Chris Wallace after his energetic opening gig as he walked through the pavilion), but we’re betting, if people forgive Wallace for wearing a magenta tie over a white one, this Fall Out Boy/Panic at the Disco hybrid’s pop punk will turn into quite an affair. And, heck, even old security guards might one day know who they are.

LAUPER LOVER

“I didn’t think anybody would give a shit about this,” said Haslett, Mich. resident Shan Maggard, showing his overzealous Lauper love with an uber-big banner featuring decade-spanning magazine covers with the pop icon. Several folks stopped him for a picture. Looks like people do give a shit.

‘SAME, SAME, SAME’

With biting humor about her stint on “The View,” which she compared to a “women’s prison film,” and beating Ann Coulter in Parade magazine’s Most Annoying Celebrity poll, Rosie O’Donnell added humor to poignant recollections of her mom and her battle with depression. Nothing, though, was as touching as when she linked her son’s “same, same, same” saying (he likened other chubby people to O’Donnell at a store) to uniting all races, sexes, orientations because, well, we’re all the “same, same, same.”

CYNDI LAUPER

She bopped (and bounced and beat the stage), and, even in-between classics like “Time After Time,” newbies like way-gay “Into the Nightlight,” and brief lighting outages, the girl who just wants to have fun spread the queer cheer. The tour’s ringleader also proved as comedy-deft as Rosie O’ Donnell, who – no joke! – played drums for Cyndi, when she introduced pro-masturbation “She Bop”: “You can sing along – but nothing else.”

THE ‘STRAIGHT’ MEN

If their expressions could talk, they’d be saying, “No one said this would be like Pride. I just came for The B-52s,” as they sunk into their chairs during the peppy show – where practically everyone else thought they were at a queer club. Not necessarily cool for the non-gay guys, but for us? Oh yeah.

To read the other five, visit www.pridesource.com or pick up Between The Lines on Thursday 

Cum One, Cum All

So this was in a subdivision near my house. And it has to be the funniest thing. Ever. Who plans on, uh, cumming? 

My Interview With Jack Black

"I must confess: I didn't eat any bamboo," Jack Black quips to Metro Parent about preparation for his voiced-part as a martial arts-playing panda in his latest animated flick. In PG-rated Kung Fu Panda, out June 6, he plays Po, a big, bubbly klutz who - gasp! - is selected to fulfill an ancient prophecy and joins the world of kung fu, studying alongside his idols, the legendary Furious Five.

"He's a big, full-grown panda," Black says of his character, "but he's still very childish. ... And while he's very positive and a happy panda he's also very insecure because he doesn't actually possess any of the kung-fu skills that he dreams of having."

Still, Po's determined to prove himself to the Furious Five's leader, Master Shifu (voiced by Dustin Hoffman), by trying to take down the looming threat, snow leopard Tai Lung. Kids, Black believes, will relate: "(They) spend a lot of time daydreaming about what they're going to be when they grow up and have fantasies about being the best in the world at something.
"And, (they) also feel insecure because they don't have those skills yet and (they're) embarrassed to tell people ... what they want to do."

To read the rest of my interview with Jack Black, visit www.metroparent.com

Aunt Cyndi!

Cyndi Lauper doesn't want to scare you. So, when she bebops into Michigan for the True Colors Tour sequel, those bright-and-blinding '80s get-ups - what she calls her "own personal museum pieces" - aren't escaping from her New York attic.
The others? "They just kind of wore out. I kind of got rid of them - or they're sitting in a box somewhere rotting," Lauper tells BTL in her mile-thick New York accent.
Two decades-plus after Lauper tried to convince her egg-crackin' ma that girls just wanna have fun, the unpredictable pop icon, whose kitschy wardrobe looked like something borrowed from Rainbow Brite, is now proving to us that while she's totally for merrymaking, even at 54, she wants to use her voice for more than just singing. And - "She Bop" fans - we don't mean pro-masturbation propaganda.
When Lauper's inimitable cords console with an aw-worthy one-liner - "I will always be your friend" - on disco-infused "Set Your Heart" from her latest long-overdue dance disc, "Bring Ya to the Brink," it wouldn't be too out-there to think, "Hey, Cyn's talking to me!"
"I'm kind of like an extended member of the family," she says. "Kind of"? Heck, we should be calling her auntie.

To read the rest of my interview with Cyndi Lauper, grab a copy of Between The Lines or visit www.pridesource.com on Thursday. 

PRIDE!

Was Motor City Pride's headliner "Into the Groove," a Madonna cover band (pictured above), something you'd, ah, 'cherish'? What'd ya think of Eric Himan (and his hot tattoos)? Or how about The Monkey Man, Ryan Mintz? All in all, the entertainment – save for some karaoke-sounding singers at the Second Stage – was a few steps up from previous years, but that Doggie Drag Show (pictured below) was absolutely fab! 

Look for more Pride photos and coverage – along with my exclusive interview with Cyndi Lauper – in Thursday's Between The Lines