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Tour update

As expected, more tour dates have been added in July, but I think they are all Paris dates. Yippee! Being in France is nice, but being in Paris is excellent. Last time I was here, I hated Paris and loved Lyon. But this time, with a teeny bit of say in what I do, it's better. I was 17 on a class trip with teachers, so we stayed in Pigalle (home of the Moulin Rouge) with a bunch of sleazy European guys hitting on us all the time. Surprise surprise that I didn't leave with the best impression of Paris.

Now, it's a different ballgame. The metro is super easy to navigate, especially after having lived in DC for so long. And famewise, it's still easy to be mobile, nobody really recognizes us much, and if they do, it's so polite that it's not a problem. Mostly just, "bravo!"

We apparently meet a lot of celebrities at the VIP after-thingie, but since we're American we don't know who they are and just don't get it. For instance, two shows ago, I politely told the this cute tanned, blond girl that she should come to California because she has a good look and they'd like her a lot there. The next day, our french singer told me that she's the french equivalent of Britney Spears! How funny is that?

I've still yet to tell of the adventures I had when I met up with my french exchange student and went to her house for dinner. I'll save that for later. I've got to go eat in the cafeteria before dinner. I swear we're adults, but are you starting to notice that this trip is still sort of like a college field trip? Group dinners, group shopping...

pics

Show #2

The show went fabulous. It's getting better each night, as it should. Our friend got us invited to some super hot french club, Mandala Ray, into the VIP section as special guests, so we left the venue fairly early tonight. Two of the other girls left immediately w/two of the instrumentalists and made it home without incident. Me and another girl left about 5-10 minutes after them because our warddrobe girl needed the key to our room to do our gig laundry. Apparently those 10 minutes changed the climate. When we left in our jeans with our wheelie bags behind us, walking the 4 minute walk to our hotel, we had to stop and wave about 20 times at the bazillion french people who kept shouting out, "bravo," "magnifique," "super," "parfait," etc. Accolades, man. It was so surreal and great. Surprisingly comfortable too. Maybe in some past life I was a pageant queen with the gracious wave going on, because I did a good imitation of someone who knew how to take a compliment! One group of 5 older people asked if we had dinner plans and I told them that someone was throwing us a party, thank you.

This is going to be interesting. After it didn't happen on the first night, I'd waved off the possibility of groupies, etc. But it's going to happen. Even inside the hotel, waiting for the cab to the club, we took pictures with random people who asked for autographs, etc. Maybe after word gets out that our artist is not staying in the same hotel as us, some of it will die down. But the french are way more polite as groupies than Americans. Everybody shouts compliments, but at a nice distance. No wonder Johnny Depp loves living here.

Somebody yesterday read a review that only said of us that all the musicians are Americans and the girls had on short dresses! Hilarious.

The club was nice. The music was a little different. A lot of house music. They snuck in some hip hop and American stuff eventually. Lots of smoke. My hair still smells. And the promoter who invited us to this double velvet rope section gave us some ridiculously expensive $800/a bottle champagne (due to which, I have a nice little headache brewing this morning) that was presented to us in a huge glass bowl with a fireworks sparkler. Very easy for the guys to show off when they order something good: you see fireworks crossing the room to the person who ordered it. The walk from the kitchen to VIP was short so the sparkler was short-lived and underwhelming. I watch all of this sort of out of body and it's pretty funny.

Our friend who sings at this club brought his wife and she was fairly bored. I talked to her a lot of the night since she mostly speaks french and is such a sweetie. Everybody else is bumpin' on the dance floor and she and I are discussing class and race differences between France and the US! I also talked with a friend of a friend who's this world traveling Strangée type character. Her hair was PERFECTLY screwed up and she was so over the top FABU. She's a fashion buyer originally from the States.

Anyhow, that's as much as I have time to say. We have a matinee show today and I need to go get it together before soundcheck. People are already lining up outside my window (5 floors down) for the concert. Love y'all. Keep the comments flowing - I love the energy.

Show went great!

Me and the girls

Me and Rycko, this fantastic french soul singer who's singing background with us, after the show but before the after-party.

Despite all the stuff, including NO soundcheck today really to speak of, the show went great. My artist pulled it out! His crowd loves him, knows all the songs, and he really got back into it again. We almost need a 2nd encore set.

I am currently the slightest bit tipsy in my room. I opted out of going to a pub with some of the other folks when I returned to my room and found that the heating guy did a great job and my room was actually HOT! It's been cold for the last week. And the shower water is cold too, so he fixed that as well, I guess. I wasn't here when he did it. I kind of shooed him off, telling him that I needed to be performing over there (pointing out of the window directly to Bercy Stadium about 30 yards away) in 15 minutes, and he needed to leave so I could dress.

So I guess he came back and got it done. Yippee! We also finally got our per diem (the natives were a little restless for a bit) and a theoretical paycheck, although the wire has yet to go through. Did I already mention that the French get paid once a month. You can't even be an irresponsible alcoholic type here because you can't live from week to week. You'd have to preplan your irresponsible behavior to last you until about week 3 1/2!

There were supposedly 20,000 people there tonight. The place was packed. And the strangest thing is that it's less nerve-wracking to me to perform for more peope than less. It was sort of more comforting than rehearsals. And that's usually why I perform better for a crowd than I would for an audition or a small group of people. When you're performing for a crowd, 1)it's so anonymous - you see everyone and no one all at once and 2) when people come to see you, you're already starting with an A and working your way down. They want you to be good. They are rooting for you and not against. And it's easy to feel that energy. Some people think that the audience is your enemy, but unless you're at the Apollo Theatre, the audience is your best friend.

I got my first individual fan tonight. You know, that one person who decides that instead of staring at the main artist all night, they like you for some reason. So this guy waved at me, and I thought, "me?" And then I waved back and he did it again and then leaned to his female friend to tell her that I'd acknowledged his presence. How funny.

I wonder what the reviews will look like tomorrow in the paper. I'd sworn not to read them, but I know I will.

I got carded at the metro today for the first time. You take a ticket, but apparently they have metro folks who check you tickets randomly. Never seen one before today. And when she called me out, I walked straight past her until I heard her repeat mademoiselle. And then I told her that I'm American and keep getting targeted by beggars, so now on principle I just walk past people I don't know and pretend to not speak french. She laughed and told me, "right on," basically, in french.

They do indeed have a lot of beggars at the big metro stands. Much more attractive then ours most of the time, although there is a whole class of maimed and semi-maimed as well. I'm really comfortable with my couple of pet metro lines. I like the 14, 6, 7 and 1. And today I went alone to Galeries Lafayette,sort of the french Macy's, in search of pantyhose and other stuff. And I have no words to tell you how powerful it feels to be able to handle yourself in another country, alone. I got actual assistance in the store, some great and some snotty and even knew how to recover from the idiotic snotball who kept steering me towards this one brand of hose as if that's all there was of this particular style. Once she handed me her brand and said that there was nothing smaller, I looked at the package, learned the new vocab word for fishnets (didn't wear them, but some of the others wanted us to wear them) and promptly asked somebody else in this massive lingerie department. Found another pair that were correct and on my way out, saunted past the first chick, handed her the other pair back and told her that I indeed found something better and smaller. I'm learning to outsnot the snots.

Okay, I'm pooped. More tomorrow maybe.

Show's tomorrow (or tonight if we're being technical)

Got done with rehearsal at 1:20 am and the show is in something like 17 hours. It's interesting, I'll tell you that. We've been changing things on a daily basis and it's hard to rid your mind of version 1.2.4 and remember what version 2.0 is without any mental plaque and residue. Everytime I get my land legs the ground shifts and it changes. Some of it might be our fault. Sometimes we make the changes look too effortless so they keep throwing stuff at us. If we looked really ragged doing it, they'd leave it alone.

So it's a challenge to say the least. But whatever it is, it's happening tomorrow. And more than 13,000 people are coming to see us. We get 2 free tickets per show except for opening night and Saturdays in Paris. But on the rest of the tour we can invite anybody, so I imagine it's going to be quite easy to make friends out in public. I guess our rule about not talking about who we're singing with is out of the bag once we do the show, our bios are in the program and he introduces us on stage.

The other day in rehearsal when he was doing fake intros, he said about me (in french -this is an approximation) "and introducing, the only french girl of the bunch...." What a freakin' compliment. I forgot about until the french tour manager referred to me as La Francaise later on again.

My french is getting killer. I can cuss you out like a french sailor! Got my first rude french waiter today so he got an authentic french tip (close to nothing - tipping isn't obligatory here like it is in the states, so it's not much.)

Gotta go to sleep. I'm guaranteed to NOT get 8 hours of sleep tonight because we got some crazy early call time (decided by a man, who didn't really think about the fact that we've got to go find pantyhose and shoes for the show - they fired the wardrobe person halfway through so now the onus is on us) so I'm waking up early to get to Galeries Lafayette or Le Printemps to find what I can. PS - they don't use earmuffs here in France! My ears have been freezing, especially since my hair is so big, the rabbit aviator hat I bought won't fit on my head!

Wish me luck, wish me well.! On that note, here's a quick subtlety lesson for my francophone readers out there. What Americans do with inflection, they do with words:

• Bon Chance = Good luck

• Bon Courage = Be strong (as in good luck because I know darn well that you're going to need it!)

If you're wondering which of the 2 to wish me, please put a checkmark next to choice #2!

A bientôt!

PS - Did I mention that the French only get paid once a month? It's like welfare! Very strange for all of us - we got paid today, but it's in Euros and the check stub is in french and we're all trying to figure it all out.

PSS - My mom ALWAYS complains about how my pictures never seem to have me in them (I'm BEHIND the camera) so I have made a point of learning how to take pictures of myself (I even bought a monopod.) I apologize in advance for all the photos.

Exhibit #1
Artsy photo of me walking up stairs at Eiffel Tour

or this one of me in our dressing room at Bercy Stadium

Uh huh....