ET Canada's Rick Campanelli and Cheryl Hickey. Photo: JJ Thompson
Party Patrol: Oh, (ET) Canada!
For once, we did something Canadian-y during TIFF. Inside the 7th birthday bash for ET Canada.
Dateline: Sept. 11, 9 p.m.
The invite: ET Canada’s big seventh-birthday bash. Like life, it’s timed perfectly to the film festival, and, well, not so perfectly to other things
The location: Nikki Beach x The Spoke Club (600 King St. W.). Finally, a party I have time for on that rooftop palace where everyone from Daniel Radcliffe to Christina Hendricks came to unwind between bouts of incessant gawking
Paparazzi:Fan ratio: Four floors down. If there’s any paparazzi here for Rick Campanelli, it’s probably the 30-somethings who grew up with The Temp, snapping away with their iPhones.
The noshing: Grilled cheese and fried shrimp—plus sliders, which I unceremoniously renounced on Twitter as sooooo over. But can we can we please talk about how the Sugar Stars—my newest Food Network, watch-while-doing-cardio obsession—did a table for tonight’s bash? I need to find it, and find out what they did. They’re seriously unreal.
The sounds: Kiss 92.5’s DJ Clymaxxx, Canadian Radio Mix Show DJ of the Year 2012, is helming tunes on this one. And, well, just turn on the radio.
The looks: The thing about the Spoke is that there are members, usually young professional go-getter types. They’re lingering downstairs, and you can’t get upstairs without a red wristband, but no one’s watching. Translation: lots-o-suits. For this instalment, I will put myself forth: A blazer over a t-shirt of the Cookie Monster eating apples. C-l-a-s-s. Oh, and there was this chick who looked like a Rihanna mermaid, but, like, not Rihanna, soooo…
Stargazing: ET is such a big brand Stateside, so does ET Canada have the same cachet, or is it like Canadian Idol? I mean, they are celebrating seven years—people (read: celebs) know them! So, this is where the rumours come in: Eli Roth, Kristin Kreuk. Harry Potter, too. Who I did spot: Mike Holmes, nice and prompt, sans tool belt. The ET cast was there, natch, with Matte Babel looking especially tall as fuck. Rosey Edeh is so pretty. And props to Global Morning Show’s Liem Vu, who knows how to work a party like the rent is due tomorrow. I can’t tell you how many times people around me talk about Property Brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott, most specifically what a threesome with them would be like. Rumour has it Paul Oakenfold was spotted. (No Twitter proof this time.) Do I have to stay until they cut the cake? Oh, right! The cake. I missed the three leading ladies of Sugar Stars, but I did meet their token gay, Caspar (one name, like Madonna), who totally didn’t get my sense of humour and wanted to shoo me away like a creepy fan.
Fun factor: The broadcast world is a funny, strange thing to me. There’s so much more Narcissus-level neuroses than when you roll with magazine editors wearing band t-shirts and Lacoste polos. There’s a Colgate photo booth, and people seem to be enjoy that the most. There’s a chick by the bar minus one heel, so you know she’s doing okay. Unlike at Soho, the severs at Nikki Beach don’t come to you, so you have to rush the bar. OMG, what have I become? Sometimes, it’s hard to decide which show you’d be more devoted to if you watched television: ET Canada or eTalk. Having been at both of their parties this past week, I’ve made my decision.
Verbatim: “So are you Nikki, or Beach?”—as asked to me by two drunken guys. “Fellas, I’m bitch.”
