Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

Each day, we peruse various sources of news bits about queer folk to find interesting stories. We post headlines and summaries (for now) over on a service that depends on the flaky interaction between two flaky services, Squidoo (which allows users to build a pre-formatted page on any topic that strikes the fancy) and Blinklist. (That's one of many "social bookmark" sites. Most do what they do better than that one, but we use it -- despite its frequent bugs -- because it provides the best tools we've found for the unique way we use it).

[This blog will move along with those news digests to a new news site in about, oh... late September. There's nothing there just yet.]

As we scan the headlines, we occasionally come across a "Well, Duh!" story that's presented as something else entirely. One of those cropped up today from the LA Daily News sports section. News staff writer Greg Hernandez ledes [but we'll add the links]:

When David Beckham finally started in a game for the Galaxy on Wednesday night, the event didn't just make the front pages of mainstream newspapers and sports Web sites. It also warranted the posting of a shirtless photo of the soccer star on Kenneth Walsh's gay-themed blog.

Mr. Hernandez then recounts a good-natured investigation why this might happen. Money quote from Outsports.com CEO Jim Buzinski:

"When it comes to visuals in sports, gay men and straight men are very similar except for the genders that we look at," Buzinski said. "Men are more visual. So we are just doing what mainstream sites do but we are catering to our audiences."

And, of course -- since sports writers must often write "Well, duh!" stories and become masters of the art, Hernandez recognizes the "well, duh!" moment for what it is by summarizing: "Men are men".

Another of those stories cropped up over the weekend when we came across a Reuter's headline, "Merv Griffin died a closeted homosexual". The news service had picked up the story from Hollywood Reporter writer Ray Richmond, who once worked for Griffin. When we first ran across it, we muttered, "Well, duh!", but decided not to post it in our digest.

The story would probably have made a few ripples in the blogosphere as it did when -- along a few others -- local blogger "Rad Ass Homo" scolded the industry mag, "I say shame shame to the Hollywood Reporter -- they should know better or at least have some respect...This could of ran a week later or something..."

Richmond's story had been scooped by a meatier posting about Griffin's closet on the blog of outing-meister Michelangelo Signorile, who offers reasons why Griffin's choice to remain in the closet was not just a personal matter. Among the examples:

Griffin's closet had him firing gay men who'd actually made it up through the ranks of his own company, simply because they were openly gay. There is a story in Queer in America about a man identified as "The Mogul" who did just that. I can now reveal that The Mogul is Merv Griffin. Open homosexuality is a threat to the closeted, and powerful people in the closet like Merv Griffin will often do whatever it takes to squash those who are open and who might advocate that all among the powerful should come out.

But Richmond's story turned from "Well, duh!" to "Taa Daa!" later in the day when Reuters dropped it from its entertainment feed. Even the original source, Hollywood Reporter, briefly dropped the story from its site on Saturday. And all of that saying-and-not-saying in the age of the web, along with reactions to it, was enough for Signorile blogger Kevin Allman (who's been all over the background story) to give the affair a name: "MervGate." *

We had another "Well, duh?" moment this morning when we saw something in BoingBoing about the gay papa of departing "Bush brain" Karl Rove. Since the 2006 book, The Architect had identified Rove's step-father as gay, this is a "more to the story" take on the "Well, duh?" theme. According to a BMEzine [NSFW] editor quoted by BoingBoing essayist Xeni Jardin, "Karl Rove's father was not only gay, but a part of the early body piercing scene and a regular at 70s piercing parties... There are pictures of him on BME."

Adding new details is always a good reason to resurrect an old story. [Just like quoting a story about gay blogs posting beefcake of straight athletes is an adequate reason to, well... post beefcake of straight athletes.]

* [Update:] Allman link to "MervGate" added after he added a helpful comment. Thanks.

Labels: blog-on-blog, celebrities, link bites, shirtless hunk