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

So if you passed up all the opportunities to see it with a crowd of your best friends, you can now see the filmed-in-Seattle written-by-a-Seattleite movie, Boy Culture in the comfort of your home with whoever you might want to invite over.

It's now available on DVD. Sticking with the Seattle theme, we will of course, direct you to Amazon to buy it.

More about it on this blog here, here, and here.

YouTube link

Oh, and a trivial side note: Poetic local blogger (via LiveJournal) Ajax in the City is in the movie somewhere as an extra. Hey, at least it proves the movie's localness, eh, since they could always cut in a shot or two of the Space Needle, but couldn't quite replicate Seattle extras if it were filmed in Vancouver like most supposedly-in-Seattle shows.

Labels: celebrities, Gay Seattle, movie, Seattle

We posted some of the flurry of news stories on our news feed, but we might be the only gay-related blog that didn't do at least one post last week about Logo's forum for Democratic presidential candidates. But if you missed it, it's not too late to catch the full forum on Logo's website.

But, really, what we were waiting for is coverage of the event by Jon Stewart. You gotta love the bit about Melissa Etheridge's loooong questions. Although, of course, she did manage to ask the one question that really made news in the forum: Gov. Bill Richardson is still trying to recover from his flubbed response to the "rock star's" choice question.

Labels: celebrities, news bites, politics, TV

The comeback is one of the grand traditions of the entertainment world where they sometimes work. We see attempts even in politics (see, eg, Nixon) but the attempts rarely work out there. So here are a few recent news items that prompt a sense of "we've see that before..."

He's never really gone away, but Joe Fuiten, Bothell's rabidly anti-gay preacher/political activist is back under a new auspices. He formed his own group called after leaving Faith and Freedom Network. But now, he's folded that group into yet another new outfit called Family Policy Institute of Washington.

This one is under the philosophical umbrella (but not, they insist, the financial umbrella) of James Dobson's Focus on Family.

Fuiten's is also encouraging pastors throughout the state to get each member of their congrations to register to vote. Fuiten hopes to target legislators who voted for Washington's domestic partnership registry.
---
And then there's Aubrey McClendon, the Sonics silent-partner co-owner, who helped bankroll one of Gary Bauer's anti-gay programs. Slog uncovered his funding of the Bauer project [background] at just about the time that the Sonics/Storm owners started threatening to move their teams away from Seattle -- both teams, including the Storm with its significant lesbian fanbase.

Well, McClendon stepped into it again with -- of all things -- a proposed real-estate development in Michigan. There are -- as often happens with these things -- a wealth of potential problems with the proposed beach-front development. Those potential problems have, of course, attracted a wealth of potential opponents of the development proposal. But, there's one extra problem for McClendon. It seems that his development proposal has drawn fire from an unlikely group -- gay folk in the area. Oops. McClendan bought an area of dunes and beach that is considered by locals to be the gay beach. Oh, boy...

McClendon's "people" gave a familiar response when asked about the opposition. "[B]ut after all, this is private property," said a spokesman.
---
And imagine, if you will, being famous as member of a "gay group" when you were never gay. Oh, the horror, eh? Maybe it would drive you to drink and drugs. Well, it seems that that's exactly what happened to Victor Willis former lead singer and "cop" of the Village People. But don't cry too much for the singer/songwriter. While racking up arrests and rehabilitation stints since leaving the group in the early 80s, Willis has made over a million dollars in royalties on 'not gay' songs he wrote for the disco group, including "In the Navy", "YMCA", and "Macho Man".

Willis is clean and sober now according to his "people", and ready to mount some sort of comeback tour after releasing a promised tell-all book in the fall. And yes, there's a regional connection even here. Turns out Willis wrote "YMCA" in Vancouver. According to his publicist, "Victor Willis wrote about the YMCA and having fun there, but the type of fun he was talking about was straight fun."

We'll have to wait for that tell-all book to get the nitty-gritty about what kind of not-gay fun the guys at the Vancouver Y were having way back when.
---

In other 'not gay' news, there's Matt Sanchez, that hot-looking Marine conservative activist from a few months back. Soon after making several appearances on Fox News programs and hob-nobbing with Ann Coulter, Sanchez was identified as a former actor in gay porn known as "Rod Majors" [background]. He said then that making those movies was just a "summer job." Although he's remained a popular search topic on blogs, Sanchez mostly disappeared from News Corp TV. But he's not been forgotten by the company's many media outlets.

Cpl. Matt "Rod Majors" Sanchez turned up again as an expert source in an article in News Corp's Weekly Standard magazine.

Sorry, no local connection to this story.

Labels: celebrities, gay news, news bites, politics, sports

If you don't read (or look at, at least) Jasmine's Pike/Pine blog regularly, then you should add it to your local blogs menu. It's a near-daily look at the fashion sense (generally trying to ignore our nonsense) of Seattle, and sometimes beyond. Usually, you'll find a single photo each day with a minimal, but always enlightening comment from Jasmine.

We read it frequently, but missed (mea culpa) last week's report that Tim Gunn would be in town last Sunday for a book signing and to judge a fashion contest sponsored by Seattle Metropolitan magazine. Mr. Gunn (and, somehow, he seems to require the honorific) helped Jasmine and other judges determine "Seattle's most stylish man" for the glossy mag.

Jasmine reports of Mr. Gunn that "he came off just as smart, charming, and gracious as he does on the show." Project Rungay has told us that before, so we're not surprised to hear it.

As for the contest, it sounds like there was at least some Runway style banter at University Bookstore. Jasmine tells us that one a judge said that one contestant was "dressed the way you'd want to dress someone who had no sense of style." Heh. Great Nina Garcia line even if it was said about Gopi, the software developer who would eventually be declared the winner.

Labels: celebrities, local bites, Seattle, TV

AfterElton.com has an advance review of a "rough partial screening" of the new movie version of the Broadway musical version of John Water's cult classic movie Hairspray. (Whoa. That's some genealogy.) The musical, of course, had its pre-Broadway run here at the 5th Avenue Theater and has been back in various various versions since then. The new movie is scheduled for release this summer.



Blogger ChristieKeith has good news for fans of what has become a highly unlikely show-business franchise:

And yeah, John Travolta plays the Divine role of Edna Turnblad and yeah, that didn't work so much for me, but the rest of it? Divine is smiling down from heaven. ...
So, other than Travolta's semi-suckage, how was the movie? Oh, just basically completely brilliant. ...

Hairspray succeeds, in all three of its incarnations, because at heart it's a feel-good movie about fighting the good fight. Tracy Turnblad, a plump high school girl who knows she's destined for greatness as either the first woman president or maybe a Rockette, gets picked as one of the dancers on an afternoon music show on a local TV station. She uses her new-found fame to take a public stand for racial equality in segregated 1962 Baltimore, saying that if she were the first woman president she'd "make every day Negro day!"

Hairspray is all about the triumph of good over evil, and a huge hunk of that goodness comes from Tracy, who is the best heroine ever, and the one with the most bouffant hair. ... She's played in Shankman's film by newcomer Nicole Blonsky, who was discovered by the producers at the social networking version of the soda fountain, MySpace. ...

[S]he's a radiant ball of pure sunshine in the role. Her voice is gorgeous, and she's just the prettiest thing, with the most beautiful eyes and the aforementioned extremely high bouffant hair.

[Hat tip: Queerty.]

Labels: celebrities, link bites, movie

We posted this Daily Show clip last week by the show's rising star, Jason Jones, because we thought it was funny.


[link to part 1] [link to part 2 (above)]

But if we'd looked at our feeds that day, we would have noticed that something odd was happening to the "ex-gay" "therapist" featured in Part 2 of the clip. The self-described "psychotherapist and educator" Richard Cohen was disappeared from the web sites of two "ex-gay" activist groups that had previously served as his organizational cover.

On March 31, writer David Robinson described on the Ex-Gay Watch blog the odd disappearance of Cohen from sites that had been primary proponents of his controversial "therapies."

Over the past couple of days, The National Association for the Therapy of Homosexuals (NARTH), and Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays (PFOX), have quietly removed all traces of any affirmation of Richard Cohen. PFOX has removed all references to him entirely, while NARTH has left only historical events which included his name - all his articles are gone and his books no longer appear in their online bookstore.

We missed the post along with mentions of it by Pam Spaulding and others. Fortunately, though, the virtual versions of the paper gay press is out there to catch -- a week or two later -- things that fall through the quickly-revolving blog cycle. Bar Area Reporter rehashes the purging in this week's issue:

As recently as last year Cohen had been president of Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays, whose slogan is "supporting the right of homosexuals to choose change." PFOX believes that individuals can change their sexual orientation and has paid for a series of controversial billboards promoting that idea.

The name of the anti-gay group was chosen as a twisted alternative to the pro-gay group Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Cohen had been expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2003 for violating its code of ethics. He continues to offer counseling in Maryland without a license.

One of the most recent of his frequent media appearances was a "Diagnosis Mystery" segment on The Daily Show, on March 20. Words cannot describe how hysterically bizarre the segment was.

Two days after the segment aired, Cohen sent out a fundraising appeal for his International Healing Foundation. In it he said he did such media appearances "in an effort to reach people who would normally never hear our message."

He called The Daily Show experience "the most degrading experience I've ever had in the media. I unknowingly allowed myself to be manipulated and coerced by the producer and the host. I take full responsibility for this mistake." He accused the program of taking comments out of context and making him look like a fool.

The Daily Show segment appears to have been too much for Cohen's ex-gay allies.

Even before Cohen's former sponsors had purged references to him, another "ex-gay" group, Exodus International, which claims to be the largest organization in that "movement," had criticized Cohen:

Randy Thomas, vice president of Exodus International, is rightly embarrassed by Richard Cohen?s appearance on the Daily Show:

The guy on the video announces Richard as the foremost expert on "healing the gay" or something like that. Richard is not the foremost of anything except making a spectacle of himself and completely misrepresenting the larger "ex-gay" movement. He is not a part of Exodus and apparently not willing to take our private feedback and accountability to heart.

But if the Daily Show appearance was finally just too much for Cohen's fellow activists, there were plenty of other bizarre appearances by the man before that:



On ABC's Jimmy Kimmell On CNN's Paula Zahn

Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen who appeared on the same Daily Show report as Cohen details his downfall in a syndiated column that appeared this week in several papers, including SGN.

The wheels began to fall off the car when I got a tip that Cohen had been kicked out of the American Counseling Association in 2002. He managed to hide this career suicide from the public until I informed the media in 2005.

With his counseling career in ruins, Cohen turned to the media as his only channel to attract new clients to his "healing" seminars. However, his act that played so well at the NARTH convention made him look like a quack to mainstream Americans. On his appearance on CNN's Paula Zahn Now earlier this year, Cohen actually performed his tennis racket routine to the guffaws of million of viewers. He made a further buffoon of himself on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live where boxer George Foreman looked as if he wanted to give him a left hook. He further disgraced his image on Showtime's Bullshit, starring comedians Penn and Teller.

However, Cohen's "jumping on Oprah's couch moment" came on his appearance with me on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart . To prove he was heterosexual, Cohen belched and cursed and when he was feeling the heat, he got up in the middle of the interview to "shake it off."

Cohen's antics were even more than PFOX and NARTH could take and they heaved him overboard, purging their websites this month of his kooky books and articles. The largest ex-gay group, Exodus International, even put out a statement saying they do not endorse the counselor's work.

But taking his name off the websites may not be enough to get Cohen and his bizarre techniques off the cable news shows. He appeared as part of a long documentary about "Conversion Therapy" on Australian network ABC. Although the documentary was probably taped months ago, CNN International re-aired it recently. Raw Story has the video. Snippets of the documentary showed up again this Friday on Anderson Cooper 360.

Labels: activism, celebrities, news bites, TV, youtube

A site where you used to find hundreds of pages of satirical "reports" generated "in the spirit of Stephen Colbert" now shows only a copy of a faxed letter from a law firm telling the site that it must shut down.

This comes from lawyers for Viacom -- the same company that recently slapped down a $1billion suit against YouTube owner Google charging copyright infringement. Viacom seems to want to keep anything and everything involving their "properties" within a tightly controlled little sub-world.

[See update below.]

The corporate suits of Viacom seem to be mistaking their Real World franchize for the real world, wanting to lock everything up behind locked doors into a sanitized fantasy land.

We saw a bit of that the other day when we posted a rumor we'd heard that Colbert might be appearing next week as a guest host on the Regis show. In response to our post we got a sternly-worded email from a ComedyCentral address telling us that the rumor was "patently untrue," but warning us not to post anything more about it. We didn't rate a fax from the lawyers, but the email suggested it would be coming if we didn't shut up about the Regis appearance.

We still don't know if Stephen will be sitting next to Kelly sometime next week, but the actions of the outfit that employs him makes us think it's more likely. I mean, really... Why worry about a post on a little blog in Seattle if there weren't more than a grain of truth in it that somehow irritatates their petty corporate imaginations.

[Update: You'll notice the date... April 1. The front page and all the other pages of wikiality.com are now back to their usual places. The shutdown notice had replaced everything on the site during April Fools Day.]

Labels: celebrities, Colbert Report, TV, wikiality

Boy Culture is a gay move that was filmed in Seattle two years ago, made the rounds of the festival circuit (including SIFF), and finally got its premier last week with a splashy tres gay premier party in LA last week. It opened for regular runs in New York, San Francisco, and LA, but won't make it to a Seattle screen until April 27 when it opens at the Varsity.

The film is garnering mixed, but generally positive reviews. New York Times critic Jeannette Catsoulis gives this glowing summary:

Based on the novel by Matthew Rettenmund, "Boy Culture" is a slick and absorbing drama about an attractive gay hustler named X (Derek Magyar), with an extensive investment portfolio and a restricted clientele of 12 wealthy men. When not servicing his "disciples," X conducts a volatile relationship with his two roommates (Darryl Stephens and Jonathon Trent) and criticizes the gay lifestyle in cynical voice-over. Only when he takes on a reclusive and much older client (elegantly played by Patrick Bauchau) is he forced to pay attention to a story other than his own.

Boy Culture stars Darryl Stephens of Logo's Noah's Arc, Derek Magyar, and Jonathon Trent

Employing a thoughtful, probing tone, the screenplay (by Philip Pierce and Q. Allan Brocka, who also directs) is a cerebral blend of insight, wit and raunchy self-awareness.

Gay.com's reviewer reminds readers that the novel author's previous book credits included Hilary Duff: All Access, Totally Awesome '80s and Encyclopedia Madonnica. He warns, "so don't expect that your horizons will be dramatically expanded."

But the reviewer comes around to the film for more than just its display of sexy man-flesh:

Rettenmund describes his novel as "sexy fluff" and a "spanking of gay culture." The book succeeded not only as a comic novel, but also as an observant critique of gay male relationships. In the hands of Allan Brocka, whose first film, "Eating Out," almost played like a gay sitcom, the film version of "Boy Culture" is engaging, deliciously directed and, most winningly, downright sexy.

And there's plenty of sexy man-flesh:

Obviously, Brocka knows what a gay audience wants to see -- plenty of sex, naked asses and bare chests. But he also explores something unique to gay male relationships -- that two men often have double-trouble with commitment.

But, beyond all that, there's the fact that the movie was actually filmed in Seattle and not in Vancouver-pretending-to-be-Seattle like so many TV shows or -- even worse -- LA-pretending-to-be-Seattle like that horny-doctors show.

Before its Seattle festival premier last year, Boy Culture's director, Q. Allan Brocka, explained to Seattle Weekly why he shot the movie here:

The book was originally set in Chicago and so was the adapted script [by Brocka and Philip Pierce]. We found it was incredibly expensive to shoot anywhere outside of Los Angeles. None of us knew anyone in Chicago or really anything about the city, so the budget would've been enormous. I was absolutely against shooting in LA. It just felt completely wrong for the story. Both my line producer and I are from Seattle, and I had always wanted to shoot a film there. When we discovered we could actually afford to shoot there, we happily packed up.

Lambert House helps actor "play gay"

According to the New York gay party paper, HX, which features Boy Culture on this week's cover, local Seattle services even helped one of the film's actors, Jonathon Trent, become comfortable playing Joey -- a character described by the magazine as "a teen twink with just enough space in his cranium for parties and a lusty crush on X."

Trent, who identifies as straight, hadn't played gay before. So once on location in Seattle, Brocka had Trent visit Lambert House, a center for LGBT youth under age 22, where he might meet and observe real life Joeys. Brocka himself spent time at the Lambert House during his formative Seattle years and admits he met a number of real life hustlers there?some of them destitute teens kicked out by homophobic families. "Darryl went along with Jonathan once for moral support and they stopped Darryl [from entering] and said, 'You're aged out.' Aged out!" recalls Brocka with a laugh.

Trent found the experience valuable. "[The gay kids at Lambert House] were kind of similar to Joey in the sense they were on their own, didn?t have a lot of people or family taking care of them," Trent shares. "They were cast out like Joey was. But they were a little more street and edgy and hardcore. I made Joey into someone who was sweet and innocent?or at least playing innocent to attract people."

[More on the premier party underwear shortly.]

Labels: celebrities, eye candy, Gay Seattle, movie

SLOG was (as usual) on top of this (as it were) when the news broke in a military publication: The Marines have added a few unexpected charges after opening an investigation of Cpl. Matt Sanchez who appeared in gay porn features before signing up as a Marine.

The investigation was done by Reserve Col. Charles Jones, a staff judge advocate, who infomed Sanchez of the charges last week.

Jones wrote that Sanchez's participation in porn films was part of the investigation, but that two of the three allegations against him involved lying "to various people, including but not limited to, representatives of the New York City United War Veterans Council and U-Haul Corporation" about deploying to Iraq at the commandant's request.

"Specifically, you wrongfully solicited funds to support your purported deployment to Iraq" by coordinating a $300 payment from the UWVC and $12,000 from U-Haul, Jones wrote.

Sanchez vigorously denied the new charges, calling them "demonstrably false" in an interview with Marine Corps Times. He had earlier argued that what he describes as a "summer job" doing porn shouldn't be of concern to the Marines.

In a March letter addressed to MobCom commander Brig. Gen. Darrell Moore, who will ultimately decide what to do with Jones' investigation, Sanchez said he's never done anything to bring dishonor on the Corps since enlisting and that "my past is behind me."

"The Marine Corps is a conversion experience, what men were before they joined is not as important as what they become," Sanchez wrote.

An earlier story about Sanchez in a sister publication, gave this background.

A Reserve corporal whose star has been rising in conservative circles over the past few months -- including appearing on Fox News and being photographed with right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter -- has acknowledged appearing in gay porn films.

Cpl. Matthew Sanchez, 36, now a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, has made national headlines since, as a student at Columbia University, he stood up to war protesters who publicly vilified him for his military service while administrators there refused to intervene, citing freedom of speech.

Sanchez has appeared on cable television programs such as Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Hannity & Colmes," and penned an editorial for the New York Post. He also wrote a Back Talk column for the Jan. 1 edition of Marine Corps Times titled, "Missing the big picture: Ivy League protesters feel superior to service members."

Prior to the investigation, military officials said that they were not sure how past participation in gay porn might affect a service-member's career:

[O]fficials at Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans were unable to confirm whether Sanchez had enlisted prior to the end of his film career or if Reserve Marines were prohibited from doing porn when not in a drilling status. ...

Matt Sanchez (center) as Rod Majors. Tom Bacchus has the unedited versions.

...Officials at Marine Corps Recruiting Command were unable to say whether past participation in gay porn disqualifies a potential enlistee because it was unclear how the current "don?t ask, don't tell" policy might apply.

The chain of military papers opened that question to its readers with a discussion forum that poses the question "Should past participation in gay porn disqualify a potential enlistee?" Sanchez often participates in the forum. Several of the posters are less than kind to him. Example:

Mr. Sanchez seems to be suffering from the "have your cake and eat it too" syndrome.

In the big scheme of things, gay porn is much more of a detriment to morale than being gay, which Mr. Sanchez disingenuously (and self-servingly) claims he isn't.

Perhaps Mr. Sanchez isn't gay in the strictest sense of the word. He's not the first man who can justify having anal intercourse with another man and claim that he isn't gay. Hundreds of thousands of men do. Perhaps our language lacks a sufficient construct to describe whatever Mr. Sanchez and thousands like him insists they are: men's men, straight-acting, guys-next-door, who just happen to like to get it on anally with their buds. ...

I don't fault Mr. Sanchez for acting in porn. I fault him for trying to capitalize on his Marine reservist status to advance his own agenda. I fault him for joining the Marines knowing that he did not possess the qualities that a true Marine exemplifies. I fault him for continuing to dissemble in the face of the truth. I fault him for being arrogant enough to think that his case deserves special consideration.

Go to Iraq, Mr. Sanchez. Fight like a Marine. Then I'll fight for your right to remain one. Otherwise, you're just acting -- which is what you seem to do best.

But beyond the usual message-board attacks and counter-attacts, the discussion offers several intriguing posts on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy. Example:

If the military were serious about discharging service members for what it calls "sexual misconduct," there would hardly be a military left. If you've ever had sex in anything other than the missionary position, you're violating Article 125 of the UCMJ. I can't count the number of senior officers I knew who cheated on their wives in Subic Bay, Korea, etc. Yet, Marines only seem bothered by the sexual misconduct they find personally distasteful.

Having sexual relations with a consenting adult, whether it's the same gender, on film or for money is a has no bearing on a Marine's performance of duties in combat. In fact, the same qualities we admire in combat - boldness, ferocity, fierceness etc., are the same traits that cause Marines like Cpl. Sanchez to behave the way he does in his private life. I'd much rather fight with a guy who's daring enough to put himself out there the way Sanchez has than Marines who are too timid to step outside the line once in awhile.

Many of the Corps' most revered "saints" were the ones who broke the rules. The reason they're legends is that Marines happen to like the rules they broke.

Many of you may not be aware of the good Sanchez is doing. Thanks to his efforts, a liberal college like Columbia, in the most liberal corner of the universe (Manhattan's upper west side) has agreed to recognize war vets and build a memorial. He's intervening to help a wounded Marine combat vet gain admission and you can bet he won't stop there.

It's pretty petty and shallow to criticize someone's person or status as a Marine just because you don't like their bedroom habits or personal life.

DADT isn't an issue that Sanchez addressed in his time on the airwaves of conservative broadcasters, but he's now getting an unexpected lesson on the issue. Maybe he'll turn his fundrasing skills to the issue, eh?

Labels: celebrities, DADT, eye candy, news bites, shirtless hunk

Now, really... Celebrity gossip isn't our shtick. We don't have the sources, for one thing, and we're not nearly bitchy enough. But still, we couldn't resist in that previous post throwing out a few off-hand rumors we'd heard about a certain satirical newscaster.

Ah! But through the magic of the inter-webs tubes, we find that we just might be onto something here. A ticket buyer from last year's Queen City Cruise emailed us with this fascinating bit on insider info:

Honey!

i was on your cruise last year and made lots of friends!

ive been checking in to see the latest dish (& maybe more cruises!)...when i saw your post about late night hottie, Colbert (love that ear!), and i wanted to tell you about what i saw on my job (please don't give out my email)

i work as a PA for the Regis&Kelly prodco/distro (i do lots of internet stuff, like digitizing and upload footage for internet promos, i dont get to go on set too much)

for some reason we were shooting the promos way early. not normal, but Regis is out and it may have to do with making it hard for guest hosts to back out

weird thing though was that i was only sent 4, not the expected 5. (i usually get a wk ahead of time) One was missing.

then, get this, i was told, the last one would be shot thursday 29th after 8pm which is way strange, no one shoots for R&K that late (Ripa gets bitchy and Regis always had something to do so everything was scheduled during human hours, not vampire ones!LOL)

anyway, when i saw your post about Colbert hosting, it made sense!

his last day of shooting is thursdays! i am going to hang out at the studio to see if its him!

if its, i will try to get a pic of him for you!

thanks a bunch, sailor!

So, sure. It's not enough for Page Six, or even page 666, but it's yet another interesting hint... The official show site doesn't list Colbert as a guest next week, but they appear to have stuck some repeats into the schedule. It's starting to look more and more that it's more than just librarians who are hiding something. They do so that they'll have some kind of "Big Announcement" on Monday, however.

Oh, and by the way, despite what he said on his program last night, Colbert is not listed as a winner of one of this year's GLAAD awards. Of course, he should have been given a lifetime award for his gaydar piece and more.

Labels: celebrities, Colbert Report, TV

After what seems like a bizarre delay from its February UK release, Mika's hit pop album Life In Cartoon Motion goes on sale in the US tomorrow.

If you're asking, "Who?" then you haven't been paying attention as a YouTube video of his song Grace Kelly along with heavy rotation on MTV gave his infection pop sound considerable virtual airplay starting late last year. You can hear several of his songs on his official MySpace site. (Find a collection of Mika's YouTube videos here.)

As his US publicity tour for the album picks up, we've seen another explosion of the web-search questions, "mika gay?" on our logs. It's a question his fans are still asking, but one that Mika is still declining to answer.

Andy Towle gave a guest blogger spot on Towleroad the other day to ArjanWrites, a blogger who's been on top of the Mika online phenom from the start, for an interesting interview with the pop singer/songwriter. Most of the interview is about something Mika clearly loves to talk about -- his music, and his attitude toward today's pop music, but Arjan also asks the question explicitly and gets what has become Mika's standard answer.

Rumors have been circulating about your own sexuality. Are you gay?

I don?t' really discuss that. I don?t feel I really need to. My music speaks for itself. I have total freedom with what I do musically and the way that I live my life. And I feel really comfortable with that.

Bizarre as this seems, Mika reports that some fans or would-be fans are so upset by his silence on the question that he's received email death threats. [link, again, via Towleroad]

Chart-topping singer Mika has revealed that he is getting death threats from fans - because he won't admit whether he is gay or not.

The 23-year-old singer, real name Mica Penniman, has told how he receives messages from people threatening to kill him over his sexuality.

Our reaction, translated into Gallactica-speak: What the frack? This is even more bizarre than the unaccountable popularity of the Idol shows that Mika tries to overcome or the incessant cable "news" coverage of the death of a fat one-time pinup model. Come on, now. How can any of this possibly matter that much?

Really, now. He's a pop phenom who displays a queer sensibility about his performance and his music. Isn't that enough. We can see and hear the sensibility. Does it matter all that much who he does or doesn't have sex with. Isn't that queer sensibility enough? Well... apparently not for some folks. He told the Telegraph,

"In order to survive I've shut up different parts of my life, and that's one of them, especially this early in my career, I don't really feel that it's necessary to know in terms of my music.

"Some people make records that are defined by their sexuality, but mine really are not. It does play a lot with campness. It has a theatricality to it. Why not? It's pop music.

"If you're 14-years-old and you're gay, well, just do whatever you want. I'm not confused and I don't have any barriers about the way I live my life. That's why I don't want to put it under the microscope."

And, really now. Isn't that enough? Sure, if he actually is gay, then it would probably be easier for him to just say so, like the Idol kid in Australia who finally ended long speculation down under to proclaim, "Yes, I am gay.... I'm looking forward to living a life with no barriers and not having to worry about saying the right thing."

That comes from Anthony Callea, 24, who has parlayed his appearances on Australian Idol into a best-selling pop career singing what appears to be typically Idol-like pop pablum.

And, so, fine... That's great for that guy that he doesn't have to play a silly role hiding who he is.

But why does it matter so much who a pop star has sex with. If Mika were to show up tomorrow with a female fiance on his arm, would that make his music any less of a relief from the usual pop drivel? It shouldn't matter. But, somehow, it does seem to matter too much to too many of us.

Labels: celebrities, coming out, Mika, music

Leave it to John Waters to find a whole different way to approach the marriage issue.



Waters plays the "groom reaper" on a new show, 'Til Death Do Us Part that will premier Monday on Court TV at 10pm. They're currently running a promo on that link and also feature outtakes, sneak peaks, and interviews with Waters.

This one is a "reality-based" series in which actors portray the characters in true-crime stories of spousal murders. And it's sure to be filled with Waters's gallows humor as he demonstrates in his interview (above) with Jon Stewart.

It's bound to leave bizarre state Sen. Stevens apoplectic. And that's a good thing.

Labels: celebrities, TV, video, youtube

We can't speak for others in the blogoshere, but it was, admittedly, schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the discomfort of others) that us to jump quickly onto a story that a handsome marine who was given prominent coverage on News Corp. outlets including Fox News and New York Post was also a former gay-porn star. (That, and the excuse to post a few hot pics.)

On his own blog, that handsome marine, Matt Sanchez, has chronicled the blog+media flurry over the revelation that he once played the part of Rod Majors in porn flix.

(And here, since it hasn't been linked quite as much as other sites, is an old inverview with the "Rod Majors" persona who admits a slight interest in maybe doing a bi video some day.)

But there's a deeper (ahem...) significance to the story of Matt Sanchez that can be drawn from an oddly related story about a group called Soulforce that has, for the second year running, leased buses to take LGBT Christians and their supporters to a number of private religious colleges that place heavy restrictions on LGBT students and staff.

Several Soulforce demonstrators who tried to talk to students at Notre Dame's dining hall were arrested this week for trespassing. A Soulforce bus stopped at Dordt College in Iowa was defaced yesterday with anti-gay grafitti. (As usual, Andy Towle offers an excellent summary.) [See update below]

Last year, Soulforce demonstrators were arrested at Brigham Young University, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, West Point, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia which is affiliated with Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson.

But what does any of that have to do with Matt Sanchez? It should be part of the same story if Fox were really interested in fair and balanced reporting.

The marine got his moment of fame on Fox News and the Post by relating a disputed story of an incident last year at Columbia University during which Sanchez claimed that fellow student Monique Dols and a group of demonstrators said mean things to him while he was near a table staffed by students from the ROTC group at neighboring Fordham University.

I figured that a dean so concerned about student inclusion would certainly look into a simple case of student harassment. You see, I had a problem: fellow student Monique Dols.

Back on Activities Day, Dols didn't just lecture me on my stupidity in serving our nation; she also yelled that I was a baby killer. For a Marine, being called a killer is almost flattering -- but for months Dols and her friends had been disrupting pretty much every event I attended.

Most famously, her crowd rushed the stage at another group's event, preventing the guest (from the border-enforcement advocates, the Minutemen) from delivering his remarks, and nearly causing a riot.

Dols claims that Sanchez started the confrontation. After getting a complaint about the incident from Sanchez, a Columbia panel didn't do anything about it, which upsets the powers at News Corp.

Sanchez became a campus activist to encourage better treatment at Columbia for the veterans among its student body -- an admirable task. He's reportedly been successful in getting the school to offer more support for veterans to get through the bureaucratic mazes that are an unfortunate part of academic life. (See the first response to this post by right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin.)

But that's not what Fox News commentators focused on as they gave Sanchez his several minutes of air time.

Despite the sketchy story on which Sanchez's claims were based, Fox News and the Post gave him prominent coverage and the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) gave him an award because they considered his story of standing up to what Fox's Bill O'Reilly called "far-left radicals disgracing Columbia University."

Like Notre Dame, Brigham Young, and Dordt College in Iowa (schools where Soulforce demonstrators were arrested or harassed), Columbia is a private school. Unlike the others, the Ivy League's Columbia has a decidedly liberal bent to its policies. And it is that, rather than any question of academic freedom or freedom of discussion, that seems to be the issue that bothers the News Corp outlets.

Columbia does not allow military recruiters on its campus partly because of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy which is considered to violate the school's anti-discrimination policies. Although the long-standing exclusion is subject to long-simmering debate on campus, ROTC sessions also cannot be held there, but Columbia students enrolled in ROTC can take classes and training sessions at neighboring Fordham University, another private school.

But the problem arises when those who have chosen to serve their country in the military, like Cpl Sanchez are treated unfairly on a campus because of their service. Sanchez has done a good job of highlighting that problem at Columbia even if he does it in the partisan voice that appeals to the radio audiences to whom he's been given extraordinary access because of his activism.

It's a problem that should be fixed even if the majority of students, faculty, and administration at a school think the current war is wrong for whatever reason. Veterans should not suffer because of those views.

But if it's a question of academic freedom as O'Reilly and Hannity suggested it is, then the reaction to Soulforce at conservative colleges should be equally abhorent to the commentators. Accoring to the activist group, the college where the Soulforce bus was defaced counts "sexual activity with someone of the same gender" as possible grounds for "an employee's discharge or a student's dismissal."

It's a kind of discrimination that is usually overlooked at conservative campuses, but highlighted by Soulforce. If a gay or lesbian student wants to be subjected to the kind of education offered by those schools (and there's good reason to want that at some of the schools), then they should be allowed to participate as full members of those academic communities. They should, however, be ready (and even encouraged) to challenge to collective wisdom of what they might hear there about their own beings.

So too, should veterans or those who support contrary views of the military be allowed to participate as full members of the academic communities at Columbia and other liberal colleges.

But here's our question: Where would someone with the same history as Matt Sanchez find a more welcoming academic community? At Columbia, where obnoxious student activists call him names? Or at Dordt College, where he'd probably be kicked out?

How long do you suppose it will be before we hear O'Reilly call for administration at Dordt College or Notre Dame "get out from under their desks and deal with this problem."

Update: Dordt College apologizes

In a sign of the true meaning of Christian compassion, officials at Dordt College have apologized to Soulforce for the graffiti slurs that were painted onto the activist group's bus during a stop at the college.

College officials were "saddened" to learn about the vandalism, said Dordt spokesman Norlan De Groot. The school apologized to the group and the incident was reported to police.

"We don't want to see that happen here," De Groot said.

Labels: celebrities, eye candy, politics

Since everyone else has already found this one too juicy let pass, we'll pile on and throw in a link to two to the blog-scrum. Seems this hunky Marine reserve corporal/Columbia student, Matt Sanchez, was popular on the right-wing talkies in the past week or two.

He had a story to tell about what he said was a rude encounter with a leftist activist group at a Columbia event. Fox's Hannity spun it out into major dissing-the-troops meme.

It's not hard to believe that a group of college leftist activists would be rude. And the story Sanchez tells fits in well with the standard woe-is-me conservative meme about about their victimization. It helps that Sanchez is an attractive and highly articulate spokesman.

So, what's the problem? Turns out Sanchez spent a few years in the gay porn biz where his considerable gifts were on display under the name Rod Majors and Pierre LaBranche. Here are the not-safe-for-work details.

Joe.My.God promises an interview with Sanchez tomorrow, and links out to the wealth of other posts that have followed him and the aforementioned nsf Tom Bacchus on the story.

Andy Towle of Towleroad even dated him back in the day:

I was shocked to see this story this morning, for the main reason that Matthew Sanchez and I met at a gay bar in San Jose, California and went on a few dates in 1989 when I was a graduate student at Stanford. I haven't seen him since. It was brought to my attention after we had finished dating that he had gone on to do gay adult films but I had no idea he had joined the military and was also holding hands with folks who would be so loath to accept him into their ranks had they any clue to his background.

[update] Joe.My.God has the brief interview with Sanchez up on his site. Sanchez says that his conservative friends have been kind to him, and offers a few sound bites should (all things being equal) earn him more appearances on the right-talker shows.

There's something about the beleaguered gay psyche that wants to prove to the world that everyone is just as messed up as they are. So, they start off with the term hypocrite and work their way backwards looking for signs of deviant behavior in hopes of discovering some type of bastard kinship.

Sanchez has even more to say in a letter to Salon.

Being in the adult entertainment industry was sort of like being in a cult, and like all followers of a cult, I have a difficult time figuring out when I stopped believing in the party line. I can tell you, though, that by the time I finished my brief tour of the major studios, I was pretty disgusted with myself. It was an emotional low, and the people who surrounded me were like drug dealers interested only in being with the anesthetized in order not to shake off the stupor of being high.

Hmm. Maybe that's why the porn biz produces so many conservative voices. Max Blumenthal touched on it last night in an interview on MSNBC's Countdown.

[S]everal gay bloggers, like for instance T Rex and Firedoglake have talked for years about the existence of sort of a gay Republican underground railroad that's funneled people like Jeff Gannon and Corporal Matt Sanchez from the fringes of the adult industry into the core of the conservative movement and they've played an influential role in the backlash politics of the conservative movement and the Republican party. That's really what's relevant here.

Labels: celebrities, link bites

Some apparently NIMBY complaints about a store's sign turned into a major publicity coup for Lori and Ryan Pacchiano, owners of the High Maintenance Bitch pet shop in Wallingford. Although the complaints about the store's name (a name displayed prominently center-front-page in the PI) get a few graphs in the paper's story#, most of it reads like a press release for the shop which seems to be always right on the verge of opening up many franchises.

The brother-sister duo who founded the store several years ago have never been shy about publicity. Ryan even appeared in the cast of a reality show -- the contemporary equivalent of a flag-sitter publicity seeker in years past.

Along with Brandon Kindle, Ryan was half of the spectacularly dysfunctional gay couple on the 2005 Bravo show Showdog Moms and Dads. Ryan's dog, Liberace, was always dressed in finery from High Maintenance Bitch. Ryan and Liberace even posed for the cover of Out magazine. (We're not sure if they made it into the mag which forgets about its prior incarnations during its regular make-overs.) Of course, because they were so spectacularly dysfunctional (even by reality show "standards"), Ryan and Brandon got a great deal of air time on the show which gave them plenty of time to show off the pink HMB doggie boas.

Could it be that the businesses in the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce hyped up complaints about the name to give their neighborhood a bit of extra publicity? At least, we can hope that they were just being creative about publicity and that the supposed outrage over the sign is manufactured.

Labels: celebrities, Seattle

Celebrity rumor isn't our area. (For that we go to some of the sites listed on our Queer Pop page.) But, hey, we have that picture among the hundreds on our Rumor/Hunk Machine page, and we just hate to miss an occasional excuse to bring some of that beefcake eye-candy over here. So here goes...

Country singer Kenny Chesney insists that he is not gay. Really. That's not what his ex-wife meant when she listed "fraud" as the reason for requesting an annulment."

It's not true. Period. Maybe I should have come out and said, 'No, I'm not (gay),' but I didn't want to draw any more attention to it," the 38-year-old country singer says.

We believe him even if he does look like any number of guys at The Cuff's country dance night. Even the tight levis have never set off our (admittedly flawed and underused) gaydar.

The rumor apparently got some traction when celebrity sniffers, taking a brief break from their ANS obsession, discovered that Chesney's ex, Renee Zellweger cited "fraud" as reason for requesting an anullment of their brief four-month marriage.

He was interviewed for 60 Minutes by Anderson Cooper. (wink, wink, nudge...).

Labels: celebrities, eye candy, link bites, shirtless hunk

Bottom bitching: Johnny Weir settled for a bronze medal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane this weekend. At first, it looked like the big non-skating deal at the event would be Weir's decision to skate as Jesus. But that all got buried when out-gay commentator Mark Lund started a cat-fight with the ambiguously-maybe-gay Weir about his "style."

During their brief discussion, the commentators managed to borrow all the same Isaiah-avoiding synonymns for "queer" that Mika stories have been using all week long.

At a Spokane press conference, Weir mostly kept claws in hand (for now) when asked about Lund's comments.

Chapter three: Now that the fake-Seattle-hospital star has ended his apology tour to enter rehab (whatever that means), posts about Isaiah Washington have mostly died down, except that the gay weeklies finally got their print-delayed chances to summarize the soap operatic story. Washington Blade cuts through the chatter, but Andy Humm at New York's Gay City News gives deeper treatment to the story by including Jasmyne Cannick's complaints that most of the complaints about Washington were coming from a white "gay mafia" that she compares to a lynch mob "defending their beloved Knight."

That link to an inflammitory and downright homophobic article by Cannick, is to a New Orleans black community newspaper where it was reprinted rather than to her blog where she's dealt with the whole issue great insight. QueerToday blog argues that "Cannick opens another door to understanding how both homophobia and racism are present even within groups." But is "understanding" really what is happening when an inflammatory article like hers gets reprinted in a black community newspaper?

Although he approaches it from a distinctly different angle, white guy Tony Perkins also accuses the "same people calling for Washington's re-education" of skipping over more important injustices.

Comedian Wenda Sykes, who often skirts thin ice with these sorts of things, manages to offer a funny summary on Ellen without adding too much to the furror.

But since we're sure it won't be seen by Glenn Beck who wouldn't (as usual) understand, we'll let the gay mafiosi at Queerty have the final word:

As for reclaiming the word: we did that ages ago. We're total faggots. Not only that, we're total cocksucking, buttfucking faggots and we wouldn't have it any other way. Except, maybe, if we were rich faggots?that might be better.

Twenty minutes: Nobody beyond some small circle somewhere (although which small circle and where was debated) had heard of a fellow who called himself "Donnie Davies" until a bizarre video showed up on MyTube [which has since been pulled] and sparked an "Is he for real?" debate. Unfortunately, the debate gave the guy far more publicity than he deserved. Before the week was out several big-gay-bloggers had weighed in on the umm... weighty matter, including Queerty, Andrew Sullivan, Dan Savage on Slog, Towleroad, and -- finally (we hope) and mercifully -- Joe.My.God. (Partly because we were so late in jumping onto the Mika bandwagon, we left this one to the big-guns pens keyboards. And besides, we thought the video was just creepy and not at all funny.)

Labels: celebrities, Dan Savage, link bites

Yes. That's Jake Gyllenhaal from last night's Saturday Night Live. Yes he's doing Dreamgirls drag. Gotta love it.

He's no WonderRobbie, but he is J-j-jake GyllenHot.

Mine's huge: Oh, yes... and then there's this repartee between CNN's Anderson Cooper and Larry King sit-in Ryan Seacrest.

HatTip: Oh My God blog and The Malcontent.

Labels: celebrities, drag show, Dreamgirls, TV, video, youtube

Sorry. Your webwrangler has neglected his wrangling duties, but what finally got him to pay attention to this site again was finding a few new pictures for the Rumor Machine. We even added a button to let you automatically cycle through all of the nearly 200 hot studs featured there. (Hint: To start from a random spot, click the "Show Hunk" button before clicking the "Auto Hunks" button.)

The guy who gets the second-most pics in the new set is Marco Dapper, star of the new movie "Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds." It opens Friday, Dec. 15, at the Varsity [get directions]. Check out the trailer:



But as hard (ahem...) as it was to pick only four pics of Marco, we found ourselves unable to resist even more shots of a model, Jonathan Jesensky [office warning: His hot site plays audio], whose innocent+nasty images first caught our (umm...) eye on a Flickr photostream by Pete90291. There are six shots of Jonathan in the Rumor Machine with links to see hundreds more.

If you click on most of the pics on the Rumor Machine page, you'll be transported to the source site with (usually) larger versions of the pictures. (Unfortunately, Genre has taken down the amateur pics that are included in our collection, but it didn't seem worthwhile to deprive you of them here.)

As has been the case for a while, several of the pics come from MostBeautifulMen, but there's also several from a new site with the same mission: HunkyMaleCelebs.com.

And, of course, we do this purely for its educational value. We discovered, for instance, that Taylor Kitsch, who plays the hunky mumbling troubled-teen character Tim Riggins on NBC's Friday Night Lights is from BC and lives in Vancouver. So close.

So click, or sit back and let the hunkitude stream through. Enjoy.

Technorati tags: Shirtless hunk Photos Celebrities

Labels: celebrities, photos, shirtless hunk