Ellen Offers An Emotional Reminder

February 29, 2008

The tragedy of the murder of 15 year old Lawrence King is something that has snapped us all out of our gay protective bubble. As Ellen so aptly points out, “When the message out there is that is so horrible to be gay, you can get killed for it, we need to change the message.” Ellen got emotional and seemed to possibly be referring to the current political climate when she said, “Larry is not a second-class citizen. I am not a second-class citizen. It is okay if you are gay." Amen to that Ellen.

Her antidote is to change behavior that is seeped in hateful and oppressive subtext that permeate our culture in the forms of jokes, movies and speeches. And though she declared that her motives were not political but personal, she did recommend paying attention to who you were voting for and whether or not they actually believe in equality. You can watch the clip here.

Pieces of Neverland Ranch Could Be Yours

February 28, 2008

Michael Jackson’s fairy fantasy child’s world could hit the auction block next month as the pop star's Neverland Ranch will be put up for public sale unless he pays the more than $24 million he still owes on the property, according to a Tuesday court filing.

Besides all the rides like a ferris wheel and bumper cars, don’t forget that one time Elizabeth Taylor got married there. You could own a piece of pop history! Or maybe it’s just all a little too creepy.

Fall in Love With The Magnetic Fields All Over Again

February 26, 2008

They played four sold-out shows at NYC’s Town Hall this weekend and quietly wowed the crowds with their mellow, balanced acoustic sets. We only caught Friday’s performance, but we heard good things about the other nights as well. First of all, Town Hall is a lovely venue, with great acoustics, where everyone gets to sit. They opened with a song of their new album, Distortion, called “California Girls” and followed that immediately with “I Don’t Believe” you from I. We were stoked cause that’s one of our favorites with lines like “You tell me I’m not not cute,” and “You seemed to be in love with me, which isn't very realistic.” Which pretty much sums up exactly why we love The Magnetic Fields so much.

The rest of the night continued to be a nice mix of new songs, old songs, 6ths songs, Gothic Archies songs and Lemony Snicket songs. Claudia Gonson rambled on about this and that, which was entertaining. Stephin Merritt was mostly quiet, except for the occasional witty barb thrown from beneath his lowered cap brim. The highlights in our humble (owning ninety percent of their albums) opinion were “Too Drunk To Dream” with the nice acapella opening, “Sober, life is a prison, shitfaced it is a blessing, sober nobody wants you, shitfaced, they’re all undressing.” Truer words were never sung. And then, of course, their rendition of “The Tiny Goat” which was very sad and consequently funny. Overall, it was a marvelous evening and we highly recommend that you dust off all your old Mag Fields CDs and go pick up the new one. Seriously, we do.

Our Favorite Oscar Moments

February 25, 2008

When Jon Stewart called Javier Bardem’s haircut a Dorothy Hamill.

And then of course, how much Javier Bardem loves his mom.

Jon Stewart’s best joke of the evening when talking about Obama and how he had to
overcome his name. It didn’t work out so well for former presidential candidate “Gaydolf Titler”.

Every single time we saw Helen Mirren. We are so in love with her.

Oh yeah! When Diablo Cody with the hot rockabilly sexy girl tattoo on her arm won best original screenplay. She was rad.

When Cate Blanchett was so excited that Marion Cotillard one best actress. And she was great, even though the movie was a slit-your-wrists couple of hours. But it also just goes to further prove the point that to win an Oscar, it’s best to play gay, ugly or mentally challenged.

The flashbacks were cool, especially Bette Davis with that crazy egg hat.

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Sweet P Judges the Oscars

February 25, 2008

Or at least the fashions, or at least the women’s fashions. MTV gave our little gal a platform to become what she’d always dreamed of being: the fashion police. And the first person to cross her liveblogging path was Heidi Klum, which Sweet P deemed very apropos. And here is what she thought, “Of course, she is stunning, but I do not like the big collar thing — it looks as if Galliano was inspired by Christian & Chris' avant-garde look. A bit too Cruella de Ville!”

Her favorites of the night were Cate Blanchett, Kristin Chenoweth and Anne Hathaway. She even gave props to a dress made by a judge (Roberto Cavalli) who dissed her peacock dress on the show. Oh yeah and she compared Amy Adams to Jessica Rabbit, which we thought was very funny

Will New York Get a Lesbian Mayor?

February 21, 2008

Pink News reports on rumors that Christine Quinn, the Speaker for New York’s City Council might run for mayor in 2009. She’s already the first woman and openly gay person to hold the position of Speaker. The Speaker is the second highest ranking city official.

In 2006, Quinn refused to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade because of their exclusion of gay and lesbian groups. She also fought the mayor on the failed West Side Stadium business. But she’s also been criticized by progressives for failing to support several initiatives including expanding housing for people living with HIV.

It’ll be interesting to see if she does run and what she campaigns on, but just the prospect of a lesbian mayor has us all tingly with excitement. It just seems like lesbians would make really good mayors.

Unfortunately Named Man Criticizes Gay Rugby Team

February 20, 2008

I mean, we don’t pay much attention to Irish rugby goings on. But when Edwin Poots likened the Ulster Titans to apardheidists, we perked up our ears. Well, Mr. Poots, we think that’s a bit of a misguided exaggeration. Plus, gay rugby sounds excellent.

He used that tired old “there’s no straight pride parades, there’s no white Miss America pageant” argument saying, “"It would be unacceptable to produce an all-black rugby team or an all-white team or an all-Chinese team.” This, despite one of the founder’s comments that the team was by no means exclusive and open to everyone. Oh Mr. Poots, you’re such an idealist. If only we lived in a world where all teams were inclusive.

Tim Gunn Quips on Conan

February 19, 2008

We love him. But then as Conan O’Brien pointed out, everyone loves him. He talks about dressing age appropriate and gets in this excellent barb, “Stay clear of Madison Avenue in the summer. It’s full of Grandma jezebels wearing mini skirts and tube tops. It’s not a pretty sight.”

When shown a picture of President Bush wearing cargo shorts, crocks and socks with the presidential seal (shudder), he remains diplomatic, “I can only imagine that the crocks are a metaphor.” He’s not quite so diplomatic on the subject of Hillary Clinton’s fashion choices, “When she was in the White House, I really thought there was hope for her… But I really think she’s confused about what her gender is. She’s so mannish in her dress. And I believe the suits are probably made out of Kevlar.” We love you Tim, but we also love a woman in a pantsuit. And if anyone owns that look, it’s Hill.

“The Only Truly Famous Butch Woman Alive”

February 19, 2008

So New York Magazine dubs k.d. lang in the new issue. It’s a short piece where the idea/issue/question of her butchness comes up a lot. Well there’s a tiny part at the beginning about how good her voice is and then there’s a bit about the lyrics, but then there’s a moment where the interviewer actually shrieks about how incredibly butch she is. And also, weirdly, calls her a panda bear…

Anyhow this brought up a k.d. lang memory from someone in the office: “I saw her in Austin at the San Jose Motel. As I recall, we might actually have been there to catch a glimpse of her. Anyhow, she was checking out the renovations the owners had made and looked under a table near us. I said, “Did you lose something?” because, you know, I thought she was looking for something she dropped on the floor. She just looked at me coldly and turned away. She was wearing an orange sweater. And I was like, k.d. lang’s a bitch.”

Omar Back!

February 12, 2008

HBO’s The Wire is totally the hottest topic around the watercooler these days. One of the coolest things to us about The Wire is their portrayal of gay characters. It seems revolutionary to have these sort of incidentally gay characters, that aren’t sidekicks or comic relief. It’s a lot more like life. Kima is pretty badass, but, no doubt, Omar is our fave. Michael K. Williams, the actor who plays Omar, is an interesting character. For one thing, his scar is real and for another it says this about him on Wikipedia: “Inspired by Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814, he left school and quit his job against the wishes of his family to pursue a career as a dancer.” That’s so sweet.

Teri Gross interviewed Williams on Fresh Air a couple of weeks ago. He relates the process of his first guy on guy kiss as Omar (it was unscripted) and really hits on maybe the most thrilling aspect of Omar’s character. “To me, to have these two dudes kiss and then for him to pick up his shotgun and put his bullets in it, clink, clink, let’s go hunting, it was just the ultimate contrast to me.” It’s very Raspberry Reich. Minus the camp. And it gives us chills.

Cybill Strips Again (37 Years Later)

February 12, 2008

So we’ve noted before how good The L Word people are at homage. But one small piece of last Sunday’s episode really blew us away. Phyllis (Cybill Shepherd) is having a “thank god I’m a lezzie now!” party and everyone’s dancing around the pool and then she gets on the diving board and is about to strip. And maybe we wouldn’t have grokked to what was going on, except that we just rewatched The Last Picture Show and were again blown away by its genius. Especially that horribly awkward and amazing scene where a much younger Cybill Shepherd strips on the diving board at a pool party in Wichita Falls.

Anyhow, the 2008 version of the strip tease gets interrupted by Phyllis’s daughter saying, “Mother!” And we look at that daughter and we think, geeze that girl looks a lot like Cybill looked back in the day. Which, of course, is also fresh in our memory. Very fresh. But yep, turns out, it’s actually Cybill’s daughter, Clementine. So crazy.

Femme on Femme

February 07, 2008

Okay, we’ll admit that occasionally femme on femme can be hot. It’s just that with The L Word and all, it’s become so trite. It’s like, “Ooh, aren’t my boobs so beautiful. Yeah, fling your hair around like in a shampoo commercial. Oh no, it doesn’t matter that your fingernails are like daggers.” See what we mean?

Anyhow, once in a while a specific femme on a specific femme might just be a bit more okay with us. For instance, Page Six of the NYPost has a little tidbit about how Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson are supposed to have some uber-erotic lesbian scene in Woody Allen’s new movie, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Now that, we think, is tip top.

Colbert, Solmonese Interview

February 07, 2008

Oh Stephen Colbert, you make even lobbyists hilarious. Making him say appletini. That was a good one. And we’re surprised no one’s voiced this fear of gay marriage before, “If gay marriage becomes legal, what’s going to stop a gay guy from sneaking into my house while I’m asleep and gay marrying me? I wake up and I’m married to a gay guy.”

Johnny Weir Places Second, Has Best Costume

February 06, 2008

Self-described Russophile and “glitter bomb”, Johnny Weir skated his butt off Sunday before last at the United States Figure Skating Championships. He and Evan Lysacek ended up tied in total points, but the tie-breaker was broken because of Lysacek’s better marks in the free skate. But Weir made his own costume “a sparkly onesie” with a broken heart in the middle and it was totally sweet. Aren’t there points for that?

Weir may not be the face of the “macho-ization” of male figure skating, but he’s totally our favorite. Actually, that might be why he’s our favorite. That plus the fact that he’s simultaneously into Cristina Aguilera, Pushkin, Will and Grace and Edith Piaf. A strange but endearing combination. Plus watching him skate Sunday was awesome and when he cried when he finished, we cried too.

Top Ten Gay Things About Football

February 05, 2008

In honor of the Super Bowl this past weekend (Go Giants!), we’d thought we’d round up a quick and seemingly obvious list of reasons why this all-American pastime is occasionally interesting to us.

10. Guys in tight pants.

9. Tackling.

8. Lesbians love it.

7. How there’s a bunch of guys bent over and one guy standing behind them ready for action.

6. Those little pouches the quarterbacks and kickers wear on their crotches to “keep their hands warm”.

5. Butt patting.

4. Bitchy commentators.

3. Half-time shows.

2. Teams named things like The Bears, The Rams, The Cowboys, The Packers.

1. Guys in tight pants tackling each other.

Maggie Gyllenhaal in Lesbian Threeway

February 05, 2008

Not a tabloidy, purely hedonistic, sexual escapade, mind you, but art for the sake of a real cause. Supporting the writer’s strike has prompted Maggie to take part in this short film, “Speechless” about being stood up by a date named AMPiTePa (aka Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). Well actually, she’s just one of three girls stood up by Ampitepa and when left in a hotel room with a bunch of wine, asking, “Is it too much to ask just to be treated fairly?” they decide to make the best of their time.

Maggie spreads out on the bed and says, “Girls, do you want to make an interim agreement?” This is definitely the hottest thing we’ve found when googling lesbian news in a long time. It was especially poignant because we just rewatched Donnie Darko. Please enjoy this the rest of the day and you’re welcome.

Police Crack Down on Abercrombie and Fitch

February 05, 2008

In Virginia Beach, bastion of morality, the police seized some large photographs from an Abercrombie and Fitch retail store that they deemed were in violation of a law banning “obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles.” One of the photographs in question deepicts some nicely-tone guys in sagging jeans running through a field and one guy’s jeans are perhaps a bit too saggy, exposing the top of his bum crack.

Apparently the police were responding to citizen complaints. Please. Some lucky police officer in Virginia Beach now has his entire bedroom covered in a mural size photograph of half-naked, frolicking, all-American boys.