boy culture

In & Out

Globe (December 14, 2009) has its ongoing "Who's Gay and Who's Not in Hollywood" feature. Here's the tally, according to them: 

Living In CNN

National Enquirer (November 30, 2009) has Anderson Cooper news—he's moving in with his boyfriend. In the olden days, the 'bloids would refer to this as a "trial marriage."

Larry Queen

PopEater has posted on the battle to out Anderson Cooper, including fresh quotes from Perez Hilton, Gawker's Brian Moylan and Out's Aaron Hicklin. Even though all three raise great points as to why it's okay to discuss Cooper's sexuality openly (Perez says he treats him like anyone else, Gawker persuasively says the guy has outed himself by appearing in public with his boyfriend and Hicklin sneers at the phony outrage surrounding the "outing" debate), the site's poll shows 91% believe the media should not "pry into the sexuality of others." (Okay, the word "pry" is about as leading as it gets!)

 My position is principled and well known to anyone who's read my site—it's not "outing," it's telling the truth. There is no reason to protect closeted gays when the media routinely discusses much MORE damaging and private things about straight stars. None whatsoever.

But if one argument in Cooper's case is "who cares?" and another is "everybody already knows," check it out: The other poll asks if readers had heard rumors of Cooper's sexuality before...and 51% said no!

Is This A Proposal?

Bill Clinton tells Anderson Cooper that he was "wrong" to be against marriage equality, saying he was hung up on the word "marriage."

It's a welcome development (and an expansion on an earlier comment he made on this topic), but a few things to keep in mind:

Kathy's Choice: My Threesomes vs. Marcus Welby S&MD

Kathy was rockin' her real hair!

Out of the blue, my pal called me with the tip that goddessy, latter-day Ruth Buzzi Kathy Griffin was doing a signing of her new book Official Book Club Selection at Barnes & Noble in TriBeCa last night, so we rather spontaneously decided to go. The news flash had come from a co-worker of his, so she joined us and we subwayed to no-man's land, aka the place I once saw Sarah Jessica Parker with her baby, and found the B&N I'd never known existed.

Inside, we were told to buy a book first (smart) before lining up. A small area of seating was already spoken for, so we joined the line in the erotic book section where twenty- and thirtysomething fans were two-deep in the aisles. How to describe the average Kathy fan? "Reject" comes to mind, but not in the bad way, in the way that implies how fucking unfair it is about the people who have the privilege of rejecting them.

We chatted nervously, none of us having a clue what we'd say to Kathy.

To kill time, we read aloud from a book about fantasies that seriously asked things like, "Have you ever fantasized about being another race?" along with the usual questions about spanking, bondage, threesomes and more. The "who would you rather do?" section had all the usual suspects (Pitt vs. Clooney), some fresh meat (Stewart vs. Colbert and the painfully difficult Rudd vs. Carell) and then several entries that must have been written by an elderly drunkard hired to flesh out the book...the worst being Fred MacMurray vs. Robert Young. (Pictured L & R, respectively.)

"Change" You Can Believe In

President Obama uses the word "change" not the word "repeal" multiple times in discussing the repeal change of DADT over the weekend with Anderson Cooper. He's sounding awfully weak on this still. Sure, he wants it "changed" sooner rather than later, but he's not being frank when it comes to his legal ability to stop enforcement pending overhaul.

Also, he quickly talks about changing how (not whether) the law is enforced while working toward this big change. That to me sounds like Gates's "more humane" version of DADT, which was thought to include not expelling people who were being outed vindictively by jilted lovers, for example.

This is all bullshit. He should stop enforcing the law and then he should be pushing Congress to repeal DADT and to make sexual identity completely irrelevant in regards to military service.

An Inconvenient Truth

Via Towleroad: Lance Black makes the point that there is never a convenient time to grant full and equal rights. I am much more comfortable with voices like his and like that of Richard Socarides (former Clinton advisor) when it comes to being sharply critical of President Obama without careening into hysterical threats to leave the Democratic party and/or never again vote for him. I guess you could say I am a within-the-system person, but not complacent.

It is interesting that Lance brings up Clinton-era mistakes in front of a Clinton-era figure.

Mini Cooper

From the illustrious OMGBlog, above is an image shot by Diane Arbus in 1968. It's a fascinating portrait in and of itself, but how much more interesting is it knowing that this is none other than li'l Anderson Cooper? It pays to have a socialite mommy—she can get Diane Arbus to do your baby pictures!

Drunk Reporting

I almost can't believe these two videos (courtesy of the wickedly fun Wicked Gay Blog), but damned if Sawyer (who is basically the villainess of the movie Frost/Nixon if you've seen that movie) doesn't seem wasted and damned if Cooper doesn't seem half-way there, too:

Anderson's 360

Cooper's catfight.

Very recently, Anderson Cooper criticized cable news for being filled  with "sarcasm and snarkiness," a comment widely seen as referring to rising star Rachel Maddow. And yet he has no problem hosting a (very funny) New Year's Eve special with Kathy Griffin.

Yeah. That's totally different. (Sorry for the sarcasm.)