[Ed. note: You know how much I love these man-behind-the-curtain stories -- where you get to see things that supposedly only the sad bastards lucky (?) enough to be entertainment reporters have to deal with. I sent Japhy Grant to the GLAAD awards this weekend in Los Angeles. This is his report.]
It feels like something of an arrival, your first red carpet. Like most people, my impression of the red carpet came mostly from Academy Award pre-shows, so when Out asked me to cover the celebrity receiving line at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's (GLAAD) annual awards show honoring inclusive media portrayals of LGBT people at the Kodak Theatre, I jumped at the chance to channel my inner Joan Rivers.
Here's what I wrote down in between jostling for position on the line:
> The red carpet may have been the actual entrance to the show at one point, but it's long since drifted off to become an island to itself, complete with a support system of publicists, security and cocktail bar. Imagine if people came to the airport and watched you walk through security checkpoints while sipping cocktails and you're getting close to the modern media wall.
> The Project Runway boys are everywhere. I totally dig their just like us vibe. Jack Mackenroth says, "I've never been to any awards before, because let's face it, I was a nobody," which makes me want to give him a hug for many different reasons.
> Every outlet has a designated spot on the line. Trying to pick out a pecking order is difficult. Out, for the record, is sandwiched between a nice lady from Star and Nelson Branco (who also writes for Out but is doing duty tonight for Hello! Canada and TVGuide.ca). Every outlet's name is taped onto the floor so that the celebrities know who to talk to and who to ignore. Many reporters seem to refer to themselves by their outlet name, e.g.: "Hello, In Touch. Do you have a moment?"
> Rufus Wainwright, who's receiving the Stephen F. Kolzak Award for LGBT media people who have successfully worked to promote equal rights, shows up with his boyfriend Jorn Weisbrodt and a gimongous rhinestone eye pinned to his lapel. "I got it on 4th and La Brea and so far it's brought me good luck," he tells me. "Maybe I should wear it on my forehead as a third eye." He says he's "thrilled to be out of the music business for the next few years" as he works on his first opera, about the day in the life of a male opera singer living in the '70s.
> One possible complication to this red carpet plan: I am terrible with names. Also faces. I go to a gym in West Hollywood that's filled with celebs and so far I've recognized Fabio and one guy who I thought was James Marsden, but now I'm pretty sure is not. Being able to recognize famous people seems like the one skill that would be absolutely required for a red carpet -- but, it turns out, not so. Publicists move up and down the line, saying things like, "I've got Brian Peeler, featured trainer on Work Out." I feel like this is the one aspect of my night that should be extended into real life. Everyone should have a publicist accompanying them at all times, if only to make sure that every woman born on Long Island is guaranteed a job for life. Brian's summer workout advice, by the way, is: "You just got to eat right and exercise and remember that 70 percent of it is diet. Eat right and you're going to lean up and look sexy for everybody." Or, as he further elaborates, "Fitness is so easy, it's hard." As you can probably surmise, he's got a great publicist.
> Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel arrive and everybody goes nuts. Sarah says something about this being "the fag awards" and declares, "This is a politically correct awards show and I'm the only non-politically correct person here." I guess she didn't get the memo that Kathy Griffin's opening the show. Then a reporter asks her how her sex life with Jimmy is, and she gets mad and walks away. For a moment she turns around and looks like she might come back, but it's just an excuse to throw another thoroughly disgusted look at the press corps. The nice lady from Star turns to me and says, "Was she joking or was she serious?" to which I reply, "Exactly."
> Candis Cayne is gorgeous. She's by far the most attractive woman on the carpet. I'm not even kidding.
> All of a sudden someone comes up to me and says, "Don't talk to anyone for the next five minutes. I have Janet Jackson. You get one question." As he says this, Tom Ford and Sally Field stroll by. I feel bad about this because I'm in love with Tom Ford and I know it's real love because I knew I loved him before I knew he was Tom Ford, which was exactly ten minutes earlier when I asked Nelson, "Who's the hot guy in the bow tie?" and he tells me, adding "Are you even gay?" When he comes by, Tom gives me his view from the other side of the velvet rope. "You know when you go down one of these things you're focusing on people and trying to make sense and not say anything silly." I know, Tom, I know.
Anyway, Janet arrives, small, smooth and perfect, surrounded by an entourage and while I've interviewed a ton of people in my life, she is by far the most famous person I've ever met. She's shaking my hand and telling me I have a cool name and the world sort of melts away and the my whole "I'm so much hipper than this red carpet line" attitude evaporates in a chest-bursting heartbeat because I'm actually talking to Janet-motherfucking-Jackson. Only some built-in journalist reflex makes me spit out the question Shana armed me with: "You said in an interview recently that your boyfriend Jermaine is your bitch. Care to elaborate?"
She laughs. (She laughs!) And then she says, "I always tease him because, you know, it's so fussy being a girl, you have to get all made up. And I've always been more of a tomboy, so I said to him, 'In my next life, I'm coming back as a guy. And you're going to be my bitch, because I still want to be together.' I love him dearly."
And then she's gone, long before I get to ask her how much of her b&d fetish imagery is based in reality, before I ask her why she's even getting the Vanguard Award, and before I tell her that I may never wash my hand again.
In other, less trivial teen idol news, my old friend Benoit Denizet-Lewis turned in a super-smart cover story for the New York Times magazine this Sunday about young gay men who get married. While not officially part of our Power List count of NYT gay mafia, Benoit's stories have consistently zoomed in on the complex ways that our cultural ideas about sexuality are changing. An article he did in 2004 about the end of teen romance (to much hand-wringing news-hour despair) found one major exception to the "friends with benefits" trend: gay teens, who were embracing proms and coupledom with an enthusiasm long left behind by their straight peers.
This article is in some ways an extension of that idea, based on the experiences of a few of Benoit's friends and other guys who make up the 700-odd gay men under the age of 30 who had married in Massachusetts by last summer. In the piece, he writes:
On the one hand, I wondered why these guys were marrying so young.
What was the rush? It seemed to me that one of the few advantages of
being young gay men -- until gay marriage was legalized in
Massachusetts, at least -- was that we were institutionally protected
from ever appearing on "Divorce Court."
But I could also relate
to young gay men yearning for companionship and emotional security. Had
gay marriage been an option when I was 23 and recently out of the
closet, I might very well have proposed to my first gay love. Like many
gay men my age and older, I grew up believing that gay men in a happy
long-term relationship was an oxymoron. (I entered high school in 1989,
before gay teenagers started taking their boyfriends to the prom.) If I
was lucky enough to find love, I thought, I'd better hold onto it. And
part of me tried, but a bigger part of me wanted to pitch a tent in my
favorite gay bar. I wasn’t alone. Everywhere I looked, gay men in their
20s -- or, if they hadn't come out until later, their 30s, 40s and 50s --
seemed to be eschewing commitment in favor of the excitement promised
by unabashedly sexualized urban gay communities. There was a reason, of
course, why so many gay men my age and older seemed intent on living a
protracted adolescence: We had been cheated of our actual adolescence.
When I chatted with Benoit about the piece late last week, he was careful to throw a few other cautionary logs on the fire: "This is not a trend story," he said. "Young gay men in Massachusetts aren't beating down the doors of churches and city hall to get married." In fact, way more young lesbians are likely to shack up than the guys, but that's even less of a trend story. (Almost all the men he talked to were also white, as are the majority of those who register legally.)
But as he discovered over the course of following these young men for a few months, there is something pretty awesome going on even if only among a minority: "They're able to live their gay adolescence. Their sexualty is not as compartmentalized. They're going to want different things."
Anyway, go read the piece for yourself! Make erudite conversation about it at your next gay party and win yourself a husband, if that's the kind of kinky thing you're into! Report back accordingly! And if you like this sort of writing, keep an eye out for two books Benoit has coming out from Simon & Schuster in January: America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life and American Voyeur: Dispatches from the Far Reaches of Modern Life, a collection of previously published writing.
In other teen idols gone wild news, Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz attended the White House Correspondents Dinner [see Craig Ferguson's speech here], DJ'd the after-party, and went crowd-surfing. This one above may be my favorite photo of the year. Check out the chick in the evening glove trying to help hold him up! And the other lady with crazy diamond rings and her hand on his butt! These people have no idea what is going on, but they're trying to be team players.
On his band's official site Pete explains his presence at a dinner with "this administration" -- he threw a fundraiser for Obama earlier this year -- by comparing it to "seeing a sweet band like poison playing a state fair
and you feel like they may be out of their prime but you just kind of
sneak looks at them out of the corner of your eye the whole time." I never needed to think about GWB in '80s hair metal get-ups, thanks. Also he reveals he has as big a crush on CNN's John King as we do: "im a super fan... so i geeked out on him. i think it creeped him out."
No wait, I lied before. All the pictures of him crowd-surfing are hysterical. If you've been wanting to see Pete ass-up in the air, look no further than after the jump...
UPDATE: And of course TMZ had a camera there to capture his drunken disco diva-singing, Ashlee-sex-thanking, stage-diving moment for posterity.
While this kind of behavior is obviously what I was calling for last week -- c'mon, Miley, if you're gonna write a tell-all at 15 (yes, still 15), you've gotta have something good to tell! -- I'm watching and waiting how lesbian lenswoman Annie Leibovitz (No. 36 on our 2008 Power List) is being set up as the fall guy:
A Disney spokeswoman, Patti McTeague, faulted Vanity Fair for the
photo. "Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created
to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines," she said.
The article, written by Bruce Handy, seems to support
that claim, quoting Ms. Cyrus as saying, "Annie took, like, a beautiful
shot, and I thought it was really cool. That's what she wanted me to
do, and you can't say no to Annie." She also said of the photo, "I
think it's really artsy. It wasn't in a skanky way."
Ms. Cyrus had a different view in a prepared statement released on Sunday:
"I
took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now,
seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I
never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who
I care so deeply about."
Beth Kseniak, a spokeswoman for both
Vanity Fair magazine and Ms. Leibovitz said, "Miley's parents and/or
minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally,
they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and
natural portrait of Miley."
Let's not forget, of course, Miley's own artistic shots she posted online. I'm all for a girl doing what she wants, seriously. But it's not cool to leave the other ladies hanging out to dry just because your media machine's calculated risk blew up in your face!
This could potentially be The Year of the Best Summer Movies....Ever! The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Sex and the City, X-Files, Mamma Mia, Indiana Jones. Even in the moment of standing in line for a matinee, I had a hard time deciding which escape I wanted with my popcorn and soda. I ultimately decided on Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.
I didn't love the first one as much as the many others who helped build its cult status. But I find Kal Penn and John Cho to be charismatic actors who can bring the barest touch of pathos to the stoned out goofballs, as well as making the Grossout Dude Comedy surprisingly politically savvy. Well, relatively speaking. There's still the use of gay sexual acts as a tool to commit said grossing out, but what saves the movie in general is that gags start off obvious, then they add an unexpected twist that gets you.
But, let's be real, I was there for Neil Patrick Harris. His success as Barney in How I Met Your Mother can be traced back directly to his unexpected role in the first movie, but on network television you won't get the R-rated version: He does shrooms, talks to unicorns, acts out even more salacious over-the-top heterosexuality -- and looks really, really good in an A-frame and jeans while holding a branding iron. Just don't blink and miss it. Hint: It's the whorehouse scene.
This might be somewhat spoiler-ish for purists, but what unexpectedly impressed me is that Harold and Kumar managed to make hanging out with the President seem like a good time. I maybe even felt a little hopeful for the guy. Maybe the hippies were right: all we need is love. And a few strong hits off the pipe.
> A bomb scare delayed a Bon Jovi concert in Sunrise, Florida, on Saturday. Fans were kept waiting outside of the BankAtlantic Center while police used bomb sniffing dogs to search for two bombs
an anonymous caller had claimed would detonate at 7:57pm. Seemingly
unfazed by the circumstances, ticket holders waited
outside the venue chanting "Let us in!" Fan Diane Elyard said, "We're
concerned for the band and our own health, but we want a show." Which
only goes to show that "Living on a Prayer" is so good that even 20 years after its release, people are willing to die to hear it. That or Bon Jovi has some
really stupid Floridian fans. One or the other.
> At a special taping of her talk show in Las Vegas, Oprah and Cher swapped stories about their crushes on Tom Cruise. Cher claimed she went out with Cruise just once many years ago, but it was "a long date," wink wink nudge nudge. Oprah stopped off at Cruise's Telluride, Colorado, home on her way to Vegas and was treated to a hot and heavy snowmobile ride. "I see what happened to Katie [Holmes]," Oprah gushed. "There's something about
the guy's butt, and you're skooched up there. … You're like, 'Take me
home. Anywhere else you want to go, Tom? I'm free this afternoon.'" Oh! So that's what happened to Katie? Tom didn't offer her a multi-million dollar contract to act as his beard or brainwash her in marrying him and serving as a zygote carrier for the good of Scientology! She was simply won over by his stunning, sexy, second to none snowmobiling skills.
> In a new British poll, singer Cheryl Cole was voted top lesbian icon, beating out Alex Curran, Louise Owen and Victoria Beckham. And in a similar poll, Joe Cole is football's (that's soccer to us Yanks) top gay icon, besting David Beckham and Michael Owen. We have no clue who any of these people are (except for Posh and Becks, of course) but we saw the words "lesbian" and "gay" and figured at the very least you can spend the next half an hour googling queer icons from across the pond instead of tackling that overdue expense report you've been avoiding. You're welcome.
> Out staffer Brent Coover reports from last night's Kate Nash concert:
If Kate Nash has anything to say, girls everywhere will be wearing little plaid, pleated, balloon-sleeved dresses with red patent leather belts and singing her lyrics, "You don't have to suck dick to succeed," from one of her newest songs, "Model Behaviour." The Brit songstress with a knack for vulnerable yet cutting words performed at New York's Webster Hall Wednesday and Thursday to a sold-out crowd -- primarily of girls dressed just like her (and a gaggle of loyal gay followers).
Nash opened with "Pumpkin Soup," and everyone (except for the handful of hetero boyfriends who'd been dragged along) enjoyed the London charmer as she whined midway through the set that her green tea was cold and "disgusting" and later, when she pulled out an electric guitar for "I Hate Seagulls" and told the crowd to "shut up" because it is a "quiet song." She ended with "Merry Happy," which everyone was indeed, singing along with her and swaying to the piano-laden ditty.
> And from budding British import to the seasoned U.S. export referred to by some as "Madge," by others simply as "God"...
Being the savvy businesswoman she is, Madonna has released her new hip-hop infused album, Hard Candy (not out in stores until Tuesday, April 29), on her MySpace page. The pop icon has always been adept at capturing the zeitgeist, and this time she succeeds not only in nestling herself firmly on contemporary music's indomitable, Neptunes- and Timbaland-driven bandwagon, but also in making her latest tunes available to rabid fans in the simplest, most accessible way possible. Frankly, Mrs. Ritchie can't lose here. She'll most likely create additional excitement about the album, pushing listeners to pick up the CD or shimmy over to iTunes to download it even more quickly. And if not, does she really need the dough, folks?
As for the album itself? We'd say its first half is stronger than its second (especially melodic club-shakers "Heartbeat" and "Miles Away"), and at times it's a bit derivative ("Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" is eerily similar to Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around... Comes Around"), but we're still letting it marinate. Nevertheless, it definitely boasts enough synth hooks, throbbing bass, and funky horns to keep the homos grinding in the clubs.
I had my first day of filming on Monday ...13 hours, and it was sheer joy to be back on set with our great cast and crew. I know it may sound trite, but it true that we really enjoy each others company on and off the set. The writers and creative team are very tight lipped about the scripts (I don't blame them, as the element of surprise is an integral part of our show), in fact we only see the draft a few days prior to the table read! All I can say is that I've been told that Sal's story line is much more involved and juicy this season.
Oh, but enough about the stories. What about the clothes!?
As with last season, our brilliant and gorgeous costume designer Janie Bryant is in peak form. I want everything she puts together. The suit fabrics are so rich, among the many suits and dapper combinations of color and pattern, my favorite so far is the stylish brown Donegal tweed jacket I wear in the first episode. It's certain that my opinion will change week to week as she tops herself over and over again. I love that men's fashion has revisited the dressed-up, classic streamlined elegance represented in Mad Men.
If the white memo board Mr. Russert used on election night in 2000 were
to get an extreme, high-tech makeover, it would probably emerge looking
like the map Mr. King has been piloting on CNN. Measuring nearly seven
and a half feet diagonally, the screen, along with its database, seems
more suited to a commander moving troops around a battlefield, which is
no accident. David Bohrman, who oversees CNN’s political coverage, fell
in love with the monitor after seeing it at a military intelligence
trade show last year. (Mr. Bohrman refused to say how much CNN had paid
for the device, which is made by a company called Perceptive Pixel.)
Other careful almost-no-comments in the piece cover King's relationship with CNN correspondent Dana Bush and his kids from a previous marriage. "My work is fair game, and I do it in a very public arena," Mr. King
said. "To try to carve out a little space for your life is important to
me." At least he acknowledges the existence of the relationship and the children. Right, Anderson?
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