Come out with Milk

Photo: Phil Bray

The hardest quick little posts to write are the ones about the biggest issues. We've all -- in the queer community, for sure, but certainly at Out -- been talking about the movie Milk for more than a year now. For some who have been working to make this dream of a film into reality, that's more like 30 years.

When we first started exploring coverage, I got a call from longtime PR expert and Out 100 alum Howard Bragman, who told me a story about one early attempt by Warner Bros. to develop the film. In true political spirit they called a town hall meeting in San Francisco to discuss their plans -- only to hear, and loudly, from as many different gay perspectives as there were people in the room.

Any film is truly made by committee, but if it's done right none of the scotch tape shows. Milk is done right, and it's our movie, a movie made by no small number of gay people to celebrate our slain hero, a man whose most simple and dying wish was that we all come out, come out, wherever we are. That one little word, out, is at the heart of everything we do here -- even when it just looks like silly gay jokes or slick fashion spreads. We all believe the world is a better place when we are out, and that our collective and individual impact on culture is best achieved from a place of clear, closet-free creativity.

I don't even know what else to say to convince you to go see this, if somehow you are still on the fence about it. Milk is a marvelously restrained film about an iconic figure who was also just a guy, a funny, dorky, smart, terrified guy who really didn't give a shit if you thought he was too loud or proud or ahead of his times. I admit I cried through a lot of the film -- from the opening scenes, actually, what seem to be archival footage of people hiding their faces as they are arrested in bar raids simply for having the temerity to have a drink in the company of their own kind.

But also I think it's important to say how much all the crying I did was not really about the tragedy of Harvey Milk's death, or even about the lost opportunities or momentum we might have had were he still alive. Despite the obvious, violent finale of his story, it didn't have the full pathetic whammy of Brokeback Mountain. It was an awful, ugly way for Harvey Milk to meet his end. But he was, unfortunately, far from the only queer person to lose his life because he refused to lie about who he was, and his death was by no means the only legacy he has left us.

This was also not a movie where it was possible, should you sometimes to be required to do this kind of thing as a part of your job, to count how many gay kisses there were. (I lost track about three minutes in.) It is, finally, a movie where all of the millions of ways that queer people have and seek affection just like anyone else in the world are shown just that simply. When it is a momentous, meaningful occasion for two men to kiss, it is that important on screen as well. When it is seductive, it is seductive. What this movie -- performed mostly by straight men playing gay and a couple of gay men playing very straight -- is not is contrived.

It's still just a movie, and seeing it doesn't replace all the other hard, boring, annoying work that's required on the road to full equality. But it's a good stop along the way, a beautiful tribute to both a man and a movement, and it's about goddamned time.

For more from Out:

> Milk Man: James Franco is totally dreamy in the movie, playing longtime Milk boyfriend Scott Smith. Here's his conversation with screenwriter Dustin Lance Black from our November issue. (See? Dreamy.)

> On Set with the Men Behind Milk: Our behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie.

> The Out 100: There are six men among this year's honorees, including Artist of the Year Gus Van Sant. Read about them all here.

Plus -- come back Monday for an exclusive look at the fashion of the film.

Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone, and have a little hope.

Well he's the disco ball winner in our hearts

Apparently there were people other than Lance Bass (and his adorable partner Lacey Schwimmer) competing to be the next Dancing with the Stars champion? I only figured this out because somehow this other chick won. (TiVo and fast-forward is my friend on shows like these...)

I'll keep my catty comments about Brooke Burke to myself and congratulate my own favorite dancing queen once more for making it so far, and for being his ridiculous dorky happy self all along the way. Go Team Lancey!

Previously > The semifinals

Scene: Roisin Murphy at the British Fashion Awards

Photo: Getty Images

Out's fashion muse Róisín Murphy -- and hat -- walk the red carpet at the British Fashion Awards. Read more from our interview with her here.

Previously > Nightlife's savior

The many men of Milk in this year's Out 100

Photo: Roger Erickson

Will Bruce Cohen (left) and Dan Jinks (right), the Academy Award–winning producers behind 1999's American Beauty, bring their golden Oscar touch to Milk? No matter how the votes are cast, the producing pair have triumphed with their Herculean effort to bring one of the most highly anticipated films of the last 10 years to the big screen.

They're only two of the many out gay men who worked on Milk, all of whom we are proud to celebrate in this year's Out 100:

> Gus Van Sant, director and Out's Artist of the Year
> Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter
> Stephen Spinella as Rick Stokes, the gay attorney Milk beats in his winning bid for office
> Denis O'Hare as John Briggs, the California state senator and architect of anti-gay Proposition 6

Previously > James Schamus chatter > Premiere & after-party

Hummer: Pink x 2 in her "Sober" video

Noah's on a plane home for the holiday, and I'm all bundled up after a rainy night in LA. But in our ongoing quest to be our utterly queer selves yet totally spaz out over opposite-sex objects of our attention (not that there's anything wrong with that), here's a transcript of our IM conversation last night:

Noah: um. have you seen the new pink video? she looks AMAZING. ANDDDDDDDDDD SHE FUCKS HERSELF. like MAKES OUT WITH HERSELF
Shana: no!! link please.
Noah: SHE TEARS HER SELVES' TOP OFF. it is AMAZING. the scene is about 2 - 2:30 in. SO HOT.
Shana: ahahah ok. watching now...

P!nk "Sober" Music Video

Shana: um. you are not exaggerating ONE BIT.
Noah: i know! i know! it's like -- shocking? when she bites the lip!
Shana: um. hot.
Noah: it's SO HOT.
Shana: i love that you think it is so hot.
Noah: i do. pink is SO hot. i love her because she's so bad ass.

Previously > Pink's so bad ass > No permanent vacation

Hummer: The Killers' Day & Age makes us feel human again

My favorite thing about the Killers' new album, Day & Age, is that listening to the full disc made me rightfully appreciate its first single, "Human," which I'd too quickly dismissed last month. "Are we human or are we dancer," Brandon Flowers beseeches us to consider -- a reference, he's said, to a woe-is-us warning from writer Hunter S. Thompson. Flowers is always having some kind of crisis on the dance floor. On 2004's Hot Fuss, which in retrospect belonged firmly on my own top 10 list of Greatest & Gayest albums, he's debating the "potential" of his sexuality in "Somebody Told Me."

In "Human" the grand debate is more existential -- but when Flowers is promising, "I'm on my knees, looking for the answer" over the most gay thumpa-thumpa electronica I've heard since Queer is Folk was canceled, it's hard not to want to throw back your head, strip off your shirt, and shake your booty like it's 1999. It sounds exactly like a Killers song should, new and old at the same time, silly and yet far too serious about a clubland contemplation. (There are some decent remixes, but it doesn't really require them.)

As always with this band, you will know them by the company they keep: "Losing Touch" is a bit like newer George Michael, "Spaceman" has a taste of Bowie, "Joy Ride" feels like Peter Gabriel and Midnight Oil, and the others are all a tad Tears for Fears ("The World We Live In"), classic Talking Heads, early U2, late model Depeche Mode. There are worse influences to have, worse sounds to steal, and what Hot Fuss did so well was take 20 years of synth-pop, throw it in a blender, and come out the other side somehow sounding unique. I don't think the recipe worked quite as well overall here.

Though Flowers talked a lot about how the band's last full-length album, Sam's Town, was inspired by Bruce Springsteen, it was an elusive comparison at best, egotastic at worst. Day & Age's "A Dustland Fairytale," unfortunately, sounds way too much like the Boss' "Thunder Road." If you're going to emulate one of the all-time best piano-driven rock songs ever written, it might behoove you to make one exception to your AutoTune resistance.

All that said, it took a week of my reluctance to unload Sam's Town from the CD player before I realized how much I loved "Bones" and "This River is Wild" and "For Reasons Unknown," so I'm going to let Day & Age simmer a while on repeat and see how things shake out. I'm stuck now on what feels like the disc's most original track: "Neon Tiger" is a beautifully insane demand to uncage yourself and let loose in the city of Sin. That sounds exactly like the Killers I love so much.

(After years of running off at the mouth first and apologizing later, by the way, Flowers seems to have finally found some kind of zen. This Advocate interview with him is smart and chill and refreshing -- and his comment about having dinner on a regular basis with Elton John gives credence to the rumors that they'll record this year's Christmas single with him.)

Looking back at 2008 with Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart

Photo: Greg Lotus

One of my first real assignments at Out -- other than fetching coffee (black, two sugars, precisely 131 degrees Fahrenheit) and dry cleaning for my boss while narrowly avoiding the crack of his whip [Ed. note: He's kidding. Mostly.] -- was interviewing Jamie Stewart, the lead singer of the often discordant but just as routinely beautiful indie experimental band Xiu Xiu, last January.

I've had a crush on Jamie for as long as I can remember (I think since I first heard "Fabulous Muscles," a shivery-sung track about obsessive love from their 2004 album of the same name featuring the lyrics "Cremate me after you cum on my lips / Honey boy place my ashes in a vase / Beneath your workout bench") and it was probably best that we did the interview on the phone instead of in person seeing as I could barely string my words together. In fact, the first question I asked him was "If you were locked inside a refrigerator and you only had one breath of air left, how would you describe [your new album]?" Um. Yeah.

Anyway, months have passed and since then I have worked diligently on no longer getting befuddled and goofy when speaking to the gorgeous and famous (or at the very least I refrain from asking them questions involving kitchen appliances), while Jamie spent 2008 touring with Xiu Xiu in support of their latest album, Women As Lovers, and being shot as an honoree for Out's 2008 Out 100. Check him out in all his glory at Out.com and while you're there have a look at the exclusive behind-the-scenes video footage of our Golden Age of Hollywood-themed photo shoot as well as all of this year's honorees.

-- NOAH MICHELSON

Previously > The Hood Internet Mixtape > The tortured sexy-ish soul of Jamie Stewart

Scene: Clay Aiken at Rosie's Building Dreams for Kids

Photo: Getty Images

Clay Aiken, who before his daddy days was a regular on the Monday night Broadway benefit circuit, last night stopped by Building Dreams for Kids. The event raised funds for Rosie's Broadway Kids, a too-cute-for-words group that pairs pro thespians with public school young'uns who are aspiring yet tragically at-risk of missing their daily dose of arts education.

Despite Clay's awkward pose and gaunt demeanor, we're going to assume he's simply been burning the baby candle at both ends. The theater geeks at this site report he'll be joining Ms. O'Donnell for her Rosie Live variety special airing this Wednesday on NBC, though he's not listed in any official releases.

UPDATE: Annnnnd of course within minutes of my posting that NBC updated their promo site, which now includes Clay's name. So it's official, if you were deliberating whether to set your DVR.