Quickies: The Smoking Gun

> A waiter claims he lost his job after Kevin Spacey had a diva moment (or, at least, a nicotine fit) in a Newport, Rhode Island restaurant last summer. Peter Turner says he was laid off just days after Spacey reacted less than amicably upon being asked not to smoke, causing his boss to remark "If the owner knew you pissed off Kevin Spacey, he'd have me fire you."

> Adam Lambert is on the market! focusing on his career.

> Will a new storyline on Alan Ball's True Blood restore our faith in the heretofore sub-satisfactory lesbian vampire genre?

> A dramatic reinterpretation of "Poker Face" as only Christopher Walken can provide.

> Pop quiz! What's the difference between a porn star and a My Little Pony?

Previously > Quickies: Primetime Gays and Gagaian Symbolism

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Gay Congressman Jared Polis on Stephen Colbert

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Jared Polis, the first openly gay congressman to be elected, chatted with Stephen Colbert for The Colbert Report's popular show segment, "Better Know a District." What ensues is pretty much comic genius, with Colbert playing the role of the homophobe. Oh, and somewhere along the line a beer funnel comes into play. Don't ask, just watch.

--GREGORY MILLER

Previously > Liza Minnelli on Craig Ferguson

Quickies: Altar Updates

Who knew the C in JCPenney stood for "Class"? 
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> America's Next Top Model's first transgender contestant, Isis King, was on The Tyra Banks Show yesterday to talk about her transition surgery, which Tyra surprised her with last year. She got another surprise this time around -- a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Desmond.

> The Real World Brooklyn's Chet, or a life-sized cardboard cut-out thereof, defended the Mormon church against the crazy claims of "a couple people" to the L.A. Times. "A couple people take the LDS Church for being antigay and they're not at all. They're very pro-family, but they're not antigay."

> If a countess is only a countess cuz she's married to a count, is she still a countess when she gets divorced? This is just one of the profound questions we must grapple with today in lieu of the news that Real Housewife and class-consciousness consultant Luann de Lesseps's royal marriage is ending.

--JESSANNE COLLINS

Previously > Carson Kressley confesses to closet butchness!

Quickies: James Franco is Ridiculous, Ted Haggard is Still Married, No Doubt is Old School

 

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> UCLA students are using Facebook to protest the selection of James Franco as their commencement speaker, citing his general "ridiculousness." Though they concede the mustachioed Milk star, Out cover boy, and sleepy creative writing grad student is a "very talented actor," the group's members -- 278-strong and growing by the minute -- think "His academic experiences are too limited thus far to provide him with the wisdom and perspective such a speaker is meant to provide to graduates.”

> Apparently fulfilled neither by his many minutes in the spotlight nor by his new career as an insurance salesman, disgraced gay-but-trying-not-to-be pastor Ted Haggard will be appearing on Divorce Court, with his wife, whom he is not divorcing. Hilariously, the episode airs on April Fool's Day.

> What's better than Gwen Stefani performing on Gossip Girl? Gwen Stefani performing on Gossip Girl, in a flashback to the '80s.

-- JESSANNE COLLINS

Previously > Almost-live from the Milk premiere & after-party

Chatter: Kenny Chesney

"What guy who loves girls wouldn't be angry about that …? I didn't sign up for that. I think people need to live their lives the way they want to, but I'm pretty confident in the fact that I love girls (laughs). I've got a long line of girls who could testify that I am not gay."

-- Country singer Kenny Chesney's asserting that he is not -- we repeat -- is not a homo. We can't say we're too bummed about that.

Vladimir Putin is a Dancing Queen?

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Austrialian Abba tribute band Bjorn Again (can we just stop right there and all take a second to bask in the sheer ridiculous awesomeness of that name?                   OK -- ready to continue?) claims it was hired by the Kremlin to play an intimate show for Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Bjorn Again says it was paid £20,000 to play the gig 200 miles north of Moscow on January 22. "It was the smallest audience we have ever played to but Mr. Putin was really enjoying it, shouting 'Bravo' and clapping with the others," said Aileen Mclaughlin, who performs as Abba's blonde Agnetha Faltskog.

Though a representative for Putin denies the concert took place, we're way too in love with the following image to not believe Mclaughlin when she relays that "[Putin] was dancing along in his seat to 'Super Trooper' and raised his hands in the air during 'Mamma Mia' when we asked the audience to." Perhaps the secret to world peace -- like the secret to the perfect Friday night dance party mix or Saturday night make out session soundtrack or Sunday afternoon apartment cleaning playlist -- is Swedish disco-pop?

Previously > Hummer: Regina Spektor's "Fidelilty" fights for gay marriage

Ted Haggard Hates Gray Areas

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A new HBO documentary promises to shed some saddening/maddening light on disgraced evangelist Ted Haggard. Premiering next Thursday, January 29, The Trials of Ted Haggard shows the exiled megachurch minister "shuffling from motel to motel, driving a moving truck, enrolling in a college psychology course, struggling as a door-to-door salesman and pondering his fate while laying in a motel bed in a white undershirt. 'At this stage in my life, I'm a loser -- a first-class loser,' he says." Ouch.

Lest ye forget, Haggard fell hard off his ultra-conservative pulpit in 2006 in a flurry of male prostitutes and methamphetamine. He promptly went to rehab for "sexual immorality" and afterward was declared "completely heterosexual" but recently admitted to still struggling with his sexuality. "Asked whether he could define his sexual identity, Haggard said: "The stereotypical boxes don't work for me. My story's got some gray areas in it. And, of course, I'm sad about that but it's the reality."

-- Jessanne Collins

Previously > Things get gay, political, and teary on Lifetime

Chatter: Kevin Spacey

"Eventually we're going to get it right. Eventually the American public will figure out that it really isn't right to deny citizens basic civil human rights."

-- Kevin Spacey on the inevitability of coming out (in favor of equal marriage, that is).