RuPaul’s back in the limelight. And she’s bringing some friends. The drag legend has teamed with gay cable channel Logo to bring us RuPaul’s Drag Race.
And, to prove her power, RuPaul offered these combative words:
The GLAAD Media Awards may be causing some residual drama.
Cable channel Bravo paid an unspecified sum to air the entire event next month, but a reader speculated that queer-centric Logo, an MTV property, decided to play a little game of “gotcha” with the awards.
Brian Williams’s luck couldn’t last forever. After a well-received gambit on SNL and continued success in the ratings game, his introduction to a segment on Queen Elizabeth’s long marriage to Prince Philips has got the gays switching channels.
In the piece, Williams said, “In an era when marriage is under attack, the United Kingdom is these days celebrating a 60th wedding anniversary: the longest marriage of any monarchy.”
The wording is scandal-inducingly vague. CONTINUED »
CBS News has partnered with Logo for a 30 minute news broadcast. The show will air on the cable network on Mondays at 7 PM. The show will focus on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. Episodes will also stream on 365gay.com. So far, GodTube.com has decided not to pick up the broadcast. [Queerty]
Sen. Mike Gravel thanks the gays and Queerty for getting the Human Rights Campaign to backtrack on its decision to exclude the most overtly gay-friendly Democratic presidential candidate from its "debate" on Logo.
• First Forbes Inc., now Time Inc. Bono throws hat (filled with cash) into the ring for the parenting titles of Time4Media.
• Anderson Cooper plays for CBS, too, remember?
• Turns out former Prison Break castmember and alleged drunk driving killer Lane Garrison had a couple shots before he got behind the wheel.
• Don't anyone ever tell you the tabloids won't pay for a good story.
• Depending on what time of day it is, Post columnist Andrea Peyser would like to bed or beat Barack Obama.
• The faggalas at Logo never did face the expected backlash for, you know, being gay.
• Jack Shafer too coy to call himself cute.
• Missing CNET editor James Kimg found dead.
Exciting news from Logo, MTV's gay network that you've all but forgot about, even though the last Sunday in June is your biggest holiday of the year.
MTV Networks' gay-themed cable channel Logo is ordering a new series about lesbian surfers.
The channel will serve up six episodes of "Curl Girls," which follows six friends in Los Angeles who start their own surfing competition. The series follows a Logo documentary with the same title that ran last year.
Except this time, it's going to be Laguna Beach-inspired, with awkward conflict resolution taking place in awkwardly staged beach scenes with awkwardly scripted conversation and awkward make up sex. (Though the last part has more to do with it being two chicks.)
• Nick Lachey & Jessica Simpson sell the pad to the not famous guy from Malcom in the Middle. [ET]
• The biggest news over at Logo is not Rosie O'Donell's show. It's the shirtless bartender ass grabbing goin on in the cafeteria, of course. [Hollywood Reporter, Queerty]
• Rachel Weisz is havin' a baby. Was there like some huge celebrity orgy nine months ago that we weren't invited to? [People]
• A baby grows in Brooklyn — they are seriously the cutest family ever. [A Socialite's Life]
• We didn't know, and now that we do, we really don't care. Actually, we would rather not have known at all, if knowing meant looking at these disgusto pics of Steve Martin. [Sky News]
• Regis & Kelly make Lindsay Lohan sick. After partying at the premiere of that giant monkey movie, she bailed on the stodgy morning chatfest. Miraculously, she recovered later on to appear at the much hipper TRL, where the demographic skews much more in her favor: young and insecure about themselves. [The Scoop]
• Peter Braunstein's victim (a former W staffer) at has hired legal help to keep the media from revealing details about her identity, from where she works to where she lives. And that she ever had sex with Peter Braunstein. [Radar]
• Britney Spears' solution to keep Kevin Federline at home? Designate a "Britney and Kevin" day, where it's just the twosome and their newborn spawn. Too bad those pesky drug dealers showed up and spoiled it all. [Marc Malkin]
&bull Paris Hilton shops. Paris Hilton doesn't drop. [Page Six]
• Logo is finally getting around to producing a gay dating show. It really has been too long since Boy Meets Boy. [La Dolce Musto]
• Wacky newlyweds Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese have all the ingredients for a blissful union: bondage, spanking, blood, and asphyxiation. [R&M]
• Eminem is taking a breather from music, but not from ex-wife Kim Mathers. The rapper is back with his famous feuding partner and says they're likely going to remarry, which he'll then go on to record an album about. [AP]
• He lost $150,000 that he never paid, but Mischa Barton's on-again off-again fling Brandon Davis recouped $100,000 of it at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, sticking it to owners the Morton family, friends of his that fell out after the debt went unpaid. [Page Six]
• Howard Stern says he isn't pulling in the reported $500 million from Sirius. That figure is far too large; it's more like $480 million. [R&M]
• Lindsay Lohan and Wilmer Valderrama are said to be on the verge of rekindling their romance. That is, Star magazine is hurting for a story this week. [Star]
• Martha! Howard! Cosmo? Kate White is teaming with Sirius for a 24-hour channel to launch in 2006. But at this point, we're about the only ones without our own Sirius show. (Especially now that Oprah is signing on too. Jeez.)
• NBC News president Neal Shapiro is stepping down to pursue "the kind of creativity I've had in previous jobs." Namely, mastering the elongated chevron knitting stitch. Jeff Zucker named his replacement: Steve Capus, who's a bigger fan of the mistake rib.
• Meanwhile, Shaprio's stepping down is just the latest blow that's put network news on the brink of disaster that also includes ABC and CBS. Seating is first come, first served.
• Razor publisher (and Internet porn peddler) Richard Botto cut his staff loose on Thursday, notifying all that the struggling magazine would cease printing.
• Oh where, oh where, has MSNBC's weekend staff gone? With Hurricane Katrina taking up all available resources, they're operating on a skeleton crew — with honcho Rick Kaplan even exec producing their telethon. "there is NOBODY in charge … NOBODY!!!"
• Former ESPN reporter Adrian Karsten was found dead from apparent suicide after facing a prison sentence for failing to report more than $600,000 in income.
Oh Alessandra Stanley, how you make us yearn for your fruit fly to our banana (and an "x" in your name so we can say it without lisping). If there's anyone at the New York Times we'd want to cover gay anything, it's you, doll.
So thanks so much for your Logo channel review, where we realize stars aren't the only ones like us, but gays are too! (It probably doesn't hurt that "us" are homos, but you get the idea.)
We so appreciate when the NYT liberals take a stab at normalizing an entire demographic as well as the TV channel that caters to it. Our only caveat? Your turning what could've been a nice fluff piece on gay weddings and international hookup spots into critique on Viacom's social responsibility. Your editor's doing? (Just nod your head.)
It's all a joke, but it happens to coincide with a growing conservative movement to roll back gay rights, most noticeably by halting the legalization of gay marriage. That mission is led by evangelical Christians who view homosexuality as a sin and say they feel oppressed by a society that keeps expanding the terms of tolerance. And theirs is a serious movement; there are all kinds of differences and intolerances around the country, but most are not bolstered by Senate legislation and passages from the Bible.
Geez, Alessandra, you're getting all Brian Graden on us. Stop pushing!
When Brian Graden told us in June that his gay network Logo wouldn't be a sex-upped gay channel, we knew we wouldn't be tuning in that often.
So we guzzled down the Kool-Aid from Slate's Dana Stevens when she offered up, you know, one of those serious reviews of the network that you'd be unable to find here (and saving us from having to watch).
After a week and a half of serious Logo viewing, the dirtiest single moment I've witnessed so far was pretty mild indeed. It occurred on the travel show Round Trip Ticket, when the perky blond host gave the name of an Amsterdam hotel designed specifically for gay men interested in bondage, then asked naughtily, "How do you say 'ouch' in Dutch?" Logo is so wholesome, so middle-of-the-road, it's practically apple-cheeked.
And when Plum TV looks scandalous next to your supposedly cheeky network, you know you've got programming problems. Is Nielsen even monitoring this paint drying channel?
We got all (sort of) excited for Logo's Brian Graden yesterday, him having presided over 300 program launches across MTV, VH1 and CMT, but now our Oral Roberts man sounds like he's going to let us down.
When the gay television channel comes out on Thursday, it's going to offer a line-up of movies, dramas and news (what, no sports coverage?). But as for sex, they're leaving that to their pay-TV corporate cousins.
"Don't go there" is the operative message for those looking for the titillation of sexy gay programs like Showtime's "Queer as Folk" and "The L Word" (though Showtime Networks, also owned by Viacom, is a sponsor on the new channel).
Brian Graden, president of Logo and MTV Networks Entertainment, explained the philosophy behind Logo's schedule. "When you tell a story about gay rodeo or gay surfers it's not a story about sex nor does it need to be," he said in an interview. "So much connects us beyond sexuality."
Give us a minute to think about this one.
Okay, we're back, and we've still got this question: Uh, like what?
(Image via PBS)
Editorial Director
