JOHNNY WEIR IS GOING TO BE IN THE UPCOMING WINTER OLYMPICS AND I AM SOOO EXCITED!!!1!11!!!

(To me this is important news, but like for those of you that would like to spend your time helping Haiti instead of freaking out over Johnny Weir, you can donate to Doctors Without Borders here)

Remember when he did his routine to Tori Amos’ “Winter”? Well it looks like he’s really gonna be even more amazing next time he skates for the world.

Can we all talk for a second about how great Johnny Weir is? He recently did this amazing interview with ESPN where he basically blew the poor sports reporter Jim Caple’s head wide open.

You can read the full piece for yourself, but I can’t help but pull some seriously choice quotes. This man is a velvet goldmine of beautiful quotables filled with sass, sequins, and graceful sashays.

On his people liking his short program outfit:

That’s for the short program. It’s black and hot pink. And it’s like an oily, black corset with pink cords and this big pink ruffle and then like a black porno leather epaulet that comes out to here and a big pink tassel that comes off of it. People like it.

On developing his long form outfit:

I’m portraying the Fallen Angel, and before, it was this big, white wing coming across my body, and lots of rhinestones and sparkles and way too much. And I had these gorgeous, chalk-colored ribs. I really liked it, but when I saw some pictures and videos of it, it made me look wide because of the white, so I’m changing it. And now my inspiration is sort of — you know when the seagulls get stuck in the oil spills on your side of the world, up in Alaska and whatnot? When those really pretty white feathers get in the oil just on the tips? That’s kind of the inspiration, and we’re building it now, but it’s the very starting stages.

Why a fallen angel, Johnny?

One moment everything will be peachy and everyone will be saying the nicest things about me and loving me, and the next minute I’m the worst, I’m evil, all these things. It’s like a fallen angel. For me, I feel very much that I can portray that character. Because it’s my career and my life.

On dieting:

while trying to cut down from 132½ to 130½ pounds for nationals, he says, he merely “looks” at lunch

On being named a D-list celebrity (even if he is A-list in my book):

Great, I’m Kathy Griffin.

On the cultural relativity of masculine aesthetics (You’re such a smarty pants, <3 u!!!z):

For me, I’m lucky that I’ve traveled so much of the world and seen so many things and for me, masculinity is completely subjective,” Weir says. “Here, a male ballet dancer would get beat up and left on the side of the road. But in Russia, he is No. 1, he is what a man is. That kind of passion and control. In Japan, masculinity is making sure your hair is completely gelled and coiffed and that you’re dressed and decked to the nines. Masculinity is what you make it out to be. Here in the U.S., not everyone feels the same way.

His mother, on the circus like media attention Weir gets:

They had a fit over Weir in track pants, and here is Evan all but naked, jumping around and leaving nothing to the imagination,” she says. “How come you’re fine with this but go off on my son for wearing track pants? Granted, he was wearing heels.

Weir on the kind of glass closet he seems to live in:

I want to be judged by who I am, not what I am. I mean, I am Johnny Weir. Judge me the way you see me, love me the way you see me, hate me the way you see me. All these things make me up, and sexuality and having sex is the least that people should worry about.

My favorite little byte is that they mention that the commercial for his upcoming reality show is one where “he hatches from a giant Fabergé egg”? WHAT?

This show is gonna be amazing.

I know some so called progressive gays are gonna come down on him for “perpetuating stereotypes” or whatever that shit means. Look, part of equal rights is equal rights and respect for even the most flamboyant. So the haters need to shit the fuck up. This man is amazing, funny, and a great addition to what we see in the media. I personally can’t wait until the day comes that he finally feels comfortable calling himself gay publicly. Creating an environment that can be supportive of that is what we need to work on, not tearing him down in all his spandex glory.

By now you probably all of read the story in the New York Times Magazine by Benoit Denizet-Lewis about tweens coming out in middle school, right? What do you all think about these gay tweens?

I kinda think it’s great. I mean, really great. Generally middle school is a time when queer kids get depressed and hate most of the world, but not for these kids. Look at how fun their gay tween dance is!!!

Not that I don’t have my skepticism about an 11 year old’s ability to comprehend sexual identity, but as the article notes:

Still, the younger they are when they come out, the more that youth with same-sex attractions face an obstacle that would be unimaginable to their straight peers. When a 12-year-old boy matter-of-factly tells his parents — or a school counselor — that he likes girls, their reaction tends not to be one of disbelief, dismissal or rejection. “No one says to them: ‘Are you sure? You’re too young to know if you like girls. It’s probably just a phase,’ ” says Eileen Ross, the director of the Outlet Program, a support service for gay youth in Mountain View, Calif. “But that’s what we say too often to gay youth. We deny them their feelings and truth in a way we would never do with a heterosexual young person.”

Q: what kind of fucking asshole would I have to be to tell these kids they can’t know who they are?

A: One really big fucking asshole, the same kind that grows up and makes gay people’s lives miserable. So shut the fuck up and let them define themselves and figure this stuff out.

So even when I question the long term truth of the high number of kids in this article identifying so readily as bisexual, I chalk it up to “kids being kids” and discovering who they are. The fact that this generation even has a lexicon to identify queer sexual feelings is impressive, and, I think, very important. I can’t help but notice how AWARE these kids are of the fluidity of their own identities at this age, as one student, Alison, says, “We can’t even keep up with who’s gay or bi and who’s into who, and we go to school here!”

It seems like these kids might even be aware of some of issues that complicate adult queer life and identities. The following paragraph could pretty accurately describe any age group of queers in relation to mainstream society:

In particular, openly gay youth who are perceived as conforming to adolescent gender norms are often fully integrated into their peer and school social circles. Girls who come out as bisexual but are still considered “feminine” are often immune from harassment, as are some gay boys, like Laddie, who come out but are still considered “masculine.” “Bisexual girls have it the easiest,” Austin told me in Oklahoma. “Most of the straight guys at school think that’s hot, so that can make the girl even more popular.

I had so much internalized homophobia, it took me until after high school to come out. I have friends who didn’t come out until their mid 20s. I can’t help but wonder what sort of person I would be if I had spent middle school and high school somewhat well adjusted about myself and my sexuality. I laughed when Alison and Justin give Benoit a tour of the school to identify the gays and bisexuals with the terms “paws” and “woof” respectively, and end up speculating that their school is full of confused bisexuals and gays. Their behavior — these attempts to navigate the fairly complicated world of human sexuality — at 11 seems to mirror some of mine when I was 18. The world I grew up in seems alien in comparison, and I was lucky to grow up in a liberal area that had one of the ealier Gay Straight Alliances. My world in the 90s must have seemed pretty alien to the previous generation — the rate of change is astounding.

It’s really inspiring to be living at a time when a segment of the population, considered doomed to a life of loneliness, blamed for a worldwide epidemic, and told that part of who they are is a “choice” that condemns them to hell, can finally grow up, just maybe, feeling good about themselves and with the sort of emotional milestones during adolescence that are more easily experience by their straight counterparts. This starts to look like change I can believe in. It was enough to provoke a tear or two by the end of the article.

This optimism and these emotions could be just what the author wants me to feel. It’s hard to take stock in few case studies presented in this article when hate crimes towards trans, gays, and lesbians appears to be on the rise. There’s a lot of work to be done, and a couple case studies do not necessarily reflect a sea change in national attitudes.

It’s good to see that some things about the teen gay experience haven’t changes since my adolescence:

It’s not uncommon for gay youth to have their same-sex attraction discovered thanks to a rogue number on a phone bill or, more often these days, a poorly concealed Internet search history. “We see a lot of kids get outed by porn on the computer,” Tim Gillean told me in Tulsa. “I knew one kid who told his mom: ‘I don’t know how that got there. Maybe it was dad!’”

And we only had dial-up. I can only imagine what I would have been looking at if high speed connections had existed. Jesus, I would have got in trouble.

This is like a telenovela for the animal kingdom. I actually almost cried at the end.

The gay penguins of the San Francisco Zoo have split over a woman. Her name is Linda and she’s a whore if you ask me.

POOR PEPPER!!!!! I hope he still gets visitation rights for the kid.

[via Joe My God]

A couple of wrestlers, Paul Donahoe and Kenny Jordan, recently got in trouble at the University of Nebraska for posing on Fratmen.tv , a web site targeted at (gasp) gay men. Now they’ve been kicked off the team and are in some sort of crazy legal battle with the school over their actions.

One of my favorite parts of this “scandal” is how the assumed straightness of these athletes and the fact that the web site’s audience is primarily gay somehow adds to the moral outrage. If it was a porn site for women (they exist, right?), would the corn-fed Nebraskans be as outraged?

Whatever, the porn that they did seems pretty vanilla. I want to see a video of the whole team playing  gookie cookie together. Make it happen Fratmen.tv!

Free Paul Donahoe! He was just proud of body and wanted to show it off!

Ok. So I know I haven’t written here in a while. And so much shit has happened. SO MUCH SHIT HAS HAPPENED!!!?!?!?!?! Just so ya’ll know, I’m gonna try and start updating again and have some more podcasts coming up for all 5 of you that actually download and listen to that shit.

Something important happened yesterday however, and as a gay, gay blog, I do need to at least pretend to cover it. California has  upheld Proposition 8, Prop H8, or whatever you want to call it, in a 6-1 decision. You can download the full text of decision here if you have time to browse a over 100 pages of legal text. If I was a more intelligent person, I’d probably read the full decision and then offer some sort of nuanced point of view on how marriage equality could continue to move forward in California.

Unfortunately I don’t have that much time. But I do have enough time to read editorial features online!!!

Mark Morford wrote this nice little piece up for the San Francisco Chronicle today to give all you gay protesters last night some hope in light of the CA Supreme Court’s decision. It’s pretty well written and a great piece. Memorable quotes:

• Watch carefully as they sigh and roll their eyes, then whip out their Nokias to text their friends about how this creepy elder just tried to convince them that the harmless, yawningly commonplace homosexuality currently saturating the popular culture all around them, from fashion to Facebook, movies to “American Idol,” is not only wrong, but so wrong that the law should ban it forever because… well, no one really seems to know exactly why.
• You could say, then, that we are, right this minute, at the tipping point. You could say that very soon indeed — sooner than many people expect, in fact — we will all look back on this inane gay marriage hysteria and wonder, what the hell was that all about? What the hell were we thinking? And by the way, isn’t President Obama’s second term going just astonishingly well?

Basically his opinion here is that “Gay marriage is a done deal,” regardless of the opposing legislation that might litter our path there. So all we need to do is like Jennifer Connelly at the end of Labrynth and say “You have no power over me” and then the right wing’s Escher inspired fortress will collapse and we’ll be back at home with our little brother (whom we thought was kidnapped!) and it will be like this whole bad dream never happened.

I guess the problem I have here is that I am part of this eye rolling, Nokia wielding, texting and sexting generation, albeit on the older side. However, I am defintively part of those known as “digital natives” and can safely say that I am on the older end of “Generation Y,” “The Millenials” or “Generation WTF,” you know, whatever you want to call it. And you know what? We’re not as liberal as people assume, there’s still a good number of close minded conservatives among generation Obama. Just because us young liberals currently have the spotlight doesn’t mean the pendulum couldn’t swing the other way.

I have difficulty taking any comfort in the idea that gay rights are part of an unavoidable zeitgeist or Hegelian march through history that will inevitabley end in equality and understanding for all. Gay marriage is far from “the last civil right,” especially when you examine trans issues, continued racism in our country, immigration, and as Andrew Sullivan points out in a powerful blog post regarding his personal life, discrimination against HIV positive people and serodischordant couples.

These are real families, and real people, living real lives, and this is what the fight for gay marriage needs to be about — real families and real people and how our government can create structures to support them the same way we support white heterosexual families in this country. The rights associated with gay marriage are actually about a whole lot more than gays getting married; these are rights that need more than people saying gay marriage is “cool” or “kinda chill” or “who cares” in order to come to fruition. It’s about families who have a need to be recognized by the federal government with full federal rights. The current solution we are fighting for is to create a more inclusive definition of marriage (just as a reminder — civil unions would be seperate and therefore per se would breed inequality).

Now that I am off my soapbox, I will admit his major points do have a good amount of merit. I mean even pre-pubescent vloggers on YouTube are cool with homosexuality these days:

Not that I am one to laugh at celebrities injuring themselves (I am one to laugh at celebrities injuring themselves), but did you hear? Madonna was thrown from a horse! And she’s blaming the paparazzi!  [full story here at Hamptons.com]:

Bridgehampton – The pop star Madonna was released from Southampton Hospital Saturday afternoon after suffering minor injuries and bruises from a fall while horseback riding at photographer Steve Klein’s West Kill Farm in Bridgehampton. According to accounts which are now being disputed, a freelance photographer startled the horse Madonna was riding when he reportedly emerged from a hedgerow to snap a photograph.

According to press accounts, publicist Liz Rosenberg relayed the incident in a statement claiming Madonna’s horse was startled by paparazzi. The freelance photographer in question has countered that his view was obstructed from where he parked on Scuttle Hole Road and since he did not have a clear shot he opted to leave. Upon seeing an ambulance arrive at the scene he reportedly returned to take a photograph.

Let us count the ways that this story is ridiculous:

1) She was at Steven Klein’s estate. Steven Klein might be most famous for his ridiculous (yet sexy?) photos in L’Uomo Vogue. Like that time he dressed up Aaron Carter like a club kid from the 90s? He wishes he could be styled as fresh as the original club kids, the “cutest things” ever to appear on the Joan Rivers show!

This is the company Madonna keeps? This guy is still photographing her alongside the hunks (i.e. the Brad Pitt shoot for Troy a couple years back) and twinks he usually photographs. He’s even photographed her with horses before and just recent shot her with her young Brazilian lover in some scenes that seem very reminiscent of Truth or Dare. I can’t think of anyone photographer more appropriate for an aging gay icon to be hanging out with. And then for this fantasy lifestyle to end with her face down in the mud bucked from a horse? Priceless. It’s the sort of stuff that could inspire a Marilyn Minter painting.

2) The name of the street the photographer is alleged to have ducked into is “Scuttle Hole Road” and all it makes me think of is the term “scuttlebutt”. A paparazzo working for a gossip rag hanging out on Scuttlebutt Road is like the most obvious set up for short storytoy wrote for your seventh grade english honors class. You got a C+. Read More!

What’s with this? Can we post nothing on this blog these days that doesn’t get removed due to copyright violations? The best response to the NOM gay marriage ad, the remix featuring it’s raining men created by our buddy Arch Noble,was pulled by YouTube this week for “copyright violation.” Yeah, whatever bigots. Rachel Maddow had something to say about this behavior, because NOM recently pulled one of Rachel’s own segments:

But you know what works and is legitimately fair use? Parody. Stephen Colbert made his own ad. Try and take this down NOM!

This is actually really serious, so I’m going to take a break from humor for a second to alert you all to a serious need in the community. A queer landmark is in danger and needs your help. Learn about the S.S. Gay on the Gowanus Canal in the video below.

These sort of landmarks are essential to bridging an understanding with the greater community in New York of more radical identity politics and queer issues and we need to preserve them. While in my opinion the city should be funding this, spaces for radical queer politics just don’t tend to get much support from the Government, even if they might merit historical landmark status, at least in my opinion. Not to mention that the boat looks pretty rad. They’ve really fixed it up. Let’s not lose this. These men and women need your help. This is the S.S. Gay and it wants to recruit you!

There’s a benefit on March 28th at 78 Lafayette. Please attend. It’s a sliding scale donation of anywhere from 5-20 bucks so I am sure all of you can do this. Learn more on the web site to Save The Gay.

My good friend Tim Hull sent the greatest news clip my way today. It seems that our recession is pulling New York City back into the eighties and early nineties, back when the West Village was a place for crime, vogue-ing, drag divas, and the fiercest transsexuals, a la Paris is Burning. Can you feel this realness? [via WPIX local news]

Tranny Teens Terrorizing Downtown Girls

WEST VILLAGE (WPIX) — Police say a roving pack of transvestite teens has been targeting females living in a tony West Village building. According to authorities, the trannys would steal the women’s purses and use their stolen credit cards to buy wigs and new clothes.

Two of the teens, Jubril “Dominic” Faggins, 19, and Jhirad “Shanese” Powell, 18 have both been charged with attacking two women at The Archive on Greenwich Street, former home to designer Michael Kors, actress Jennifer Connelly and infamous White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The first attack happened on the morning of January 29. According to the New York Post Powell told cops, “It was Destiny (another transvestite) that told me to rob the white bitch.”

Court papers say Faggins and Powell followed the woman into the lobby, held her down, punched her and then stole her purse. The two attackers then went on a two-day shopping spree in Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall, charging more than $3500 worth of women’s clothes, jewelry and accessories on her stolen credit card.

Days later, on February 2, the duo returned to the building and attacked another woman.

I’d like to point out that they went to the Fulton Mall. Not SoHo, not Barney’s, not 5th Ave, not Union Square. They went to the Fulton Mall. I hope they did some business at Danice.That store is fierce — great styles at a great price. Werk! I love their choice of apartment building to target as well. You know a place is fabulous when Monica Lewinsky lives there.

However, I’m not sure how GLAAD is going to feel about the use of “tranny” here. I’m pretty sure that’s blatantly defamatory language. Shame on you, WPIX.

Have a good weekend y’all — I gotta go rob some white bitches. I need a new weave.

Anderson Cooper is auctioning himself off as a date! Go wild guys!

But calm down for a second, because it’s just for lunch. Not the steamy candlelit dinner you dreamed about last night. But hopefully it’s lunch at Michael’s and you can at least pretend to be part of the media elite.

Now I’ve never been attracted to The Coop. I think he has no lips and looks kind of like a skinny WASP in a way that would just mean a lot of sharp edges to deal with in bed. Doesn’t look like fun to me. But I really hope he fetches a pretty penny because it’s for a very important cause, Bailey House. However, if I was to hang out and get wasted with any news caster though, it would be Diane Sawyer. That lady seems like a fun drunk. (Side note: What’s with me and LOLgraphics recently?)

But on a serious note guys, it’s a really great thing that The Coop is willing to use his celebrity to try and get funded for an organization that provides services such as Bailey House. In this economy, critical budget cuts are destroying critical services in HIV education, prevention, and care that could have an extreme impact on the gay community. As private funders for non profit services began to dry up, the city has reduced up to 42% of it’s funding for HIV/AIDS services, hitting city funded housing especially hard, and St. Vincent’s HIV center has been forced to close it’s landmark PrEP program. Hats off the Anderson Cooper, a celebrity who has never issued a public statement about his homosexuality, for putting his name on the line for a cause often associated with LGBT communities during a very critical time. The full auction index is here.