George Michael fans will be happy to know that his career is experiencing a new life. He recently announced the dates of his upcoming American tour.

June 17 - San Diego/San Diego Sports Arena
June 19 - San Jose, CA/HP Pavilion
June 21 - Las Vegas/MGM Grand
June 22 - Phoenix/US Airways Center
June 25 - Los Angeles/Great Western Forum
July 2 - Seattle/Key Arena
July 4 - Vancouver/General Motors Place
July 7 - St. Paul/Xcel Energy Center
July 9 - Chicago/United Center
July 13 - Dallas/American Airlines Center
July 14 - Houston/Toyota Center
July 17 - Toronto/Air Canada Centre
July 18 - Montreal/Bell Centre
July 21 & 23 - New York/Madison Square Garden
July 26 - Philadelphia/Wachovia Center
July 27 - Boston/TD Banknorth Garden
July 29 - Washington, D.C./Verizon Center
July 31 - Atlanta/Philips Arena
Aug. 2 - Tampa/St. Pete Times Forum
Aug. 3 - Sunrise (Ft. Lauderdale), FL/Bank Atlantic Center

George Michael, the talented and amazing artist, was never in doubt. He created a string of hits first as lead singer of Wham! and later in his solo career. This is a guy who took Elton John’s Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me and made it his own. That’s no small feat.

The real issue was whether his talent would be overshadowed by scandal and drug abuse. Some part of that scandal grew out his sexual orientation, including the infamous park bathroom incident. But, in recent years, most of it grew out of drug abuse.

His resurgence has Michael showing up in unexpected places like ABC’s drama Eli Stone. It was nice to see him there. It’s even nicer to see him get back to his roots as a performer. After the break, another bonus clip of the artist in concert.

From the world of hip hop comes the news that Fat Joe is “dissing” 50 Cent & G Unit by portraying them as gay on the cover of a mix tape entitled Gay Unit Vol. 1.

Fat Joe and 50 Cent, top selling acts in the hip hop industry, are currently engaged in a feud. This latest incident involves Fat Joe's response to their feud.

Fat Joe Photoshopped the cover of a mix tape with an image of 50 Cent, Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks. In the photo, the rappers tightly hold each other while wearing smeared lipstick. To further the “joke,” Yayo displays an “I Miss Jail” tattoo on his shoulder, and Banks displays a tattoo of 50 Cent with “Delicious” written under it.

Hip Hop’s treatment of gay people is an issue that has been discussed previously by AfterElton.com and 50 Cent is an artist well known for his anti-gay rhetoric. Sadly, there is nothing shocking about Fat Boy's behavior either. It's a continuation of rappers repeating the same themes over and over again.

Fortunately, there are some slow changes occuring within the industry. There are straight artists who are accepting of gays like Kanye West and hip artists who are gay themselves like Deadlee.

Ultimately, the problem with this joke is the same as Jimmy Kimmel’s use of gay characters. Where’s the creativity? The joke begins and ends with defining a person or group as gay. Satire about the gay community can be fun. Certainly, shows like Rick and Steve and Drawn Together demonstrate that a good joke told in a fresh way never goes out of style. A good joke can be real. The problem here is that the joke is just old and tired.

I found this this story out of the UK disappointing regarding the reaction of religious groups to the introduction of "gay is normal" children's books into the educational system. According to the article, books such as King and King, about a gay prince, and And Tango Makes Three, about gay penguins are considered "homosexual propaganda" by several religious organizations.

Some of the comments are truly vile such as one claiming that the children's books "could expose children to sexual predators" by making them think gay is "perfectly normal." I suppose the reality that most sexual predators are straight isn't something the children should be taught to guard against. My immediate response to the comment regarding gay as normal would have been to say to this person that gay IS normal. I don't mean normal as in we are the majority. I mean normal as in we are a part of the norm of life, as the documentary Out in Nature so effectively postulates. Our being gay is probably no more unique than any other aspect of biological variation in nature.

The irony of trying to block a book on gay penguins, considering we now know that there is a subset of animals in nature who have same-sex coupling, is especially amazing. However, my argument would have probably fallen on deaf ears because ultimately this is a cultural, not scientific, debate. The science will only tend to reinforce the position that one already has. If one is against gays, the argument will predictably be that gay is a disease like cancer that needs to be cured. For us, it's proof of the fact of what we have known all along- that what we feel is natural. The real discussion is about who controls the culture. Children's books are one way to determine that. Here in America, of course, we are used to seeing the power of these groups to define anything as positive toward gays as propaganda, and anything that they spew as synonymous with family values.

In my recent interview with Paris Barclay, one of the things that struck me as most important about him is that he has adopted two kids and is raising them despite all the efforts by others to block his family from existing. The question is no longer in what kind of society do we want to raise the kids of those opposed to us. It's become in what kind of society do we want to raise our own kids, the children of gay and lesbian parents.

In the past, it was Dr. Seuss who shaped the imaginations of children with books about characters like the cat in the hat. Hopefully, going forward, it will be characters who are inclusive of all of us, including us gays, that shapes our imaginations.

I first heard of Harvey Milk when I rented, based on the advice of a sales clerk, The Times of Harvey Milk, an Oscar winning documentary about his life and eventual assassination. I recommend that you check it out. It's a great film about Milk who became the first out politician in American history when he was elected Supervisor in San Francisco. He did this back during the 70s- a time when announcing one's homosexuality to straight America seems tantamount to announcing that you are a Satanist who drinks blood. To win, he created a coalition of different groups, including unions, African-Americans and neighborhood old-timers in the Castro.

So I was happy to read last year from various Hollywood trade magazines that a movie about Milk's life as depicted in the book, The Mayor of Castro Street (which I also highly recommend), had attached Bryan Singer. Singer is the director of The Usual Suspects and the X-men and Superman franchises. I hoped that Singer's name, like Ang Lee with Brokeback Mountain, would fast track the making of the film. The history of the project is that it's been in development hell or turnaround in Hollywood for years much like the biopic of Janis Joplin. Names like Dustin Hoffman, at one point or other, have been thrown in the mix to play Milk. With Singer attached, I thought- finally! someone is there who can spearhead this. Unfortunately, in researching a separate post this week, I read the news that Singer has tabled the Milk pic to work on another project for United Artists.

I understand why creatively Singer might want to work on another project. Sometimes, things work out like that in Hollywood. You go in the direction of the projects that have some heat behind them. I can imagine that happened here. However, I do have one thing to say to Hollywood in general: Please, make a movie about Harvey Milk!

Never has his story been more relevant than at this juncture. The ploy by many homophobes is to divide gays from the rest of the American experience as if we are naturally at odds with other groups- whether they are black, or Asian or unions or in the military. The comments by General Pace this week make it clear to me that we need to have images of the history of gay people that's about how much we've contributed to this society. Not in the clichéd sense, but in the big picture sense such as the African-American civil rights movement and being servicemen with long records of serving our country. A film about Milk would be controversial (read profitable) because it's a story that shows the belief that we aren't a part of this country to be a lie.

Despite the image of San Francisco being this bastion of extreme liberalism, many of Milk's constituencies were not liberal. He bridged the gap between different groups. Like the documentary on his life, a biopic about Milk's life has Oscar worthy appeal as a political drama that can reflect our times by showing the potentiality of what could have been versus what people are telling us this history is.