Happy Birthday to the diva of divas! Kathy Griffin turns 49 today.
Following this assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear. Yes, we're serious.
- File this under "inevitable". According to TMZ, the reason why Carrie Prejean dropped her lawsuit against the Miss California USA Pageant is because they got their hands on her homemade sex tape.
- NYTimes.com is running an ad for newmuseum.org that is raising eyebrows. The ad in question is on the right-hand side, halfway down the page. It's not one of those Exorcist screamer pranks, but it's close.
Icon Sir Ian McKellen at the N.Y. premiere for the remake of The Prisoner
- Seattle gay rights activist Paul Barwick is interviewed about the first time he applied for a marriage license ... in 1971.
Bert, Ernie, Wallace and Gromit
- Happy 40th anniversary to Sesame Street and happy 20th anniversary to Wallace and Gromit. I adore the latter, but as for Sesame Street, well, I always more of a Big Blue Marble kid.
- ABC's reVamped V garnered huge ratings in its debut, becoming the highest-rated 8 p.m. drama series debut since Lost. I missed the debut, and until I hear about unhinged jaws swallowing guinea pigs, I think I'll skip it.
- Various groups in Glasgow, Scotland are up in arms over the new play Jesus, Queen of Heaven, which depicts Jesus as a trans woman.
And today's Briefs are brought to you by...
Submitted by
on Wed, 2009-11-04 18:36.
This Guy?
There was discussion about this in yesterday's brief's
Kitty
My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like it's better than yours. ~Kelis
Um, that doesn't make sense to me
People still have to click on the blog post, then scroll down through all the stuff they supposedly don't want to read to see the Briefs Guy...?
Please, return him back to the page!
Briefs guy
Yeah, but that way, if they want to scroll through a gallery of past briefs guys, they don't have to scroll through a page of text for every pic. They can just click previous-previous-previous.
I don't really care either way, but that's their reasoning.
Briefs Guy
I agree
Is Jesus
Regarding Advocate, well, if
Funny That These "Death of the Advocate" Stories Don't Mention..
...a key reason a number of readers dropped their subscriptions to the mag after being faithful devotees for years: the Advocate's increasingly conservative bent.
For a good part of the last decade, the Advocate has been slipping more and more into Log Cabin Republicanism, culminating in repulsive actions like the cover asking if we should blame the gay community for the death of murdered gay teenager Lawrence King. If memory serves me, that same issue had a puff piece praising John McCain.
I once loved the Advocate, but it was even before the Regent takeover that the magazine had lost leave of its senses and we were getting all these pseudo-Righty articles by the likes of James Kirchick.
If the Advocate is dying, it's kind of a suicide. I'm sure I'm not the only reader who stopped subscribing because several of their regular contributors were starting to make Andrew Sullivan look like a bleeding-heart liberal by comparison.
SING OUT LOUISE!
Jesus as a Trans Woman?
He's a flesh-eating zombie!
(Hey, read the Gospel. I don't make this stuff up.)
Money Can't Buy BRAAAAAIIINS!!!
Dude, that's just priceless. The most succinct and hilariously brilliant description of said 'savior' I've come across in ages.
Personally I'd describe him as: The-flesh-eating-zombified-son-of-an-abusive-mass-murdering-megalomaniac.
*ahem*
But that's just me...
And indeed, all that IS in the gospel.
Or, at the very least, in
Or, at the very least, in Maggie Gallagher's, Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson's, and Poop Benedict's bible.
V
My take is that it may be entertaining, but it won't be memorable. And the original definitely was.
Considering that it lost its showrunner less than 24 hours after debuting, I wouldn't be surprised to see it pull a "Commander in Chief" in the ratings.
V
The Original V
Your memory of the original V miniseries is definitely accurate. The effects are dated, and the plot and themes were quite heavy-handed compared to today, but there was nothing like it on TV at the time.
Now, if you remember the second miniseries or the subsequent regular series as anything other than cheesy fun, then the memory is cheating.
The Orignal V
I cannot argue on that point - The first was great original fun at the time - perhaps I'm just too old/jaded to enjoy this new flavor. I gave up halfway though the second series/cheese - I was done with it.
But - I'm just so tired of "re-invention" of TV/Movies from the 60's up through even early 90's - Originality seems to be mostly a Lost Art....(or maybe it's just the appreciation of it....)
Insight into Maine to make you feel better
In case people are thinking huge numbers, with the 47% to 53% loss in Maine, think again... the final numbers are 267,574 for equality vs. 299,483 to repeal it. That means just 16,000 votes would flip it to a win. In a single year more older voters than that amount pass away from old age in Maine, meanwhile that amount of Maine young people grow old enough to become voters. I am glad Equality Maine is sticking with the pursuit of equality because the world only turns forward and time is on the side of equality.
The Advocate
I am so torn on the issues raised in the article about the downfall of The Advocate.
On the one hand, it breaks my heart to read about the behind the scenes "dumbing down" of the publication from hard-hitting news magazine to fluff piece.
On the other hand, I think the reality of the situation is, even if the magazine had NOT changed tone, its days would still be numbered. The comparison to Time and Newsweek notwithstanding, the target audience for a magazine like The Advocate is the internet generation.
I think the author misses the point; yes, there are absolutely sites out there that offer gay news in the format of soundbytes and flashy videos with little substance. But that's not ALL that's out there. AfterElton and AfterEllen are clear examples of where that's simply not true.
While it's a given that we need more substantive journalists in the digital world, to dismiss them all as being inequal to what the Advocate provided is inaccurate. They are out there, the difference is that it's not all under one umbrella anymore.
So, yeah, I'll miss The Advocate, but there's really not a void there like she's alleging. The information, the perspective and the voice is still out there, it's just a little harder to find these days.
I sincerely hope The Advocate makes a comeback
The Advocate has been presumed dead on more than one occasion--when the AIDS epidemic hit (would there be enough "community" left to support it?), when they took out the adult ads in the middle (who would buy a gay magazine that was "just" news?), when they merged under the LPI umbrella, etc.
I've vented before about the potential death of magazines. This is great environmentally (less use of paper), but potentially catastrophic for society. Why? Because it's now much easier for our history to disappear--as we should know from any good history/anthropology class, it's the cultures that don't create tangible artifacts that last that vanish into the mists of time. Especially with the gay community (can you imagine someday if genetic engineering makes it possible to limit or eliminate same-sex attraction?), I feel real strongly about us valuing our cultural heritage. (I can't figure out if it's more elitist to say that "Well, EVERYONE is online, or should be" or to say "Well, if you're gay, you should allocate X amount of your time and income to supporting our media.")
Like it or not, if The Advocate goes under, part of the gay community's story dies. OUT, Instinct, Bitch, A Bear's Life, etc.--even AfterElton--all owe some of their success to the trailblazers at The Advocate.
It's always a good day when it has a little Ian in it
It's always a good day when it has a little Ian in it.
Regarding The Advocate, isn't it also about the traditional media not doing so well in this internet-era? It's too bad because I don't think people really understand what they are going to miss when magazines and newspapers will dissapear until it's too late.