Screen Cap: Leslie Jordan on Hidden Palms

"Lonely, sad, not fit for public consumption. I was too weird for the mainstream and I was too normal for the fringes. Hell, I didn't fit in anywhere. I did not...belong. And you know, all I ever wanted was to just belong. Well, that...and to be Tammy Wynette."

— Leslie Jordan as recovering alcoholic/fairy godmother/drag queen Jesse Jo on the new Kevin Williamson prime time soap Hidden Palms. You may remember Jordan as Karen Walker's arch-rival Beverly Leslie on Will and Grace, or for his recent turn as a Dominick Dunne-style journalist on Ugly Betty.

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Real Bitch Island, the World of Chris Crocker

You may have watched some of the videos I've posted of Chris Crocker. Crocker has, to say the least, a unique personality, and has developed a massive YouTube and MySpace following because of his often nonsensical, sometimes hilarious, spontaneous musings made before a video camera in his home.

What was not known before now was much about the person behind the videos. Eli Sanders at The Stranger was so intrigued he made a trip to Crocker's hometown, a place Chris likes to call "Real Bitch Island". It's a small town in the rural south.

What Sanders found was less of an egomaniacal YouTube star with attitude, and more of a desperate but hopeful gay boy whose experiences in his home town illustrate the plight that many young gay people face in small towns across the country — loneliness, harassment, isolation.

Sanders writes of a trip to the local mall with Crocker: "As we walked around, past the Sunglass Hut, past the pushy smells of scented candles and baking cookies, people stared hatefully at us, and mostly at him. They stared hard, with the kind of presumed right to glare that people in more sophisticated places wouldn't dare show. Chris ignored it all, checked out the cover of the latest W magazine at a bookstore, pronounced it boring, and then nonchalantly showed me the mall video arcade whose back room he'd hid in when, one day while shopping, he'd heard a girlfriend of his shout: 'Run, Chris!' He'd turned around, that day at the mall, to see a gang of boys chasing him down, coming at him over the beige tiles. He knew he couldn't stand and fight and win. He knew that was only a fantasy, perhaps suitable for a web video but not for real life. He ran."

The difference between some gay kids who are bullied in small towns is that Crocker has found his connection to the outside world in the form of the internet, which he hopes will be his ticket out. I hope it happens for him.

Before you read Sanders' excellent piece, I'd urge you to familiarize yourself with some of Crocker's videos, like the ones here. More can be found here as well.

Escape from Real Bitch Island [the stranger]
Chris Crocker [youtube]

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Jobs and Gates on Same Bill for First Time in 20 Years

Highlights from the meeting of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at the All Things Digital conference last night. Gates doesn't seem too convinced when Jobs tries to put a positive spin on "PC guy" from the "I'm a Mac" ads. Jobs: "PC guy is great. He's got a big heart."

The complete interview videos can be found here, and here's a transcript.

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Montreal Gay Bar Faces Complaint for "Men Only" Policy

Audrey Vachon, a Canadian woman who was asked to leave Montreal's Bar Le Stud when she sat down to have a drink with her father on the patio because of their "men only" policy, has filed a complaint with Quebec's Human Rights Tribunal, reports CTV.

Said Vachon: "On the spot I didn't believe it, I thought it was a bad joke. I didn't say a word until I'd left. I was too shocked. I was embarrassed, I was humiliated, I felt guilty that I'd even gone there, like I'd done something wrong."

According to CTV, "A spokesperson with Montreal's Gay Chamber of Commerce said Le Stud may have made an error and that the group wants Quebec's Charter of Rights respected."

The incident comes on the heels of a recent ruling over a similar situation in Melbourne, Australia, where popular gay spot The Peel Hotel was awarded the right by a court to bar heterosexuals from the premises.

As in Australia, feelings appear to be mixed about the situation, with some saying there should be a place where gay men can go and be able to be themselves, and others, like Peter Sergakis, another Montreal bar owner, saying it's time for the policy to go: "This should not be happening, it's like going back 20 years ago when the gays were intimidated in straight bars. I'm sure the owner is going to change the habits. This is not acceptable in 2007."

It's unclear what the outcome of Vachon's complaint may be.

Montreal gay bar under fire for barring women [ctv]
Woman lodges human rights complaint after being evicted from gay bar [canada.com]

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Dutch Arrest 4 for Gay Sex Party HIV Blood Injections

At least five men who claim they were raped at a Dutch gay sex party led authorities to arrest four others, two of whom have confessed to intentionally injecting men with HIV-infected blood. Police also arrested two others, one for his alleged involvement in the rapes, and another for selling a "considerable amount of drugs" including ecstasy and GHB.

District police chief Ronald Zwarter talked to the Associated Press about the incidents, which took place in the northern city of Groningen. Said Zwarter: "The suspicion is that, at these parties, they had unsafe sex with people they had drugged, and also that these people were injected with infected blood. The motive to do this was the 'kick,' and the feeling that unsafe sex is 'pure'."

According to the AP, "Prosecution spokesman Paul Heidanus said Thursday that the two who confessed would face charges of rape and "premeditated severe assault, which carries a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison. He said they would not be charged with attempted murder 'because of a Supreme Court ruling that found AIDS should no longer be seen as an inevitably fatal disease, but rather a chronic illness,' Heidanus said."

Reuters reports: "Police began investigating the gay parties after receiving tips, some from AIDS groups. The police confiscated several liters of GHB, sometimes known as a 'rape drug' used to make people unconscious, as well as thousands of ecstasy pills, photographs and other evidence. A court in Groningen on Wednesday ordered the suspects to be held in prison for at least 90 days."

According to a police statement, all the victims said they thought they had been infected with HIV: "The victims said they had had been made helpless or unconscious and then abused. They had ... involuntary and unsafe sex with one or more of the suspects."

Authorities said there may be both further arrests, and more victims out there.

Dutch police arrest 4 men in bizarre sex-crime investigation [ap via iht]

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David Hyde Pierce Nudged Out of the Closet

While a People magazine cover may be the de rigeur method for celebrities to come out these days, some take a more subtle approach, such as burying the news in the 16th paragraph of an AP profile.

AfterElton notes that Pierce, heretofore reticent to discuss his sexuality, has his information offered up in a recent story on the actor:

"He worked at Playwrights Horizons, the Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park and a lot of regional theaters such as the Guthrie in Minneapolis, Chicago's Goodman and Long Wharf in New Haven, Conn. Pierce got to Los Angeles in the early 1990s when his partner, actor-writer-producer Brian Hargrove, wanted to write for television."

While this is probably not earth-shattering news, it's still worth noting that Mr. Hyde Pierce has broken out of that glass closet.

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