The Week Ahead

Hello Towleroad friends,

I'm going to be taking some much needed time off for the next week, so things will be running at a more casual pace. In my stead I have a special guest blogger, fellow Manhattanite Kenneth Walsh, who does a great job of keeping tabs on the world over at Kenneth in the 212. Kenneth has kindly agreed to step on over here for a bit and fill in with a few sexy and scintillating posts while I'm away. Please welcome him starting on Monday.

I hope everyone has a peaceful and happy Independence Day. I'll see you soon.

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TowleTech V.62

Oh my god the iPhone is finally released right now ahhhh [die]. What more can be said that hasn't been already? It turns out that people really are willing to line up -- for days -- for a $500 cell phone. But that's because it's not just a cell phone. Reviews this past week seemed to all agree: there are some shortfalls, but the iPhone deserves to be called revolutionary. After all, the multi-touch user interface, as we've seen over the past few months, is the future of computing, and this is really the first consumer device available that has it. It is also the long-rumored wide-screen touch iPod that fans have been  anticipating for almost two years.

If you're not currently in line at an Apple store near you (hi, Andy!), then you a) are sick of hearing about the iPhone or b) want to read all you can since you can't afford to be a part of the actual experience of owning one. In that case, you're in luck: not only is there no lack of news coverage of the feeding frenzy, and not only are pictures of the iPhone unboxing beginning to surface, but Apple has once again updated its site in the past few days with over a dozen video clips that are the next best thing to playing with one in real life. Yep, it's iPhone porn.

Too bad you didn't get a retail job at an Apple store: every current Apple employee in the United States will receive an 8GB iPhone.

But not everyone wants an iPhone, in which case Motorola does a pretty good job of offering up sexy alternatives. New Moto phones coming down the line include the RAZR 2 -- thinner and yummier than earlier RAZRs (which, if you ask me, are still one of the nicest looking/feeling phones out there) and the RIZR Z8, a "media monster" with a sweet curved slider design. The next version of Motorola's popular Moto Q smartphone is also on its way.

MySpace as officially launched MySpace TV, a video sharing site for its bajillions of users which will compete with Google's YouTube.

We've covered the effort on the part of internet broadcasters to challenge royalty fee hikes that would put many out of business. This week thousands of those sites participated in a "Day of Silence" in protest of the new fees that are supposed to begin July 15th if Congress does not intervene. SaveNetRadio.org says that the radio silence resulted in 14 million hits to its website and over 350,000 calls to Congress in support of the Internet Radio Equality Act. The site claims that the 15th will be "the day the music dies" if the act is not passed.

The United States Department of Energy is the first consumer of IBM's latest -- and fastest -- supercomputer. The room-sized computer operates at "petaflop" speeds thanks to its 294,912 processors, and can crunch 1,000 trillion calculations per second. That truly is super.

Tech Video of the Week There's no shortage of iPhone parodies, like this one from Comedy Central's The Soup. See, everyone can put an iPhone to good use!

TowleTech is written by TR correspondent Daniel Williford.

 

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Condi Biographer: "I Never Came Close to Finding a Female Lover"

In the upcoming issue of the Advocate, Matthew Link interviews Marcus Mabry, who has just published Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power (the first biography on the Secretary of State on which she has cooperated). They discuss, in part, Condi's sexuality. Mabry says that despite all the rumors that she's a lesbian, in all his research he never found any proof:

"The lesbian rumors have been out there for a long time. In my reporting of this book for two years, at evey turn I encountered someone telling me, 'you know she's a lesbian, right?'— colleagues at Stanford, Colleagues in Washington, fellow professors around the country. That she told so-and-so she was gay, or she went out with this woman or that woman. And I would trace each of the rumors back and report them out, and they would never go anywhere. I never even came close to finding a female lover. People had assumed that her best friend, who is a gay man, was her boyfriend. Again, I think it's the Southern imerative to keep the public and the private separate. People have no idea who the private Conoleezza is, so they fill that vacuum. In private she's incredibly warm and gracious—it's shocking. Oftentimes people think a single, strong, powerful woman must be a lesbian. There's a certain homophobia implicit in that assumption."

The issue goes on sale this week.

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Is There Such a Thing as a Gay Walk?

We've heard about whorls and finger lengths, but now researchers are trying to determine whether or not the style of your gait (warning - site NSFW) is an indication of a particular sexual orientation.

Here's a direct link to a worksafe version of the article.

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News: Seattle's Pony, Tyrese, Planet Out, Chris Benoit

SCOTUS strikes down voluntary school integration. From Stevens dissent: "The Court has changed significantly since it decided School Comm. of Boston in 1968 [a major busing case]. It was then more faithful to Brown and more respectful of our precedent than it is today. It is my firm conviction that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today's decision."

Its little pony: Seattle gets a new gay bar.

Breakthrough: Scientists discover way to remove the HIV virus from infected cells.

Who knew? The Wikipedia page on WWE wrestler Chris Benoit's death was updated with information about his wife's death hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their 7-year-old son.

The Economist looks at "out and proud" parents: "The kind of gay activists who think you can't be authentically gay unless you are permanently in opposition to the mainstream find the prospect of gay assimilation appalling. So does the religious right. A black preacher named Wellington Boone, for example, has circulated a pamphlet entitled 'The Rape of the Civil Rights Movement: How Sodomites Are Using Civil Rights Rhetoric to Advance Their Preference for Sexual Perversion'. But he is howling at the incoming tide."

Two gays in this year's Big Brother house?

Advocate: PlanetOut faces June 30th financing deadline. "It was PlanetOut’s last earnings call in May that set off alarms in the financial community, even as a report was released weeks later that showed ad spending in gay media reached record highs in 2006. In addition to the $6.9 million loss, the San Francisco-based company—owner of Planetout.com, Gay.com, The Advocate , Out , and RSVP Vacations, among others—projected a $7-9 million loss for the entire year. That sent its stock price plummeting to an all-time low on May 22 of 86 cents a share, a drop of 89% from its 52-week high of $7.95. PlanetOut also has two outstanding loans: one for $7 million due over the next six months; and a second loan of $10 million, most of which is due over the next four years. The company has been hamstrung more than anything by the poor performance of its travel and cruise subsidiary, RSVP Vacations, in particular lackluster bookings on a trans-Atlantic cruise aboard the Queen Mary that culminated earlier this month. The low occupancy, plus related fines, resulted in a $700,000 hit on first-quarter earnings."

Lance Bass knows a thing or two about "transforming".

Tyrese announces ban on men at upcoming "Shirts Off" tour: "We’re putting a ban on all dudes from coming to the show."

Queen Latifah takes a spin on her hog.

Brighton, England gay basher avoids prison sentence: "On Friday October 27 last year Whittam drank six pints of strong Stella Artois, had four shots of Sambuca and took half a gramme of cocaine, the court heard. He approached lesbian couple Sarah Lavis and Rachel Moorey in London Road in Brighton at 11pm. They were looking through some records left outside a charity shop. He told Miss Moorey: 'If you don't leave them alone I'm going to batter you.' He kicked Miss Lavis in the back, and called the couple obscenities including 'dirty lesbians'.

Jesse Metcalfe wants to be a singer.

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Chad White: The Doll You Can Dress Up

Haven't done a Chad White post in a while, so here's to filling that void. Like a Ken doll, Chad can be dressed up any way you want, and apparently the designers at Milan fashion week know that too.

From left to right, top to bottom - Sailor Chad from Jean-Paul Gaultier, Soldier Chad from John Galliano, 70's track star Chad and Auto Racer Chad from DSquared2.

And finally, Rock Star Chad from Gaultier and Hamptons Chad from Bottega Veneta.

A few of these designers have really been popping their Village People pills.

You may have missed...
Chad White Acts Out a Few Equine Fantasies [tr]
Fashion Notes: It's a Jungle Out There [tr]
New York Fashion Week Leftovers: Chad White [tr]
Chad White "Honored" to Have Gay Fans [tr]

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