News: Chris Brown, Google, Madonna, Mercury

Is Chris Brown's new song asking Drake to come out of the closet?

Ben Cohen on the day he received a phone call from Elton John: "He said, 'I hear you’re deaf. I love the work you’re doing and I’d love to help you. When you’re next in America I’m going to send you over to [hearing aid manufacturer] Starkey and fit you out with new state-of-the-art hearing aids. While you’re there you might as well see the head guy, the owner.' It was an amazing day."

Neil Patrick Harris and Newt Gingrich are just two of the few celebrities/notables who have been selected to give Google Glass a whirl.

Howard Kurtz says Anderson Cooper is not interested in Matt Lauer's gig on The Today Show.

20-year-old Cason Crane is on his way to becoming the first openly gay mountaineer to climb the so-called "Seven Summits." He started on number six yesterday: Mount Everest.

Katy Perry and Jane Lynch bump into each other while out on a hike.

The green meteorite found in Morocco last year might just be from the planet Mercury.

Madonna's homeless brother gets blunt about his relationship with his sister: "She lives in her own world. I never loved her in the first place, she never loved me."

Nelson Mandela on the mend after being diagnosed with pneumonia.

The Real World cast member Marlon Williams admits to a past gay experience but insists he is neither gay or bisexual.

Facebook co-founder Sean Parker will get married in June in a medieval-themed wedding celebration.

The Two Best Photos of Ellen DeGeneres from the Grammys

And then there was this:

News: Little Monsters, Adrian Brody, Christie's Temper

Cat hopes to be a journalist one day, gets practice by climbing reporter.

"It was absolutely unreal," said transgender Ontario high school student Connor Ferguson of being crowned Prom Queen.

Singer Katy Perry goes mega-blonde for Vogue Italia.

What's happening with Adrian Brody's nether regions in these vaguely indecent pictures?

So long, and thanks for all the gossip! Ted Casablanca says good-bye to E! after 16 years! His last words: "Always do what you're not supposed to do."

LA Times' Geoff Boucher on politics in Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises: "...Rises will be parsed for political messages and controversy fodder. So much will be made of images of financial market abuse, politicians behaving badly, a terrorist attack at a professional football game and looting riots. To Nolan, the goal doesn’t seem to be commentary, he’s just looking for the believable swirl of circumstances needed to get Bruce Wayne back in the cowl."

Governor and potential GOP running mate Chris Christie got testy with a critic while walking the Jersey Shore last night.

Stocks tumbled after reports showed only 80,000 jobs were created in June.

Days after the States' FDA approved an at-home HIV test, activists in Britain are fighting for one of their own.

I definitely loved the "Fashion Plates" toy as a kid and forgot they even existed until reading this post.

GetEQUAL is raising money to buy an ad in the Springfield News-Leader rejecting Brad Pitt's mom's anti-gay letter.

Finally, the Tina Fey and Childish Gambino collaboration you've been dreaming of!

The owner of an Ohio restaurant President Obama visited during his bus tour died about 90 minutes after he left.

Meanwhile, Colin Farrell is looking pretty upstanding on a walk with his sister.

Lady Gaga's "little monsters" go after Michael Musto.

A simple guide to the Higgs boson and what the heck it means.

A New York Court struck down a right wing petition trying to repeal marriage equality in the Empire State.

Sgt. Matthew Mahl is the first full-time supervisor for the Washington DC Police Department's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.

Gay Man with Beautiful Voice Driven Mad by Katy Perry Encounter: VIDEO

Things were never the same again after shirtless YouTuber WatchBenSing had an onstage encounter with Katy Perry.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Adele Sweeps The Grammys; Nicki Minaj's 'Roman Holiday': VIDEO

Adele sang splendidly and won everything she was nominated for, all six awards, taking it all in stride right up until the end, when she broke down accepting the award for Best Album. It was sweet. Glenn Campbell performed well, despite Alzheimer's. The surviving Beach Boys, reunited just for the awards, sounded far better doing "Good Vibrations" than either the touring band of faux Beach Boys or Brian Wilson's solo group. The Foo Fighters were formulaic. Katy Perry, like most teenybopper-courting space aliens since Marc Bolan, is entirely a creation of studio gimmickry. Rihanna was fine. Jennifer Hudson's tribute to Whitney was brief and tasteful. Paul McCartney's regal and generous, aging vocal cords or no. And Nicki Minaj ...

Well. It's a good thing they stuck her at the end. She debuted a new single, "Roman Holiday," from the upcoming album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, and in so doing took hip-hop to strange, gothic places. Sometimes Nicki sounded like The Dresden Dolls. She shouted, moaned, brayed off-key, toyed with Catholic iconography, got huffy with a priest, and flew. Watch AFTER THE JUMP ...

NEWS: Gingrich Cries, Mexico Marries, And Katy And Russell Split

 It's over: America's worst singer and Britain's worst comedian to divorce.

Newt Gingrich tears up discussing mother.

The scheduled end of the world next year will be excellent for Mexico's tourist industry.

Cancun to exploit vague legal verbiage to perform gay weddings, attract tourists.

The NYT on the fine line Obama walks on LGBT issues:

Mr. Obama’s strategy, administration officials and gay-rights advocates said, reflects two conflicting forces. He recognizes that support for gay rights and same-sex marriage is growing, particularly among young voters.

But he is reluctant in an election year to be drawn into a culture-war issue — one that reliably helps Republicans turn out evangelical voters in their favor and that also strikes a particular nerve with religious black voters, a bedrock Obama constituency in battleground states like North Carolina and Florida.

The 10 best physics books of 2011.

Happy birthday, Patti Smith. Catch some vintage, savage Smithery AFTER THE JUMP ...

The AP's big story on the plight of LGBT seniors:

Experts say many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors fear discrimination, disrespect or worse by health care workers and residents of elder housing facilities — ultimately leading many back into the closet after years of being open.

That anxiety takes on new significance as the first of the 77 million baby boomers turns 65 this year. At least 1.5 million seniors are gay, a number expected to double by 2030, according to SAGE, the New York-based group Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.

 "Sista P" to return to Jamaican leadership after "landslide" election.

Neal Polack knew Christopher Hitchens better than anybody:

It was 1972, the height of our mutual virility. He and I went to a pub to celebrate his most recent intellectual victory over the establishment press. I intimated that sometimes women could be funny on purpose. Even back then, the thought enraged him. Hitchens threw a drink in my face, pressed a lit cigarette into my neck, and hit me over the head with a barstool. The next thing I knew, it was two days later and I was lying hogtied and naked beside the M5. Hitch had already severely damaged my reputation in a vicious essay in the Guardian. But that’s how he operated, and that’s why we loved him.

Need a New Year's resoluton? Presenting Paul Angelo, gay matchmaker and noted crazyperson, who suggests an "urgent" moratorium on anal intercourse. (HT: Michelangelo Signorile)

Longform.org names the 10 best long-form sex stories of 2011. I wrote one of them!