News: Alan Cumming, Taxis, Esquire, Booker Prize, Sarah Palin

While Palin was mayor, Wasilla billed victims for their rape kits.

Taxi service for gays to launch in St. Petersburg, Russia?

Pete Wentz: I once almost put a bullet through my head.

Gay softball team disqualified from world series for having too many straight players: "D2, a team from San Francisco, beat the Atlanta Mudcats in the series to qualify for the A Division championship game against the Los Angeles Vipers. But the Mudcats filed a protest, alleging that six of D2’s players were straight. North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAA) rules state a team in the series may have no more than two straight players on its squad."

Some guy relieved himself next to David Beckham and confirmed previous reports from Posh.

Marc Jacobs closes New York show in a skirt.

Barbra Streisand to sing for Obama: "Streisand will perform at a $2,500-per-person reception and concert fund-raiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, with upwards of 700 people expected to attend. Among the co-hosts of the event are DreamWorks partners Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, as well as political consultant Andy Spahn. It'€™s being organized with Obama's Southern California finance team."

UK Booker Prize shortlist announced: Aravind Adiga The White Tiger: A Novel, Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture, Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies: A Novel, Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs, Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency, Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole.

Kevin and Scotty pics from the new season of Brothers and Sisters.

"No on 8" office opens in SF's Castro: "Activists have already been working for months to build up a grassroots operation to defeat the anti-gay constitutional amendment, but now they will have a spacious centrally-located office to organize. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Assemblyman Mark Leno, Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums worked up the crowd with reminders of this historic struggle--and how a defeat by the radical right would be a huge setback for the LGBT community."

Esquire celebrates 75th anniversary with E-ink cover.

Alan Cumming becoming U.S. citizen to vote for Obama.

Living strong: Lance Armstrong to come out of retirement for Tour de France?

UFC fighter Evan Tanner found dead after walk into desert.

WSJ's Kirchik claims GOP is kissing gay-bashing goodbye: "...it was refreshing to see that gays were not part of the agenda this year. Indeed, the only speaker to make mention of them was the former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, and he did so only tangentially, stating that Mr. McCain "doesn't want to change the very definition of marriage from what it has always meant throughout recorded human history." (The same, of course, could be said of the supposedly gay-friendly Barack Obama, who also opposes marriage equality for gay couples). The absence of antigay rhetoric has much to do with Mr. McCain; he is comfortable around gay people, and his old-fashioned sense of honor proscribes against making them pariahs for political gain."

Katy Perry-hating church hit with 'God loves gays' vandalism.

McGreevey's partner Mark O'Donnell offers to pay for daughter Jacqueline's school: "O'Donnell's offer was disclosed in a letter filed Friday in Union County Family Court by McGreevey lawyer Stephen Haller, who called it 'an incredibly generous gesture.'"

Gay porn killers to be tried together...

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News: Howard Dean, iPhone, Lance Armstrong, Reggae, Ryan Gosling

Russian gay activists to picket Iranian Embassy in Moscow. Nikolai Alexeyev: "We need to continuously remind the state authorities that the death penalty must be abolished."

Line forms a week early for 3G iPhone...

Ryan Gosling makes an excellent case for the white T-shirt.

Larry Craig's bathroom stall to return to spotlight: "Thousands of members of the international media will have to walk past it when they land at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul at the end of the summer. Many will feel obligated to stop and file a story. For the party that bills itself as stronger on family values than the Democrats, it likely will prove an unwelcome distraction."

UK Study: employees who are "out" at work perform better.

Half Blood Prince: First look at new Harry Potter film.

Lance Armstrong gets a beard.

Signorile on Arthur Finkelstein, the gay Republican behind Jesse Helms: "Conservative, then-closeted, Republican political operative Arthur Finkelstein helped engineer Helms' racist campaign against African-American Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt in 1990, as Helms was vilifying gay sexuality, blocking AIDS funding, stalling prevention and attacking queer artists. (See the ad below that was aired at the height of the campaign and which resulted in Gantt going from a a lead in the polls to defeat on Election Day). Had Jesse Helms not had the handiwork of Finkelstein, who worked for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and various right-wing senators, he might have lost that race. Instead, we had another decade of his antigay grip on the Republican Party, as he blocked HIV prevention measures and thousands more died."

SALON: Transgender man delivered a baby, but failed to deliver respect.

Nicole Kidman gives birth to a Sunday on a Monday.

Obama campaign plane makes emergency stop due to mechanical problems.

"No Homo" the latest catchphrase to sweep NFL locker rooms: "LenDale White says to Vince Young: 'Vince, you’ve got great nips. No homo.' Did you catch the subtle twist there? LenDale has said something that on any other day might be considered gay, but, and this is key, he’s inoculated his heterosexuality by appending, no homo at the end. No homo also works at the front of the phrase but then it’s much less enjoyable because the other party has been keyed into the homosexuality of the statement that’s to follow. Hence, 'No homo. Vince you’ve got great nips.' No dice there."

Reggae music label plans "Straight Pride Parade" in Brooklyn to protest ban of gay murder music artist Stapler.

Howard Dean holds holiday fundraiser in Provincetown: "From a small podium Dean spoke of the enormous progress that has been made in terms of civil rights — for instance, the number of states that have had referendums on gay marriage — despite eight years under 'one of most oppressive presidents' the country has ever known and a Supreme Court he characterized as 'a disgrace. It’s interesting,' he said. 'Sometimes you have to just sit back and look. The grassroots have changed dramatically.'"

NBC to buy The Weather Channel for $3.5 billion. Hurricane Bertha forms in the Atlantic...

Matt Damon checks into the Green Zone.

Michael Ausiello: Hit TV show planning big gay twist.

Getting away with it: Kylie Minogue breaks royal protocol as she is bestowed with the Order of the British Empire...

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Jake Gyllenhaal Lives Strong

Nothing attracts a crowd like Gyllenhaal in spandex. These shots from the Lance Armstrong Foundation's Ride for the Roses bike-a-thon in Texas in mid-October recently surfaced. Even if Jake's not playing Lance in a movie, he's still down for the cause. One more shot after the jump...

(source)

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Lance Armstrong on Matthew McConaughey: We're Not Gay.

Lance Armstrong clears the air on a few rumors in the new issue of Details, according to TMZ.

Armstrong insists that (despite the spandex, bike training, and the Tour de France buddy vacation) Jake Gyllenhaal will not be playing him in a new biopic.

Armstrong also talks about his close relationship with Matthew McConaughey, with whom he started to bond, the Tour de France champ says, when their relationships went sour: "Our friendship just kind of developed. I think people see pictures and they think we're these over-grown frat guys."

Rumors of something more between the two were also defused: "Lance says that the BFFs call each other 'LiveStrong' and 'J.K. Livin,' and when asked whether they're gay, he jokes: 'We tried it. Wasn't for us.'"

Below, Lance and Jake Gyllenhaal share a whisper at the Americans for the Arts event where Gyllenhaal received an award over the weekend.

(photo source)

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Jake Gyllenhaal Receives Young Artist Award

Although many of you may consider him the work of art rather than the artist.

Jake Gyllenhaal hobnobbed with future biopic subject and BFF Lance Armstrong and Zodiac co-star Robert Downey Jr. at an Americans for the Arts event where Jake was awarded the Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence.

Jake was honored alongside Jeff Koons, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Aretha Franklin, and Sheila Johnson by the arts advocacy group at Cipriani in New York.

In somewhat related news, Brokeback director Ang Lee has joined the team creating the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics: "Interestingly, Chinese media reporting this appointment refer to Lee as the 'internationally renowned' director without referring to his nationality. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of "one China" and censors any reference that suggest its autonomy."

Click to enlarge. Two more Jake shots after the jump...

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(photo source)

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News: Penis Transplant, Polar Bears Drowning, Mario Lopez

First penis transplant reversed: "The patient finally decided to give up the treatment because of the wife’s psychological rejection, as well as the swollen shape of the transplanted penis."

Global Warming: Polar bears drowning due to melting Arctic icepack; Gore says tax pollution, not payrolls; Bush officials tried to suppress federal scientist from discussing link between global warming and hurricanes.

New York Survey says there are lots of "straight" men having gay sex: "The findings are based on a 2003 health department survey that included 4,193 men age 18 and up. Respondents were asked about their sexual behavior and their sexual orientation. Almost 4 percent said they were homosexual, while 91 percent described themselves as 'straight.' The rest said they were bisexual, 'unsure,' or declined to answer. But of men who considered themselves heterosexual, nearly 10 percent had had sex with a man, but no woman, in the past year, Pathela's team found. And of the 337 survey respondents who'd had sex with another man, almost 73 percent identified themselves as straight.

Jake and Lance hypnotized by John Mayer's see-through shirt.

German art student disguises himself as Chinese terra cotta warrior, jumps into exhibit. Guard: "I got to the area where he was supposed to be, looked around and didn't see him - he looked too much like a terracotta warrior." (via raw story)

The Nip/Tuck shower scene clip: How does Mario Lopez get those abs? He doesn't eat.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has hit out at a campaign by a Christian fundamentalist sect targeting her husband of 25 years: My husband isn't gay.

(thanks tyler)

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News: Ptown Swim for Life, The Killers, McConaughey

Jacques lu Cont's remix of The Killers "Mr. Brightside" was one of my favorite remixes of the past couple of years, so I was excited when presented with his remix of their latest track "When You Were Young", although it's an "edit" version. I look forward to hearing the full track.

300 swimmers brave the chilly waters of Provincetown harbor in 19th annual Swim for Life...

Ex-New Jersey Governey James ("My truth is that I am a gay American") McGreevey set to hawk book on Oprah Winfrey show: "The book traces his life through two failed marriages, his rise to the governor's office and the sudden, public implosion of his political career in 2004. McGreevey was accompanied to Chicago for the taping by his partner, Australian financial adviser Mark O'Donnell. The two share a home together. A state senator who was interviewed as part of the program says the old McGreevey was very guarded and concerned with how he would be perceived, while this McGreevey has accepted who is he and is authentic." The show will air September 19th, the day the book is released.

The BFFs are back together and rooting for Texas.

Episcopal Bishops convene in New York to decide future of church after long division instigated by installation of gay Bishop Gene Robinson: "The participants have agreed not to speak to the media until a resolution is reached but Church insiders say they believe the two factions will agree to a 'two-church solution' for the American branch of Anglicanism - one that would allow the two sides exist, separate but equal. Conservatives say that in effect there are already two churches under the Episcopal roof. They want a special 'commissary' to be appointed to look after them who would be equal to the Presiding Bishop in America."

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Jake Gyllenhaal's Cryptic Forearm

This didn't take long. A shot of the very temporary-looking Jake Gyllenhaal tattoo we mentioned yesterday has been unearthed over at Just Jared. Anybody with a clue what this fading design may have said, leave your guess in the comments. It looks to be some sort of Gothic script — the initals of his BFFs perhaps?

Incidentally, the reason for the close bond between Armstrong, McConaughey, and Gyllenhaal has been revealed. We knew that Jake was gunning to play Armstrong in a new biopic. What we didn't know was that McConaughey was going after the same role. Nothing like a bit of friendly competition, eh?

It seems that Jake won out in the end.

It appears that no love has been lost, however, between Armstrong and McConaughey. The two are still sweating up a storm together.

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Jake Gyllenhaal to play Lance Armstrong

The mystery behind Jake's sudden appearance alongside Tour de France legend Lance Armstrong is now clear: Jake is looking to play Armstrong in an upcoming biopic, according to Deadline Hollywood Daily: "Obviously the Tour's assistance, while not required, would be helpful to the bio-pic. Gyllenhaal and Armstrong have become pals during Jake's method process to get to know the sports legend. The actor of Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead fame is even a long-time cyclist and has begun training for the film." This most likely means we're due to see Jake in a lot more spandex.

And how 'bout a big shout out to Floyd Landis for winning the Tour de France. What a story, what a turnaround: "So astounding was the turnaround that race director Jean-Marie Leblanc, who has overseen this event 18 years, called it 'the best performance in the modern history of the Tour.'"

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Jake and Lance Hit the Tour de France

Lance Armstrong has taken Jake Gyllenhaal on an extended date to the Tour de France (sans McConaughey) and the two BFFs appear to be having a ball. The boys who love dressing alike are having enough of a good time, even, for Jake to give us a flash of his giddy tongue.

I guess now we know what all the training was for...

Plenty more shots (via pink is the new blog) after the jump...

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Jake's Back: More of the BFF Overload

Yes, I know some of you are suffering from 'Jake fatigue' and the deluge of so much celebrity man flesh together at one time, so this will be my last Gyllenhaal-related post...of the week.

Hadn't yet seen this photo of Jake stripping out of his (gulp) spandex bodysuit, so I thought I'd share. Also, PEN15 Club has a theory about why Lance Armstrong has been spending so much time with the hotties lately. One idea they didn't float — Lance is used to getting much more attention this time of year. Perhaps he's suffering from attention withdrawal.

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The Gyllenhaal McConaughey Armstrong Trio

One more shot from the ESPYs. These three just can't stand being away from each other. It's not like the BFFs spent all day together...

At the ESPYs, Armstrong poked fun at the speculation surrounding the BFFs: "The actors, who've been photographed recently clad in Spandex and biking with Armstrong, were in the audience at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. Armstrong, in a reference to Gyllenhaal's Brokeback Mountain role, asked why Gyllenhaal was sitting in the front when Armstrong thought he preferred to be 'in the rear … of the theater.' Then, referring to McConaughey's recent PEOPLE honor, Armstrong said, 'The Sexiest Man Alive is here, Matthew McConaughey. We don't all have to turn and look – we all know what he looks like. Jake, eyes up here!'"

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