News: Walt Whitman, Submarines, Leona Lewis, Polaroid, Steve-O

HRC's Joe Solmonese responds to 2017 letter uproar.

18-year-old arrested in beating death of Oakland Park, Florida gay man.

Clinton disappoints gay activists in Moscow by not decrying anti-gay abuses of Mayor Luzhkov at Walt Whitman statue unveiling, but does urge Russia to respect human rights and the democratic process: "In an innovative society, people must be free to take unpopular positions, disagree with conventional wisdom, know they are safe to challenge abuses of authority."

Man punches singer Leona Lewis in the face at book signing.

Gay poet Carl Phillips a finalist for National Book Award.

House Minority Leader John Boehner thinks sexual orientation is not an immutable characteristic, and that's why he opposes hate crimes legislation that includes it.

Ed Westwick explains his giant feather tattoo.

Navy considers allowing women to serve on submarines: "Some sailors and wives warn that putting men and women together in extremely close quarters underwater for weeks at a time is just asking for sexual harassment cases and wrecked marriages. But supporters of the idea say it is a matter of fairness and equal opportunity, and what worked on ships can work in subs."

Last-minute donations pour in for Referendum 71 in Washington: "The campaign in favor of R-71, called Washington Families Standing Together, now has nearly $1 million in the bank. Big donations include $60,000 from a special fundraising committee set up by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group. Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates each gave $25,000. The campaign against R-71 also has some last-minute donors. A relatively new committee called Vote Reject on R-71 has collected about $200,000 from the Family Policy Institute of Washington, a Lynnwood-based conservative religious group."

GQ launches in China.

Patrick Swayze gets a memorial jack-o-lantern.

Masks come off: Michael Jackson's kids to co-star in Jackson family reality show.

Gay sex club closes after man falls to his death in D.C.: "At Men’s Parties, safety doesn’t mean ensuring that the apartment’s stairs, surfaces, and exposed metal pipes provide a secure sexual landscape for party attendees. It doesn’t even mean encouraging members to engage in protected sex. At 1618 14th St., 'safe' means ensuring anonymous sex for a group of gay men sporting wedding rings, sensitive careers, or shame."

Same-sex marriage state by state: an interactive map.

Polaroid instant film cameras to make a comeback.

Video Phone: Beyoncé and Lady Gaga team up for super secret music video.

Steve-O stands up for frogs.

Senator Olympia Snowe, the sole Republican vote on the Senate Finance Committee which approved the health care bill yesterday, says any final bill that includes a public option won't get her vote.

Queer theory: "Vampires have overwhelmed pop culture because young straight women want to have sex with gay men."

Make love on a real train and get crabs while you're at it.

John Mayer gets $800 haircut, debuts new video, wants to sodomize an editor at New York magazine.

Music News: A Final Listen To 2008

Robbie Daw presents a weekly pop music update here on Towleroad! Robbie runs his own site called Chart Rigger.

Another year, almost over. At the onset each January, the music fan in me looks ahead, anticipating new whatever intriguing new releases may be on the way. Yet for many reasons, politics took the front seat to pretty much everything in 2008.

Listening to and waxing philosophical on pop just kind of felt insignificant at many points over the past 12 months.

That said, this being my last Towleroad music column of the year, I decided to take a look back at just some random music-related points from 2008: Some that maybe didn't get mention here, some that did. Some perhaps unimportant in the grand scheme, but all of which are off the top of my head on this cold mid-December day:

   Lil Wayne had the best selling album of the year with Tha Carter III, which moved 2.7 copies. The second best-selling was Coldplay's Viva La Vida, which sold 1.9 million. By comparison, the top-selling album of 1998 was the Titanic soundtrack, at 7 million copies.

   I was bummed that I missed catching Aussie dance trio Cut Copy live at every turn. Their latest album In Ghost Colors is pretty groovy, and definitely worth checking out (particularly the track "Lights & Music").

   I did get to see MGMT live at Austin City Limits—which, as I read in Billboard today, was the fifth top-grossing music festival of the year, with $11.7 million in ticket sales. The band was a bit disappointing live. Chalk it up to the Texas heat? Meanwhile, there are two awesome new Pet Shop Boys mixes of MGMT's current single "Kids" out there—the "PSB Abstrakt Mix" and "PSB Synthpop Mix."

   I'm not sure pop really got more perfect than Chris Brown's "Forever" in 2008.

   Albums that will be worth revisiting after December 31: The Ting Tings' We Started Nothing, Robyn's Robyn, Cyndi Lauper's Bring Ya To The Brink and Kylie Minogue's X.

   Ones that were perhaps a bit ahead of their time, or underappreciated: Santogold's Santogold, Keane's Perfect Symmetry and The Killers' Day & Age.

   One import worth snagging: Take That's The Circus. That said, rumor has it the album is getting a U.S. release in 2009.

At $282 in earnings, by year's end Madonna is set to see her Sticky & Sweet tour become the top-grossing jaunt ever for both a female and solo artist.

   It was jarring to see Britney Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone in February for a story titled "Inside An American Tragedy," then nine months later with "Yes She Can: Britney Returns!"  But return she did, scoring her first #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 since her 1998 debut single. She also landed her first two back-to-back Top 10 singles ("Womanizer" and "Circus") last week.

   It didn't seem possible for any artist to make an equally-impactful version of "Run" as Snow Patrol's 2004 original, but Leona Lewis somehow came close. Her cover has been the #1 U.K. single for two weeks now, and was just added to U.S. iTunes today.

    In the spring we all pondered whether Katy Perry was offensive with her songs "Ur So Gay" and "I Kissed A Girl." Who knew she had a decent jam like "Hot N Cold" up her sleeve, to boot?

Kevin Cogill cooperated with authorities and pleaded guilty to leaking tracks from Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy online over the summer, ahead of the album's November release. He could face a year in prison.

   Whoever can count the amount of times Andy Towle mentioned Lady GaGa gets a gold star.

   Following in the tradition of Sugababes and Girls Aloud, the Saturdays are the next in the line of great British girl groups who may never get proper exposure this side of the pond.

   David Archuleta sure is merry, lively and spirited!

   Finally, if ever there was a starlet deserving of claiming she sufffers from the grand Hollywood malady of "exhaustion," it just might be Rihanna.

A FEW CLIPS FOR THE WEEK:

ELLEN DEGENERES AND BRITNEY SPEARS: Christmas caroling in L.A.

SARA BAREILLES AND INGRID MICHAELSON: "Winter Song," from the compilation Hotel Cafe Presents Winter Songs.

GIRLS ALOUD: New single "The Loving Kind," co-written by Pet Shop Boys and Xenomania, and officially out in the U.K. next month.

LILY ALLEN: "The Fear," new single (on iTunes now) from her upcoming second album It's Not Me, It's You.

THIS WEEK'S NEW RELEASES:

Fall Out Boy's fifth album Folie à Deux, produced by Neal Avron and Pharrell Williams.

The Killers' third annual Product Red AIDS charity single "Joseph, Better You Than Me," also featuring Elton John and the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant on vocals.

Keyshia Cole's third album A Different Me.

Holiday songs by Lady GaGa ("Christmas Tree"), Slim ("This Christmas") and Lady Antebellum ("Baby, It's Cold Outside").

New singles from Leona Lewis ("Run"), Bruce Springsteen ("The Wrestler") and R. Kelly ("I Believe").

News: Gayest Looks, Christian Siriano, Blackmail, Marc Jacobs

My Gayest Look: A site for Jay Leno. Submit yours!

A view of the jungle shot by an elephant who carries around a hidden camera in a log.

Britney Spears may soon have her own sitcom!

Straight cops at University of New Mexico claim discrimination by gay superiors: "The two complaining officers, with a combined 24 years of experience with the UNM police department, filed a complaint with the state Department of Workforce Solutions arguing that they are being treated unfairly because they are straight and their superiors are gay. Lieutenant Michael Young contends that his job as administrative lieutenant was taken from him by Police Chief Kathy Guimond, whom Young claims is gay, and given to Lieutenant Patrick Davis, who is also gay. Young also claims another gay superior, Commander Debbie Kuidis, with Davis were given higher evaluation ratings by Chief Guimond and greater pay raises."

Karl Lagerfeld bodyguard smacks down paparazzo: "A paparazzo lurked from out of the shadows and started snapping away at them, and out of nowhere, one of Lagerfeld's guys just threw him to the ground." I wonder if it was Sebastian?

Scott Heim talks to the SF Chronicle about his latest novel, We Disappear: "What's true and what isn't - that's such an obsession with so many readers. If you say it's totally fictional, or you don't fess up to things, they tend to feel like they've been cheated or something. But if you say, 'Oh yeah, it's from experience,' then they kind of have this idea that you don't have an imagination."

David Beckham earns his 100th cap in a pair of golden booties.

The booties so impressed Beckham's son Romeo, that he dug for some gold of his own.

Keith Richards discusses Mick Jagger's sexuality: "It was camp. Yeah. It was all… I really have no idea if anyone ever shoved it up the shitter."

Kids coming out earlier than ever: "We're working not for tolerance, but for acceptance. I don't care if it's race, gender or sexual orientation. We need to accept the uniqueness of each and every one."

Student ambassadors train against school violence: "The training session was dedicated to Lawrence King, the Oxnard junior high school boy who last month was shot and killed, allegedly by a classmate, purportedly for admitting he was gay. The Oak Park ambassadors, who maintain anonymity for safety reasons, wrote their comments on a poster in memory of the 15-year-old victim: 'Lawrence, what happened to you is extremely unfair. Everyone deserves a chance in life no matter what sex, religion, sexual preference, anything. Your story will teach many people to be better people.' And, 'You are told to forgive and forget but the reality is you don't do either.'"

Marc Jacobs hits L.A. with new man.

Melbourne, Australia teacher fined $3,000 for blackmailing former lover with a sex video: "Hicks became aware that the victim was a 'closet homosexual' who had a wife and daughter who were not aware of his activities, Judge Michael McInerney told the court. 'He was discreet, or discreet as one can be if you pick up someone in a public toilet,' he said. The court was told that during one of their liaisons, Hicks - who also was married, had a child and was bisexual - recorded them on his mobile phone participating in a sex act. Hicks later approached the victim and told him he had a video of them and that he wanted $3,000 or he would show it to the victim's wife and put it on YouTube, the court heard."

Project Runway winner Christian Siriano designed the dress that Kimberley Locke performed in on last night's American Idol.

Leona Lewis is the first UK female artist to top the U.S. charts in more than 20 years, since Kim Wilde's 1987 cover "You Keep Me Hangin On".

Anti-gay domestic partner bill dies in Kentucky senate: "The Kentucky Senate’s Health and Welfare Committee voted to defeat a bill yesterday that would have barred state universities and other public agencies from providing health coverage to employees’ domestic partners. Furthermore, committee member David Watkins (right) scolded the bill’s sponsor, Vernie McGaha, for introducing it, calling the legislation divisive and ignoring the state’s biggest health problems like smoking and obesity, according to The Courier Journal."

Music News: Oprah Fêtes Leona Lewis And Journos Sum Up SXSW, Plus The Raconteurs, ABBA, The Feeling, Amy Winehouse, Groove Armada

Robbie Daw presents a weekly pop music update here on Towleroad! Robbie runs his own site called Chart Rigger.

Yesterday, Oprah had Simon Cowell and 22-year-old British singer Leona Lewis on her show. Lewis performed her single, "Bleeding Love," which was already a smash in the U.K. last fall. A showcase on Oprah is rarely one that fails to deliver; "Bleeding Love" is now the top download on iTunes.

Touted as both "the next Mariah Carey" and "the next Whitney Houston" -- often by none other than her own high-profile music biz handlers, Simon Cowell and Clive Davis -- Lewis previously won the 2006 season of Brit show The X Factor, which was created by Cowell. Now if only Clive would offer a U.S. deal to the equally vocally talented (and eye-pleasing) Shayne Ward, who won X Factor's first season.

Below are clips of the Next Mariah Carey from Oprah, and the Previous Mariah Carey with T-Pain, from this past weekend's SNL:

Leona Lewis' full album, Spirit, will be released on April 8.

This year's South By Southwest (SXSW) festival: Jim Derogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times notes the great indie spirit, but laments the "sad decline to arena-rock mediocrity" of R.E.M. for the past 15 years. Meanwhile, Ross Simonini of the Seattle Post Intelligencer has to leave the festival ("Five people vomited within arm's length [of me].") to find decent bands, and the Los Angeles Times' Todd Martens leaves Perez Hilton's party unimpressed with Robyn and the insults hurtled at him.

The Jack White school of making an album: finish it one week and put it out two weeks later. On the literally just-finished new album from The Raconteurs (pictured right), Consolers (due out next week): "We wanted to get this record to fans, the press, radio, etc., all at the EXACT SAME TIME so that no one has an upper hand on anyone else regarding it's availability, reception or perception."

Ola Brunkert, believed to be the only session musician to play on all of ABBA's recordings, found dead after a freak accident at his home.

The Feeling's Dan Gillespie Sells urges fellow pop stars to come out of the closet: "The world would be a healthier place if people were more honest about their sexuality and the entertainment industry would be healthier if people were more honest full stop. The more of us who come out, the easier it is for others. My advice for anyone considering coming out would be to do it for themselves. It's not fun living a lie."

Giorgio Armani enlists George Clooney and Julia Roberts to help get Amy Winehouse to perform at his celebrity bash.

And if you thought the album cover for Hard Candy was just a one-time look...

THE WEEK'S NEW RELEASES:

Almost a year after its U.K. release, Groove Armada's Soundboy Rock, the dance duo's seventh studio album, arrives in the U.S. It contains "Song 4 Mutya (Out Of Control,)" the pair's 2007 international hit featuring ex-Sugababes member Mutya Buena on vocals.

The Kills' Midnight Boom. The duo's "Cheap And Cheerful" is also iTunes' free download single of the week.

A week ahead of its physical CD availability, Gnarls Barkley's The Odd Couple hits iTunes.

If you were totally jazzed with Flo Rida's 10-week stint at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with "Low," then why not check out his full length album, Mail On Sunday?

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #247: Brit Awards Edition

The Arctic Monkeys and Take That each won two awards last night at the Brit Awards: "The Sheffield band [Arctic Monkeys] won the coveted Best British Group award. They also walked away with the Best British Album award for Favourite Worst Nightmare. Take That won Best British Live Act and Best British Single for "Shine", voted for by commercial radio listeners and The Sun Bizarre column readers. Gary Barlow described it as 'unbelievable'."

Mika and Beth Ditto opened the show with a medley of "Love Today", "Standing in the Way of Control" and "Grace Kelly" (above). Below, Kylie Minogue performs "Wow", Leona Lewis performs "Bleeding Love", Amy Winehouse performs "Love is a Losing Game", and Rihanna trots out "Umbrella" another time with The Klaxons.

A full list of winners AFTER THE JUMP...

Music News: Kylie Hops Into Robyn's Box, Plus Leona Lewis, R.E.M., Yahoo Music, Cat Power, NKOTB, Shelby Lynne

Robbie Daw presents a weekly pop music update here on Towleroad! Robbie runs his own pop music site called Chart Rigger.

Either these two pop dames are trying to give us déjà vu, or they're both just really into boxes. Kylie Minogue's new video for "In My Arms" (below, left) made its way online yesterday, and it bears more than a passing resemblance to Robyn's video for "Handle Me" (right) from last fall.

Of course, all these years later, it's worth revisiting what might be the silent inspiration for both clips.

While "In My Arms" is Minogue's second single off X throughout most of Europe, the U.K. and Australia will get "Wow" instead. Videos for both "In My Arms" and "Wow" were shot while Kylie was recently in Los Angeles by director Melina Matsoukas. The U.S. version of X is tentatively scheduled for a March release on Capitol Records.

Meanwhile, two EPs from Robyn were made available stateside yesterday -- the five-track Rakomonie EP and the single package for her U.K. chart-topper, "With Every Heartbeat." Robyn's full-length album from Cherrytree/Interscope will drop in April. The singer is doing three sold-out club performances next week in New York, San Francisco and L.A.

Along with Madonna, Mariah and Gnarls Barkley, successful U.K. belter Leona Lewis to throw her hat into the crowded ring of April album releases.

R.E.M. shoots their new video in New York at "the best sex shop [they've] ever been in."

Despite the company's current woes -- or perhaps in spite of them -- Yahoo Music to offer non-digital rights managed (DRM) songs by the end of the year.

Music sales are dismal all over, but Cat Power (pictured right) scores her best week ever with newly-released album Jukebox.

With an updated website boasting past achievements and playing a schmaltzy new ballad, is the latest musical reunion... New Kids On The Block? Group member Danny Wood initially denied it on his MySpace blog, but has since written: "Hi to all the New Kids On The Block fans, I wanted to clarify since my first post this morning regarding the NKOTB reunion. I loved being a part of the group, and have always thought 'maybe someday we'll get back together' – you just never know when your someday will come. I can guarantee all the fans that if this reunion were to happen, they would hear about it first on www.NKOTB.com."

"Glass-smashing garage punk and genre-mashing pop. Weed-infused hip-hop and Ivy League-schooled geek rock." Get to know Spin's Who's Next In '08. (In particular, Duffy and The Wombats already have huge buzz overseas, Santogold seems just crazy enough to crossover and Margot And The Nuclear So And So's really dig cello.)

Girls just wanna have fun: Cyndi Lauper, Natalie Cole, Bonnie Raitt and Bette Midler to be award presenters at the Feb. 10 Grammys.

... and baby makes four for Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale.

THIS WEEK'S NEW RELEASES:

Grammy-winner Shelby Lynne's album of Dusty Springfield covers, Just A Little Lovin'.

Stage diva Sarah Brightman's first album in five years, Symphony, which features guest vocalists Fernando Lima, Paul Stanley of KISS (!!) and Andrea Bocelli.

Rent and Wicked star Idina Menzel's foray into pop, I Stand.

A remix EP of the Thom Yorke songs "Atoms For Peace" and "Black Swan."

New singles from Estelle (the slightly electro "American Boy"), Spin artist to watch Santogold ("Creator/L.E.S. Artists") and Making The Band vixens Danity Kane ("Damaged").