News: Tori Spelling, Paw Paw, NYC Nightlife, ACT UP, Jason Mraz

New York may soon no longer be the city that never sleeps.

Jason Mraz on his new album and why he surrounds himself with gay people: "To me it’s not an issue of gay or straight; it’s just a coincidence that the people I hang out with happened to be … gay folk. And I, as a writer, have always written from a feminine side. I take yoga, and I practice my spirituality, to balance my heaven and earth, to balance my masculine and my feminine, you know? And I think what I find hanging out in the gay community, there’s more of a balance in the masculine and feminine qualities in the lifestyle than in a typical straight relationship or just in a straight person."

Tori Spelling anoints herself a gay icon: "I'm a huge fan of gays. They love me; I love them. They consider me kind of a gay icon, which they've labeled me as."

Justice Department confirms inquiry into whether U.S. Attorney Leslie Hagen was fired because she is a lesbian: "Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie A. Hagen was informed in 2006 that her contract working on Indian affairs in the Justice Department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys would not be renewed for a second year — despite receiving the highest possible performance reviews. When NPR first reported Hagen's case earlier this month, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) asked the Inspector General's Office and the Office of Professional Responsibility to confirm that they were looking into Hagen's case."

Jake Gyllenhaal stands underneath an umbrella - ella - ella.

Leslie Jordan, who stars in the upcoming Sordid Lives, headlined a fundraiser on Monday night for NYC's Harvey Milk High School scholarship fund.

Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee seeks donors to help fund cost of unveiling event on May 22, what would have been Milk's 78th birthday. More on the Memorial here.

In other Milk news, what is recognized as the first public tribute to Harvey Milk after his death, a mural painted on the side of the Duboce Park recreation center named in his honor, will soon be painted over. The city plans to paint a different work (also honoring Milk) on the rec center's east-facing wall, and place another memorial inside the building's lobby.

A FIRST LOOK at Project Runway winner Christian Siriano's appearance on Ugly Betty.

Next week, Law & Order: SVU will feature pro football player who is outed when his lover is murdered. This Bailey Chase, the player.

Animated Disney hunks become underwear models

Martha Stewart remembers her Chow, Paw Paw, who died last Saturday.

"Fearless" exhibit of openly gay athletes opens at San Ramon Valley High School in San Francisco's Bay Area.

Robert Downey Jr. sucks a mean thumb.

Jay Blotcher recalls the lessons he learned on the front lines of ACT UP. He'll be appearing tomorrow at NYU with other ACT UP alums at NYU's Cantor Film Center: "This wasn’t some haphazard group—our media committee had members that were publicists at major firms. Michelangelo Signorile, my predecessor as media coordinator, applied showbiz-PR tactics to ACT UP and got us a lot of attention."

Leslie Jordan on Homosexuality and Sobriety

Veteran actor Leslie Jordan, whom I noted last week made the first of a series of appearances on the new Kevin Williamson prime time soap Hidden Palms as recovering alcoholic/fairy godmother/drag queen Jesse Jo, talks to the Associated Press about how being sober has helped his career. The AP notes that the hard-working character actor has been sober now for 10 years following a car accident that landed him in jail with Robert Downey Jr.

Says Jordan: "If there is anything that kids could walk away with it is that people who use drugs and alcohol are masking something. With me, it was my homosexuality. It was just easier to be gay when I was high. So I stayed high for 33 years. It was recreational, then it just evolved ... I don't know when it went from recreational to medicinal, but that's the line you cross where I needed a drink to get to a party, to be funny, to be me."

Jordan says he plans to publish a memoir, My Trip Down the Pink Carpet: Or How I Became Insufferably Satisfied With Myself, in April of next year: "I read some of it and I was thinking, my mother will DIE. She told me one time, 'Leslie honey, if I live to be 105, I will never understand this deep-seeded need you have to air your dirty laundry.' She said, 'Why can't you just whisper it to a therapist?'"

Leslie Jordan comes clean on sobriety [ap]

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.

News: Tropical Storm Debby, Nude Portraits, Rigged Polls

Over 40% of HIV-infected gay men are unaware of their status: "One in eight of the gay men in London (12.3%; 95% CI, 10.7%-14.1%) who agreed to anonymous HIV antibody testing were HIV-infected. However, worringly, London had the second-highest percentage of HIV-infected men unaware of their positive status, at 44.1%."

Debby downer: Tropical depression forms in the Atlantic. Hurricane chief issues warning: "People think we have seen the worst. We haven't. I think the day is coming. I think eventually we're going to have a very powerful hurricane in a major metropolitan area worse than what we saw in Katrina and it's going to be a mega-disaster. With lots of lost lives. I don't know whether that's going to be this year or five years from now or a hundred years from now. But as long as we continue to develop the coastline like we are, we're setting up for disaster."

Jude Law plays a bit of shirtless cricket.

Poll: Lamont and Lieberman in dead heat in Connecticut Senate race.

Massive exhibition of naked portraits to go on display in Scotland in an effort to rid the National Portrait Gallery of its stuffy image.

REPORT: Next Survivor season, tribes will be separated by race. "There have been persistent rumors, supported by photographs of challenges, that there will be four tribes at the start of the game. However, those won’t necessarily be dissolved immediately: instead, they’ll be split in brand-new way, 'divided up into 4 groups by race, 5 white, 5 black, 5 hispanic, and 5 asian.'"

Beverly Leslie's advice on combating homophobia: "Being an openly gay actor, I've always felt there are two ways we can combat homophobia. The first is through humor. I learned that in junior high school during dodge ball. Here was this queer who had to keep sashaying to keep from getting creamed! The second is to put a face on it. America welcomed the Will & Grace characters into their homes. We laughed and we loved — and progress was made. I'm so honored to have been a part of that."

Naked men run amok at Croatian seaside resort gay week. Organizer: "The person who walked naked outside the cathedral has nothing to do with our group. Many of us are Catholics who will never do such a thing."

Zogby Poll: 92% of Americans believe that "citizens have the right to view and obtain information about how election officials count votes." No more f*$king Ohios.