There's something about a VW Thing that always makes me smile, especially parked on the streets of Manhattan with Florida plates!
Spotted this stud standing in line next to Michael at Starbucks this afternoon. He had to be a model -- gorgeous face, 6-2 and built. He drank coffee and ate a Hershey bar stored in his backpack and then wandered off to Whole Foods in Chelsea before I could propose ...
Something about the relationship between a mother and her son always warms my heart. Of course it's even warmer when the son is a strapping blond hunk.
This young woman is quite attractive, but what she was thinking in this outfit is beyond me. She needs to return to the store where she bought this and see if she mistakenly left her ass in the fitting room.
New York fans have turned on overpaid, underachieving Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, but the ladies sure love him. I don't do Hispanics with highlights, but his new Got Milk? ad with his hair buzzed off is certainly a step in the right direction ...
GLAAD President Neil Giuliano, will be guest-bartending at Opus 22's MUJI LOUNGE tonight. Before heading up GLAAD, Neil was the mayor of my college town, Tempe, Ariz., (home of Arizona State University), which makes me wonder if he knows how to serve anything but Coronoas and Sex on the Beach. Stop by tonight and find out!
Charity Begins at Home: A homeless heroin addict has implicated himself in the killing of Martin Barreto, a onetime aide to former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, telling investigators that the pair met randomly on the street and claiming the death was an accident, police said Wednesday. The suspect, Edwin Ramos, 26, was captured on Tuesday as the result of another chance encounter, this time with detectives investigating the case. Members of Barreto’s family said the news of the arrest came as another shock after the discovery of his naked body in his bedroom on Aug. 21. They said they could not understand why Barreto, 48, a successful public relations executive, would become involved with someone like Ramos. “It doesn’t sound like something he’d be interested in doing,” said his endearingly naive sister, Julieta Barreto. “Martin is a concept of what a real gentleman is about in every sense of the word, his ethics, his good will to help others, his social conscience with everyone.” (Ya gotta love a sister like that.) (CBS/AP)
Family Affair: Everyone is up in arms about the way CNN anchorwoman Kyra Phillips interrupted President Bush's Hurricane Katrina reunion speech in New Orleans the other night with a personal conversation that was picked up by her microphone in the ladies' bathroom. But come on -- her sister-in-law is a total control freak! Like the time she ... (Daily Telegraph)
I Guess He Told Him: A lawyer in Fairfield, Conn., climbed through a neighbor's bedroom window and stabbed him to death after being told by his wife that the man had molested their 2-year-old daughter, authorities say. The lawyer, Jonathon Edington, 29, was charged with murder and burglary and was released on $1 million bail Wednesday. The police said Edington, 29, repeatedly stabbed the neighbor, Barry James, 59, and then walked back home. (Was he supposed to stay for dinner?) (AP)
Who's Your Daddy? While hunky Matt Leinart was busy getting room service at the Paris Hilton earlier this year, his fortuitous/fertile "ex" girlfriend, Brynn Cameron, was across town carrying his $51 million baby. The football season hasn't even started and the Heisman Trophy winning Arizona Cardinals quarterback already has his first scandal on his hands. You should have stuck with Nick, Mr. Baby Daddy. Stuff like this never happens. (EOG)
The Prophet: When Nevada state police stopped a red Cadillac Escalade without visible license plates Monday night and asked one of its passengers for identification, he handed over a receipt for contact lenses. That's how Mormons do things. (WP)
BLT Heaven: A sandwich even Stephen Colbert would be proud of. (MSNBC)
If you're a tennis fan like I am then you too have undoubtedly indulged and cringed at what Hollywood has served up on the topic to date.
Back in 1979 -- during the sport's heyday -- two major motion pictures about tennis were released, and they were bad enough to virtually shut the genre down. First came Ali MacGraw and Dean Paul Martin in the incredibly slow romance "Players" (and wasn't that Vijay Amritraj, Guillermo Vilas and John McEnroe in there?!). Dino sure was easy on the eyes (I believe he actually won a Golden Globe for this bomb!), but the young jock falling for an older kept woman story was tired, and even the best attempts at making Martin look like a pro were fruitless at best.
"Breaking at love means never having to say you're sorry."
As if that weren't enough, it was followed by an even more improbable Bert Convy as the gigolo tennis pro Tommy Everett in "Racquet" (if he can just service enough women at the club he can get one of them to give him $200,000 so he can open his own club -- oh, but what about his lovable on-again, off-again girlfriend Lynda Day George?) And who could forget the supporting help from Bobby Riggs and Bjorn Borg?
It would 25 more years before Hollywood would take another shot at it, and the Paul Bettany-Kirsten Dunst dud "Wimbledon" proved that not a lot had changed in all those years (and yep, John McEnroe couldn't turn down a role in this one either).
So I was tickled when I saw this article (below) in The Ticket, a U.S. Open insiders' guide, about some of tennis' finer moment on the silver screen, captured in -- of course -- nontennis films. My favorite, of course, was last year's "Squid and the Whale." With all its Fila clothes, indoor courts and Donnay rackets, it certainly took me back in time and made me smile. (Oh, and that family that was not entirely unlike mine helped, too.)
(click to enlarge)
By Jeff Labrecque
When attempting to depict tennis in the movies, Hollywood has served more double faults than Elena Dementieva in a tiebreaker. But there have been some great rallies in nontennis films, where romance, family dysfunction and mental breakdowns all take place on the court. Advantage, DVD.
Birthday boy Andy Roddick, who turned 24 yesterday, rarely looked out of position in his straight-sets win over Kristian Pless. Roddick was winning 98 percent of the points on his first serve.
Tommy Haas looked awfully sharp in his 6-2,6-4,6-0 win over Alex Kuznetsov.
Still struggling to regain form after a series of injuries, unseeded Marat Safin of Russia was able to defeat Robin Vik of the Czech Republic, 6-1, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. (Love the shoes, Marat!)
My boy Robby Ginepri kept his resurgent summer alive with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win over Julien Benneteau. He's on a collision course for another third-round showdown with fellow hunk Tommy Haas. It was my attending their thrilling 2005 five-set match at the Open that inspired me to write my first blog post a year ago.
And lastly, Tim Henman defeated his "countryman" (who is really from Canada) Greg Rusedski yesterday. I know they're really not that short, but compared with what everyone is has on is Henman trying to bring back the tennis Daisy Dukes of the 1980s or what?
After a complete washout on Tuesday, play resumed today at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. Rafael Nadal of Spain used some muscle in beating former finalist (and former hottie) Mark Philippoussis of Australia, whose game has never been the same since a tryst with Tara Reid. The play-by-play is over here.
Love Hangover: So great to see the original diva MissDiana Ross (aka The Boss) looking sober fit and sounding wonderful at the U.S. Open stadium-renamaing ceremonies in New York. Don't forget to check out her sensational "lost" album of standards from the "Lady Sings the Blues" period, "Blue." (Amazon)
Mrs. Doubtfire: John Mark Karr wants to set the record straight on a few things. He still thinks he killed JonBenet Ramsey. He wants Johnny Depp to play him in the movie. He's not gay (he likes young girls, silly!). And when he gets his sex change completed he wants to move to Europe and work as a pedophile lesbian nanny. (IrishExaminer)
Made in the USA: Adult obesity rates increased in 31 states during the past year, leaving an estimated two-thirds of Americans vulnerable to fatal diseases such as diabetes, stroke and cancer. The fattest state is Mississippi (everyone knows the South is the "thyroid problem" capital of America) and the thinnest is Colorado. (HealthDay)
Just Can't Get Enough? Following in the mold of last year's sensational "Speak & Spell" reissue, Rhino Records' Depeche Mode reissue series will continue October 3 with 1982's "A Broken Flame," the 1984 breakthrough "Some Great Reward" and 1993's "Songs of Faith and Devotion," the band's lone Billboard 200 chart-topper. Each album includes a remastered CD edition plus a DVD with high-resolution audio mixes, bonus tracks and period-specific documentaries. (Billboard)
Where's C. Thomas Howell? The original "Soul Man" himself Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave fame) was celebrating the release of his new CD in the same Chelsea restaurant Michael and I had dinner at last night. He looked great and his new music -- a collection of duets with the likes of Sting, Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi -- sounded even better. (Amazon)
No Happy Ending: Rapper Foxy Brown pleaded guilty on Monday to misdemeanor assault charges stemming from a fight with salon workers in a Chelsea Bloomie Nails location over a manicure. The plea deal, which spares her jail time, requires her to serve three years probation and take anger management classes. Not a minute too soon apparently: moments after the deal was struck Foxy went ballistic and tried to withdraw it. The judge denied her request. (AP)
Tunnel Vision: I don't know why anyone believed those tabloid rumors about Bruce Springsteen's marriage being on the rocks. Everyone knows he'd put an album out about it if it really were. (AP)
Come Again? The disclosure of who really leaked Valerie Plame's identity to Robert Novak is about as exhilarating as finding out who Deep Throat was. Who was it, again? (NYT)
Charmed, I'm Sure: Actress Alyssa Milano signed a deal with Major League Baseball to promote a new line of athletic apparel for young women. Apparently she did her research in recent years by fucking Barry Zito, Carl Pavano and Brad Penny -- or was it when she was screwing Wayne McBean back in '91 that the inspiration came to her? (Bricks&Stones)
Did you catch Lesley Stahl's piece on "60 Minutes" about gay twins Sunday night? (Apparently it was a rerun, but I'd never seen it before.) There was already a heated discussion about it over on The Malcontent (you can watch the clip there if you haven't already seen it), but I, for one, was completely blown away by what I saw.
Stahl interviewed a family that includes Adam and Jared, 9-year-old twin boys, one of whom wears pink sparkle-star nail polish, is a fierce interior decorator, plays with Bratz dolls and is certain that he was meant to be a girl. (The other boy likes trucks and is totally boring.) According to their mother, stark differences between the two emerged as early as 18 months old. (Guess which one really wanted a Barbie?)
From there Stahl talked to some researchers who had gone through lots of old home movies of kids to see whether or not they tended to display gender-conforming traits when they were little, and then interviewed them today to see if there was a correlation between childhood behavior and adult sexuality. (I'll give you one guess how the butch little 2-year-old girl looking miserable in a party dress playing with a Tonka truck turned out!)
It's a fascinating -- albeit simple -- report on the subject of human sexuality, but it certainly is thought-provoking. If nothing else it made me question my defensiveness about people generalizing about gay people and whether or not there's anything wrong with being able to tell if someone is gay. (Are Europeans ashamed when an American can spot one of them? I'm not saying all Europeans are alike, but there's a certain sensibility I can spot.) Something tells me the gay community and certainly the gay lobby (numbers, real or estimated, of course equal power) wants to perpetuate this idea that 1 in 10 people are gay -- and that there are literally millions of people walking down the street who the Average Joe has no idea is gay. But is that really the case -- and is there really anything noble about it if it were? Sure, I don't think every gay man is a screaming queen and every lesbian is a big bulldyke, but have we gone too far out of our way to distance ourselves from what many of us are -- and have we done it out of shame that has been put on us throughout our lives? Did you ever wonder why so many of us are so quick to romantically dismiss someone as being "a big queen" and sit around wishing all gay guys were like Tyler Robuck, the hunky quarterback who had no idea he was gay until college, and then sit around longer wondering where all of the Tyler Robucks were?
My guess is that the gay community is probably much smaller than we've been led to believe, and that (yes) there is a small percentage of gay people who live secret, tortured "straight" lives who will never come out, and (yes) a small percentage who "pass" as straight. But for the most part, I'm beginning to think that gays and lesbians are relatively easy to spot anywhere you go -- and there's nothing wrong with that.
Watch the video and see how proud Adam is of who he is. It makes you wonder what the world might be like in 20 years if more parents raised their kids the way his parents are raising him.
In July, TV Guide reported that A.C. SlaterMario Lopez was going to play an "infuriatingly fit" gay plastic surgeon who has an erotic encounter at the gym with Julian McMahon's character on the FX hit Nip/Tuck. I've never watched this show before but something suddenly tells me it's high time I started. See the rest of the pix here (via here).
Bait and Switch: The special "Everything's Duckie Edition" DVD of the 1986 teen angst classic "Pretty in Pink" just came out, and everything about it suggested we'd finally get to see the infamous original ending where Andie picks the Duck Man instead of that fickle richie Blane (which for the record is not a name, it's a major appliance). But don't get your hopes up too high -- there's lots of talk about how the test audiences hated the original ending, but the footage ain't there. On the upside, the new DVD does finally back up my best friend Greg's claim that Andrew McCarthey was in fact wearing a wig during the scene's climatic prom scene. (WP)
Cher Gave Birth to a Heterosexual? It seems Paris Hilton is furious with Elijah Blue Allman, Cher’s son by rocker Gregg Allman, for claiming that the two had sex — and that then he worried that he caught something from her. (MSNBC)
The Comeback: Hunky Carson Palmer aced his comeback test. With a brace protecting his rebuilt left knee, the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback took the hits, avoided the rush and threw three touchdown passes Monday night against the Green Bay Packers in his first game back from the injury. (AP)
Dangerous Minds: Detroit teachers go on strike. I'm sure the city's standardized tests scores are really gonna drop now. (AP)
No, I'm not promoting the new issue of Weaves Illustrated. Last night after work I stopped by a party at PS 450 to celebrate my good friend Alisa Gumbs' cover story on black models who have gone on to become successful businesswomen -- modelpreneurs -- coming out in the September issue of Black Enterprise magazine.
Alisa flew to Hollywood to interview a slew of big stars for the story, including Tyra Banks (down to earth), Iman (aloof, but eventually came around) and Kimora Lee Simmons (is she getting a divorce or not? who knows!). When Iman showed up for the photo shoot with her "hair" already -- uh -- on, Tyra went and picked out a matching 'do.
I met and hired Alisa nearly seven years ago when I worked for a news service of sorts in Midtown. Even though she had an impeccable educational background and excellent work experience, I knew I was going to hire her the second I saw that smile of hers. Anyone else notice that Alisa -- flanked by two supermodels who would barely cede an inch of lens space in the photo on the right -- is prettier than either of them and is the only one in the photo with her own hair?
It's an interesting and well-written piece. Congrats, Alisa!
The Andre Agassi farewell U.S. Open started off with a real nail-biter in last night's first-round match, but Agassi rallied from 4-0 down in the third after splitting sets with the veteran Andrei Pavel to win it 6-7 (4), 7-6 (8), 7-6 (6), 6-2. Read the play-by-play here.
And what's up with that Chris Evert forehand, Andre?
The legendary Billie Jean King got the recognition she truly deserved when the home of the U.S. Open was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in a ceremony last night. My love of Billie Jean is no secret, but the AP article I read about the event had me scratching my head about two things:
Was there not a better choice of words than this from Chris Evert? "Billie Jean was the biggest single influence in my life outside of my family," Evert said of the lesbian trailblazer. "She's been my mentor for 35 years. She sees beyond the box."
And what was Billie Jean doing at Mary Carillo's house when Mary was a teen? (AP)
It's just another day in the 24-hour news cycle with two complete and total freaks dominating the "headlines."
First up: The Boulder DA is dropping its murder charges against the self-confessed killer of JonBenet Ramsey, John Mark Karr. (A. Why are you running around telling everyone you did it? and B. Why is the DA going around charging someone with no evidence?). (CNN)
Meantime, the nutjob who handed George Bush the 2000 election on a silver-plated bible, Katherine Harris, is pulling out all of the predictable stops in an attempt to reignite her pathetic run for the U.S. Senate: Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." She also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage. (AP)
Looking fit, eager and ready to go (oh, and hot) Andy Roddick breezed through his first-round match at the U.S. Open against Florent Serra. I was surprised to see his new coach (Mr. James Scott Connors) is actually attending his matches. Somehow I envisioned this relationship as more of a mentoring, behind-the-scenes thing (I guess Jimmy could only stay away from the limelight for so long, huh?). Whatever the case may be, Roddick has already done better at this year's Open than last ...
There's something about a VW Thing that always makes me smile, especially parked on the streets of Manhattan with Florida plates!
Spotted this stud standing in line next to Michael at Starbucks this afternoon. He had to be a model -- gorgeous face, 6-2 and built. He drank coffee and ate a Hershey bar stored in his backpack and then wandered off to Whole Foods in Chelsea before I could propose ...
Something about the relationship between a mother and her son always warms my heart. Of course it's even warmer when the son is a strapping blond hunk.
This young woman is quite attractive, but what she was thinking in this outfit is beyond me. She needs to return to the store where she bought this and see if she mistakenly left her ass in the fitting room. 
