Seth in the City

Will's Story: All In

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Things are really starting to heat up on Days of Our Lives in terms of Will Horton's coming out storyline and it's high time that I started blogging about it. Let me begin with a recap recent events before I focus on yesterday's episode.

As I mentioned before, Will was dating Gabi, his stepfather's younger sister (it's a soap, remember?), and they did lose their virginity together. After that first time Gabi couldn't seem to get Will anywhere near the bedroom again. In fact, any time they were even close to becoming intimate, Will would suddenly become very interested in playing a video game or claim to be worried about someone walking in on them.

Things finally came to a head after Will saw his mother, Sami, having sex with his ex-stepfather, all around town villain and Mayoral candidate EJ DiMera. EJ and Sami didn't know that Will had seen them, but afterward Will couldn't bear to be around his mother and tried to convince Gabi to get an apartment with him. Gabi was all for the idea until she realized that Will still didn't want to be intimate with her and that his promises that things would change once they moved in together weren't likely.

Gabi broke up with Will, which caused a kitchen smashing meltdown in front of all his friends from the normally mild mannered Mr. Horton. In the weeks that have followed, Will has remained tormented both by what he saw between his mother and EJ and by his own personal identity struggle. He's largely dealt with this by being nasty to his still clueless mother at every opportunity, including sneaking a few drinks (shades of Luke Snyder!) at Christmas time before calling her a hypocrite in front of the whole family.

What I've truly been blown away by during all of this is the barely contained raw pain Chandler Massey manages to convey with Will's (often tear filled) eyes. Will isn't the sort who'd normally be nasty to anyone, let alone his own mother, but the guy is being torn up inside by these secrets and Massey has impressed the hell out of me by being able to convey that with body language or just by the look in his eyes.

Will has been able to talk with his grandmother, Dr. Marlena Evans, who also happens to be a psychiatrist. Marlena could tell that something was eating away at Will (and I suspect that she even knows just what it really is) but rather than coming out to her, Will blurted out his other secret, that he'd seen his mother cheating on her husband.

While all of this has been going on, Will has remained good friends with the openly gay Sonny Kiriakis. In fact, the two partnered in a failed college sports website along with Will's best friend Chad (the less said about that ridiculous storyline the better), and are now at work together on turning The Cheatin' Heart, a dive bar Sonny's parents just signed over to him, into a hot new coffee shop to be called Common Grounds.

It was Sonny, a former world traveller in spite of his young age, whom Will talked to about possibly leaving town. Sonny, speaking from experience, cautioned that you can't really run away from your troubles, but seeing just how much pain Will was in, Sonny agreed that it might be a good idea for Will to leave town and figure out just who he is.

Unfortunately for our Mr. Horton, he's not exactly as rich as his friend Sonny. To get the money to fund his escape, Will did something else that was very unlike him: he attempted to blackmail EJ DiMera, saying that he'd tell EJ's wife and the voters of Salem all about what he'd seen if EJ didn't give him the money to leave town.

If you're going to try your hand at blackmail, you should probably start small and not with the son of a legendary crime boss who has his own long history of evil deeds. Will found this out the hard way when EJ turned the tables on him, letting Will know that not only had EJ figured out Will's secret by merely observing a few telling moments (though he never explicitly said "I know you're gay"), but that he also had a much, much bigger card to play.

Years ago, EJ was shot in a typical soap whodunit storyline that included several gloved hands aiming guns at him at the same time.Will's father Lucas eventually confessed to the crime, right around the time that Will left town to go live in Switzerland with his aunt and uncle.

I did wonder at the time if they were setting up a story about Lucas confessing just to protect Will, but since the storyline wrapped up and they never mentioned it again, I'd mostly forgotten all about it (especially since EJ has been shot again in the meantime, by Will's mother on what would have been their second wedding day!).

Well, it turns out that EJ has been patiently sitting on the knowledge that Will was the one who shot him, saving it up for a spot of blackmail on a rainy day. The end result is that not only is Will staying in Salem, he's also being forced to work on EJ's campaign and pretty much do anything that DiMera tells him to do.

Meanwhile, Sonny has introduced Will to more gay men in the last few weeks than Salem has ever seen onscreen in all forty-six years of Days of Our Lives combined, though that's not really saying much. Will seemed to be connecting with one of them recently over a shared loved of certain bands, but when the guy (forgive me for not remembering the character's name) suggested that they meet up the next day so that he could give Will some music from a new band, Will shut down and quickly made an excuse to leave.

When Sonny's friend wondered what had just happened, Sonny told him that Will "just isn't there yet", letting we the viewers know for the first time that Sonny himself knows exactly what's going on with his friend Will. The fact that Sonny is being so patient and supportive makes me like the character even more.

That just about brings us up to speed for yesterday's episode. The Sonny & Will scenes started with the two of them hanging out with two more of Sonny's gay friends at the Brady Pub. The two friends, Dustin and Kareem, were working on a marketing campaign for Common Grounds and mentioned to Will that they'd done the same thing for Unicorn Highway. When Will clearly had no idea what they were talking about, they told him that it was the hot new gay club near campus and offered to get him on the VIP list.

Will deflected the offer, nervously telling them that he had a paper to write, and after the two of them went to get a drink at the bar, Sonny asked Will what he thought of Dustin. Will, looking a bit like a deer caught in the headlights, stammered out "Are you asking if I'm interested in him?" Sonny explained that he was thinking of Dustin for himself, that they'd hung out together that weekend and he was thinking he might want to again.

A relieved Will quickly agreed that he could see Sonny and Dustin together and then turned playful, suggesting that if Sonny did go out with Dustin, he not try and be funny since he really isn't. It was a very sweet moment between the two of them and for the first time I saw some real chemistry between them as a potential couple rather than just as good friends.

After Dustin and Kareem came back to the table, they took turns telling their amusing coming out stories and then asked Will to share his. Will once again developed that deer in the headlights look but Sonny quickly came to his rescue just before Dustin and Kareem had to leave. Once Will and Sonny were alone again, Sonny apologized, but a still flustered Will said that it was okay that they'd assumed he was gay. My heart broke for Will in this scene, and I'm sure Sonny's must have, too. The pain he's carrying around is so obvious and that's thanks to what a fantastic actor Chandler Massey has turned out to be.

The scene that really, truly blew me away and had me taking to the old blog to begin writing about this story in earnest, was what happened after Will Horton went home. Will walked into an empty apartment, his eyes once again practically blazing with pain, and then stopped, having caught sight of his face in a mirror. After staring at his reflection for a few moments, Will spit on the mirror with disgust and self loathing and then turned away. It was one of the most powerful moments I've seen on daytime TV in a long time, an emotional gut punch that I'll never forget. Chandler Massey played it perfectly, and I find that in spite of how dangerous investing emotionally in a gay soap character has proved to be in the past, I'm now all in.

Looking Back at 2011

2011-12-31T12:43:00.000-08:00

I'll be honest: 2011 is not a year that I will be looking back on fondly overall, at least not on a personal level. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad to see it coming to an end. Still, like any year there was plenty of good mixed in with the not-so-good.

For instance, 2011 could be said to be the year of the people, or perhaps of the bottom 99% of them. This was the year of the Arab Spring, with popular uprisings trying- and in many cases succeeding- in sweeping away repressive regimes in the Mid East. In fact, 2011 was the year in which the likes of Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, and Kim Jong-il ceased to exist, leaving the world that much better off.

Here in the United States, we saw the beginnings of the Occupy movement as well as popular uprisings against unpopular measures such as the stripping away of union rights in Ohio and Wisconsin.

For many, though, 2011 was a year of continued economic hardship. This was driven home for me in a very real way with the bankruptcy of Borders, a company for which I spent the better part of a decade working. The ultimate closure of all Borders and Waldenbooks stores by mid September left most of my former co-workers out of work and they were far from being alone. It also left a gaping hole in the middle of the book world, whatever your opinions on big box stores vs independents.

The most high profile coming out of the year was Zachary Quinto, star of Heroes and the new Star Trek films. Quinto wasn't alone in coming out, though. This year's list also included actor Sean Maher, CNN anchor Don Lemon and sports figures Jed Hooper, Graeme Obree, Scott Norton, Steven Davies, and David Testo, covering a wide range of sports from professional bowling, rugby, cricket, cycling and American Soccer.

Actress Evan Rachel Wood came out as bisexual and Geri Jewell, an actress and comedienne with cerebral palsy who back in the early 1980's became the first person with a disability to play a recurring character on a television show (The Facts of Life) came out in a new memoir.

This year saw the passing of some true legends from the entertainment world like Elizabeth Taylor, Arthur Laurents, and Sidney Lumet, and those whose lives had a far reaching impact on the world in general, like Vaclav Havel and Steve Jobs.

In the world of daytime TV, the losses just kept coming. ABC cancelled both All My Children and One Life to Live simultaneously, though the latter won't go off the air until the new year. For a few months, it looked like the shows had been saved and would make the jump to airing online, but in the end that deal fell through and both shows were left with cliffhanger endings that would never be resolved.

As far as gay characters on daytime, things are looking up from last year at this time, when the total number of LGBT characters had plummeted to zero. This year we've got an out and proud Sonny Kiriakis and an about to come out Will Horton on Days of Our Lives, so 2012 looks pretty promising in that respect.

Now, on to my picks for some of my favorite things in 2011.

*Favorite Short Story Collection I read this year: Ladies and Gentlemen by Adam Ross

*Favorite Novel I read this year: Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

*Favorite Classic Gay Fiction Book I read this year: Two People by Donald Windham

*Favorite Modern Gay Fiction Book I read this year: Two Gentlemen Sharing by William Corlett

*Favorite Non-Fiction (Literary) Book I read this year: The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee

*Favorite Non-Fiction (Autobiography) Book I read this year: Bossypants by Tina Fey

*Favorite Film I saw this year: X-Men: First Class. I should note that I saw very few films this year overall; in fact, I won't be doing my usual category of Favorite Gay Themed Film because I can't think of a single one that I saw!

*Favorite TV Drama: Once Upon a Time

*Favorite Sitcom: New Girl, with The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family tied for a very close second place.

*Favorite Supernatural Themed Drama: Teen Wolf

*Favorite News Program: The Rachel Maddow Show. After moving in March, I discovered that my new cable package offered MSNBC. Rachel's show quickly became my new addiction.

*Favorite Show that Needs Help: Glee. A lot of fans had issues with the show's second season, and I was right there with them. It wasn't until the third season began, though, that I felt Glee was truly in danger of losing what had made it so special to begin with. When Glee is good, it's fantastic, like with the recent episode 'The First Time' and with the scenes of Santana coming out to her grandmother. Things like that keep me watching, but the uneven writing is becoming more and more of a problem. One example is the character of Mercedes who has been completely destroyed by bad writing. How many times is Mercedes going to freak out about Rachel getting all the attention, have her issues seemingly resolved, and then go through it all again five or ten episodes later as if the earlier experience never happened? It makes the character completely unlikeable. With the prospect of losing key cast members after this year when their characters graduate, I'm not sure if Glee will ever get its magic back.

*Favorite Daytime Soap: One Life to Live remained the best written all year long. With that said, in the final months of 2011, my heart belonged to Days of Our Lives once again.

*Favorite Gay Themed Website of the year: AfterElton.com.

*Favorite Gay Character of the year (Daytime): Since Will Horton has yet to actually come out, there is only one option for this category and that's Days of Our Lives' Sonny Kiriakis. His introductory storyline was a bit preachy and he hasn't had all that much to do since, but he's attractive, likable, and I'm sure he'll be fantastic when/if he's paired with Will.

*Favorite Gay Character of the year (Primetime): It's a tie! Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson, Glee. For all the show's problems, it can't be denied that Kurt and Blaine had a really great year. They shared their first kiss during the season finale last Spring and this fall they lost their virginity together in an episode that juxtaposed their experience with Rachel losing her virginity to Finn. They've even got a potential love triangle brewing with new gay character Sebastian.

*Hottest Actor (Daytime): It's a Tie! This year, I've been all about the Chill factor. Chandler Massey and Casey Deidrick (aka Will Horton and Chad DiMera) may never actually be able to play out a Chill love story on the show, but their chemistry is as electric as they are hot.

*Hottest Actor (Primetime): It's so hard to pick just one, as my post about the Men Who Made 2011 should demonstrate. With that said, I'm going to go with Once Upon a Time's Jamie Dornan.

*Hottest Actor (Film): If I'm going just by films I actually saw this year, one actor who did stand out for me was Lucas Till of X-Men: First Class.

If, however, I'm going by film actors in general, I'd have to say that while Chris Evans may be my second favorite Evans brother, he's still one of the hottest men working in film today:

*Hottest Out Gay Celebrity: I'm going to have to go with the newest member of the club, Zachary Quinto.

Not only is Zachary sexy as hell, but he gets to hang out with some of my other favorite hotties, like Jonathan Groff and Colton Haynes:

Well, there we have it, 2011 in a nutshell. I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful 2012!

2011: Best & Worst Lists

2011-12-30T14:09:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about the end of any year are all of the Best of (and Worst of) lists that come out on just about any conceivable topic. I'm working on my own, which should be up tomorrow. Following my own year end tradition at Seth in the City I thought I'd share some of the ones I've been enjoying from the professionals.

Let's start with Film. I myself managed to get to the movie theater exactly three times this year and one of those times was to see a filmed Broadway musical and not an actual feature film, so I'm far from being a good judge of what was great and what wasn't.

The experts, though, have spoken. First up is Roger Ebert's look at the Best Films of 2011, his top twenty picks for the year, none of which I've seen. I have very much enjoyed watching Ebert Presents At The Movies this year, though, with Christy Lemire of The Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of Mubi.com. Sadly, at this point the show has no funding to continue on past this week's episode unless they can find sponsors or willing foundations to help out. Roger and his wife Chaz were mainly funding it themselves.

Next up, the trio of film critics for The New Yorker. David Denby's top 10 list does contain one film I've actually seen this year, albeit on DVD: Source Code. I can't say the same for any of the films on Anthony Lane's list, but you'd think I'd have a better chance at having seen some of the 26 films that Richard Brody writes about in his list. You'd be mistaken, though. I guess I should start going to the movies more often!

Moving on to the small screen, Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly has his annual look at the Best and Worst in Television this year. Darren Franich also has a list of the Best TV Character Deaths of the year, including my Sheriff Graham from Once Upon a Time.

Turning to the world of the stage, the staff of Playbill.com offer their favorite moments from 2011, and a photo gallery of all the Playbill covers from this past year, while the New Yorker's John Lahr offers his take on the best theater of the year and Hilton Als offers a look at his year in culture. EW's Tom Geier also offers his picks for the best of the stage this year.

Let's move on to my own personal favorite topic: Books. The New Yorker once again offers up several lists on the subject of the Best Books of 2011, from the likes of James Woods, Sam Lipsyte, Yiyun Li, Tessa Hadley, Tad Friend, Ben Marcus, Malcolm Gladwell, Lorrie Moore, and Anne Beattie. Meanwhile, Entertainment Weekly takes a look at the Best and Worst in Fiction and in Nonfiction this year.

Lambda Literary offers up the best in LGBT books of 2011 and I think my favorite list of the year is from one of my favorite blogs, Band of Thebes. In this particular list, 92 authors offer their selections for the best in LGBT books for 2011. This list alone could provide me with ample reading for 2012.

The New Yorker has a complete listing that includes many more lists than I've mentioned, as does Entertainment Weekly, including a Top 20 of everything list by Stephen King.

Another favorite site of mine, AfterElton.com, offers up 2011's Most Memorable LGBT Quotes.

I'll be back tomorrow with my own look back at 2011.

The Men Who Made 2011

2011-12-29T14:44:00.001-08:00

It's time again for what has to be one of my favorite posts of the year! Starting in 2008, I've ended each year since with a look at the men who made my year extra special. While they're not necessarily guys that were new to the entertainment scene this year, they are guys that I've noticed either for the first time or in a whole new way, men who really stood out in 2011.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at the guys who made the past twelve months especially hot!

Every year that I've done this list, I've opened with a guy from One Life to Live. Thanks to the powers that be at ABC and the epic failure of Prospect Park to follow through on their deal to give the show new life online, 2011 is my very last opportunity to do so. Luckily, One Life to Live didn't fail to deliver this year by providing me with a viable candidate!

Josh Kelly debuted on the show exactly a year ago today as con artist Cutter Wentworth and he certainly helped to make the show's final twelve months hot! There's just something so good about a bad boy with a naughty grin! Josh even made facial hair, which I usually can't stand, seem downright sexy!
I will definitely miss having Josh Kelly steaming up the screen on daytime, but I'm certain the future holds big things for him. He's already landed a pilot for MTV called Dumb Girls, and I for one will be checking it out when and if it goes to series.

Speaking of MTV, my next pick for the Men Who Made 2011 is cheating just a little bit, because I'm actually choosing an entire male cast instead of just one guy. If you'd told me a year ago that I'd become a fan of an MTV show centered around high school students, I would have groaned. Surely I'd finally outgrown teen dramas (Glee being more of a comedy, of course), especially ones on MTV? Then along came an incredibly homoerotic series with a drop dead gorgeous male cast, and I was hooked.

I'm talking, of course, about Teen Wolf. The series had me wanting my MTV all summer long. I'm not even sure which guy I liked the most (okay, Tyler Hoechlin) because they all had that something special.

First up is Tyler Posey, who plays Scott, the title character. He's got an adorable grin, dreamy eyes, and a killer body:
Then there's the sidekick/best friend character, Stiles, a Seth Cohen for the 2010's, played to sarcastic perfection by Dylan O'Brien:
Then there's Jackson, that teen drama staple the asshole jock, played by a male model come deliciously to life in the form of Colton Haynes:
There's even an out gay character, lacrosse player Danny, played by Keahu Kahuanui, who had his own male date to the prom but ended up sharing a dance with Scott:
Finally, there's Scott's mentor, a slightly more mature werewolf, Derek, played by the electrifyingly sexy Tyler Hoechlin:

Yes, the summer of 2011 was made infinitely hotter by the men of Teen Wolf!

Next up, a guy who I had no idea existed before this past fall when I decided to check out the new series Once Upon a Time. The show itself is pretty good, though I can't see how they'll sustain the concept for more than a season or two at most. The guy who really caught my eye right from the beginning was Jamie Dornan, the hottie with the Irish accent who played Sheriff Graham and who for the second time this year had me re-evaluating facial hair:

He's pretty much my idea of a Fairy Tale Prince come to life, even if his character actually turned out to be the Huntsman who lets Snow White live. Sadly, in the most recent episode Sheriff Graham was killed off. Since part of the show is set in the fairy tale past, though, I'm hoping we'll at least see more of him as The Huntsman.

Finally, 2011 brought to my attention in a whole new way a man who I was perfectly familiar with before now. Back in 2008, I'd watched him on Greek, where he played Nick Pepper, a love interest for Calvin. He was likable enough, and certainly attractive, but at the time I wanted Calvin to get back together with Heath, so I wasn't at all upset when things ended with Nick and the character disappeared.

Flash forward to this fall, when the hilarious new series New Girl debuted on Fox. My first thought when I saw that Max Greenfield was going to be in the cast was a tepid "Oh, it's that guy." When I'd finished watching the first episode, which he'd stolen completely as Schmidt, my thoughts ran more along the lines of "I'm in love!" Max steals the show every week and they're not at all afraid to show off his body, which is an added bonus. So, if you haven't seen the show yet, get a little Schmidt on your face and take a look:

Well, there we have them, the Men Who Made 2011. A fantastic year for hot guys, if for nothing else! Can 2012 ever compete? Only time will tell.

"Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights."

2011-12-07T22:43:00.000-08:00

In an amazing speech yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced to the world that the Obama Administration considers LGBT Rights to be Human Rights:

"To the leaders of those countries where people are jailed, beaten, or executed for being gay, I ask you to consider this: Leadership, by definition, means being out in front of your people when it is called for. It means standing up for the dignity of all your citizens and persuading your people to do the same. It also means ensuring that all citizens are treated as equals under your laws, because let me be clear – I am not saying that gay people can’t or don’t commit crimes. They can and they do, just like straight people. And when they do, they should be held accountable, but it should never be a crime to be gay.

And to people of all nations, I say supporting human rights is your responsibility too. The lives of gay people are shaped not only by laws, but by the treatment they receive every day from their families, from their neighbors. Eleanor Roosevelt, who did so much to advance human rights worldwide, said that these rights begin in the small places close to home – the streets where people live, the schools they attend, the factories, farms, and offices where they work. These places are your domain. The actions you take, the ideals that you advocate, can determine whether human rights flourish where you are."

The next part of her speech was the one that moved me the most, though:

"And finally, to LGBT men and women worldwide, let me say this: Wherever you live and whatever the circumstances of your life, whether you are connected to a network of support or feel isolated and vulnerable, please know that you are not alone. People around the globe are working hard to support you and to bring an end to the injustices and dangers you face. That is certainly true for my country. And you have an ally in the United States of America and you have millions of friends among the American people."

It is truly a step forward for LGBT Rights worldwide to have the Secretary of State of the United States making such a declarative, powerful statement. You could well argue that this (and more) should have happened a long time ago, certainly earlier in this particular Administration, but I don't think that takes anything away from this moment itself.

Check out a video of the speech here, or read the full transcript here.

The Start of Something Special

2011-12-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share an interesting article from earlier this month about novelist Ann Patchett opening an independent bookstore in Nashville. What first caught my attention, I have to admit, was the picture included in the article, which shows off the very familiar looking bookcases salvaged from a Nashville Borders.

The article mentions a few against the odds success stories for new independent bookstores around the country, but also discusses some of the stores facing real difficulties at the moment:

"In Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Greenlight Bookstore opened in 2009 and reported sales of more than $1 million in its first year. The Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee was founded two years ago and has been profitable both years, its owner said.

But there are plenty of headlines chronicling the woes of struggling independents. In Manhattan, St. Mark’s Bookshop in the East Village has been teetering for months, saved by a last-minute rent discount from the landlord. The owner of RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, N.H., said this month that he needed to raise more than $100,000 to save it. More than 150 concerned people packed the store last week to discuss its fate. Ithaca, N.Y., residents helped keep the treasured Buffalo Street Books in business by raising more than $250,000 and reopening the store as a co-op"

The odds may be long, but it gives me hope every time someone takes a risk and starts up a new bookstore! I cherish a secret dream of one day opening a bookshop of my own, where I'd sell new & used books.

One of the few things that gave me great pleasure in the aftermath of the end of Borders was reading about a group of employees who banded together and turned their Borders Express mall location into their own bookstore. Another was the news that one Borders location had been turned into a used bookstore and seventeen Borders staff members had stayed on.

It's a cliche to say that every time one door closes, another opens, but that doesn't make it any less true. I hope Ms. Patchett's venture is a huge success!

The End of Something Special

2011-11-30T14:33:00.000-08:00

If you've followed my blog for awhile you may be aware that until last March I had worked for a bookstore chain for a number of years. I've never specifically named the chain before- we all had to sign a form saying we'd never blog about the company- but I suppose I can now safely reveal that the company I spent the better part of a decade working for was Borders, which no longer exists.

In case you have no clue what I'm talking about, the company filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of this year and closed about a third of their stores at that point (mine wasn't among those closed at then, which at the time seemed like such a relief!) and then announced in July that their efforts to keep the company alive had failed. By mid September all of the remaining stores were closed.

There has been a lot written about what this means for the future of books in the wake of e-readers and digital technology, and I can't comment much about that. All I can really say is that I am a lover of books, the physical, printed objects, and nothing will ever change that.

A lot has also been written about Amazon and the online sales of books sounding the death knell for brick and mortar bookstores, be they chains or independents. While I have been known to buy books from used bookstores online, I can't imagine a world in which I couldn't spend an hour or two browsing in an actual bookstore every week or so.

For all the doom and gloom pronouncements, though, the fact is that no one knows what the future holds. All we can do is hold on to what we love while it's still here. Maybe in that way, we can help it to exist a bit longer.

But this post isn't about the future of books or bookstores. This is about Borders and my own personal experience as a bookseller there, and about what was lost this year when the company closed. Keep in mind that I'm speaking only of my own personal experience, which is limited to one particular Borders store. I can't speak for all employees or any other store.

As I said, I spent the better part of a decade working at Borders. Overall, it was a truly wonderful experience. Yes, there were bad days, some awful customers (it was retail, after all), and a lot of stupid corporate nonsense to deal with. Of the latter, the one that sticks out in my memory the most was a truly wretched period when a new CEO instituted something called Make Titles, which meant that every one of us had to push a specific book on each and every customer that walked through the door, regardless of how ill fitting it was for them. That 'one book fits all' era was the worst time in all my years with the company, the closest I ever came to truly hating working at Borders.

In spite of any bad times, though, I loved my job. I saw a lot of employees come and go over the years and of course there were some terrible ones, but for the most part we had an incredible staff of people. Even though we were mostly part timers who were paid by the hour we truly cared about and enjoyed our jobs (which was especially amazing in the final few years, when raises were frozen and hours cut so badly that few could hope to live on a Borders salary alone). These were people who loved books and could happily spend hours talking about them.

It wasn't all that hard, in fact, to see myself as part of a long tradition going back to the booksellers in ancient Alexandria. That sounds grandiose, I know, but working with people who loved books as much as me, and helping customers who could get just as excited about a new (or old) title as I do, made me feel at home there every single day, made me feel as if I was part of a long history of something very special.

Our customers were great. We had loyal regulars that we saw day in and day out, and then there were the people who may have only come in once but who might strike up a conversation with you about a particular author or book that you'd still be thinking about months later. I never felt like I was there just to push a product (except for the aforementioned Make Title period). There are so many customers I'll never forget, many of whom I never even knew by name, but I certainly knew their face and what they liked to read.

Not long before I left, I had an elderly woman come up to me and tell me that her husband, who'd just passed away, had loved our store. Whenever they'd have an argument, he'd tell her that he was going to go somewhere where he was appreciated, and he'd come to our store and spend a few hours reading. I'm sure there were countless customers like that in every Borders store (and Waldenbooks, which was a subsidiary) that was lost this year.

Many dislike the big chain bookstores, and with good reason. I personally hated the corporate sameness of mandatory displays and certain policies that could be less than customer friendly at times. The loss of Borders, though, should be just as mourned as the loss of any independent bookstore. Most of the many employees who lost their jobs loved books just as much as someone trying to make a go of an independent store does. For many of the customers, it was their home away from home, and in many cases the only bookstore in their area.

My store was a special place, one that I find myself missing every day. Whatever the future of books and bookstores turns out to be, I can only hope that people who care as much for the written word as we did will continue to play a role in it.

A Soapy Jumble

2011-11-29T15:43:00.000-08:00

Well, months have passed and we've recently learned that Erica Kane and Viki Lord will not, in fact, be living on. All My Children went out with a cliffhanger ending last September and One Life to Live filmed its own reported cliffhanger ending just days before the news broke that Prospect Park was 'suspending' their efforts to move the soaps online.

That's life, I suppose, though it's a big let down for the those who loved these shows. It's especially sad that both shows will have departed the airwaves with no real resolution for the characters that fans have followed for so many years.

I've come to accept that daytime soaps are ceasing to exist. I think we're already seeing the medium move online in many original soaps, and while it would have been wonderful to see a soap make the transition from TV to the Internet, just as so many years ago Guiding Light made the move from radio to television, it doesn't seem like it's going to happen, at least not right now.

This will leave us with a grand total of four soaps on the air, one of which is the soap I grew up watching, Days of Our Lives. I wrote way back in April that Days was going to be doing a gay storyline at long last, with legacy character Will Horton.

In the months since then, the show has introduced another openly gay legacy character (albeit one who had never been onscreen before) in the person of Sonny Kiriakis. Sonny is played by Freddie Smith, who most recently played a gay character on 90210.

Since coming to Salem, Sonny has faced coming out to his Great Uncle, the powerful business titan Victor Kiriakis, who was surprisingly okay with it. Sonny had come out to his parents, Justin and Adrienne, before coming to Salem and they, too, are supportive.

Once in town, Sonny quickly became friends with the other college aged characters, including Will, but faced some prejudice from Will's good friend T. The cause of T's gay panic was a picture of him and Sonny together, taken before T knew that Sonny was gay, which showed up online and referred to them as having a 'bromance'.

For a few weeks T hung around making homophobic remarks to Sonny's face and muttering threateningly to himself about making Sonny pay, but it seems that particular aspect of the story has now been dropped, which is a relief.

While all of this was going on, fans were left to wonder if the show, which had just changed head writers, was going to drop the Will aspect of the story altogether. While there had definitely been hints that Will was secretly gay (he put off sleeping with his girlfriend, Gabby, as long as he could and hasn't slept with her again since their first time), the show hadn't committed to anything they couldn't easily undo.

Recently, though, actor Chandler Massey has been able to confirm that his character will indeed be coming out of the closet. The show is still staying mum on whether or not Will & Sonny will end up becoming more than friends, though.

All of this is certainly something to look forward to, but the history of gay storylines on the soaps isn't exactly littered with success stories! Call me a glutton for punishment, though, because I'm once more along for the ride.

All of this makes me miss the days when Luke Snyder was coming out on As The World Turns and there was still so much potential ahead for great story telling! The coming out story was so well done and things looked really promising when Noah first showed up. Then, of course, the boys were paired in one stupid story after another, most of which had an end goal of keeping them from ever having sex.

Speaking of Luke, Van Hansis recently had guest starring roles on episodes of Psych and Nikita. He was fantastic in both parts, playing a bloodthirsty victim of the insurance industry in one (below) and a Russian agent in the other (below).
It was so incredible to see Van on my TV screen again! It had been far too long. I thought he was especially good in Nikita, where he not only got to use an accent but also had an incredible scene where a single tear rolled down his cheek and completely killed me. I'd somehow forgotten just how talented Van was. Hopefully these were the first of many roles to come.

Erica Kane and Viki Lord Will Live On!

2011-07-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Back in April, I started a post with the words "It must be a very sad day to be Agnes Nixon." Today I am thrilled to say that I could write the exact opposite about the creator of One Life to Live and All My Children.

Every time a soap is cancelled, false rumors fly that the show will be saved by some other network or by a cable station. Back when Guiding Light was cancelled, there was even talk that the soap which had been the first to transition from radio to television could be the first to make the transition to being a web soap.

Sadly for GL fans, that didn't happen. It turns out, though, that the thinking behind that particular rumor wasn't so far fetched. It was announced today that All My Children and One Life to Live, the two iconic daytime soaps cancelled simultaneously by ABC back in April, will both be making the leap to airing online.

While all the details haven't yet been announced, it seems that a production company called Prospect Park has purchased the right to air both shows online for 'more than a decade'. ABC said, in part:

"Prospect Park will produce and deliver the two long-running programs to consumers via online formats and additional emerging platforms including Internet enabled television sets. Under the terms of the arrangement, the programs will continue to be delivered with the same quality and in the same format and length."

For nearly three months, fans of both shows have been bracing themselves for the loss of these two television icons, and now they've been given an amazing gift. Questions remain, of course, and I'm sure there are also many older fans who aren't Internet savvy for whom this news doesn't offer much in the way of consolation. But overall, this is great news not only for fans of these shows but for the medium in general.

A whole slew of online soaps have sprung up over the last few years, many starring current and former network soap stars. In fact, one of the best soap news sites out there, We Love The Soaps, has a whole news section on Indie Soaps and has even presented the Indie Soap Awards for the last two years.

It will be very interesting to see how these two classic shows fit into this modern medium. I'd be lying if I said that my very first thought, once I'd stopped cheering, was to wonder if airing without network interference will finally open the doors to more important story telling.

Both shows have already broken ground in telling LGBT stories, but imagine how much better they could have been without a nervous network butting in! I can't help but feeling that if this had happened a couple of years ago, we'd still be enjoying Kish as daytime's first gay dads on One Life to Live.

In fact, if I were headwriter Ron Carlivati, the first thing I'd do when Prospect Park took over would be to get them to rehire Scott Evans and Brett Claywell as Oliver Fish and Kyle Lewis!

Speaking of which, Carlivati had announced that after OLTL wrapped he'd be joining the writing team at General Hospital. While that would have been great news for GH, I'm hoping that he'll be staying put at OLTL now that it will live on!

In Comes Company

2011-06-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm breaking a two month silence (I could mention again my good intentions to blog more, but you know what they say about the pavement on the road to hell....) to rave about Neil Patrick Harris, Patti LuPone, and the cast of Company!

You may recall that about three months back I bemoaned the fact that I hadn't been able to see the three night only concert performance of Company starring Neil Patrick Harris, one of my favorite men on the planet, and Patti LuPone, of whom I've become a huge fan over the last few years.

At the time, the most I dared to hope for was a cast recording (which I'd still love!). I never thought that I'd actually be able to see the show. Then, during last week's Tony Awards, the cast did a number from Company and it was mentioned that a filmed version of the show would be playing in select theaters.

Which brings us to today, when I was able to see one of my favorite Sondheim shows up on the big screen. When I arrived, I was honestly expecting to find only a handful of other people there. After all, it's hardly a mainstream film and it's not like there was any press (that I saw, anyway) about it playing. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to find that the theater was about two thirds full. I do have to say, though, that I seemed to be one of the youngest people there by a decade or two at least!

The experience, though, was a great one. Most of the audience applauded at the end of each number, as if we were actually seeing the show on stage. Now, I don't go to the movies all that often these days, but I really can't remember the last time I was in a crowd that laughed and applauded and just enjoyed themselves so much!

Neil Patrick Harris was phenomenal in the role of Bobby. Yes, I'm predisposed to love him, it's true, but I can honestly say that it felt like he was born to play this role. He was funny, he nailed the many moments where he had to mix serious subtext into his performance, and of course it goes without saying that he sang beautifully. On a shallow note, he also looked incredibly hot.

What can I even say about Patti LuPone? She brought the house down with her version of 'The Ladies Who Lunch', both in real time on the stage and today in the movie theater I was seeing the show in. I mentioned that most of the people I was watching with applauded at the end of all the songs, but it was especially loud after that show stopper!

Which, I confess, was a bit of a relief to me. I bought the DVD of the concert for Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday last year and I was less than thrilled with her version of the song then. I love Patti, but it just felt like it was lacking something, especially compared with Elaine Stritch's iconic performance of the song in the original Broadway cast. I did, though, absolutely love her Sweeney Todd number with her two Sweeney's, George Hearn and Michael Cerveris!

Anyway, Patti's two performances of 'Ladies' were like night and day. Obviously during the Sondheim birthday concert Ms. LuPone was just singing the song (and she of course sounded great doing so!). Here, she was acting, and that made all the difference in the world! Joanne came alive in her hands and she did the song brilliantly. I want to see it again, just for that one performance alone! I really hope they put out a DVD.

The rest of the cast was pretty fantastic, too. I thought Stephen Colbert was hilarious, though his performance of 'Sorry-Grateful' was the weakest vocal moment of the show. Still, watching him and Martha Plimpton as Harry and Sarah during the hilarious Karate scene more than made up for that! I also really liked Katie Finneran as Amy, especially during her very funny performance of 'Getting Married Today'.

There wasn't anyone onstage that I didn't like, though. All of the roles were perfectly cast. I loved the show and I'm so glad I got to see it, even if it wasn't live and in person!

The atmosphere in the movie theater today was so appreciative that I was very surprised to find myself walking out behind two middle aged women who seemed less than impressed. It turned out, as I shamelessly listened to them talk, that they were Stephen Colbert fans who'd heard he was great in this, but were disappointed that his role more or less comes to an end early on and then there are "so many songs" afterward!

Since I'm on the topic of Broadway, I wanted to mention that I thought Neil Patrick Harris was once again fantastic as the host of this year's Tony Awards. Can we just make him host for life of any and all major award shows? I especially enjoyed his number with Hugh Jackman.

As for the performances on this year's Tonys, I was surprised by how much I liked the number from The Book of Mormon. I really didn't expect to, somehow, but I think I'd like to see the show if it ever comes my way.

The number from Anything Goes was also very good, but then how could you mess up Cole Porter? I enjoyed the performance from Catch Me If You Can, though I wasn't really impressed by the song itself. The number from How To Succeed in Business was all right. Daniel Radcliffe is incredibly likable and seems like such a great guy in real life, but I'm not sure singing is really his forte.

The Spider Man and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert numbers both left me completely cold. The Spider Man performance was just kind of boring and bland, while Priscilla is a 'jukebox musical' made up exclusively of pre-existing songs, which just seems like a cop out to me, somehow. Maybe the show, when you sit and watch the whole thing, is really good, but for me it was the weakest moment of the Tonys, performance wise.

More Ewings Checking in to Southfork

2011-04-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

I'm getting more and more excited over the new Dallas update as the days pass. Earlier this month came the news that another Desperate Housewives alum was joining the cast, this time actress Brenda Strong, who will be playing Bobby Ewing's wife Ann. I can't wait to meet the new Mrs. Ewing!

Today I read that two more original Dallas cast members will be in the pilot! Steve Kanaly will be back as ranch foreman turned Ewing half brother, Ray Krebbs, while Charlene Tilton will reprise her role of Lucy Ewing Cooper.

Ray was in the second reunion movie, War of the Ewings (which, sadly, sucked), but we haven't seen Lucy since way back in 1990. It will be very interesting to catch up with these two characters!

I wonder if the new writers will remember that Bobby has a second son, Lucas? His mother is Jenna Wade and he was adopted by Ray, who married Jenna and moved off to Europe with her. That could make for an interesting story in a lot of ways, this nephew/son of Bobby's who wasn't raised as part of the Southfork branch of the family. I wonder if we'll be seeing Jenna, too?

Speaking of the Southfork clan, this picture of Larry Hagman, the still beautiful Linda Gray, and their new TV son Josh Henderson, which was posted by the latter on Facebook, leaves me feeling like a kid anticipating Christmas morning! I can't wait!

A Sad Day

2011-04-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

It must be a very sad day to be Agnes Nixon. The iconic daytime scribe who penned some of the most socially relevant stories in the history of the medium just saw her two remaining creations killed off at the same time.

I'm talking, of course, about One Life to Live and All My Children, which were both cancelled by ABC today. They will be replaced by a talk show revolving around cooking and a weight loss competition.

Though neither soap has LGBT characters onscreen at the moment, they were both leading soaps when it came to telling those stories over the years. All My Children broke real ground when they became the first soap to give us a gay character from a core family, Erica Kane's daughter Bianca, who came out of the closet back in 2000.

One Life to Live gave us the first teen gay character on daytime back in 1993 when future movie star Ryan Philippe played gay teen Billy Douglas. More recently, of course, that show gave us the amazing pairing of Kyle and Fish, which included the first real onscreen love scene between two men, including showing them in bed together afterward. In fact, that particular scene was better than anything I'd ever seen on primetime on any network. The two men also became parents, but were written off just when the show could have broken even more ground by giving us a story about the first gay dads raising a child on daytime.

Those were far from the only LGBT characters or socially relevant stories that these two shows told over the years, though they were certainly right up there with the best. All My Children was the show that gave us television's first legal abortion back in the 1970's and dealt with the very controversial issue of the Vietnam War in real time.

One Life to Live was the fist soap that had African American characters in major storylines in the late 1960's, including the controversial story of Carla Gray, a light skinned African American woman who passed herself off as Italian in order to get ahead in a racist society. A decade later they gave us the explosive Karen Wolek storyline, about a housewife with low self esteem who was secretly moonlighting as a prostitute. It made actress Judith Light a household name.

These were both greatly important shows not just to daytime TV but to television itself, mostly because of the driving force of Agnes Nixon, a woman who knew that you could tell great stories that were also meaningful and socially relevant. Sadly, her successors in the soap world largely forgot this lesson and all these cancellations we've been seeing in recent years is largely the result of that.

The simultaneous loss of these two particular soaps is in fact the worst blow that daytime TV has ever been dealt. If you had been able to fool yourself up to now that daytime soaps were not a dying breed, you certainly can't deny it any longer. There will soon be a grand total of four soaps remaining on the air.

All My Children will take its final bow in September and we'll have One Life to Live on our screens until January. With nine months remaining and nothing left to lose from those who blamed gay characters for driving down the ratings, can we hope to see a final return from Kish? It may not be likely, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

This is truly a sad day for any soap fan, even those like me who have become disenchanted by the direction the medium has taken writing wise. A lot of television history and a lot of talented actors are about to be thrown out for what sound to me like two very short lived TV shows that no one will even remember a decade from now.

Confirmed: Gays in Salem!

2011-04-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

I wrote last week about the rumor that Days of Our Lives was finally, after 45 years on the air, going to embark upon a major gay storyline for one of its characters. In the time since, more rumors seemed to confirm that the gay character would indeed be Will Horton. As the scion of both the Horton and the Brady clans, Will is pretty much the definition of a legacy character from a core family.

I decided not to get my hopes up until I had more definite confirmation that this was actually going to happen, though. After all, I've been waiting for Days to do a gay storyline for years and the daytime landscape doesn't seem very friendly to LGBT characters at the moment, given that there are currently none left on any soap and that the last show to introduce a major gay pairing later tried to blame the couple for bringing down their ratings!

Well, how's this for confirmation? This weekend Chandler Massey, the actor who portrays Will Horton, attended the Kid's Choice Awards and confirmed that the show will be writing a gay storyline for his character this summer!

In spite of all the times that I've been burned by soaps in the past, I'm actually excited about this. After all, this is my soap, the one I grew up with. I honestly had given up hope of ever seeing a major gay character in Salem and it would once have seemed beyond my wildest dreams that the LGBT character in question would be a Horton and/or a Brady!

Of course, I do worry about what the quality of the story will be and if they'll truly commit to giving Will a love life, or any story at all beyond just coming out. Rumors are flying about him being paired with Chad, with Dario, or with an as yet unseen character, but only time will reveal what they have in store for Will.

I think the best part of this news so far, though, is that Chandler Massey, unlike certain other actors in the recent past, honestly seems to be excited about this development for his character. That earns him major respect in my book.

Groff Returns to Glee!

2011-03-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote about a bit of casting news that annoyed the hell out of me, but the news I read tonight had very much the opposite effect.

I'm talking, of course, about the report that Jonathan Groff will be returning to his role as Jesse St James on Glee for the final three episodes of the season!

I became a huge fan of Jonathan's during his run on the show last year. He's not only beautiful, a talented actor, and a fantastic signer, he's also openly gay, which makes him even more awesome as far as I'm concerned.

Jonathan spent some of the time since leaving the show starring on stage in Deathtrap in London's West End and while I'm sure he was fantastic in that, I couldn't exactly afford to fly over to the UK to see it, so I'm very happy that I'll be able to see him on my TV screen again.

I wonder if the show will have Rachel break out Carly Simon's 'Jesse' when Mr. St James returns to town? ("Oh mother, say a prayer for me, Jesse's back in town, it won't be easy...") The lyrics seem to work perfectly for the situation.

More to the point, will Jonathan share any screen time with Darren Criss? That much hotness onscreen at one time could be too much to handle, but I'll gladly take the risk!

Say What?!

2011-03-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

We've all seen some ridiculous film and TV casting decisions over the years, but I don't think my jaw has ever dropped quite so much as it did a little while ago when I read that Jennifer Garner will be playing Agatha Christie's beloved detective Miss Marple in a new movie update.

Yes, Jennifer Garner, the actress from Alias will be playing the elderly spinster from the village of St. Mary Mead. I saw her in 13 Going on 30 but I never dreamed they'd make her 39 Going on 80!

Of course, this is a cool new youthful update of Miss Marple, meant to appeal to the Disney tween crowd. Um, if you're going to completely alter the character, why not just create a new detective altogether? Why tie it in to a very well established character fifty years older than the actress?

Back in middle school and high school, I devoured all of Agatha Christie's mysteries and collected copies of every single one. The books starring Miss Marple were particular favorites of mine. Don't get me wrong, I loved Hercule Poirot too, but Miss Marple was more fun, somehow.

What made Miss Marple a great character and as good of a detective as she was? Experience and age. She'd spent a lifetime as a single woman in a small village, observing life around her with a keen eye. Years of this had taught her a lot about human nature. That's how she always solved crimes, through the wisdom brought by her decades of living.

A young Miss Marple just makes no sense at all. I'm sure Jennifer Garner will be her usual winsome self and it's certainly not going to hurt the books any, but the stupidity of the idea just astounds me and I had to vent a bit!

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to re-read The Body in the Library.

A Groundbreaking Story for Daytime

2011-03-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

This weekend I received an e-mail from a reader wondering if, now that I'm blogging again, I would comment on the male/male rape storyline that has unfolded recently on General Hospital.

I have to confess that General Hospital is not a soap I've ever watched regularly and, with my life being a bit chaotic recently, I hadn't followed the story at all. I'd seen reports about it on soap websites, of course, but I hadn't had the time to tune in.

The e-mail this weekend, though, prompted me to take a look at this story, which is a groundbreaking one for a daytime soap in the United States. I've heard a few rumors over the years that a male/male rape storyline was in the works on various soaps, but they always turned out to be nothing more than online speculation.

I've always thought it would be a pretty powerful story, if told right, but I honestly didn't think an American soap would ever go there. I knew that it had already happened on a British soap, though. Back in March 2000, Hollyoaks wrote what from most accounts was a pretty intense and well written storyline involving a male/male rape.

The character of Luke Morgan (played by Gary Lucy) had been bullied for awhile by his football teammate Mark Gibbs and some of his friends. When Luke finally stood up to Mark, he and his friends beat Luke up in a locker room after a football match. Luke ran off, but the guys gave chase and two of Mark's friends held Luke down while Mark raped him.

The actual rape took place in a special late night episode of the soap, but the aftermath played out on the show itself as Luke battled depression, lost his girlfriend because he felt he couldn't tell her about being raped, and eventually attempted suicide before finally opening up to his friends, family, and the police about what had happened to him.

Even then it was far from clear sailing, with Luke's father not wanting him to go public about the rape and his parents marriage crumbling in the aftermath. Mark and his friends were eventually found guilty and sent to prison, but it was far from easy for Luke to move on even after that. (I've only seen bits of the story itself on YouTube and read summaries, so bear with me if I got any details slightly wrong).

It always seemed less than likely that an American soap would tell such a story, especially when rape itself has always been such a poorly handled issue on daytime. Countless female characters have been raped over the years, but there are a few glaring examples that stand out as especially outrageous. Most famously (and most reprehensibly), of course, is General Hospital's Luke & Laura, where the rapist and his victim ended up not only marrying each other but becoming one of daytime's most popular supercouples.

On Days of Our Lives the character of Jack raped his wife, Kayla, before going on to become a lovably comedic character and one half of the popular Jack & Jennifer, not to mention a brother-in-law to Kayla, who'd married his brother.

The character of Todd Manning on One Life to Live was the leader of a very famous (and very well told) fraternity gang rape storyline back in 1993. While hardly a heroic character, Todd remains front and center on the soap today, with wives, ex-wives, children, and even a shared grandchild with his victim, Marty Saybrooke.

Worse, he essentially raped Marty again a few years ago when she had amnesia. That rape was more emotional than physical, since the clueless Marty thought she'd fallen in love with him and didn't regain her memory until after she'd made love to her rapist.

That's just a drop in the bucket and only touches on the male/female rapes. There have also been several stories in which a female character essentially rapes a male character and gets away with it completely, with no one even recognizing it as rape.

The one that comes to mind right away for me is from Days of Our Lives, where Sami Brady (herself a rape victim!) drugged her sister Carrie's boyfriend, Austin Reed, and had sex with him while he thought she was Carrie. That is certainly rape and would be described as such if the roles had been reversed.

That's really just the tip of the iceberg on this subject, so I'm sure you see why I thought that a male/male rape was doubly unlikely in a medium that is already squeamish about two men being together when both parties are willing.

So I wasn't really sure what to expect with this General Hospital storyline. It made sense that if any soap would feature a male/male rape, it would be the more violent than most GH, but I'd also trust them the least to deal with the aftermath of such a groundbreaking story.

The victim was 17 year old Michael, son of the show's lead character, mob boss Sonny Corinthos. Michael was in prison for murder last spring when he was beaten and raped by a fellow inmate named Carter, who was subsequently killed by Sonny's right hand man, Jason, who'd found out that Michael was being harassed by the man. The show left what exactly had happened up to viewer's imaginations until just a few months ago, when Michael discovered a friend being attacked and finally flashed back to what had happened to him.

Jason had his suspicions about how far the harassment in prison had gone, especially given how uncomfortable the virginal Michael seemed about the topic of sex after his release, but it wasn't until January that Michael finally confessed to Jason that he'd been raped.

Chad Duell (above), the actor playing Michael, really blew me away in that scene, as well as in subsequent scenes where he tells his brother & friend and discusses it with mother and then his macho, mob boss father.

Overall, in fact, I'm fairly impressed with what I've seen of this story, which admittedly is not much more than the clips I've just linked to! But Chad Duell seems a promising talent and I'm glad that Daytime has taken on another subject that seemed forever taboo. It's especially important, I think, that people finally see a story in which something that has largely been treated as a punchline in pop culture- being raped in prison- is far from being a joke.

Casting the Ewings

2011-03-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

It won't surprise you to know that I've been avidly following all the casting news about the new Dallas pilot that TNT has ordered. I've written before about how much I loved the 1978-1991 series.

I'm thrilled that Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, and Patrick Duffy will all be reprising their roles from the original series. I cannot imagine Dallas without J.R., and even though both Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray left the series during its run, they're certainly an integral part of what made Dallas what it was and, hopefully, what it will be.

I'm a bit more wary about some of the casting choices for the new generation, though.

I'm fairly happy with Josh Henderson as John Ross, at least based on the fact that he's roughly the right age for the part (born in 1981, whereas the character was born onscreen in 1979), quite attractive, and seems to have some soapy experience already, having done time on both Desperate Housewives and 90210. I've never actually seen him in anything, though, so I can only hope that he's got some acting talent.
Henderson also looks like he could be John Ross, by which I mean it's somewhat believable that young Omri Katz could have grown up to look like this. I cannot, however, same the same thing when it comes to the actor they hired to play Christopher Ewing.

Jesse Metcalfe is certainly an attractive man. A decade ago, back when he was on Passions (a soap that I detested), I admit that I would occasionally record the show just to see him in a state of undress as the dim-witted hunk Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald. I've even caught a few glimpses of him on Desperate Housewives, for much the same reason.

He just doesn't seem right as Christopher, though. I can't see the kid on the original series or Chris Demetral, who played the role last in Dallas: J.R. Returns, becoming this beefcake version of Bobby and Pam's son. I'm also worried about Metcalfe not being the actor needed for the part, but that may be because I haven't seen him in much other than Passions and John Tucker Must Die. Hopefully his acting skills have improved since then? He's terrific eye candy, certainly, but I'd like Christopher to be more than that!

I was interested to see that Christopher's fiancee, the character that Julie Gonzalo is going to be playing, was named Rebecca. Could she be Pamela Rebecca Cooper, the character that Christopher was interested in when we last saw him in J.R. Returns? I'd heard no mention of Ken Kercheval returning as Cliff Barnes, but if Rebecca had been the same character that would have opened the door for him, since Rebecca turned out to be his daughter with Afton Cooper. Sadly, this character's last name appears to be Sutter.

Jordana Brewster, meanwhile, has been cast as a character named Elena who is reportedly in a love triangle with John Ross and Christopher, which I guess means that Rebecca may not be holding on to her man for long.

I'm not familiar with Julie Gonzalo, but I know Jordana's recent work from the show Chuck and I think she'll be a good addition to the cast.

I can't wait to see how all of this comes together onscreen. TNT had better pick this up as a series!

Van Gets Psyched

2011-03-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

Some great news for all of us Van Hansis fans: the former Luke Snyder will be on our TV screens again in the near future. Van has landed a guest starring role on an episode of the series Psych.

I know that it has only been six months since As The World Turns went off the air and that I've seen Van more recently on YouTube in the Black Swan parody, Pale Swan, but it really seems like it has been ages since I last had my Hansis fix!

Van is a seriously talented guy and I can't wait to see what he does with this new role. I know it's going to be just the first of many.

About a month ago, by the way, I had a dream that Luke & Noah were given a spin off show that also starred Kyle and Fish from One Life to Live, along with several characters from Queer As Folk. It was pretty epic and I was so disappointed when I woke up and realized it was just a dream!

Rest in Peace, Elizabeth Taylor

2011-03-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

As you've no doubt heard by now, the world lost a film icon and a legendary beauty today when Elizabeth Taylor passed away at the age of 79.

More importantly, though, the world lost a woman who worked tirelessly to fight AIDS, raising awareness and millions of dollars for the cause. She helped to found the American Foundation for AIDS Research and then her own organization, The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.

It's especially worth noting that she began her work in the fight against HIV and AIDS back when many people outside of the LGBT community, and certainly most of those in public life, preferred to ignore the epidemic.

She left behind many wonderful movies (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor each at the height of their beauty and talent, is one of my favorite films) and an epic personal life that was pure soap opera at times, but for me she'll always be first and foremost a true hero in the fight against AIDS.

Rest in peace, Elizabeth.

A New Gay Story for Daytime?

2011-03-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

I'll believe this when I actually see it, but Entertainment Weekly's online arm is reporting that a gay themed storyline may finally be coming to Days of Our Lives. NBC's one surviving soap and The Bold & The Beautiful remain the only two daytime soaps left on the air that haven't done a major gay storyline.

I know I've mentioned before that Days is the soap I grew up watching, the one that my mother, aunts, and Grandmother all watched before me. It's also the only soap that I still keep up with somewhat, largely because of my life long history with it.

As I wrote when I first started blogging about gay soap characters, Days did provide a few very early and ultimately misleading hints that it might lead the pack on the issue of gay characters, but they both turned into major disappointments:

"Back in the 70's, there were a few minor blips on the radar, both on Days of Our Lives. Neither was exactly a stellar moment in soap history. First, a minor female character made an advance on Julie Williams, the lead character on the show at that time, and Julie reacted with disgust, fleeing the scene. The character who made the advance on Julie was promptly dropped and no further mention was made of the incident. Later, Julie's young cousin Mike Horton briefly questioned his own sexuality, until sex with a woman made him put all doubts from his mind once and for all. The character has come and gone over the years, but has been resolutely heterosexual ever since."

There has been much speculation over the years about Days doing a gay storyline. When the character of Eric Brady (played by a pre-Supernatural Jensen Ackles) first returned to Salem in the late 1990's, the Internet was abuzz with the rumor that the character was going to be gay. This speculation was aided by the fact that he was being followed by a mystery person and hiding a secret about his time in boarding school in Colorado.

Whatever the story was intended to be, the show dropped it without pursing it and wrapped up the weeks of Eric being followed in a single episode with hastily written scenes about the guy following him being his ex-roommate who'd date raped someone and blamed Eric for getting caught.

A decade later, the buzz has largely surrounded Eric's nephew, Will Horton, and his frenemy Chad Woods. Both characters have dated (and, in Chad's case, impregnated) women, but then they're still young, just out of high school and in that 'self discovery' phase of life. Fans of the fantasy pairing have already dubbed them 'Chill'.

EW.com hints that the new storyline would involve a current character becoming involved with someone new and even wonders if it could involve Will and the newly arrived Dario Hernandez. I've already noticed a few message boards hoping for a 'Wario' pairing.

At the moment, there are no major LGBT characters left on any soap, although a minor recurring character was recently revealed to be gay on One Life to Live, the soap that gave us Kish and then took them away.

Is a Chill, Wario or some other such pairing really in the works? If it happens, will the show be committed to keeping their gay characters front and center like As the World Turns was with Luke (though hopefully with better writing)? Or will they go the 'come out, get bashed, get accepted, disappear' route like General Hospital took with Lucas Jones?

If Days truly does tell a gay themed story, I hope that it will involve a legacy character from a core family, like Will Horton, who is far less easy to write out once he's come out (though admittedly General Hospital had no problems dropping Lucas Jones).

The Kish pairing proved that you can tell a beautiful love story with characters who aren't related to anyone else on the show, but it also reinforced just how easy it is to get rid of those characters.

As far as this latest Days rumor goes, only time will tell if there's actually something to it, and if that something is worth watching.

Stage Talk

2011-03-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

At some point during my blogging hiatus I saw the news that Neil Patrick Harris and Patti LuPone were starring in a three night only concert production of one of my favorite Sondheim shows, Company. As you can imagine, I wanted to buy a ticket the minute I read the news, but sadly my recent move didn't take me any closer to the East Coast and I still can't afford to make the trip.

It seems strange to me that just a few years ago, I wouldn't have known a Sondheim show from a Lloyd Webber show, and if you'd showed me a picture of Patti LuPone I would have hazily recalled seeing her on TV in the early 90's, but would best have remembered her as the daughter-in-law in the film Driving Miss Daisy!

Well, what a difference a few years makes. I'm still far from being an expert on the Broadway musical, of course. I've now read all of Ethan Mordden's excellent books on the history of the genre and I've listened to many cast albums. I've even seen three Sondheim shows (the original productions of Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George and the 2006 revival of Company) and two Sondheim concert tributes on DVD, but can you really be an expert in something you've never experienced first hand?

Still, just listening to the original cast albums of Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music convinced me quite quickly that Sondheim was a genius. I'd love to see one of his shows in person and how incredible would it be if it also happened to star one of my favorite men on the planet, Neil Patrick Harris?

Then, of course, you throw Patti LuPone into the mix just to make me want to see it even more! In the past few years I've become a fan of Patti through the cast albums of her revivals of Gypsy and Sweeney Todd (she also worked with NPH on a concert version of the latter show, which is available on DVD), her own albums, and her new autobiography.

Alas, I'll have to live vicariously through those who see the new concert production of Company and share their opinions with the rest of us. I wonder if there's any chance that they'll release a cast recording?

Meanwhile, a bit closer to home but probably still far enough away to be out of my reach at the moment, there's a brand new musical that I'm dying to see. I'm talking about the Tales of the City musical, based on Armistead Maupin's wonderful books. It opens on May 18 in San Francisco and plays there through July. If I can scrape together enough money before then I'd love to not only see the show but also the city itself.

Thoughts on Glee

2011-03-20T21:33:00.001-07:00

With everything that has been going on in my life, I have yet to comment on the second season of Glee other than to note my approval of the two hot guys who joined the cast last fall. I've been meaning to blog on the subject for months and there's no time like the present, right?

To start with, I should say that Chris Colfer has continued to impress the hell out of me. I was practically jumping up and down with joy when he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in January. I don't think anyone deserved it more than he did and his acceptance speech was the high point of the evening.

I've loved the bullying story arc that is still unresolved. It's an important story and Chris played it beautifully, especially during the scene where Kurt finally confronted his bully Karofsky in the locker room.

I think one of my favorite scenes not only of the year but from any TV show EVER has to be the scene where Kurt's Dad gives him The Talk about sex. This was such a groundbreaking moment, to see a straight father sit down with his gay teenage son and discuss not only safe sex, but the emotional aspects of becoming sexually involved with another person. I honestly never thought I'd see a scene like this on network television. If Glee had ceased to air immediately afterward, it would have earned its place in history just with that scene.

What made this all truly spectacular was Mike O'Malley and Chris Colfer as the father and son in question. They were both pitch perfect as they had the uncomfortable but important conversation, and if it were up to me they would both be showered with every award possible just for this alone.

One of the best things about the new season has been the addition of Blaine Anderson to the cast of characters. Yes, Blaine is played by the incredibly sexy Darren Criss (see above), but that's only one reason to love this character. A far better one is that Criss is a talented actor and singer who has made Blaine truly come alive onscreen.

I could cite many examples of this, but I think the best one actually comes from this past week's episode. The scene I'm talking about is the one in which Blaine is listening to Kurt perform 'Blackbird' and there's no doubt as you're watching that you're seeing him fall in love with his fellow Warbler right before your eyes. Blaine doesn't say a word, but the dawning realization is all right there on his face and in his body language.

I've loved the way in which Kurt & Blaine have become friends (although Kurt was in love from the moment Blaine sang Teenage Dream to him) and how Blaine has tried to be a mentor to Kurt, and I'm excited to see where things go from here, now that they've finally become a couple.
With that said, I'm so ready to see Kurt back at McKinley High! All of the Warbler's performances tend to start sounding the same after awhile, with so little diversity in the singing, and I just miss seeing Kurt interacting with his old friends. I've loved seeing him become closer with Rachel since his transfer to Dalton and I'd like to see how that holds up when they're in the same glee club again.

What about the rest of the show, outside of Kurt and Blaine? Well, I've got to say that I'm incredibly disappointed with the way things were written for Will & Emma. Throwing Carl into the mix and then having Emma marry him so suddenly was not only wildly out of character for her, it also sort of ruined Emma & Will for me.

I liked the addition of Holly Holliday and I have to confess that I've never liked Gwyneth Paltrow more, but I don't see her being a long term character. If she's just in the mix to get Emma and Will back together, as seems likely, I'm less than impressed.

One truly fantastic decision they made this year was the casting of Dot-Marie Jones as Coach Beiste. At first, I thought the new football coach was going to be little more than a stereotype and a joke, but I quickly lost that idea. The writing has given Dot-Marie Jones a chance to shine both as a comic actress and in some surprisingly emotional scenes.

I also very much enjoyed the addition of Chord Overstreet as Sam Evans, though for somewhat different reasons:

Yes, he's fantastic eye candy, but I also loved how secretly dorky Sam was underneath the hot jock exterior. When he spoke Na'vi and did his McConaughey impression, I melted. I was especially excited when I thought that he was coming on to be Kurt's new boyfriend. My disappointment on that front was quickly appeased by the real chemistry that existed between Sam & Quinn, though. I really enjoyed that pairing.

Since then, they haven't seemed to know what to do with Sam. They trashed his relationship with Quinn to do a Quinn & Finn retread (boring!) and then paired him up with Santana, only to have her confess her love for Brittany. There is some truly interesting story to be told with the character of Sam, his insecurity, and his overwhelming need to be popular, but will they tell it?

Don't get me wrong, though, I love the whole Brittany/Santana relationship. It will be interesting to see where that goes. I've also enjoyed the Brittany/Artie match.

I have mixed feelings on the Puck/Lauren pairing. I love Lauren's complete confidence in herself and in her sex appeal, in spite of not looking like what is accepted in our society today as 'sexy', but I just feel like the pairing with Puck is too forced to be believable. They don't quite carry it off, somehow.

Where is Mercedes? Yes, she's physically present and has had a few great songs (I loved the duet of 'Take Me or Leave Me' she did with Rachel!), but she's had no character development whatsoever this season, outside of the tater tot thing. Give her a story already!

I also think they need to be very careful with Sue. She's always been deliciously over the top and I love Jane Lynch, but some of the character's actions this season have been a tad too much, even for Sue. If they made her a complete cartoon, that would be one thing, but they continually ground her with scenes in which we see that she is indeed human. So, why would she not care if she killed Brittany to win a competition, to give one example?

Overall, the show has had some great episodes this season and a few that weren't quite all that they could have been. I hope they'll move away from doing too many more episodes that revolve around the music of just one artist. It worked beautifully in the Madonna episode last year, but... well, let's just say Britney Spears is no Madonna.

Still, at this point I'd take a less than perfect episode of Glee over almost anything else on offer. It continues to be groundbreaking and remains my favorite show.

A New Role for Chenoweth?

2011-03-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

I've said many times since the tragic demise of Pushing Daisies that Kristin Chenoweth, whom I practically worship, should be given a starring role in her own TV show. Yes, I know that she did have a short lived sitcom called Kristin that sort of came and went back in the summer of 2001, but that was nearly a decade ago. With her Emmy winning work as Olive on Pushing Daisies and her Emmy nominated recurring role as April Rhodes on Glee, she's more than demonstrated both her comedic abilities and her dramatic talents, not to mention that incredible singing voice.

Well, we may finally be seeing her on our TV screens again on a regular basis. Cheno has landed a lead role in a soapy new pilot from Darren Star, the man who brought us the original versions of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place, as well as Sex and the City (though of course he also brought us such less memorable titles as Central Park West, Miss Match, and Cashmere Mafia).

Kristin's new show would be called Good Christian Bitches, which certainly would rank among the more memorable titles of any new season. It sounds like pure campy fun, I have to say, especially with Kristin on board as what sounds like the villainess of the piece!

Still, I'm not getting my hopes up too high until the pilot is picked up as a series. The last time I was (somewhat) excited about Kristin landing a pilot, it never saw the light of day.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to her return to Glee this Spring as April Rhodes, where she'll be singing an original song that sounds perfectly suited to her character: 'It's 10 AM, I'm Drunk'.

Back in the Game

2011-03-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for the two and a half months of silence. Life has been even more hectic than usual since I last wrote. Among other things, I've left my job and moved to a new city. It has certainly been stressful, but I do love the idea of a fresh start!

Now that things are somewhat settled, my hope is that I can once again resume blogging on a regular basis.

I'll just dip my toe in the water tonight by noting that it's that time of year again: Literary Award Season! Lambda Literary has announced the finalists for their 23rd annual prize and the same can be said for the Publishing Triangle Awards. Both of these awards honor LGBT writing and never fail to alert me to a title or an author I might otherwise never have found.

The Orange Prize, meanwhile, honors excellence in women's writing and they've announced a longlist that sounds pretty fascinating.

2010 in Retrospect

2010-12-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that 2010 is already at a close. I feel as if it was 2002 about ten seconds ago, so how can we possibly be about to enter 2011?!

As with any year, a lot can be said to sum up 2010 from just about any perspective imaginable. In the United States, those on the right of the political spectrum certainly had a lot to cheer in the mid term elections, yet it was also the year in which Congress finally passed some Health Care legislation and repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which will allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

On the Same Sex Marriage front, no new states joined the five states (and Washington, D.C.) that had already allowed (or were about to allow) LGBT citizens their right to marry at this time last year, but Maryland did begin to recognize same sex marriages performed in other states and, best of all, California's Prop 8 was overturned in federal court, though of course the case is far from over.

President Obama appointed Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court this year, bringing the number of women on the court to an historic high of three.

In the entertainment world, the two biggest men to come out of the closet this year weren't really any great surprise: pop singer Ricky Martin and Will & Grace star Sean Hayes had both been rumored/assumed to be gay for many years, but that doesn't make the fact that they finally took the steps to come out publicly in 2010 any less noteworthy.

A true milestone this year in terms of coming out: the first openly gay country music artist, in the form of newly out lesbian Chely Wright.

Ricky Martin, by the way, was part of another trend this year: out gay celebrities becoming parents. Ricky Martin has been a dad since 2008, while Neil Patrick Harris and his partner David Burtka, and Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, all welcomed new children into their lives in 2010.

We lost some greats this year in every field imaginable, from daytime TV's Frances Reid, James Mitchell, and Helen Wagner, to primetime TV greats Rue McCLanahan, Dixie Carter, Barbara Billingsly, and John Forsythe, to all around legends like Lena Horne, Dennis Hopper, and Tony Curtis.

The literary world lost an iconic figure in J.D. Salinger and we lost a great historian, writer, and activist when Howard Zinn left us at age 87.

Last year in my retrospective, I mentioned that the year had been bookended by two very different gay love scenes in daytime soaps: Luke & Noah's long awaited first time on As the World Turns at the beginning of the year and Oliver and Kyle's amazing New Year's Eve love scene on One Life to Live.

It's sad to read the hope and excitement I was feeling over Kish a year ago at this time, completely unaware that in less than three months Kish would be gone, that in less than nine months there would no longer be an As The World Turns or any LGBT characters on daytime TV at all. This year, when I say "What a difference a year can make" I say it with sadness.

Well, on to some of my picks for this year's favorite things!

*Favorite Classic Fiction Book I read this year: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

*Favorite Gay Fiction Book I read this year: Mary Ann In Autumn, by Armistead Maupin, with Stephen McCauley's Insignificant Others a near second.

*Favorite Modern Fiction Book I read this year: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I snobbishly put off reading this for ages because it was published in the U.S. as a Young Adult novel (in the author's native Australia, it was published as adult fiction), but it was so good!

*Favorite Non-Fiction (Literary) Book I read this year: The Book of William by Paul Collins.

*Favorite Non-Fiction (Autobiography) Book I read this year: City Boy by Edmund White.

*Favorite Film I saw this year: (500) Days of Summer.

*Favorite Gay Themed Film I saw this year: A Single Man. I only saw four gay themed films this year, and this was by far the best, but it couldn't begin to touch the beauty of the book.

*Film I Most Wanted to see this year but haven't yet: The Kids Are All Right. What's wrong with me?! I've been dying to see this. First film of 2011, for sure.

*Favorite Hour long TV Show: It's still Glee.

*Favorite Half Hour long TV Show: A tie between Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory, both of which I've belatedly caught up with and love.

*Best Daytime Soap: One Life to Live until March. After that, NONE.

*Favorite CD: Hard to say. I've been discovering Sondheim all year, so probably A Little Night Music or Company.

*Favorite Actress: Kristin Chenoweth

*Favorite Gay Themed Website of the year: AfterElton.com.

*Favorite Gay Character of the year (Daytime): A tie between Oliver Fish, One Life to Live (until March), and Reid Oliver, As The World Turns.

*Favorite Gay Character of the year (Primetime): Kurt Hummel, Glee.

*Favorite Gay Character of the year (International): Aaron Livesy, Emmerdale

*Hottest Actor (Daytime): A tie. Scott Evans (until March)

and then the Brothers Ford (aka Nicolas Robuck, David A. Gregory and Lenny Platt), One Life to Live.
*Hottest Actor (Primetime): Jared Padalecki. I still love me some Jared, and this year he even deigned to show some skin!
*Hottest Actor (Film): I barely saw any films this year, so I'll go with my choice from last year, the still very sexy Ryan Reynolds.

Well, I think that about sums it up. I hope 2011 proves to be a wonderful year for everyone reading this!

Year End Lists

2010-12-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! Last night I made my list of the Guys Who Made 2010 and now I'm working on my retrospective look at the year.

While I work on that, I thought I'd share some lists put together by others. I always love these annual Best Of lists!

First up, The New Yorker's look at the best in film. Actually, I should say 'looks' since they have three critics weighing in: David Denby, Anthony Lane, and Richard Brody.

On the subject of film, Roger Ebert also offers his list of the top ten feature films and looking at all these combined lists makes me realize how few films I saw this year!

The New Yorker also has several writers commenting on the books they read in 2010.

Speaking of books, one of my favorite blogs, Band of Thebes, has a fantastic round up of 80 writers who choose their favorite LGBT books of the year. The list numbers 100 books and it's certainly enough to give anyone hope about the future of LGBT writing!

Oh, and be sure to check of Lambda Literary for several great articles on 2010.

Playbill.com has an excellent look at the year in theater , including a tribute to those who left us this year.

Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker has picked his top ten TV shows of the year, and then added another ten on top of that.

Even though I've more or less sworn off daytime soaps made in the United States, I can't help but check in on Michael Fairman's list of the Best and Worst in the year of daytime drama.

Fairman shows some love to One Life to Live, naming it best soap, but also calls out the shameful dumping of the Kish storyline as the most shocking moment of the year. He also names As the World Turns' Luke and Reid as the best new couple of the year and Reid's portrayer, Eric Sheffer Stevens, as giving the best overall performance by a supporting actor.

Not surprisingly, he 'honors' the ATWT writers with a well deserved nod for the worst writing of the year and mentions Reid's death as the most upsetting soap moment of 2010.

Fairman also offers photographic evidence of the 25 best and 25 worst soap moments of the year.

Well, I'll have my own retrospective on the year up later this evening.

The Men Who Made 2010

2010-12-30T21:38:00.000-08:00

For the past two years, I've made year end lists of what I considered to be some of the hottest guys of the year. These weren't necessarily guys who were 'new' to the scene in the entertainment world, but rather guys that had caught my attention for the first time in the past twelve months.

Being the stickler for tradition that I am, I see no reason not to continue this particular one, even if I haven't had any time at all to blog during the holiday season (I've been at the book store for more Christmas seasons that I care to remember, but this was the first year in my new position and it was way more intense and exhausting than I expected it to be).

Anyway, without further ado, here are the men who made 2010 for me:

So far, I've always opened this list with a guy from One Life to Live. In 2008, it was Mark Lawson and last year it was Scott Evans. Now, I haven't followed the stories on One Life to Live since the shameful writing out of Kish back in March, so you'd think that this year would be different.

The truth is, though, that I still record the show on my Tivo every day, simply to ogle the hot guys, and there is one in particular who has caught my fancy this year. His name is Nicolas Robuck and he plays James, one of the very delicious trio known as the Ford brothers.
While all three of the Ford brothers (the other two are played by David Gregory and Lenny Platt) are incredibly sexy, as evidenced above, there is just something about the vulnerability that Nicolas brings to the role of James that makes my heart skip a beat.
Next up is a soap hottie from across the pond. I'm talking, of course, about Danny Miller, the actor who plays gay character Aaron Livesy on the British soap Emmerdale. I was aware of Danny somewhat at this time last year, since his gay storyline was just kicking off, but 2010 was the year in which he not only impressed the hell out of me with his acting talent (seriously, this man can break my heart; I dare you to watch a scene in which the tough, tightly wound Aaron breaks down and not sob right along with him!) but also had me completely falling for him.
The last three guys from my list all came to my attention this year while starring on the same show. You probably won't be at all surprised to hear that the show in question was Glee.

First up, Chord Overstreet. Once upon a time, when I was much younger, I had a major thing for blonds. Almost all of the guys that I had crushes on, both in real life and in the entertainment world, were blond. Nowadays, though, I tend to gravitate towards men with dark hair.

Still, once in awhile a hot blond like Chord comes along and I just can't help lusting after him like it was 1999 all over again! I mean, those lips, that body, that smile! I'll let the evidence speak for itself.
Next up is Mr. Teenage Dream himself, Darren Criss. At this point, I think even people who have never watched Glee know that Darren became an overnight sensation after he debuted on the show with an incredible performance of Katy Perry's song Teenage Dream. He certainly won my heart that night and his talent, his sexy grin, and his awesome attitude definitely made him one of my favorite guys this year. I just wish some shirtless pics existed! Maybe in 2011?

Finally, I think my biggest discovery this past year was Jonathan Groff. I can't even begin to tell you how much I crushed on him during his run as Jesse St. James on Glee last spring or how much I hope to see this talented, sexy, and out gay actor in something again soon! Shirtless pics of him aren't quite as scarce as those of Darren, but they're still pretty rare.

Well, there we are. The men who made 2010 for me. I can't wait to see what hotties 2011 will call to my attention!

Thanksgiving Past

2010-11-22T23:39:00.000-08:00

Broadway.com is honoring the upcoming Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade by highlighting one classic performance from years past each day this week.

I mention this because they started the week off by featuring a performance from the 2007 parade starring two talented people who were then little known outside of the world of the stage: the leads of Spring Awakening, Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff, both now world famous thanks to a little TV show called Glee.

It's a very nice performance of 'Give My Regards to Broadway'. It goes without saying, of course, that they sound fantastic singing together. I love that they clearly have a great deal of affection for each other.

I wonder if it's at all possible that we'll have a Jesse St. James return appearance sometime this season on Glee? I know that Jonathan is performing in London right now, but I miss my weekly fix, especially after seeing how completely adorkable he is in his winter jacket in the parade clip!

How do I get Santa to leave Jonathan under my tree this year?!

Speaking of Glee, I'm going to have a write up on my thoughts on the season so far at some point in the near future. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!

Southfork Calling

2010-11-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

I've written before about my undying love for Dallas, the Grand Dame of 1980's prime time soaps, and about how excited I was that TNT was thinking about updating the show with a series that focused on the younger generation of Ewings: John Ross (son of J.R. and Sue Ellen) and Christopher (son of Bobby and Pamela). The best part, though, was that there was also talk of Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy, and Linda Gray reprising their roles from the original show.

Since that time, there hadn't been a lot of news about the project. I read awhile back that TNT had decided to order a pilot, which was fantastic news since that's obviously the first step in the series becoming a reality. But overall, news was scarce and that was a bit worrisome since I'd been through the same process earlier in the decade when there was a lot of talk of a big screen adaption of the show and it ultimately came to nothing.

Just when I was starting to despair of ever hearing anything more, a new article popped up on the TV Guide website earlier this week. The show is clearly very much in the works, as original series stars Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray (J.R., Bobby and Sue Ellen) discuss the script and reveal certain details, like the fact that matriarch Miss Ellie and her husband Clayton have both passed away (as, of course, have their portrayers, Barbara Bel Geddes and Howard Keel) and Bobby has remarried.

Larry Hagman notes that he remains 'ambivalent' about the idea and is waiting for a firm offer, but Patrick Duffy sounds a much more optimistic note:

"I read the script and was extremely impressed with it," says Patrick. "I'd managed to read the scripts for the feature films Fox was planning a few years ago and they were atrocious. Just awful, so I didn't know what to expect from TNT. But this read like one of the better episodes at the height of Dallas. It's a perfect sequel to continuing the Dallas tradition."

I'm so excited to see this show become a reality! If they manage the mix between the older and younger characters just right, throw in some real eye candy as John Ross and Christopher (and, for those who are into that sort of thing, some attractive women to play their love interests), this thing could be great!

I feel like a little kid counting down the days until Christmas, only I'm starting on December 26th and it's going to be a looong wait!

Books, Hold the E

2010-11-14T19:45:00.000-08:00

Last month I read with dismay that Alyson Books, the oldest LGBT Publishing firm in the United States, was converting itself into an E-Book only publishing house. I know that many newspapers and periodicals are making the switch to digital only, but the idea that publishers may stop printing actual books and move exclusively to E-Books really worries me.

As someone who loves books (and by that I mean actual printed books!) this new trend towards E-Readers is not something I'm thrilled with. Part of that comes from working in a bookstore that is trying very hard to get ahead of this particular trend. We're made to push E-Readers like crazy, even though roughly two thirds of the staff dislike them.

I remember fondly the days when we just sold books (okay, and movies and CDs), but now we're constantly having to take training courses on the latest E-Reader and being asked all sorts of technical questions by customers.

Frankly, I hate E-Readers. I suppose if you travel a lot they're handy to have around, but they're certainly not for me. The idea that a cold piece of machinery could ever replace the experience of holding a book in your hands, turning the pages, and smelling the scent of the paper is just insane to me.

Not only are the things apt to break down eventually (or perhaps quickly, as evidenced by the many we've had returned to us as defective) and wipe out your whole library (!), but with the way that technology is constantly changing, who is to say that the E-Book you buy today will even be accessible to you a few years down the road? I guess that wouldn't matter to people who never want to re-read something, but I think most true book lovers should find that idea disconcerting, to say the least.

I know I'm not alone in this. Many of my co-workers feel the same way and so do a lot of our regular customers. I always want to cheer when I overhear a customer at work say "No, thanks, I'm a book lover," when asked if they have any questions about our E-Readers.

The thing the really gets me is the sheer number of questions we get about whether or not the E-Readers will actually read the book to their owners. Is that what we're coming to? Are that many people so lazy that they can't be bothered to even read for themselves? They want to be read to like they're still in Kindergarten?!

I know that I could never be happy if I wasn't surrounded by my books. They're a part of my life in a very physical sense.

At any rate, I cheered up a bit today when I read the news that the former head of Alyson Books, Don Weise, is launching a new indie press that will be dedicated to LGBT books. Magnus Books will publish 15-20 titles a year.

I really like the idea of publishing books from a small independent press. If I had the money, I would love to do that myself. There's an interesting memoir by Felice Picano called Art and Sex in Greenwich Village which is about the founding and running of SeaHorse Press, his independent LGBT press, in the late 1970's. It's definitely worth a read if you're at all interested in the inner workings of publishing books or in that particular time period in LGBT writing.

LuRe/Nuke: The End (In So Many Ways)

2010-11-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

Almost two months have passed since the venerable soap opera As the World Turns aired its final episode, bringing to a close over 54 years of television history. That history included the groundbreaking character of Luke Snyder, whose story I have covered here in detail over the past several years.

The last time I wrote about Luke's story was back in May. After that point, I became too busy in my personal life to keep up with the show. I did save all of the Luke related episodes on my Tivo, though, and last month when I'd taken a week off of work I managed to catch up with the final four months of the LuRe/Nuke storyline.

It's rather sad that I stuck with the show through some really terrible stories (The Z Twins? Ameera? I could go on for a few paragraphs, but let's leave it at that) and then, just when I was delighted with the electric chemistry between Van Hansis and Eric Sheffer Stevens as Luke and Reid, I had to step away.

I've been wondering since I finished watching the show just how much I should write about the way it ended. Too much time had passed for me to try and do any sort of thorough recap of the story. In the end, I decided to just do a brief summary of the action and then talk about what, exactly, this story meant and the impact it had.

There was much talk among fans about how the show would end: would Luke end up with Noah or with Reid? Both couples had their die hard fans who believed that the wrong choice would be a betrayal of their favored pair. I myself was firmly in the LuRe camp.

In the end, the show opted for door number three in an attempt to try and satisfy everyone involved.

Luke chose Reid over Noah, who decided to leave for school in Los Angeles. Luke and Reid were briefly happy, though they never actually got to make love. Luke wanted to hold off, since he'd only ever been with Noah, and Reid agreed to wait until Luke was ready.

This being a soap opera, things didn't go as planned. Reid's rival at the hospital, Chris Hughes, needed a new heart quickly, or he was going to die. Reid learned of a heart that was a match in nearby Bay City and rushed off to bypass the bureaucratic red tape and get the heart. His car stalled on a train track on his way there and he was hit before he could escape.

He lived long enough to be taken back to the hospital in Oakdale and say good bye to Luke, to whom he gave his power of attorney and instructions to make sure that Chris Hughes got Reid's heart if it was a match (which, of course, it was).

It goes without saying that Van Hansis was heartbreaking in these scenes. Watching Luke grieve Reid was incredibly hard.

So, the show gave the LuRe fans what it wanted, sort of: Luke and Reid remained in love and would have lived happily ever after except that Reid died a noble, heroic death.

They also gave the Nuke fans what they wanted, sort of: Noah and Luke didn't end up together, but the possibility of Luke eventually joining Noah in L.A. after he'd grieved Reid was very much hinted at.

Instead of making both sides happy, I suspect that it actually left everyone unsatisfied. Still, I greatly appreciated that the very last scene we ever had of Luke Snyder was of him placing his head on Chris Hughes' chest to listen to Reid's heart beating.

I bemoaned the awful writing on this show many times but in the end there is no denying that Luke's story broke a lot of ground. Like many pioneering stories, it won't be as good as what comes after it, the stories (like the much superior Kish storyline on One Life to Live) that don't have to break down the same taboos themselves.

Those stories, though, would never be able to exist if Luke's story hadn't lead the way. Let's recap here:

Luke was the first out gay male character from a core family on a daytime soap. This means that the character wasn't a disposable one, easy to remove when his purpose had been served.

Luke was the first gay male character who remained a leading character on a daytime soap once his coming out storyline was finished.

Luke and Noah shared the first romantic kiss between two male characters on a daytime soap. In fact, they shared the first several.

Luke and Noah were the first two male characters to make love on a daytime soap, though of course we didn't get a scene of them in bed together before or after (that ground was broken by Kish).

Luke, Noah, and Reid were the first true all male love triangle on a daytime soap (one in which both sides of the triangle had fans rooting for them).

Luke and Noah were, in fact, the first gay supercouple on daytime TV.

In the end, these milestones will be what truly matters, not the awful plot twists that cluttered things up along the way.

None of this would have happened, of course, without Van Hansis. His talent was what made people care about Luke. Van quickly developed a legion of fans that championed Luke and then the Nuke pairing, bringing the show the sort of attention in hadn't had in years.

If the writing had been up to the level of Van's talent, this attention could have been parlayed into ratings and the show might still be going strong today.

With the end of As the World Turns, there are no longer any out gay characters on daytime television. A truly sad state of affairs given that just a year ago we had Luke & Noah, Oliver & Kyle, Nick, Mason, Philip, and Rafe spread out over three different soap operas.

With all the talk of ground being broken, it's a bitter irony that we're suddenly back to where we were before Luke ever came out of the closet.

Mary Ann in Autumn

2010-11-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

I have a lot to catch up on here, there's so much I want to write about. I suppose I'll have to just take it one post at a time.

Let's start with Mary Ann in Autumn, the new Tales of the City novel by Armistead Maupin. If you've followed my blog at all, you know that I'd been looking forward to this book for quite awhile now.

I picked up my copy the day it came out, of course, and I pretty much devoured it all in one sitting. Maupin definitely still has the touch when it comes to weaving an engaging tale.

Reading this novel (and the earlier update, Michael Tolliver Lives) was very much like running into people you dearly loved in the past but haven't had the chance to see in ages. You may worry at first that too much will have changed in the ensuing years, but you quickly discover how easy it is to fall right back into your old rapport.

Don't think for a second, though, that Maupin is only interested in the characters that he first created over thirty years ago. In his two latest updates to the series he's introduced a new generation of characters to catch our interest and he's been able to seamlessly intertwine their lives with those of the classic characters.

Mary Ann in Autumn focuses, as you'd imagine, on the character of Mary Ann Singleton. In the original series of books, she was the character who arrived in San Francisco from Cleveland, wide eyed and naive. Mary Ann ended up being the character who most personified the times she lived in, going from the open hearted and free spirited 1970's to the ambitious and self obsessed 1980's.

Maupin managed to actually make this change in Mary Ann feel quite natural. Looking back, you saw that the seeds of it were always there. It still hurt, though, to get to the end of the series (as Sure of You was for so many years) and to feel just as abandoned by Mary Ann as her friends and family in the books did when she left them behind to pursue success in New York.

When the series was updated in 2005 with Michael Tolliver Lives Mary Ann was largely absent, with the exception of a telling cameo appearance toward the end. We learned at that point that she'd continued to mirror the changing times by becoming an upper class suburban wife in Connecticut who hadn't seen her San Francisco friends in years.

Mary Ann in Autumn, then, is the first real chance to catch up with this particular character as she returns to San Francisco in the face of both health and marital crises.

The book takes place in December of 2008, when the country is still hopeful over the recent election of Senator Obama to the White House but California itself is reeling from the passage of Proposition 8. One of the younger characters, in fact, is a sexually confused Mormon who'd been in town on a mission to help pass the law.

As with any Tales novel, there is no shortage of intrigue or heartfelt moments, mixed in with a lot of laughs and plenty of wisdom dispensed from Mrs. Madrigal.

I loved the book. I loved getting to know Mary Ann all over again and discovering that the ambitious woman who'd left everything behind for the sake of her career was still very much present, but that the open hearted young girl who'd first arrived in San Francisco was there, too. They were, in fact, very much the same person.

In the first books, I tended to identify with her as the outsider coming into this new world. Maybe that's why it was so hard when she later turned her back on the world I'd come to love, why it seemed so unforgivable to me.

I picked up the new book hoping that Mary Ann would be redeemed in my eyes as a character, but I quickly realized that she didn't need redemption. In the end, Mary Ann is simply a woman who has made her decisions in life, for better or worse, just as we all do. Maybe being a bit older myself than I was when I read the original six books is part of why I can see that so clearly now.

I hope that this won't be the last of the Tales novels. There is still a lot of story to be told, both with the original characters and the newer ones. If it is the final book, though, I will at least be glad that I finally came to a new understanding of Mary Ann.

Don't Enforce, Don't Discriminate

2010-10-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you all know by now that Federal Judge Virginia Phillips issued an injunction last week that prohibits the Department of Defense from enforcing their discriminatory Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.

The Government then requested that she stay her order pending their appeal of her decision and today she denied that request. All of which means that, for now at least, the United States military is required to allow gay and lesbian service members to serve openly!

That's a huge step forward for gay rights, even if it's not yet an overall victory against this particular means of discrimination. All of this could have happened in January of 2009 with a single stroke of President Obama's pen, of course, and it's ridiculous that this administration continues to drag their feet on this, even now.

Check out author/blogger Matthew Rettenmund's account (with video) of Lt. Dan Choi re-enlisting in the army this afternoon as an openly gay man.

Books and Glee

2010-09-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

Hello again! I really miss blogging on a regular basis, but every time that I think things are about to slow down a bit for me, it turns out that I'm mistaken. "Maybe this time..." (insert mental/aural flashback to Chenoweth singing that on Glee last season!)

First up, since I just mentioned Glee, I wanted to say that I was thrilled with Jane Lynch's win for Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at this year's Emmy Awards. It was a much deserved honor for her, and I hope it's the first of many. I was sad that the show didn't win for Best Comedy, but at least it lost to another gay friendly show (I really do need to check out Modern Family).

More than anything, though, I was disappointed that Chris Colfer didn't win for Supporting Actor or Mike O'Malley for Guest Actor. Their scenes together as Kurt and his father, Burt, were the highlight of the television season for me. Maybe the problem is that they were nominated in the comedy category for scenes that were pretty intense and emotional? Still, there's always next year!

The upside to O'Malley's loss, of course, was that Neil Patrick Harris won for his own guest starring role on Glee. It was the first Emmy win ever for one of my very favorite actors (who, if you hadn't heard, is going to become a parent to twins with his longtime partner David Burtka! Luckiest kids ever!!).

There are only two weeks to go until the second season of Glee starts, and I can't wait. One nice thing about having had such a busy summer is that it really still seems like the season finale just aired a few weeks ago. It doesn't feel like I had to wait at all.

Something else that I wanted to discuss tonight was books. About a week ago, Lambda Literary wrote about some of the most anticipated LGBT books coming out this fall.

Leading the pack is the book I've been excited about for quite some time now, Armistead Maupin's Mary Ann In Autumn. It's coming out in November and I've been counting the days. My plan was to re-read the entire Tales of the City series in anticipation of the release, but a few months back I found out that a friend of mine had never read any of the books, so I lent them all to her at once and now I'm not sure when I'll get them back. I doubt I'll be able to restrain myself from devouring Mary Ann in Autumn the minute it's in my hands, so that plan is probably out the window.

What a year it has been, though. A new Tales of the City book and a new Stephen McCauley. I don't think I ever followed up on Insignificant Others here after I'd read it, but I really enjoyed it a lot.

The only thing that's really missing to complete this year for me is a new novel by Alan Hollinghurst! Or, if the fates wanted to really be generous, a new collection of stories in the Buddies cycle from Ethan Mordden.

I have to say, I love working in a bookstore. I geek out over books all the time and it's nice to be surrounded by co-workers and customers who act the same way. I love the way someone's whole face just lights up when they spot a new novel by a favorite writer.

Anyway, another book on Lambda Literary list is Michael Cunningham's new title, By Nightfall. I'm a bit ambivalent about that one. I loved The Hours and A Home at the End of the World, and I've got a copy of Flesh and Blood that I've been meaning to get to since forever, so you'd think I'd be more excited.

The thing is, I was filled with anticipation back in 2005 when his last novel, Specimen Days, came out. I really couldn't wait to get my hands on it, but then once I did I didn't like it at all. To be fair, I didn't get that far before I abandoned the effort, so I may give it a try again someday.

Oh, and there's a brand new literary prize out there for gay men's books. The Green Carnation Prize came into existence in reaction to some of the more mainstream lit prizes, as the Chair, Paul Magrs, explains:

“This all came about because, suddenly it was literary award season again and longlists were getting bandied about like crazy. And it’s annoying because those lists seem a bit ready-made, middlebrow, monotonous and obvious. Anyway, late July 2010 and there’s the usual palaver about the Booker Longlist. It was obviously going to be the same old gubbins and some of the same old names. And the same nonsense about ‘literary’ fiction being a separate, rarefied preserve, quite apart from other genres.

Anyway, we thought – wouldn’t it be fun and great to do something a bit different?

And then we thought – there’s no prize yet for gay men’s books in the UK. That’s a scandalous thought. There ought to be something that celebrates and publicizes the breadth and variety of their work.

Writing by gay men can be funny, exciting, harrowing, uplifting and challenging – and it can range right across the genres. It can also be created by men from all classes and races."

I'm all for another prize that brings attention to LGBT fiction (or non-fiction, as the case may be) and gives me more books to read! They've already announced this year's Longlist:

Generation A by Douglas Coupland
Bryant and May Off the Rails by Christopher Fowler
Paperboy by Christopher Fowler
In A Strange Room by Damon Galgut
God Says No by James Hannaham
London Triptych by Jonathan Kemp
Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin
Children of the Sun by Max Schaefer
Man’s World by Rupert Smith
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
City Boy by Edmund White

I loved City Boy but I haven't read any of the others yet. I did just pick up a copy of The Slap (which was also on the Booker longlist along with In A Strange Room) from the library, though.

One last thing tonight. I had an e-mail asking if I was ever going to write about the Noah/Luke/Reid story on As the World Turns again. Yes, I will. The truth is, though, that I haven't watched a single episode of the show since May. I have saved all the Luke episodes on my Tivo and I'll probably marathon them at some point in the (near?) future and write about the end of the story at that point. It's just a matter of finding the time.

Prop 8 Overturned

2010-08-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

I couldn't let the great news from California today go unremarked upon.

If you haven't heard (and how could you not have?!), Federal Judge Vaughn Walker ruled today that California's Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment that revoked the rights of same sex couples to marry in that state, was unconstitutional.

This is obviously fantastic news for equality in California and in the United States as a whole. We're getting ever closer to the day when LGBT Americans have the same civil rights that heterosexuals take for granted.

Of course, it's also just the latest step in the process, since from here the ruling will be appealed to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and from there to the Supreme Court.

Towleroad has a fascinating round up of reaction quotes from both sides of the issue that's worth taking a look at. Those from the supporters of Prop 8 are irritating, to put it mildly, but they do illustrate the mindset of those we're up against in this fight for equality.

Man Booker Longlist

2010-07-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

July has been an exhausting month for me and I'm glad that it's coming to an end. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll have more time to blog from this point on.

Even though this past month felt like it was endless at times, it still doesn't feel like a whole year could possibly have gone by since the longlist for the Man Booker Prize was announced. That must be the case, though, since this year's 13 picks have been announced:

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America

Emma Donoghue Room

Helen Dunmore The Betrayal

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room

Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question

Andrea Levy The Long Song

Tom McCarthy C

David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Lisa Moore February

Paul Murray Skippy Dies

Rose Tremain Trespass

Christos Tsiolkas The Slap

Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky

The Man Booker prize was really the first annual literary prize that I ever became aware of and every year the longlist still makes me want to read each title before the shortlist and eventual winner are announced. I'd love to form my own opinion in advance on which book was the most deserving.

Of course, experience has taught me that some of the books that are on the longlist for this UK based prize won't have been published in the United States yet, so I no longer attempt this feat. The annual prize does add several titles to my own To Read list, though.

One of my favorite blogs, Band of Thebes, has pointed out that there are three openly LGBT authors among those on the longlist this year: Emma Donoghue, Damon Galgut, and Christos Tsiolkas.

It speaks to the international flavor of the award (which is for authors from the U.K., Ireland, or the Commonwealth of Nations made up of many of Britain's former colonies) that the three LGBT authors also represent different countries: Donoghue is from Canada by way of Ireland, Galgut is from South Africa, and Tsiolkas is Australian.

Both Tsiolkas and Galgut's books have been published in the United States, so I may well be reading those soon. The Slap, in particular, sounds like something I'd like to read (the description is taken from Joanne Wilkinson's Booklist review):

At a barbecue in a Melbourne suburb, a man loses his temper and slaps the child of the host’s friends. This incident unleashes a slew of divisive opinions, pitting friends and families against each other as the child’s parents take the man to court. Told from eight different viewpoints, the novel also deftly fills in disparate backstories encompassing young and old, single and married, gay and straight, as well as depicting how multiculturalism is increasingly impacting the traditional Aussie ethos. For good measure, the author also throws in male vanity, infidelity, and homophobia.

As always, though, almost every book on the list calls out to me in its own way. The shortlist will be announced on September 7th and the prize will be awarded on October 12th.

Emmy Nominations for Glee

2010-07-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

Things have been busy for me lately but I'm hoping to be able to blog again on a regular basis at some point in the near future.

In the meantime, I just wanted to mention that Glee has been nominated for 19 Emmy Awards! This includes nods for Matthew Morrison (Best Actor), Lea Michele (Best Actress), Jane Lynch (Best Supporting Actress), Chris Colfer (Best Supporting Actor), Mike O'Malley (Best Male Guest Star), Neil Patrick Harris (Best Male Guest Star) and Kristin Chenoweth (Best Female Guest Star), as well as a Best Comedy nomination.

I'm thrilled with all of these nominations, but I'm especially glad to see Chris Colfer and Mike O'Malley on the list. Their scenes together last season were so amazing and they both deserve to take home the Emmy next month.

The only thing that I'm a little disappointed with is not seeing Jonathan Groff's name among the nominees.

It should of course go without saying that if the brilliant Jane Lynch doesn't win for her work as Sue Sylvester, the Emmys will instantly lose all credibility.

Thoughts on the Tony Awards

2010-06-13T23:21:00.001-07:00

I just finished watching my favorite of all award shows, the Tony Awards, and I thought I'd share some thoughts about the show.

I like Sean Hayes and he had a couple of amusing moments tonight while he was hosting the show, but I honestly wasn't very impressed overall by the job he did, especially during his opening monologue. In fairness to Sean, though, I have to say that Neil Patrick Harris, who hosted the Tonys brilliantly last year, is a very tough act to follow.

I had to wonder why they hadn't asked his Promises, Promises co-star, Kristin Chenoweth, to host the show, or at the very least to co-host with Sean. Her bit tonight about not having been nominated was great, as was her appearance at the beginning to make out with Sean and demonstrate that they had plenty of on stage chemistry.

The show opened with a medley of performances from this year's new musicals, which I liked, but there were sound problems which really disappointed me, especially since the same thing happened last year, too, and you'd think that they would have learned from that!

The highlight of the medley for me was Kristen Chenoweth's song from Promises, Promises and the song from American Idiot, followed by a performance from Green Day.

I wasn't really rooting for anyone in particular tonight, so I don't have a lot to say about who won or didn't win, except in one instance: after watching all the performances from the nominated shows, I found myself hoping that American Idiot would win for Best Musical. Then again, I was probably already a bit biased since I've always loved the source material for that show.

Still, of everything I sampled tonight that is probably the show I'd be most likely to see if I had to pick just one.

In addition to loving the performance from American Idiot (and what a trio of hotties the leads are, by the way!) I liked what I saw from the casts of Million Dollar Quartet, La Cage Aux Folles, and Memphis (though there were some sound problems in that last one) and I thought Catherine Zeta Jones' rendition of 'Send in the Clowns' from A Little Night Music was incredibly beautiful.

My education in all things Musical Theater, which began early last year, has continued steadily ever since.While I still have a lot to learn and to experience, I have familiarized myself with most things Sondheim. I really love the original cast album of A Little Night Music and I've been wanting to check out the revival's cast album, with Zeta Jones and the incomparable Angela Lansbury, and tonight just gave me even more reason to do so.

I was just reading yesterday that Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch are taking over for Zeta Jones and Lansbury in the show this summer and I'd love to be able to hear their version, too! I haven't really experienced any of Bernadette's work yet, but Company is one of my favorite cast albums thus far and Elaine's 'The Ladies Who Lunch' is my favorite song from that show.

But back to tonight. The performances from Ragtime and Fela were the only two that I just couldn't get that into. That's not to say I thought they were bad, of course. I just didn't really connect with either of them.

What I did connect with were the special performances by Matthew Morrison and Lea Michele. I was a bit disappointed in one sense, I admit: I thought they'd be singing together, when in actuality they gave back to back solo performances.

That's a minor quibble, though, because they were both incredible. Matthew did 'All I Need is the Girl' from Gypsy and not only did he sound amazing, but he was as hot as I've ever seen him, and that's really saying something!

I felt a tiny bit let down when the music for Lea's number began and it was 'Don't Rain on My Parade'. I absolutely loved her rendition of the song on Glee, but my first thought tonight was that she should have sung something we all hadn't heard her do so recently.

That went right out the window, though, when she started singing. Hearing her do the song live, with so much more intensity than she brought to it as her character on Glee, was a totally different experience. She was phenomenal, there is no other word to describe it. What a voice, what a star!

I also loved when she sat on Jonathan Groff's armrest on the way up the aisle! The two of them, best friends in real life, are so adorable together! I was hoping that Jonathan, whom I kept catching glimpses of in the audience, would at least get to present an award, but no such luck.

By the way, Jonathan (whom if you hadn't already guessed is someone I've been crushing on in a major way since his time on Glee) is going to be starring in the revival of the play Deathtrap in London starting in August. It's bad enough that I'm forever longing to go to New York to see all of these shows, but now I'm wishing I could afford a trip to London, too!

Speaking of plays, I really want to see Next Fall! The little bit we got to see from it in the play montage looked pretty good, but it was the banter of the stars, Patrick Heusinger and Patrick Breen, as they described their nominated show that really caught my attention. Honestly, though, I thought all of the plays sounded very good.

I know the award show is already long, of course, but I do wish we could see more from the nominated plays, too. I guess seeing a full scene acted out from each one would be too much to ask for, but it really feels like they get the short end of the stick.

Last year, I really enjoyed Neil Patrick Harris' closing number at the end of the show, so I was hoping for something similar tonight. Instead, they had the cast of Memphis, who'd just won Best Musical, perform again. It just felt like it was all thrown together at the last minute and not really a great way to end the night. Maybe Neil Patrick Harris was just so good last year that he ruined all future Tony Awards for me?

All in all, though, I loved getting my annual taste of Broadway.

Anticipation

2010-06-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm still waiting for my copy of Stephen McCauley's new novel, Insignificant Others, to arrive. Actually, our store's copies were finally delivered yesterday, but just haven't been unpacked yet! I was barely able to restrain myself from tearing through nearly eighty boxes (none of which, sadly, give us any clue as to what titles they contain) before I left work for my weekend.

Also helping to build my anticipation is a review of the book from Queer Reader, a fantastic blog I somehow only recently discovered!

I'm trying to convince myself that waiting these couple days more will just further heighten the experience once I do have the book in my hands. Besides, it's not as if I have nothing else to read in the meantime!

While I'm waiting, I'm living vicariously through the author of one of my favorite blogs, Band of Thebes. He was able to attend a reading by the author in New York the other night. I can only hope McCauley will be in my area at some point in the near future since I'd love to meet the man who has written some of my favorite books.

A New Look

2010-06-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, I haven't been posting a great deal these past few weeks. It has just been a very busy time for me, I've been getting used to a new job (well, a new position at the same place I already worked) and things have just been a bit hectic.

Hopefully, though, I'll have some time to catch up with things from this point on. I'm once again about a million years behind on As the World Turns, Emmerdale, and just about everything else except for Glee, which I'm already going into withdrawal symptoms over!

Still, this feels like a new beginning of sorts here at Seth in the City, so I decided to celebrate it by changing the look of the place. I love the bookshelf motif! It would probably be more appropriate for a literary blog that was exclusively about books, but I just had to have it.

Quinto Off Broadway

2010-06-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

This fall, Zachary Quinto will be starring as Louis in an Off Broadway revival of Angels in America in New York. The Signature Theater Company is doing a whole season dedicated to the works of Tony Kushner.

If I haven't mentioned it before, I think Zachary Quinto is incredibly hot. In fact, the chance to watch him in action was the only reason that I stuck with Heroes right up to the bitter end. Evil had truly never been sexier.
I also love Angels in America, it's a brilliant work of art and, I think, a very important one. I really enjoyed the HBO Mini-series version but I've never been able to see a performance of the play itself, though I have read it.

I'd love to be able to go to New York this fall and fulfill two wishes at once: finally seeing a production of the play, and being in the same room as Zachary Quinto! It would be especially interesting to see him as the sardonic Louis.

Why, oh why, must I be on the opposite side of the country and completely broke?

Lambda Literary Award Winners

2010-05-30T03:03:00.000-07:00

The winners of this year's Lambda Literary Awards have been announced. They make for a great place to start if you're looking for something new in LGBT writing.

Lesbian Fiction: A Field Guide to Deception by Jill Malone

Lesbian Debut Fiction: The Creamsickle by Rhiannon Argo

Gay Fiction: Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre

Gay Debut Fiction: Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal

LGBT Nonfiction: The Greeks and Greek Love by James Davidson

Lesbian Biography: The Talented Miss Highsmith by Joan Schenkar

Gay Memoir: Ardent Spirits by Reynolds Price

Transgender: Lynnee Breedlove's One Freak Show by Lynn Breedlove

Bisexual Fiction: (tie)

Holy Communion by Mykola Dementiuk

Love You Two by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

Bisexual Nonfiction: Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala

LGBT Anthology: Portland Queer edited by Ariel Gore

LGBT Drama: The Collected Plays of Mart Crowley by Mart Crowley

LGBT SF/Fantasy/Horror: Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

LGBT Studies: The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America by Margot Canaday

LGBT YA: Sprout by Dale Peck

Lesbian Mystery: Death of a Dying Man by J.M. Redmann

Gay Mystery: What We Remember by Michael Thomas Ford

Lesbian Romance: The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin by Colette Moody

Gay Romance: Drama Queers! by Frank Anthony Polito

Lesbian Poetry: Zero at the Bone by Stacie Cassarino

Gay Poetry: Sweet Core Orchard by Benjamin S Grossberg

Lesbian Erotica: Lesbian Cowboys edited by Sacchi Green & Rakelle Valencia

Gay Erotica: Impossible Princess by Kevin Killian

There are several books on the list that I want to read, though as usual I'm immersed in slightly older works of gay fiction, most recently the wonderful short story collections of Richard Hall and, at the moment, The Young and Evil, a novel about gay/bohemian life in Greenwich Village in the late 1920's by Charles Henri Ford and Parker Tyler.

The truly astounding thing is that the novel was originally published in 1933 but is incredibly upfront about gay life in that time and place without any attempt at moralizing.

I also recently read two very different books published at the same time and dealing with the same themes and settings: Larry Kramer's Faggots and Andrew Holleran's Dancer From the Dance. I read them back to back and I have to say that I found Holleran's novel to be beautifully written but I really didn't care for Kramer's.

That's not to say that it wasn't well written, but there was such an aura of bitterness surrounding it all, not to mention his sheer delight in reveling in the most seamy aspects of gay life, which left me feeling like I needed to take a shower each time I finished a chapter. Reading such a book would leave anyone feeling like being a gay man was a bleak experience at best.

Lest you think that I'm only reading fiction that's at least twenty five years old, I'm counting down the days until the release of Stephen McCauley's latest novel, Insignificant Others, in June and I was also very excited to notice the other day at work that there is now an October release date for Armistead Maupin's new Tales of the City novel, Mary Ann in Autumn!

LuRe Day: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2010-05-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

Today's As the World Turns was a LuRe day, though not an overly eventful one. It began with Luke arriving to visit Noah at the hospital with some lunch and his ipod. Luke asked Noah if there had been any changes with his eyesight, and Noah said that he could still see light and dark, and colors, but that shapes were still mostly blurry.

To give an example, Noah explained that he'd heard Luke and Dr. Oliver arguing in in the hall the other day and had tried to focus on them but that they'd been too blurry. What, Noah wondered, had they been arguing about?

Luke claimed that he couldn't remember, exactly, but said that they'd probably been arguing about Noah since they did that a lot. Noah took Luke's hand and told him that if Luke wanted to worry about him, that was okay with him. Luke was surprised by this, since that had been the last thing Noah wanted before the surgery. Noah explained that he'd realized that this was just who Luke was and part of why he loved him so much.

Luke told Noah that he loved him, too, and Noah asked him to try and stay away from Reid since, as difficult as he could be, he was the reason that Noah was going to be able to see again. Luke agreed to try and at that moment Reid came in the room to examine Noah.

Luke pulled his hand away from Noah's and stood up pretty quickly, but the clasped hands hadn't been missed by Dr. Oliver. Reid gave Noah's eyes a cursory look before saying that he'd come back later to do a more thorough exam. There was definitely an intense vibe between Luke and Reid which Noah picked up on but completely misread. He asked Luke to go after Dr. Oliver and apologize to him for their argument, for Noah's sake.

The contrast between Nuke and LuRe is pretty telling when they all share a scene together like this. Luke and Noah have a very warm vibe between them, they clearly care for each other, but you'd have to be as blind as Noah was not to notice the off the charts chemistry between Luke and Reid the minute they're in the same room together. You can almost literally feel them wanting to be together the second they're in each other's presence.

Luke wasted no time in following Reid out of the room and telling him that he couldn't do this anymore, that he hated lying to Noah. Reid suggested he not lie to him, then, but Luke said that he already had and explained that Noah had seen them in the hallway the other day.

Luke: If his vision had been any clearer, he would have seen that we're-

Reid: That we're really hot for each other?

Luke: That's not funny.

Reid: You'll know when I'm trying to be funny.

Luke said that he had to tell Noah about the two of them, but Reid wondered what, exactly, Luke was going to tell him? Luke himself wasn't even sure, but said that he and Noah didn't keep secrets from each other.

Reid suggested that Luke think about someone other than himself and sarcastically pointed out that telling Noah that they'd kissed a couple of times and almost had sex the very day of Noah's surgery was really going to make him feel better. That way, Noah could push both Luke and the doctor helping him get his sight back away, but then what did Noah's vision matter compared to Luke's 'confused little feelings'?

Reid is clearly quite frustrated with the fact that Luke is sitting on the fence about all of this. Then again, when does Reid need a reason to be sarcastic and snarky?

Luke said that he had to be honest with Noah, and Reid demanded to know what it was about illness that made people feel like it was the time when they had to confess their secrets to that person? What Luke needed to do was to be there for Noah and help him deal, Reid said, even if that meant lying his butt off.

Noah, meanwhile, was having a chat with Ali about his relationship with Luke and acknowledging that it was all his fault for pushing Luke away. While Luke may understand why he did it, that's not the same as forgiving him for it, Noah explained. Ali made a comparison to her failed relationship with Casey and said that they were trying to be friends again now, which left Noah declaring that he didn't want to be 'just friends' with Luke.

Later, Reid returned to finish his exam of Noah and when he was done Luke came in and asked if Noah was well enough to go outside. Reid said he didn't think so, but Luke promised that it would be just for a few minutes and that he wouldn't leave Noah's side.

Reid returned home to brood over the situation, looking incredibly sexy while doing so, and Katy tried to take his mind off things by asking him to come with her to the park to get some fresh air. Reid refused, saying that he wasn't fond of air, and Katy left him alone with his thoughts.

Meanwhile, at the park, Noah was raving about being able to see colors again and finally having something positive in his life. Luke was distracted by his own thoughts, and Noah noted that this was a perfect time for him and Luke to really talk to each other. Noah told Luke that he could tell him anything and Luke looked incredibly torn.

As I said, there wasn't a great deal going on in the story today. Luke is still not fully facing up to the way his feelings have changed and what that means for him and Noah, while Reid has fallen pretty hard for Luke but is growing frustrated over the mixed messages he's getting from him.

I really like that they're taking some time to show what each of these three characters are feeling. I just hope that they don't drag this whole "We can't tell Noah until his eyes are better" angle out too long.

Aaron's Story: The Truth Shall Set You Free

2010-05-16T01:10:00.000-07:00

Aaron's story on the British soap Emmerdale continues to pack an emotional punch and I'm loving every second of it. When I last wrote about Aaron, he'd returned home from the hospital and was being watched every moment of the day by his mother and Paddy, but his friendship with Adam had grown stronger than ever.

Aaron tenuously started to resume his daily life after a walk with his dog lead him by the garage and he was invited in for a drink by Cain. I loved the way Danny Miller played this particular scene, the hesitation on Aaron's part to enter the place where he'd tried to kill himself and also the underlying fear that he was going to be treated differently by his co-workers. His relief when Cain treated him exactly as he always had was almost palpable and by the end of the visit Aaron had agreed to return to work the next day.

There was still the not so little matter of the charges pending against Aaron for assaulting Jackson, though. Aaron himself seemed resigned to whatever punishment came his way and even refused to go with Paddy to meet with his solicitor.

Paddy returned with the news that Aaron was looking at six months in prison because his attack on Jackson was being viewed as a hate crime. If, however, Aaron told the court the truth about himself and what he was going through, he'd likely only get community service.

Paddy and Chastity both begged Aaron to admit the truth, but Aaron remained adamant that he was going to stay silent and take his punishment. When Aaron wouldn't listen to them, a desperate Paddy went to see Adam to fill him in and ask his help in convincing Aaron to open up about his sexuality to avoid time in prison.

Adam tracked down Jackson on a work site to ask him to withdraw his statement against Aaron, but Jackson refused. He softened a bit, though, when Adam revealed that Aaron had attempted to kill himself. Against his better judgement, he even let Adam talk him into going with him to see Aaron.

It wasn't exactly a harmonious meeting. Jackson told Aaron that things weren't all right between them, but that he didn't want to see Aaron go to prison.

Aaron: Oh, so why did you go to the police and tell them what I did?

Jackson: Well, you decked me so what did you expect?

Aaron: Well why didn't you tell them the rest of the truth then?

Jackson: You know why!

Aaron: What, because you wanted to get me done for gay bashing?

Jackson: I never wanted to out you! I mean, I wish I had now. If there's a way out of this, you've got to take it.

Aaron: Yeah, well, I can't.

Jackson: Why not?

Aaron: Do you want me to spell it out for you?

Jackson: Look, I'm trying to help!

Aaron: And I don't need your help!

Jackson decided he'd had enough at this point, and when Adam tried to keep him from leaving he said that if Aaron would rather go to prison than admit to being gay, he deserved what he got.

Adam sadly told Aaron that he'd just realized the truth: Aaron wanted to be punished because he couldn't handle what he was, and the saddest thing was that he was going to get his wish now that he'd thrown away his last chance.

After Adam left, Aaron silently buried his face in his hands.

In the days that followed, Paddy and Chastity kept trying to convince Aaron to tell the truth and save himself while Aaron alternated between pushing them away and readying himself for his prison sentence.

Aaron told everyone that he didn't want them coming to court with him, so when the morning came he said his farewells to his assembled family at Paddy's place and departed in a taxi.

He'd convinced himself that he was strong enough to survive in prison, but had his eyes opened before he even got in the taxi when his Aunt Lisa (who recently did some prison time herself) told him that they weren't going to allow him to take his ipod in with him, since it could be used as a weapon, and that even if they did let him, someone would steal if from him within minutes. Aaron tried to play the tough guy and said that no one would be messing with him, but his Uncle Zak advised him that he had to keep his head down and not draw any attention to himself if he wanted to make it through this.

Paddy put an end to the prison talk, reminding them all that he'd not even been sentenced yet. As Aaron was getting in the car, he noticed Adam watching sadly nearby and the two shared a nod. Once in the Taxi, the brave face Aaron had been putting on dissolved as tears began to spill down his cheeks. I have to say that Danny Miller cries better than any actor I've ever seen. You'd think with all his tears lately I'd be used to it, but every time he cries he manages to make it seem so raw and emotional that it feels like a punch to the stomach. You just want to wrap your arms around him, not that Aaron would ever let you, and tell him everything is going to be okay!

At the courthouse, Aaron's solicitor (and here's a nice little tie in to gay characters past, by the way: the solicitor was played by Scott Neal, the actor who played Ste in my very favorite gay themed movie, Beautiful Thing!) made one last attempt to get Aaron to see sense about his plea, but Aaron was still set on remaining silent.

Aaron looked so small and alone as he ascended into the dock to face the magistrate. Before the hearing actually began, though, Chastity called out Aaron's name and he turned to find Paddy, Chastity, Cain, Zak, Lisa, and Adam all there for him, in spite of his insistence that no one come. Instead of being angry, his eyes filled with tears and he nodded gratefully at them all. I loved how Danny Miller was able to convey, without saying a word, that their presence meant everything to Aaron!

The charges were read and Aaron was asked for his plea. Before he could answer, the door opened and Jackson walked in and took a seat up in the gallery, behind Aaron's family. The two of them shared a long look before Aaron plead guilty.

The prosecutor (or whatever they're called in the British court system) laid out the case that Aaron had targeted and attacked Jackson simply for being gay. Paddy and Chastity both had little outbursts up in the gallery (which the magistrate didn't seem to mind too much, merely shooting them a rather withering look; in an American court there would surely have been a lot of gavel banging and threats of contempt!) urging Aaron and/or Jackson to speak up.

They both remained quiet, though. The magistrate told Aaron that this was a clear cut case of a homophobic attack and that such a thing could not be tolerated. Aaron, his eyes red with tears, mumbled that it wasn't like that, and the magistrate ordered him to speak up if there was something he wanted to say.

Aaron: I can't. I can't say it. (Aaron turns to look at Jackson). I didn't target him. He came to see me.

Aaron's solicitor requested a recess called so that he could discuss all of this with Aaron before he spoke any further, but Aaron stopped him, saying that he'd already messed his life up this badly, so he might as well finish the job.

Aaron: He came to see me because he thought we were mates. He was in the pub, with my friends and my family, it just freaked me out. I needed to shut him up, so I hit him. But it wasn't like what you said. It wasn't because of what he was. Or what he is. I swear I didn't do it because he's gay.

I did it because I am.

I'm gay.

Needless to say, this was an intense moment for Aaron and I can't stress how beautifully done these scenes were. How many ways can I possibly find to say that Danny Miller is incredibly talented? There surely aren't enough words in the English language. Please, watch these scenes here if you haven't already!

Up in the gallery, Paddy, Chastity, and Adam all looked incredibly relieved and proud of Aaron, while Zak and Lisa looked dumbfounded by this piece of news. The magistrate asked Aaron to continue.

Aaron (crying): I didn't want to hurt him. I just... I just thought that he was gonna blurt it out. I thought that's what they did. They made you tell everyone, and if you didn't then they'd do it for you. But he was different. He was all right. I wanted to see him. But then when I did, I couldn't handle it. What I was thinking. About him. About me. I hit him. And I'm sorry.

The magistrate called for a ten minute recess. Out in the hall, Zak and Lisa questioned Cain about how long he'd known, while Chastity told Aaron how proud they were of him. Aaron, though, was wondering what his Uncle Cain and Uncle Zak were thinking about him. Paddy, meanwhile, had gone to look for Jackson but came back to report to Aaron that he'd gone. Aaron's solicitor warned him and Chastity that Aaron's last minute confession may have been too little, too late as far as sentencing was concerned.

Back in court, the Magistrate told Aaron that the attack was clearly a violent one, but that his genuine remorse and his admission, which had taken strength and courage, had convinced her that a prison sentence was not in his best interest. She sentenced him to 150 hours of community service instead.

The entire clan returned to Paddy's, but Aaron remained outside with Adam, not wanting to face a family gathering after his very public coming out. Inside, Zak was trying to make some sense of the news and asked Paddy if Aaron dating Holly had been all for show.

Paddy told Zak that Aaron had been trying to work things out in his head then and Zak said the boy must have had some idea, since you don't go 'that way' over night. Paddy told him that Aaron had been fighting his sexuality for years.

Lisa asked if Jackson was Aaron's boyfriend and Chastity chimed in, telling them all that Aaron hadn't had a boyfriend yet. Zak took this as evidence that Aaron couldn't know if he was really gay, then, because not having tried it he might find that he didn't like it!

Cain asked Zak if he'd ever looked at another guy and fancied him and when Zak told him to watch his mouth, Cain said that they could bet that Aaron had. This seemed to get through to Zak, at least a bit. Cain told Paddy to tell Aaron that he was expecting him at work the next day as usual. One thing they all agreed on: they'd protect their own, no matter what.

Adam and Aaron, meanwhile, had gone for a walk and Adam asked what had changed his mind about telling the truth. Was it Jackson? Aaron admitted that maybe it was, but also noted that Jackson hadn't stuck around afterward. He told Adam that he'd texted him to apologize and say that it would be cool if he wanted to go for a drink sometime.

Aaron said that he thought Jackson had only shown up to make sure he'd gone to prison, though, and Adam told him to get over Jackson and move on if that was the case.

Aaron admitted that he was worried that everyone was going to be acting differently towards him now.

Aaron: I just hate people knowing.

Adam: Well, they do, so get over it! Look, mate, I'm not going to lie to you. It's big news now. But it's not going to be for long, all right? At least it's over now. You've done it.

Aaron: And what if I've made the biggest mistake of my life?

Adam: Come on.

With that, Adam put his arm around Aaron and they walked off together. Can I just say, once again, how much I love the friendship between these two? It's really something special. I'm still trying to find good screencaps of the two of them together. This one is from last winter.

The next day, Aaron called in sick to work and spent the day lying on the sofa, staring into space while all around the village, people were discussing the banner front page headline to be found above a large photo of Aaron in the local paper: 'Hoodie Comes Out Of the Closet'.

At the garage, Ryan was trying to get his head around the fact that Aaron was gay, but really only seemed surprised, not truly bothered by it. When Chastity came by and showed them the paper, Ryan assured her that he and Cain were both 'cool with it'.

Chastity took the paper to Paddy's, where against Paddy's wishes she showed it to Aaron, feeling that he had to know what everyone was reading. Aaron was far from pleased, but a bit later, after he'd had a shower, he came back down and told Paddy and Chastity that he was going back to work the next day. He seemed much more at peace with himself than he's been in a very long time.

Aaron: It's out of my hands. I can't change anything. This is the way its got to be from now on, whether I like it or not.

Well, Aaron is officially out. I think he's got a long way to go before he's truly okay with who he is, of course. Will he find someone special to help him with that? I for one can't wait to find out.

LuRe: Five in One

2010-05-14T22:23:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks, fate seemed to be conspiring to keep me from getting my LuRe fix, but I've finally managed to catch up with five episodes worth of Luke & Reid scenes on As the World Turns.

The first episode found the big day finally arriving- it was time for Noah's surgery. Luke showed up at the hospital for moral support and brought along Noah's video camera to document the momentous occasion. The two guys had a kind of sweet moment together on Noah's hospital bed before Reid walked in.When the nurse and Reid were taking Noah off for the operation, Luke asked Reid to take care of his ex and Dr. Oliver, clearly nonplussed by the closeness between Luke & Noah, snapped that this was what Luke had dragged him here for, wasn't it?

Luke & Katie chatted in the waiting room and Katie said that she thought that Reid liked living in Oakdale- and liked Luke- more than he'd let on. Luke mentioned Reid being rude to him again earlier and said that he thought the doctor had just been grateful for his help but that it had passed. Katie pointed out the obvious connection between Reid's rudeness and him having just seen Luke with Noah and said that she thought her roommate had become a bit more human lately and they both knew why that was.

Luke claimed to believe that living with Katie and baby Jacob had been what humanized Reid, and also suggested that working with Bob Hughes had probably helped, too. Katie thought that it would take more than friends and a cute baby to change someone like Reid, but Luke asked her to stop with the matchmaking while Noah was in surgery, saying that even though they weren't together he still loved Noah and wanted him to get his sight back.

In the operating room, Noah's blood pressure was high, but Reid got him to relax by telling him to think of all the things he'd see when he woke up. Noah noted that he'd finally get to see what Reid looked like and Reid joked about having a comb over, buck teeth and a potbelly.

Once Noah was under, he started dreaming about directing a film starring Luke and was zooming in for a close up on Luke's smiling face while he started to flat line.

Reid sought Luke out in the waiting room and broke the news that there had been some damage that hadn't shown up on the CAT scans or MRI, and that there had been complications. Luke asked if Noah was going to be all right, and Reid told him that there could be some brain damage and that they wouldn't know the extent of it until Noah woke up. Luke didn't take the news very well, and when Reid started talking about there always having been risks involved with the operation, Luke went off on him about his earlier arrogance about being the only one who could perform the surgery.

Reid countered that both Noah and 'Mr. Snyder' had been fully aware of the risks and Luke did not react well to Reid reverting to the old form of address between them.

Luke: Mr. Snyder. Really? After all of this, I want you to talk to me like a human being and I want you to talk to me like someone who gives a crap about what happens to Noah you selfish son of a bitch! What have you done?

Seeing such a passionate outburst from Luke was strangely hot, but it was tempered by seeing Reid's reaction. Eric Sheffer Stevens did a great job of using body language to convey the fact that Reid was very upset by what had happened and was falling back on his arrogance to cover it up. Reid was throwing the wall back up between him and Luke because he felt like he'd let Luke and Noah down.

Bob Hughes found Reid going over Noah's MRI results again, wondering how he'd missed something so important. Bob told Reid that he'd taken his responsibility to Noah seriously and that what had happened wasn't his fault. Reid continued to obsess over Noah's case, so Bob ordered him to leave the hospital and get some rest since Noah wouldn't be conscious for awhile.

Luke, meanwhile, sent Holden and Lily home, promising that he'd call them as soon as he knew anything. He then went to see Bob Hughes, who suggested he go home and get some rest and mentioned that he'd ordered Reid to do the same.

Bob reminded Luke that the surgery was what both he and Noah had wanted and that he shouldn't question that decision now. Luke rather bitterly noted that he'd trusted Dr. Oliver and his judgement and then stormed out of Bob's office and headed straight for Reid's place, where the good doctor answered the door shirtless (pics borrowed from Superherofan).
Luke demanded to know how Reid could have left Noah, asking if he even cared if his patient died. Reid told Luke that he'd been ordered out by his Chief of Staff and Luke wanted to know when Reid had started obeying anyone else's orders.

After all, he was the Great Doctor Oliver, and he never failed, unless he wanted to.

Reid: Excuse me?

Luke: Just tell me the truth. Did you do this to Noah on purpose?

The look of hurt on Reid's face was pretty intense. I thought Eric Sheffer Stevens really did a great job here.

Reid: Did I.. you're asking if..

Luke: Just answer the question!

Reid: Answer what? You want to know if I deliberately tried to harm your boyfriend while I was operating on him?

Luke: That's just it. Even though Noah and I are broken up and have been for awhile, you can't stand the fact that I still have feelings for him. You were so angry wen you saw him with his arm around me before the surgery.

Reid: What are you talking about?

Luke: You can't stand the fact that I haven't fallen at your feet. You don't understand it because you get whatever you want, whenever you want, and the fact that you haven't gotten me is driving you insane!

Reid: The only person insane in this room is you.

Luke tearfully accused Reid of having feelings for him that he'd let affect the outcome of the surgery.

Reid: After all the time that you've spent with me, the care that I've given to the man that you told me you loved, whether you're with him or not, you really think I have an investment in seeing him harmed? Or dead? That's who you think I am?

Luke (quietly, almost brokenly): I have no idea what I think about you. I have no idea who you are.

Reid: Yes you do. You can't look at me and tell me that you don't know who I am.

Luke: How did this happen?

Reid: I wish... I don't know.

Luke: You told me that you'd fix him. You promised. Noah couldn't handle being blind, so I gave him the one chance in the world he thought he had by bringing you here. And now this. If he's never the same again, if he doesn't make it through this, then I just...

Reid: You what?

Luke: I can't...

Reid: You can't what? You can't what, Luke?

(Luke kisses Reid)

What amazing scenes. Seeing Van Hansis take Luke from lashing out in anger to being on the brink of breaking down in tears and guilt for his part in Noah having the surgery, to finally facing up to his feelings for Reid, reminded me all over again of what an incredible actor he is. I think that working with Eric Sheffer Stevens just pushes him to be even greater. These are two truly talented guys, and these scenes would win them both Emmys if there was any justice in the world.

When the scenes picked up where they'd left off the next day, Reid began unbuttoning Luke's shirt while they kissed. Luke pulled back, wondering what the hell they were doing and reminding Reid that Noah was in a hospital bed. Luke though that they shouldn't have done any of this.

Reid: So, what, you kissed me out of anger? Out of fear?

Luke: Look, I don't know. Both, yeah.

Reid: I don't buy that and neither do you.

Luke: I've got to go.

Reid: Go ahead, run away.

Luke: I'm not running away!

Reid: You can't get out of the room fast enough.

Luke: Well I never should have come here! I never should have left Noah!

Reid: You can blame what just happened on your fear about Noah if that's what makes you feel better.

Luke: This is not about me feeling better.

Reid: Okay, then let's be honest.

Luke: How am I not honest?

Reid: Something has been brewing between us for a long time, and deep down you wanted it to happen just as much as I did.

Reid asked Luke to at least admit that this was true, but Luke said even if it was, Noah had to be a priority now for both of them. Reid pointed out that they'd been about to have sex, not move out of the state. If there was a change in Noah's condition, they'd both be there.

Luke said they couldn't be there for Noah if something happened that they couldn't take back. Reid reminded Luke that Noah had pushed him away and been unwilling to give him what he needed. He told Luke not to beat himself up for wanting to move on, but Luke replied that he couldn't do this and walked out the door.

Later, at the hospital, Luke sat with Noah and told him that he just wanted him to wake up so that he could do everything he wanted to do with his life. Reid came in to examine Noah and Luke tried to talk to him about what had happened between them earlier. Reid said they didn't have to talk about it, but Luke had to apologize for what he'd said about Reid wanting to hurt Noah.

Luke: I know that you'd never do anything to hurt Noah, no matter what your feelings were.

Reid: You're not all that, Mr. Snyder.

Luke: No, I guess I'm not. He was the first person I was ever in love with.

Reid: One's not such a low number.

Luke: I never thought I'd be with anyone except him.

Reid: That explains a lot.

Luke: So, yeah, about earlier-

Reid: You don't have to say anything about it. I get it Luke.

Reid told Luke that Noah's vitals were strong, but that they still wouldn't know anything for sure until he woke up. Luke asked if he should stay with Noah and Reid said that since there was a lot they still didn't know about states of unconsciousness, that sitting with Noah and letting him know he was there could help.

I really liked this scene because of the way it highlighted that Luke & Reid are relating to each other on a more mature level, and also the way that Luke spoke about Noah being his first love and never thinking that he'd be with anyone else demonstrated that he has started thinking that way now.

A day or two later, Reid woke Luke up in the hospital waiting room and told him that Noah was showing some signs of coming around and that they were going to run some tests. Luke started freaking out a bit about what they were going to do if Noah did have brain damage and Reid touched the side of his face, telling him to calm down.

Lily walked up in time to see the close moment between the two men and after Reid left she asked her son if there was something going on between the two of them. Luke admitted that Reid had told him he had feelings for him, and Lily was outraged that Noah's doctor would take advantage of Luke while he was worried about his ex.

Luke told his mother than Reid wasn't taking advantage of him and that he'd been completely honest with him the entire time.

Lily: So you're encouraging him? What about Noah?

Luke: Mom, we broke up. You know that. He said he needed his space, he couldn't have that with me there, so we ended things.

Lily: You said that Dr. Oliver has feelings for you. What about you? Do you have feelings for him?

Luke: Yeah, but I'm not really sure what they are right now. Reid's sure, though. (Lily makes a face) What?

Lily: I just can't imagine you with anyone other than Noah.

Luke: Yeah, I used to think that, too.

Lily: He doesn't seem like a very nice man.

Luke (an adorable grin spreading across his face): Dr. Oliver? He's not. He's rude and he's cold, and he's rude.

Lily: And you find that attractive?

Luke: No, it's just, he's in your face. He's like, 'Okay, here I am, and this is what I'm feeling, deal with that', and to have a guy like that, a guy who says exactly what he feels at all times, to have somebody like that say that the likes you, feels nice for a change.

Lily looked like someone had run over her puppy, indicating that she's clearly in the Nuke camp and not feeling the LuRe.

Luke asked why she was so sad and Lily told him that she wanted things to work out for him and Noah, and then the whole conversation became about how Lily and Holden were supposed to last forever, too, and didn't.

Lily asked if Luke wanted forever with Reid and he side stepped the question by saying he wanted Noah to wake up.

Luke went back in to sit with Noah, who of course has come out of brain surgery with a full head of hair like all people do in the real world. Noah promptly opened his eyes and Luke asked if he could see him.

Noah slowly focused in on his ex and then told Luke that he could see his eyes and that they were the most amazing thing he'd ever seen in his life.

Reid came along shortly afterward and asked Luke to step out so that he could examine his patient. Noah's vision was still blurry, but Reid assured him that it would improve with time. I have to say, Jake Silbermann was looking particularly hot in this scene, laying in bed with a tight gray t-shirt on. I think he's been working out even more than usual.

Noah went on about how Luke had made all of this happen by bringing Reid to Oakdale and how he'd been pushing Luke away and needed to make it up to him. Reid left the room, telling Luke that Noah was all his.

Noah asked Luke to sneak him outside so that he could see the world, so Luke took him up to the roof. Don't worry, folks, as long as you come out of brain surgery with a full head of hair, it's totally okay to be mobile within a few days!

Noah apologized to Luke for how hard he'd been on him and said that a lot of people talk about love, but Luke really does it, and Noah was grateful for that.

Luke told Noah not to apologize for not wanting to be with him anymore, that it happens sometimes. Noah said that it hadn't had anything to do with Luke, that he'd just been so afraid that he'd never see again. Luke looked decidedly less than enthusiastic to hear this, especially after Noah said that he knew they had a lot to work through but that he hoped that their relationship was strong enough to survive.

I'm sorry, I suppose I should feel some sympathy for Noah, but he's so selfish! He pushes Luke away for months, and suddenly he's got his vision back and just expects that they can still be together after all he put Luke through! Yes, Luke got a token apology, but come on!

Luke tried to avoid the issue by telling Noah to focus on his health, not on their relationship.

Noah: Okay, I know I may not be able to see the expression on your face, but I can feel it, somethings changed. What is it?

Luke tried to talk about everything had changed since Noah could see again, but Noah shut that down, saying that he could tell that something had changed with Luke, that he was being different with Noah.

Noah: So I'm asking, has the way you feel about me changed?

Luke: Yeah. It has.

Noah: Wow. I know I asked, I just never expected you to say yes.

Luke reminded Noah of how he hadn't cared that Noah wasn't able to see, that he'd just wanted to be with him, but Noah hadn't felt the same way.

Luke: Noah, I was in this one hundred percent. And I asked you, remember, all or nothing? And you chose nothing.

Noah: I know what I said then, but-

Luke: You told me to go on with my life and now you're acting like that never happened. What happens if you change your mind tomorrow?

Noah: I didn't push you away because I stopped loving you, because I haven't, I couldn't!

Luke: Who cares? When things got rough, you were you. You weren't us. And I know you were hurting, Noah, I was hurting too. But the difference is that I didn't abandon you.

Yes! I'm so glad that Luke is finally calling Noah on all of this. I was worried that as soon as Noah had his sight back and expected Luke to fall into his arms again, Luke would act as if all the hurtful things Noah said and did weren't important, would just give him a free pass. I'm so glad that isn't happening and that Luke is finally growing up.

Noah told Luke that when he couldn't see, he'd felt cut off from the world, but now that he had his sight back, he felt connected to Luke again. Luke explained that while Noah had felt like he was somewhere else, Luke had been right there the whole time, begging him not to leave.

Luke: Noah, we haven't been happy for a long time. I can't go back to the way it was before the accident.

Noah: I don't expect you to. I mean, I can't either. But I still want to be with you. We can find a new way to be together if you want to.

Luke: A few months ago, I think I would have known what that meant. Now I'm not so sure.

Before they could talk any further, Reid stormed onto the roof, a little ticked off that his patient was out of bed and up on the roof. Reid called Luke an idiot and said that while Noah had a reason for not thinking clearly, Luke had no excuse.

Reid examined Noah and went on again about Luke's stupidity. Noah remarked that he'd thought Reid and Luke were getting along better since their trip to Texas and then Luke walked in just in time to hear Reid telling Noah that he'd wanted something from Luke and now that he'd got it, he didn't have to fake being nice any more.

Luke demanded to know if that's all it was, if Reid had been using him, and Reid sarcastically said that he was sorry he couldn't be Luke's new best friend, but that at least he had Noah. After Reid left, Noah remarked that Reid was a great doctor but a lousy person, and then noticed how upset Luke seemed. Before he could put two and two together, though, Casey and Allison arrived for a visit.

Luke took the opportunity to give Noah a copy of his film and asked him to be kind if he didn't like his final edit. Noah took Luke's hand and promised to be as kind to him as Luke had been to Noah. Reid, watching through the window, saw the gesture, and came in demanding to know what part of 'the patient needs rest' they didn't understand.

Casey and Allison made a hasty exit and Luke offered to go so Noah could get some rest, but Noah wanted him to stay. Luke set him up with a portable DVD player so he could watch his film and then went out in the hall, where he asked Reid why he was treating him this way.

Reid: I'm sorry you don't like the way I'm treating you.

Luke: Look, it's just that I thought-

Reid: I'm being a responsible neurosurgeon, protecting my patient from his own reckless behavior. What are you doing?

Luke: What do you mean? I'm trying to support Noah, that's what he needs. I'm trying to be there for him.

Reid: No you're not. You're trying to make up for the fact that you kissed me.

Luke: We kissed each other.

Reid: But I don't feel guilty about it. You do. That's why you're pretending that you and Noah are star crossed lovers all over again.

Luke: I never said that.

Reid: You didn't have to. You're playing the devoted boyfriend to the hilt, it's sickening.

Luke: Are you jealous?

Reid: I don't have time to be jealous, okay? But just so we're clear, you're not helping your boyfriend.

Luke: Look, he's not my boyfriend! He's just-

Reid: He's what?

Luke: He's feeling better. Isn't that all that matters?

Reid told Luke that Noah still had months of recovery ahead of him and that turning his room into party central wasn't going to help.

Luke apologized for jeapordizing Noah's recovery, but told Reid that he was wrong if he thought Luke was spending time with Noah out of guilt.

Reid: But now that Noah's whole you want to pretend that none of it happened, right, forget that the whole thing went down?

Luke: I haven't forgotten.

Reid: Good to know.

Luke: Look, this isn't about medicine. You can't stand seeing me and Noah together, and you don't want to admit it.

Reid: I have an idea, Mr. Snyder. I think it would be best for everyone involved if you and I went back to the way things were before Texas.

Luke: What do you mean?

Reid: You need me to draw you a picture? Leave me and my patient alone.

Luke: I'm all Noah's got!

Reid: No, I am! I've been doing everything I can to give Noah his life back, which means that right now Noah needs me more than he needs you. I don't want you hanging around here anymore, I want you to stay out of my way.

Luke (getting in Reid's face): You're lying. This is not about medicine. It's personal.

Reid: No, it's not. Noah is my patient, you're his cheating boyfriend.

Luke: We are not back together! You know that.

Reid: Does Noah realize that?

Luke: Well, we're trying to work things out.

Reid: Good luck with that, Mr. Snyder. (starts to leave)

Luke (stopping him): No, don't call me that.

Reid: What do you want from me? Tell me. You want me to pretend that nothing happened between us? That's not the way I work. We both know it's not true (touches Luke's face).

At that point, Noah walked by, looking for Luke. It appeared that he was able to see a blurry image of Reid and Luke in that intimate position, but who knows for sure?

These were some truly great episodes for LuRe fans. I loved that they're making it quite clear that while Luke still loves Noah, he doesn't know if he really wants to be with him after everything that happened, and that he isn't at all willing to dismiss what he feels for Reid.

I've complained about this storyline quite a bit, and with very good reason, but they're finally doing something very right! The Reid/Luke/Noah love triangle makes for some pretty damn good soap opera. I can't wait to see what happens next, as long as it involves Luke and Reid living happily ever after and having at least one very hot onscreen love scene before the show ends!

HMS Daytime Continues to Sink

2010-05-12T10:24:00.001-07:00

The Daytime Emmys are as big of a joke as daytime soaps themselves have become. The nominations were announced today and just confirm that this entire industry is content to run itself completely into the ground while maintaining the status quo.

Both Scott Evans and Brett Claywell were pre-nominated for their AMAZING work on One Life to Live (largely because new rules allowed them to submit themselves and not have to be pre-nominated by their fellow cast members), but neither received an actual nomination. In fact, One Life to Live, easily the best soap on the air over the last few years, was not nominated for Outstanding Drama Series or Outstanding Writing Team.

This is just a complete travesty and proves that the medium is dying for a very good reason. A show takes the time to write an incredibly groundbreaking story; they write it beautifully, they hire two outstanding actors who portray the characters perfectly; they hold nothing back, in fact, and give us a perfect example of what soaps could and should be like.

The end result? The network kills the story, fires the actors, brings in a hack like Jean Passanante to 'help take the soap in a new (read: old, tired, and badly written) direction', and the people who are supposed to at least reward the outstanding work of their peers completely ignore the entire thing, not even bothering to hand them a single nomination.

Brett Claywell himself had this to say on twitter today:

We tell a story that was groundbreaking and powerful, then lose my job and am overlooked for a nomination. Daytime is such a joke.

Way to fiddle while Rome burns, daytime.

Everything's Coming Up Kurt

2010-05-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

Things are still busy and I'm trying to make time to catch up with most of my shows (I haven't been able to get to last week's LuRe episodes of As the World Turns just yet, for instance), but there is one series that I never fail to watch the night it airs. It should surprise no one that the show I'm talking about is Glee.

I really have to say that Mike O'Malley and Chris Colfer knocked it out of the park yet again in their final scene together on tonight's show. I can never get through one of their father/son moments without tears in my eyes! Don't bother voting, just send the Emmys to them now.

Kurt's insecurity over losing his dad because of his sexuality was very genuine, and I thought the show found the perfect balance between the humor of Kurt attempting to 'straighten up' and the very real emotions that were behind him feeling the need to do so. That's where Chris Colfer really shines, I think. I love his voice and he's incredibly funny, but he really kills me in the emotional scenes.

And how amazing was his rendition of 'Rose's Turn'?! One of my favorite Glee performances to date, I have to say. His butch attempt at doing Mellencamp's 'Pink Houses' in a deeper than normal voice wasn't bad at all, but it just wasn't Kurt. The minute the music for 'Rose's Turn' started, though, I gasped and clapped my hands in anticipatory glee (do you think moments like this could have something to do with why I'm still single?!).

I'm glad that Santana got to sing again in the episode, I really like her voice. I also really enjoyed there being more Puck tonight, too. Mark Salling pretty much rocks my world. The man just personifies hotness.

I did miss seeing Jonathan Groff's adorable mug as Jesse, though! (And by the way, how blind was I that I didn't see Finn's rendition of 'Jesse's Girl' coming from a mile away?)

Speaking of Jonathan, both Cheyenne Jackson and Michael Urie have joined Kristin Chenoweth in responding to Ramin Setoodeh's ridiculously homophobic Newsweek piece on gay actors being unable to successfully portray straight characters.

Michael Urie:

Look, I'm not from f*cking Vienna [He's playing a Viennese character currently on stage]. We're all actors, and the audiences get it. When I saw Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises, it was a full house and everyone was completely in love with him. And I saw it at a Wednesday matinee full of tourists. They've all seen Sean in Will & Grace, and they loved him and believed in his relationship with Kristin. It worked.

And to attack, to quote Ugly Betty, someone [like Groff] recently 'hatched from the gay egg' is unconscionable and he should strung be [up]. [Groff] made everyone want him in Spring Awakening. And Cheyenne was f*cking Elvis in All Shook Up. He was sexy and hot. He's always playing straight. And people buy tickets to see him. No straight critics accuse Sean Penn of not being able to play Harvey Milk or [criticize] Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.

Cheyenne responded with this:

''That's because when straight actors play gay, they're so 'brave.' Why is it so f*cking 'brave'? It's a part and he's a good actor. I hope we can get to the day where the best actor gets the part. End of story.''

I love that both guys are so quick to come to Jonathan Groff's defense in particular, since he is newly out and Setoodah seemed to take a special delight in ripping apart his ability to portray a straight character post-coming out (though apparently he was just fine at playing one successfully in Spring Awakening before he came out, which as Chenoweth pointed out is a pretty contradictory statement).

I think it's interesting that no one has really pointed out that if anything, it's the writing for Jesse that is making the character come across as something other than the stereotypical straight character. Jesse loves Sondheim, he refers to himself as a drama queen, he's in show choir and ballet, and he praises Olivia Newton John's 'Physical' for its groundbreaking depiction of sexual fluidity. None of that is about Jonathan Groff's personal life, that's the writer's take on the character!

Did it ever occur to Setoodah that the way Jonathan is playing the part likely has nothing to do with his own sexuality and everything to do with how he's being directed? I honestly think it would be surprising if the character of Jesse wasn't bisexual and I suspect Groff has been asked to portray him with that in mind.

What Setoodah is really saying is that no one would buy Groff as being attracted to women, and that's just ridiculous since there's plenty of chemistry between him and Lea Michele.

Anyway, next week is another Glee episode I've been waiting for with great anticipation. Three words: Neil. Patrick. Harris. Yes!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to watch Kurt's version of 'Rose's Turn' at least once more before bed.

Kristin Chenoweth, I Love You

2010-05-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

The other night, I wrote about Ramin Setoodeh's homophobic review of Promises, Promises and his views about the inability of gay actors to ever play straight roles successfully.

Kristin Chenoweth, who co-stars with Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises and is one of my very favorite people on the planet, has responded to Setoodeh's ridiculous piece in detail:

"As a longtime fan of Newsweek and as the actress currently starring opposite the incredibly talented (and sexy!) Sean Hayes in the Broadway revival of “Promises, Promises,” I was shocked on many levels to see Newsweek publishing Ramin Setoodeh’s horrendously homophobic “Straight Jacket,” which argues that gay actors are simply unfit to play straight. From where I stand, on stage, with Hayes, every night — I’ve observed nothing “wooden” or “weird” in his performance, nor have I noticed the seemingly unwieldy presence of a “pink elephant” in the Broadway Theater. (The Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Tony members must have also missed that large animal when nominating Hayes’ performance for its highest honors this year.)

I’d normally keep silent on such matters and write such small-minded viewpoints off as perhaps a blip in common sense. But the offense I take to this article, and your decision to publish it, is not really even related to my profession or my work with Hayes or Jonathan Groff (also singled out in the article as too “queeny” to play “straight.”)

This article offends me because I am a human being, a woman and a Christian. For example, there was a time when Jewish actors had to change their names because anti-Semites thought no Jew could convincingly play Gentile. Setoodeh even goes so far as to justify his knee-jerk homophobic reaction to gay actors by accepting and endorsing that “as viewers, we are molded by a society obsessed with dissecting sexuality, starting with the locker room torture in junior high school.” Really? We want to maintain and proliferate the same kind of bullying that makes children cry and in some recent cases have even taken their own lives? That’s so sad, Newsweek! The examples he provides (what scientists call “selection bias”) to prove his “gays can’t play straight” hypothesis are sloppy in my opinion. Come on now!

Openly gay Groff is too “queeny” to play Lea Michelle’s boyfriend in GLEE, but is a “heartthrob” when he does it in Spring Awakening? Cynthia Nixon only “got away with it” ’cause she peaked before coming out? I don’t know if you’ve missed the giant Sex and the City movie posters, but it seems most of America is “buying it.” I could go on, but I assume these will be taken care of in your “Corrections” this week.

Similarly, thousands of people have traveled from all over the world to enjoy Hayes’ performance and don’t seem to have one single issue with his sexuality! They have no problem buying him as a love-torn heterosexual man. Audiences aren’t giving a darn about who a person is sleeping with or his personal life. Give me a break! We’re actors first, whether we’re playing prostitutes, baseball players, or the Lion King. Audiences come to theater to go on a journey. It’s a character and it’s called acting, and I’d put Hayes and his brilliance up there with some of the greatest actors period.

Lastly, as someone who’s been proudly advocating for equal rights and supporting GLBT causes for as long as I can remember, I know how much it means to young people struggling with their sexuality to see out & proud actors like Sean Hayes, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and Cynthia Nixon succeeding in their work without having to keep their sexuality a secret. No one needs to see a bigoted, factually inaccurate article that tells people who deviate from heterosexual norms that they can’t be open about who they are and still achieve their dreams. I am told on good authority that Mr. Setoodeh is a gay man himself and I would hope, as the author of this article, he would at least understand that. I encourage Newsweek to embrace stories which promote acceptance, love, unity and singing and dancing for all!"

God, I love this woman!

Aaron's Story: Catching Up, Part 2

2010-05-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

This is part two of my post catching up with Aaron's story on Emmerdale. Scroll down for the first part!

Aaron's attempted suicide and the immediate aftermath were very emotional scenes, as were the ones in the following episode at the hospital, where Chastity and Paddy lashed out at each other while Aaron lay in a coma. While Aaron's family and the rest of the village wondered why on Earth Aaron would try to kill himself, Chastity admitted the truth to her brother Cain in a very telling conversation:

Cain: I can help if you tell me what happened. Has it got something to do with that bloke that he beat up? I told him he did the right thing, I would have done the exactly the same. He didn't want someone like that touching him up.

Chastity silently gave Cain a look that left realization dawning over him.

Cain: No!

Chastity: You can't say a word.

Cain: Oh, no! Not Aaron.

Chastity: That is exactly the attitude that put him in here!

Cain: Gay?

Chastity: You got a problem with that?

Cain: (unconvincingly) No.

Chastity: Well no wonder he didn't want to tell anybody if this is how his Uncle reacts! He looks up to you, and you tell him it's okay to hate gays?

Cain: How was I supposed to know?

I think this scene made a very important point, that people's often thoughtless displays of bigotry could potentially be destroying those around them whom they love and would never consciously hurt. Cain is certainly not an open minded character, but maybe watching this scene made someone realize that the joke they told or laughed at the other day could be sending a very painful message to someone close to them.

Aaron came out of his coma without any brain damage, but he wasn't exactly thrilled to find his family hovering over him, especially his mother. When Chastity told him that she knew he was gay and it didn't matter to her, tears rolled down his cheeks as he said that it mattered to him.

Once he was alone with Paddy, who'd just finished telling him how many people loved him, Aaron admitted that he still wished he were dead. When Chastity heard this, she tried to get Aaron to agree to talk to a psychiatrist, like the hospital wanted him to do before they released him. When Aaron asked her to leave, saying that he didn't want her there any more, Chastity lashed out at him for his selfishness, for having tried to kill himself without giving a thought to what it would do to her or to Paddy.

When Aaron asked her to stop, Chastity quickly apologized and told him that he could only make her this angry because of how much she loved him. She also told him that at 18 he knew nothing about life and that he was way too young to be giving up. Chastity admitted that she was to blame for a lot in his life, but said that it wasn't her fault that he was gay and he should just deal with it, since no one else was going to. Aaron shed a few silent tears during this scene and Chastity seemed to have actually made an impact.

Aaron's understandably gloomy stay in the hospital did have one bright moment, when Adam paid him a visit. They started off with a shared laugh over how crazy Chastity was driving Aaron, but things quickly got serious.

Aaron: You should have just left me there.

Adam: Don't start that.

Aaron: I mean it.

Adam: Right, if that's how you're going on, then I'm out of here. Seriously, mate, I can't handle this.

Aaron: No, please.

Adam: What?

Aaron: I don't want you to go.

Adam: I'm not going to sit here listening to you wishing you were dead, Aaron.

Aaron: Do you know what I wish? I wish that me and you could be mates again, like we used to be.

Adam: We can. We are.

Aaron: No we're not.

Adam: What are you saying? You don't want to hang around with me?

Aaron: It's just everything has changed.

Adam: Nothings changed. You still get on my nerves, you still say dumb things, and you do even dumber things, but you're still my best mate. God knows why, though!

Aaron: 'Cause you're a weirdo.

Adam: You are. At least I'm not the one who tried to kill himself, eh?

It was so good amidst all these heavy scenes to see Aaron laughing again! I love the friendship between these two now more than I ever have. I think it's really amazing that they're telling a story about a very close, solid friendship between two guys, one of whom is straight and one of whom is gay, and that even after that attempted kiss last December when Aaron misread a moment between them, Adam isn't at all uneasy around his friend. That's a pretty powerful message, if you think about it.

Aaron was released from the hospital, after attending half of a session with the psychiatrist, and Chastity and Paddy teamed up to keep an eye on him at all times once he was home, with Chastity even moving back into the house so that they could take it in shifts.

Aaron continued to try and push his mother away, though he seemed to be slowly starting to let her back in. Aaron wasn't ready to see anyone in the gossipy village just yet, but his friendship with Adam grew stronger by the day and I loved the new lightness in their interaction with each other, and that Aaron finally had someone he could just relax and be himself with. I especially loved this exchange between them, after Aaron complained that Paddy and Chastity were there every time he turned around:

Adam: They're worried about you, mate. What you did shook them up.

Aaron: Well, I wouldn't have bothered if I'd known I'd be under twenty four hour surveillance.

Adam: That your way of saying you regret it?

Aaron: You're as bad as any of them, you'll be getting me to talk about my feelings next.

Adam: Maybe if I did that in the first place, instead of acting like a prat-

Aaron: Well, you weren't to know, were you Farm Boy?

Adam: It's true though. I should have acted differently.

Aaron: What, by kissing me back?

Adam: You wish mate!

Aaron: Don't flatter yourself, pal, you're not all that.

All of this, of course, delivered with much playful laughter between the two. How awesome is that? It's an incredible message to be sending out, as I've already said, and at the same time this friendship that had been very strained since last December has become the light hearted silver lining to Aaron's story after some very dark turns. I'd love to illustrate this with some screencaps of the two of them from last week, but I haven't been able to find any yet.

What will happen next with the Jackson situation and with the rest of Aaron's family and the village as they inevitably start to find out the truth Aaron was so desperate to hide remains to be seen, but I can't wait to see it unfold. I'm such a huge fan of this incredibly well written and acted story!

By the way, the story has been nominated for some British Soap Awards. Danny Miller has been nominated for Best Dramatic Performance, while the show in which Aaron confessed his sexuality has been nominated for Best Single Episode, and the overall story of Aaron's sexuality has been nominated for Best Storyline. All very much deserved!

Dominic Brunt, who plays Paddy, was also nominated but it was for Best Comedic Performance. This nomination was not, needless to say, for Paddy's part in Aaron's story!

It's a shame that the British Soap Awards don't do Best Actor and Best Supporting actor type awards, rather than just Best Dramatic Performance and Best Comedic Performance. Dominic really did deserve his own recognition for his work here. Hopefully, the story will sweep every award it's nominated for.

Now, I hope I've made clear that I think Danny Miller is an incredible actor. With how talented he is, it honestly wouldn't matter to me a bit what he looked like, and yet I have to say that it's an added bonus that he happens to be not only very talented, but also breathtakingly hot. I'll leave you with this evidence of that:

Aaron's Story: Catching Up, Part 1

2010-05-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

Things have been very busy for me lately, so I'd fallen behind in both watching and writing about Aaron's story on the British soap Emmerdale. I've finally caught up, at least through the beginning of this past week, so I'm now going to cover two week's worth of story at once. I'm going to divide this into two posts so that it's not too tediously long.

In case you're wondering, I'm also behind on this past week's LuRe episodes of As the World Turns, but my plan is to be caught up by the end of the weekend and to write about them on Sunday night.

You'll recall that when I last wrote about Aaron, he'd just had his first kiss with Jackson, only to turn around and discover that his best friend Adam had witnessed the whole thing.

Paddy was concerned the next day when Aaron, who'd left the house in a good mood the night before, suddenly went all quiet and moody again. Paddy turned to Marlon for advice on whether or not he should push Aaron to talk to him about what had happened, and Marlon suggested once again that Paddy talk to Aaron's mother about the whole situation. In the end, Paddy decided to just wait and see if Aaron's mood improved.

Meanwhile, Adam ran into Aaron's co-worker, Ryan, in the pub and heard about Aaron's bad mood for himself. Adam headed over to the garage to talk to his friend and attempted to let him know that he didn't care that Aaron was gay.

Everything he said was met with complete silence, though, when Aaron kept on working as if Adam wasn't even there. In the end, Adam walked away after telling Aaron that he was there if he wanted to talk.

Over the next days, Aaron remained more or less silent and broody, except when he was lashing out at people in the village. After witnessing one such incident, Adam took it upon himself to speak to Paddy when the veterinarian was on a working visit to his family's farm.

After nervously ascertaining that Paddy already knew about Aaron being gay, Adam filled him in on the kiss he saw between Aaron and Jackson, and that Aaron knew he'd seen and was freaked out by it.

Adam: I just wanted him to know that it's okay, that I'm his mate and I'm cool with it, you know? But he's completely shut me out.

Paddy: You can see why.

Adam: How do you mean?

Paddy: Adam, you were the one who was trying to out him when he was first going through all this!

Adam: Yeah, but that was different, all right, I was protecting Holly!

Paddy: Well, you're not protecting your sister now, are you? He goes through all that with you, and more, and then just as he's about to come to terms with it, he goes out on his first date and there you are, of all the people!

Adam: Yeah, all right, I didn't mean to.

Paddy: I know. I'm sorry. I'm not blaming you, but it's the last thing he needed.

Adam: I just wanted him to see that-

Paddy: Leave it. Please. Back off. The situation is bad enough as it is.

I really liked that Adam was making a real effort to show Aaron that he honestly didn't care about his sexuality.

The next day, Paddy told Aaron about his conversation with Adam and that they were both worried about him, but Aaron quickly shut the conversation down and stormed off. Jackson, meanwhile, kept trying to reach Aaron on his phone, but Aaron wasn't answering his calls.

Aaron was in the pub with Ryan when Adam and Scarlett came in to have a few drinks in celebration of Adam's birthday. Things seemed to be getting back on the right track when Aaron actually talked to his friend and wished him a happy birthday.

At that point, though, Jackson showed up at the pub. Adam spotted him first and choked a bit on his drink, which got Aaron's attention. Aaron quickly pulled Jackson aside to ask him what the hell he was doing there.

Jackson explained that he'd come to see if he was okay, since he wasn't answering his phone. Aaron reluctantly bought Jackson a drink but told him that he couldn't 'do this'. Jackson assured him that he'd got the message and would leave when he'd finished his drink. He was just getting up to go when Ryan joined them, though, and after they'd chatted for a bit Aaron's co-worker suggested that the three of them head out for a night on the town together.

Aaron was clearly uncomfortable with all of this, but it seemed to amuse Jackson, who really didn't seem to grasp just how desperately closeted his new love interest was. Ryan went to use the bathroom before they left and when Jackson playfully grabbed Aaron's arm to pull him up from the table, Aaron completely panicked. It wasn't a gesture anyone would even have noticed if Aaron's own reaction hadn't called attention to the two of them.

In front of the everyone in the pub Aaron loudly told Jackson to keep his hands to himself, calling him a pervert and punching him. He might have done worse if Paddy hadn't been there to hold him back and pull him out of the pub. As they left, Aaron yelled for people to stay away from Jackson: they might catch something.

Watching Aaron self destruct like that was pretty hard, even if it was completely expected given where the character is at in terms of self acceptance.

Back home, Paddy went off on Aaron, pointing out that Jackson had never done anything but show him a bit of kindness. He told Aaron that people were going to think he was a gay basher and Aaron said he preferred that to being called queer.

Before they could argue any further, the police showed up at the door and arrested Aaron for assault.

Paddy and Aaron's mother, Chastity, with whom he has a very strained relationship, picked him up at the police station after he was charged with ABH (which, being American, I had to look up: it stands for Actual Bodily Harm and is apparently the equivalent of our Aggravated Assault). Chastity was furious with Aaron for attacking someone for being gay.

Chastity: Beating Paddy half to death give you a taste of maiming people, is that it?

Paddy: Chas!

Chastity: (to Paddy) No, don't! (to Aaron) Who's next? Women? Children? Oooh, the disabled, yeah, because they'd be nice easy targets!

Aaron: You don't know nothing about me.

Chastity: So come on then, enlighten me! What's going on inside that sick head of yours?

Aaron: Shut up.

Chastity: Or what, you're going to start on me are ya? Give me a good pasting, show everyone what a big man you are? Only, that's your problem, isn't it? Because you're not really a real man, you're just a coward.

Aaron: (fighting back tears) I'm sorry.

This scene was so hard to watch. Chastity was completely clueless to the fact that she was saying the exact things to Aaron that he'd always feared hearing from her, only for very different reasons. Danny Miller's subdued reaction as Aaron, with tears building up just beneath the surface until they finally spilled over as he heard the very thing that terrified him the most, his mother saying that he wasn't a real man, was incredibly powerful.

After Chastity stormed out, Paddy told Aaron that it wasn't too late to tell his mother the truth but Aaron said that he couldn't. Paddy begged him to stop all of this before it got any worse, but Aaron just walked out the door.

Chastity, meanwhile, went home to her boyfriend in tears and told him that she'd failed her son and that after what he'd done, she wasn't even sure if she could love him anymore.

Aaron headed to work at the garage, where his Uncle Cain and Ryan were both waiting to give him a hard time about what had happened.

Cain: Stop off to join any hate groups on your way home? Heard the neo-nazis were looking for new members.

Cain asked if Aaron was going to be charged and joked that he wasn't sure if Debbie (his daughter, who owns the garage) would want anyone with a criminal record working there. Aaron's rejoinder was that Cain, with a colorful past of his own, should start looking for new work in that case.

Cain: Fighting talk that is. Thought you only saved that for your little gay friends.

Ryan: So what did he do, anyway? I mean, like, you must have known he was a bit... a bit that way.

Cain: Maybe his gaydar needed some new batteries.

Adam (walking in): Have you got a minute?

Cain: Whoa, whoa, careful. He doesn't like when boys start to crowd him.

Aaron cut Adam off with the news that he was being charged with ABH and dismissed him, saying he was busy. Adam told Aaron that he was going to need a mate one of these days, and he hoped that he had someone left when that time came.

Paddy went to see Marlon again, feeling that he'd clearly failed with Aaron. Marlon finally convinced Paddy that he couldn't carry the burden of trying to help the kid all by himself any longer, so Paddy headed for the factory where Chastity works.

Chastity was at first completely disbelieving and then very shaken by the news that Aaron was gay, and had been involved with Jackson. Paddy asked her to come by his place after work to talk about things and told her that everything with Aaron would be okay as long as they worked together.

Meanwhile, a fed up Marlon passed Aaron in the street and finally snapped, calling him out on kicking in the teeth of anyone who got too close to him. Aaron offered to give his cousin a demonstration of that, but Marlon told him that his act wasn't fooling anyone, and that he knew the truth, that Paddy had told him.

Marlon tried to convince Aaron that their family could cope with the truth, but Aaron claimed not to know what Marlon was talking about and hurried off.

When Paddy got back to his surgery after his visit to Chas Aaron was there waiting for him, having smashed the place up. Aaron's rage had already passed by the time Paddy arrived, though, and he was sitting against the wall with tears in his eyes, sounding completely numb as he spoke.

Aaron: You, of all people. I trusted you. All those things that you said to me, that you loved me.

Paddy: They're true.

Aaron: No, no they're not. If they were, you wouldn't have told Marlon. You swore to me that you didn't tell him. No one else had to know, they were your words.

Paddy: I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do. Please, you've got to believe me. I'm trying to help.

Aaron: What, by making everyone laugh at me?

Paddy: No one is laughing. That's all in your head.

Aaron: So who else have you told, then? (Paddy's guilty look is enough for Aaron to guess that he's told Chastity) No! No, not her as well.

Paddy told Aaron that he'd only told Chastity the truth because he cared about Aaron and couldn't watch him destroy himself.

Aaron tried to leave, saying that everyone would know now, because of Paddy. Paddy blocked the door, asking why he was afraid of a few people calling him names, but Aaron warned him that he'd better move. Paddy stepped aside, saying that maybe his mother had been right. The Aaron he knew, Paddy said, would have stayed and fought. Maybe he really was a coward.

Aaron left Paddy's surgery and headed for the garage, where Ryan was just heading out for the night and asked him to lock up. That was exactly what Aaron did, too, but he locked himself inside with a car running.

The attempted suicide scenes were very painful to watch. Danny Miller did a fantastic job of portraying Aaron's complete and utter hopelessness. In Aaron's mind, everyone would know now the truth he hated so much and there was nothing for him to live for. Watching him sitting in the car as the garage filled up with carbon monoxide fumes, it all just felt very real.

While Paddy and Chastity waited back at his place for Aaron to return, Adam showed up at the garage looking for his friend and heard the motor running inside the closed up building. Adam broke a window and was able to make out through the fumes that his best friend was inside. Cain showed up about that time, ready to kick Adam's ass for trying to break into the garage, but once he realized what was going on the two of them managed to get inside and drag the very lifeless Aaron outside.

While Adam called an ambulance and began performing CPR, Cain ran to get Paddy. With Adam trying desperately to save his best friend, Paddy standing numbly by after not being able to find a pulse, and Chastity wailing that Aaron couldn't leave her, Cain spoke aloud what they all must have realized, that it couldn't have been an accident, that Aaron had been trying to kill himself.

Tony Nominations and a Bit of Homophobia

2010-05-05T22:49:00.001-07:00

The nominees for the 64th Annual Tony Awards were announced yesterday. Over the past few years, I've really come to love watching this particular award show and getting a taste of what's going on in the theater world. Seeing songs performed from the musicals and scenes acted out from the plays during the Tonys is as close as I've managed to come to Broadway.

It can be a bit hard to get all that excited about the nominees in advance when you haven't seen any of the shows, of course, but there are usually one or two people on the list that I'm already a fan of.

I was hoping to see Kristin Chenoweth's name among the nominees this year, but it was not to be. Her co-stars Sean Hayes and Katie Finneran were both nominated, but she was not. The reviews of Promises, Promises haven't been all that great, sadly, but I was still keeping my fingers crossed for her. I have to admit that when I first heard she was doing the show I got the cast album for the original production and it honestly seemed like an odd fit for her. The original seemed to be Jerry Orbach's show, first and foremost.

Speaking of those bad reviews, one I should mention is the rather homophobic review by Newsweek's Ramin Setoodeh, who just couldn't get past the fact that an openly gay man was playing a straight role. In fact, he incorporated the review into a larger piece posing the question: "Heterosexual actors play gay all the time. Why doesn't it work in reverse?" Are you kidding me?! It's been working in reverse for centuries, pal.

Here's what he said about Sean Hayes:

'The reviews for the Broadway revival of Promises, Promises were negative enough, even though most of the critics ignored the real problem—the big pink elephant in the room. The leading man of this musical-romantic comedy is supposed to be a single advertising peon named Chuck who is madly in love with a co-worker (Kristin Chenoweth). When the play opened on Broadway in 1968, Jerry Orbach, an actor with enough macho swagger to later fuel years and years of Law and Order, was the star. The revival hands the lead over to Sean Hayes, best known as the queeny Jack on Will & Grace. Hayes is among Hollywood's best verbal slapstickers, but his sexual orientation is part of who he is, and also part of his charm. (The fact that he only came out of the closet just before Promises was another one of those Ricky Martin-duh moments.) But frankly, it's weird seeing Hayes play straight. He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he's trying to hide something, which of course he is. Even the play's most hilarious scene, when Chuck tries to pick up a drunk woman at a bar, devolves into unintentional camp. Is it funny because of all the '60s-era one-liners, or because the woman is so drunk (and clueless) that she agrees to go home with a guy we all know is gay?'

Setoodah also goes on to critique Jonathan Groff's performance on Glee in much the same fashion. I think the real problem lies with Setoodah and those like him who just can't seem to focus on anything else beyond an out performer's real life sexuality.

It's called acting, people. Would they get hung up on the fact that a married actor was playing a single ladies man, for instance? No. They wouldn't let the his personal life affect the believability of the performance in the least. But if an actor is openly gay and playing straight, it's all these guys can think about!

With Setoodah freely admitting that straight actors can successfully play gay, the issue seems to come down with his own perceptions of masculinity and what it means to be straight. In other words, manly heteros can play act at being gay just fine, but queers can't possibly fool anyone into thinking they're 'real' men. Give me a break!

At any rate, here are this year's Tony nominations for performances:

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play
Jude Law, Hamlet
Alfred Molina, Red
Liev Schreiber, A View from the Bridge
Christopher Walken, A Behanding in Spokane
Denzel Washington, Fences

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
Viola Davis, Fences
Valerie Harper, Looped
Linda Lavin, Collected Stories
Laura Linney, Time Stands Still
Jan Maxwell, The Royal Family

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical
Kelsey Grammer, La Cage aux Folles
Sean Hayes, Promises, Promises
Douglas Hodge, La Cage aux Folles
Chad Kimball, Memphis
Sahr Ngaujah, Fela!

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical
Kate Baldwin, Finian's Rainbow
Montego Glover, Memphis
Christiane Noll, Ragtime
Sherie Rene Scott, Everyday Rapture
Catherine Zeta-Jones, A Little Night Music

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
David Alan Grier, Race
Stephen McKinley Henderson, Fences
Jon Michael Hill, Superior Donuts
Stephen Kunken, Enron
Eddie Redmayne, Red

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play
Maria Dizzia, In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play
Rosemary Harris, The Royal Family
Jessica Hecht, A View from the Bridge
Scarlett Johansson, A View from the Bridge
Jan Maxwell, Lend Me a Tenor

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical
Kevin Chamberlin, The Addams Family
Robin De Jesús, La Cage aux Folles
Christopher Fitzgerald, Finian's Rainbow
Levi Kreis, Million Dollar Quartet
Bobby Steggert, Ragtime

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical
Barbara Cook, Sondheim on Sondheim
Katie Finneran, Promises, Promises
Angela Lansbury, A Little Night Music
Karine Plantadit, Come Fly Away
Lillias White, Fela!

I love Laura Linney and Angela Lansbury (who won a Tony last year), and of course Jude Law is always incredibly sexy, so I'm glad to see their names on the list.

Here are the show nominations:

Best Play

In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play
Next Fall
Red
Time Stands Still

Best Musical

American Idiot
Fela!
Memphis
Million Dollar Quartet

Best Revival of a Play

Fences
Lend Me a Tenor
The Royal Family
A View from the Bridge

Best Revival of a Musical

Finian's Rainbow
La Cage aux Folles
A Little Night Music
Ragtime

Of all of these, I think La Cage aux Folles and American Idiot intrigue me the most. I've seen the original French film of La Cage aux Folles (I won't even mention seeing The Birdcage!), but never the musical. I'm not a big Kelsey Grammer fan, though.

As for American Idiot, a musical based on my favorite Green Day album just sounds like the definition of awesome!

It'sThat Time of Year Again

2010-05-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

It's time again to vote for the AfterElton Hot 100! I can't believe a whole year has gone by already. I submitted my choices the other day, and this year some very hot celebrities (including more than one of my own nominees!) are sharing their picks with us.

Nicholas Rodriguez, the openly gay cutie who played Kyle's pre-Fish boyfriend Nick Chavez on One Life to Live last year and starred in the Washington D.C. production of Light in the Piazza last month, weighed in with his choices. Nicholas has pretty good taste in guys, I have to say, with the likes of Cheyenne Jackson, Hugh Dancy, and Jake Gyllenhaal on his list. I still don't get the Taylor Lautner thing, though! Even with an incredible body he doesn't do anything for me.

Today, Scott Evans (a.k.a. number one on my own Hot 100 list) shared his picks and as if it wasn't already enough that he's the hottest guy around, he won me over even further by leading off with the incredibly sexy Zachary Quinto. Just the thought of Scott and Zachary in the same room together is enough to make my pulse race!

Among others, such as out Olympic cutie Matthew Mitcham, Scott also chose Lee Pace and noted that he still can't believe Pushing Daises is gone! Wow, so Scott is beautiful, he has great taste in men, and now in TV shows! Where do I find a guy like that for myself?

Speaking of Lee Pace (whom I'd love to see on my TV screen again!), he made hottie Cheyenne Jackson's list as well. Cheyenne wrote that he'd met Lee at Promises, Promises, the new Broadway show that Lee's former Pushing Daisies co-star, Kristin Chenoweth is doing.

I love that Lee went to see Kristin in the show! Hey, is it too soon to start begging for a Pushing Daisies reunion movie?

John Amaechi, the out former NBA player, shared his top guys as well, and I really liked most of his choices. He, too, picked Zachary Quinto, and he threw in Neil Patrick Harris, John Barrowman, and two guys I wish I'd thought of when I was doing my own list: the smoldering Gael Garcia Bernal and Russell Tovey, the adorably sexy (and out!) British actor.

The list I found to have the most in common with mine, though, was that of Brad 'Cheeks' Bell. Cheeks is an Internet celeb who is also Adam Lambert's ex, and he chose Scott Evans, Brett Claywell, Michael Urie, Jamie Bamber, and Matthew Mitcham, among others. He also put Chris Colfer on his list, which I think is awesome! Chris isn't really my type, and yet I think when I'm watching him as Kurt I am sort of half in love with how funny and talented he is.

For the second year in a row, they're also taking nominations for the Hottest Out Gay/Bi Men poll, the Hottest Men of Color poll, and the Hottest Men over 50.

I can't wait to see the full lists! Go vote today (if you're a gay or bisexual man) and in the meantime, you can check out the first three years of the Hot 100 while you wait.

LuRe Day: H-O-T

2010-05-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday was a LuRe day on As the World Turns, one in which Luke & Reid managed to turn the sexual tension between them up a notch or two, something I wouldn't even have said was possible given how high it already was!

Things started with Luke and Reid arriving at the good doctor's place just after they'd returned from Texas. Reid found a note from his roommate, Katie, saying that she was spending the evening with Nancy Hughes, and Luke said that since he'd just come over to say hi to Katie (yeah, right!), he'd better go.

Reid asked if Luke had another gala awards banquet to get to for his foundation and when Luke said that he didn't, Reid asked him to stick around so that he could buy him some pizza and a beer as a thank you for all his help.

Luke said that he didn't drink, so Reid offered to sweeten the whole pizza deal with 'watching the game' instead. Luke turned him down, saying that Reid didn't owe him anything.

Reid: And if you leave now, we can go back to being Dr. Oliver and Mr. Snyder and we don't have to talk about that kiss, is that the idea?

Luke: Well, there's nothing to talk about. A kiss is just a kiss.

Reid: Don't worry, Luke. It won't happen again. Unless you want it to.

Luke responded by taking off his coat and agreeing that pizza sounded good. He also totally checked out Reid's ass as he headed for the kitchen, another of those little moments that Van Hansis always adds that lend such a sense of authenticity to Luke.

While waiting for the pizza to arrive, Luke and Reid stationed themselves as far apart on the sofa as it was possible to be and discovered that the cable was out. I loved how adorably nervous and yet flirtatious Luke was during this scene, at least until the subject of Noah came up.

Luke teased Reid about how not being able to watch the game meant he'd have to make small talk and be civil until the pizza arrived. When Reid pointed out that he hadn't insulted Luke in over forty eight hours, Luke wondered what had happened to bring about that change.

Reid explained in an off handed manner that Luke got enough of that sort of thing from Noah. Luke protested that he and Noah were okay, but Reid said that Noah was still punishing Luke for the accident and should learn some gratitude.

Luke said that the accident was his fault, that he was distracting Noah while he was working on the fireworks. Reid pointed out all that Luke had done for Noah since and said that it was rude of Noah to keep dumping on Luke after all of that.

Reid went on to tell Luke that accidents happen and that they're not always someones fault.

Reid: It's not okay for Noah to beat up on you, calling the shots while you put your life on hold, waiting for him to come around. Aren't you sick of that yet? You sure as hell should be.

Luke seemed lost in thought at this point, but I for one was cheering. Finally! It needed to be said, and I love Reid more and more with each episode he appears in. It's partly the writing, of course, but Eric Sheffer Stevens just brings this character to life so perfectly.

Luke stood up and put on his coat, saying that he didn't want to discuss his relationship with Noah. What followed may not sound like much, dialogue wise, but it was the sexiest scene I've seen on this show in a very, very long time. Their body language, tone of voice, and the almost palpable sexual tension between these two was downright HOT.

They also got closer and closer to each other as they talked, with Van doing that thing where he looks from his partner's lips to his eyes and then back at his lips, which just drives me crazy. Something so simple, yet so sexy!

Reid: Okay, fine, we don't have to talk about it. We can talk about something else. Your foundation. How the Cubs suck almost as much as the Astros. Our kiss.

(Luke makes an amused sound)

Reid: What?

Luke: Now I'm the one that doesn't want to talk.

Reid: That's because you liked it.

Luke: There could be a lot of reasons for that. Like, it's been a long time.

Reid: And?

Luke: And, um, being wanted by someone like you, it's a compliment.

Reid: Yes, it is. And?

At that point, it appeared that Luke was moving in for another kiss, but of course the doorbell had to ring. It was such an intense moment that the ringing of the bell had me practically howling with frustration and disappointment!

While Reid was paying for the pizza, Luke answered his cell phone for him. Now, I don't hate Noah, but I don't think I've ever wanted to see him less than I did in this particular episode! I was so caught up in the Luke and Reid story that Noah's appearance, on the other end of the phone, felt like it sucked all the energy right out of the story.

At any rate, Noah was calling to check in with Reid, since his surgery was scheduled for the next day. Luke was surprised to hear this, and Noah seemed equally surprised to discover that Luke and Reid were now on a first name basis.

After Noah hung up, Luke wanted to know why Reid hadn't told him about Noah's surgery, accusing him of keeping it quiet because he didn't want Luke to rush to Noah's side. Reid pointed out that doctor patient confidentiality was involved and reminded Luke that Noah hadn't bothered to tell him either.

Reid sarcastically asked Luke what exactly he thought the sinister plan was: keep Noah blind so he needed Luke, or restore his sight so he wanted Luke back?

Luke: Who knows what you think? Because one minute you're this pompous ass and then the next minute you're kissing me and making me feel like...

Reid: Feel like what?

Luke: I don't know.

Reid: Yeah, you do. (Moves in close) How do I make you feel?

They were once again so very, very close to kissing when Reid's pager went off, alerting him to an emergency at the hospital. As Reid headed out the door, he had one final thing to say:

Reid: I don't play games, Luke, I'm not that guy.

Such incredible scenes! I really am completely under LuRe's spell!

For those diehard Nuke fans (and to be fair, Van Hansis recently said in an interview that he thinks the show should end with Luke & Noah together), there were some scenes to relish at the end of Wednesday's show.

Once Reid had left for the hospital, Luke returned home to Lily's and found Noah waiting for him outside. Noah told Luke that he'd spent so much time thinking about when the surgery would be that he hadn't really thought much about the reality of, you know, actually having brain surgery.

Noah said that he was freaking out but had tried not to bother his ex with it, since Noah had been otherwise pushing Luke away. He'd called Dr. Oliver instead, but when Luke answered the phone it had all come together for Mr. Mayer: Noah is scared and Luke is the only person he wants to be with.

Noah acknowledged that he's hurt Luke a lot but that he knows that Luke has really 'gone to the mat' for him. Noah awkwardly tried to explain where he was coming from and Luke helpfully said that he got that Noah wasn't there to proclaim his undying love. Noah said he didn't mean it to sound like that, so Luke asked what it was that he wanted.

Noah said that with his dad in prison and his mother dead, he'd like for there to be someone who would be there waiting, caring what happens to him while he's having brain surgery. Luke told Noah that if he wanted him to be there, he would be.

Noah said that he hadn't been sure, with everything he'd put Luke through, that his ex would even want to be there. Luke assured him that he'd be there every step of the way, through surgery and recovery, for as long as Noah wanted.

The scene ended with Noah and Luke hugging and Luke assuring Noah that he was going to be okay.

For me, the Nuke scenes summed up perfectly where Luke & Noah are at. I think they love each other, but aren't really in love with each other anymore. They really seem like two people who care deeply for each other, who have a shared history but not a common future.

I'm sure the Nuke fans see it completely differently, of course. I've always said that a good love triangle should have people rooting strongly for both pairings. Maybe ATWT, after the debacle that was the Mason Jarvis storyline, is finally writing that for us.

Chenoweth, O'Malley, and Colfer Do It Again

2010-04-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

Ah, Glee night. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous this week. After all, how do you follow up one of the best episodes in TV history? Last week's Madonna episode was pure magic.

Luckily, they were off to a good start tonight with the return of Kristin Chenoweth as April Rhodes. I still get chills when I listen to the version of 'Maybe This Time' that Kirstin and Lea Michele performed during Chenoweth's first appearance on the show.

Her return visit was just as fantastic, musically speaking, and Cheno also got to demonstrate her excellent comedic timing once again. Still, I have to say that I really enjoyed that they didn't make the whole episode about April. This show should never revolve around the guest stars and I'm glad that the writers seem to get that. April's return was just one of tonight's plots and it didn't eclipse the other stories.

Kristin and Matthew Morrison performed two more duets, Springsteen's 'Fire' and, best of all, a mash up of Burt Bacharach's 'One Less Bell to Answer' and 'A House is Not a Home'. I can't tell you how much I loved the second duet! Those two just sounded so incredible together. I once again had chills.

Kristin, with the glee kids backing her, ended the show with 'Home' from The Wiz, another great performance. Her voice is just so very beautiful, I could listen to her sing all day long and never tire of it.

By the way, if you're a Kristin fan you should check out tomorrow's Live with Regis and Kelly. They're doing Broadway Week on the show and Chenoweth will be there tomorrow doing something from her new Broadway show, the revival of Promises, Promises! It's as close as I'm going to get to seeing her in the show, so I'm looking forward to it.

As I said, April's return was just one of tonight's plots on Glee. There was also a plot about Sue trying to make Mercedes lose weight to stay in the Cheerios, which culminated in Mercedes singing Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful', and there was the Kurt/Finn plot. I was especially looking forward to the latter story because Mike O'Malley was returning as Kurt's dad, Burt, and I've been blown away by every single scene he and Chris Colfer have done together so far.

I absolutely loved Kurt's rendition of 'A House is Not a Home', which he sang directly to Finn in front of the entire glee club. What a moment: sweet, sad, and heart wrenching. I've always wished that we'd seen Kurt sing 'I Honestly Love You' to Finn last fall in the episode entitled Ballad, but tonight more than made up for that.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want or expect a Kurt/Finn pairing at all. I do love the way they're writing this, though, with Finn uncomfortable with Kurt's feelings but not at all hateful towards Kurt about it. I think Kurt has to go through this sort of hopeless crush on an unobtainable straight boy before he can look for someone who is truly interested in him. We've all been there and it's more about us being ready for something than it is about the straight guy we think we love.

I really like Chris Colfer's voice a lot, his solo version of 'Defying Gravity' is my most played song Glee song to date and his rendition of 'A House is Not a Home' was beautiful. I love that Kurt is getting more solos at last!

The same goes for Mercedes. Of course, I'd still like to see Artie, Tina, Puck, Quinn, and Santana get more solo parts, too. One of the best things about this week was that Rachel didn't have any solos! I love Lea Michele, but Rachel and Finn get almost all the solos and it's time to spread the wealth a bit.

Anyway, tonight we found out that Kurt had set up his father with Finn's mother and the two had really hit it off. Kurt was of course envisioning himself and Finn sharing a room together (and was planning to decorate accordingly), but things took a somewhat different turn and Kurt was left hurt by seeing his father bond with Finn over sports.

Once again, O'Malley and Colfer's scene together was some of the best work I've seen, as Kurt expressed his hurt at seeing his dad bond with 'the son he always wanted'. I especially loved the following exchange:

Burt: Look, Kurt, I love you. And I am sympathetic to all your stuff. But come on, buddy, we've got a deal here, right? I don't try to change you, you don't try to change me. You are my son, and a little guy talk with some other kid isn't going to change that.

Kurt: Guy talk? I'm a guy.

Burt: Come on, you know what I mean.

What's great about this story is that it feels so realistic. Kurt has the sort of dad that many gay teens would love to have, someone who is very supportive and who truly loves him no matter what, and yet they're very different people. It makes perfect sense that Kurt would be insecure about their bond as father and son.

I seriously think that Chris Colfer should not only be nominated for an Emmy but take home the statue on the strength of Kurt's scenes with his dad alone. Mike O'Malley should get one as well. These two are doing some amazing work.

Van Hansis Lands His First Film Role

2010-04-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

We Love the Soaps has a new interview with Van Hansis in which he talks about his willingness to do a web series if he's ever approached (someone approach him!!) and about landing his very first role in a film, a horror movie called Occupant:

We Love Soaps: How are all your fans still going to be able to find your work?
Van Hansis: I’ve got to get cast in something and then they can watch that [laughs]. But I am a doing a movie, I can talk about it now. It’s called, Occupant. It's a horror film in the vein of [Roman] Polanski, that is, it's a psychological thriller. It's a lot of fun. It's a big departure from Luke.

We Love Soaps: In what way?
Van Hansis: In every way. The character is nothing like Luke at all. I’m excited to try something new and I’ve never done a film before. We’re in pre-production now, and the whole process that comes into play is so exciting.

I've never doubted that Van will have a bright future beyond As the World Turns, but I have worried that it will be completely stage based, and therefore unavailable to fans such as I who can't get to NYC.

Prior to the end of Kish and the announcement of Jean Passanante's ominous hiring, I was really hoping that Van would turn up on One Life to Live after ATWT wrapped. I would have loved to see what sort of character Ron Carlivati might have created for Van!

Now, though, I'd rather not have to tune in and see the destruction of a show that was so incredible these past few years, so it's nice to have a film to look forward to! I can't wait to see Van in a role that is so completely different from Luke.

LuRe Day: The Kiss

2010-04-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

Today's episode of As the World Turns was a LuRe day, and it was definitely the best one yet for the hottest new gay couple on daytime.

The duo was still in Dallas, Texas awaiting the verdict of the medical board. Luke called Lily to let her know he wouldn't be back in Oakdale in time to attend an award ceremony for his foundation and after they'd hung up Reid chimed in with some snarky comments about calling mommy and about only pretentious people doing business in tuxedos. (Luke: "You must own several, then.")

Luke told Reid that he was giving him a free pass when it came to his cranky attitude because he knew that waiting for the news wasn't easy. Luke suggested that they go out to take their mind off of the wait and asked Reid what there was to do in the city where he'd lived for several years.

Reid, the consummate workaholic, was unable to supply the name of a single club, bar, restaurant, bowling alley or even of any friends of his that they could call up. Luke teased him about how incredibly sad he was and then, after a quick investigation, told Reid to come with him.

Reid thought Luke had found the location of the nearest gay bar, but instead Luke took him to a western bar, complete with a mechanical bull ring. Reid felt decidedly out of place among the patrons there, but Luke told him to relax, that they were just going to have a drink and listen to music, not make out!

After Reid belittled the intelligence of those who'd bother with riding a mechanical bull, Luke took it upon himself to show Reid that it could actually be fun. I have to say, as an aside, that watching Van Hansis ride a mechanical bull was surprisingly hot! Sadly, the scene was quite brief, and of course the bull was barely moving.

After Luke finished his ride he managed to use a bit of schoolyard psychology of the 'What are you, chicken?' variety to get Reid on the bull as well. Reid seemed to enjoy the experience, but when he'd finished Luke told him that he'd missed a call from the review board.

The guys went back to the hotel and Reid admitted that he was nervous to make the call, that it was everything: his career and his life. What would he do if he couldn't operate again? Luke told him that what they'd do was fight the decision, that Reid was too obnoxious to just lie down and die.

Reid: I've worked my whole life to become what I am. I need my work. I need to experience those highs and lows every day. Without that-

Luke: Without it, you're going to be fine. You're more than a doctor.

Reid: What else am I?

Luke: You're an urban cowboy! (they both laugh, breaking the tension)

Reid made the call, which was short and to the point. As soon as it was over, he turned around and, without saying a word, pulled Luke into a very hot kiss!

Luke was speechless and seemed a bit dazed (who wouldn't be, after such a passionate kiss?!) as Reid began to tell him that he'd been reinstated and that he couldn't wait to get back in the operating room and make the first incision. He told Luke that none of it would have happened without him.

Luke: Um, Doctor Oliver, you do realize that you kissed me, right? And I mean, that's okay, it's nothing to be embarrassed by. I mean, you're excited, you just got some really good news, but I think it would be kind of weird if we pretended that it didn't happen.

Reid: I know what I did. It had nothing to do with the phone call. I wanted to kiss you. I've been wanting to kiss you for a long time, Luke.

Oh, man! He finally used Luke's first name and it was somehow such a sexy moment, just hearing him say it! I also loved how direct and confident Reid was about the kiss. That just seems to be exactly how the egotistical doctor would pursue someone he wanted.

Fantastic scenes all around today. The lighthearted bar scenes were great, and the kiss itself (and the "Luke"!) were everything I'd hoped for. Best of all, though, is the banter back and forth between Luke and Reid. They're so great together, they just keep each other on their toes at all times, but I love that they can also get very serious with each other. Reid has opened up to Luke in ways that I doubt he ever has with anyone else.

I'm just left wondering how any fan could ever possibly want to see Luke back with Noah again. Who'd want to see him trapped in what had long since become a dull and very tortured relationship when the chemistry between Luke and Reid sizzles?

To me, it seems like Luke and Reid are already pretty close to being everything I always hoped Luke and Noah would become eventually, only Nuke never quite made it there.

The Power of Glee

2010-04-21T00:56:00.000-07:00

Could I ever express just how much I loved last night's episode of Glee? It might quite possibly have been the most perfect hour of television I've ever experienced.

Now, I'm not a Madonna fanatic. I like Madonna's music but I've never been one of those gay guys who completely worship her. Even so, I've been looking forward to this episode of Glee since I read that it was in the works and last week's sneak peek of Sue Sylvester doing 'Vogue' just left me in even greater anticipation.

It turned out to be far better than I'd hoped it would be. All of the musical numbers were fantastic this week, so much so that it's hard to pick a clear favorite! I guess if I had to choose just one I'd say 'Like A Virgin'. I really loved the mix of all the voices on that and it was great to see Santana getting a chance to sing! Plus, it just worked so well with the story and those scenes were very well done. After watching that, I think I have to take back what I said last week about Will and Emma being more sweet than sexy!

Then again, I might have to pick '4 Minutes' as the number I enjoyed most because I loved, loved, loved seeing Kurt and Mercedes get a chance to shine and I'm thrilled with this Cheerios storyline for them! Chris Colfer and Amber Riley sounded incredible together and there was just something so right about seeing them both in Cheerios uniforms! It should be interesting to see how this all plays out. I think the conflict is even better than the whole football team/glee club set up from last fall.

This was just a brilliant episode all around, the humor was there in full force ("When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist."; and Rachel's little "No!" when Jesse challenged Finn to a sing off in the parking lot after school totally killed me!) the stories all moved forward, and I'm intrigued by Jesse joining New Directions.

I'm totally falling for Jonathan Groff in a big way! He's one of those guys who is both sexy and adorable all at the same time, and he's so funny! I love how smarmy and conceited Jesse is!

As if I wasn't already in Gleek heaven by the end of the hour, the previews for next week show that Kristin Chenoweth is back as April Rhodes! I knew she was returning, I just didn't realize it would be this soon.

I love this show so much! It won a much deserved GLAAD award this week for best TV Comedy, by the way, and I loved what Ryan Murphy had to say:

Out writer/co-creator Ryan Murphy accepted the award with cast members including Jane Lynch, whom he thanked for using the show's "national platform" to talk about her engagement to her longtime partner Lara Embry -- "they're registered at Tiffany's," he joked -- and tipped his hat to her fellow out cast member Chris Colfer, who plays Kurt.

"We have so much love for our own Chris Colfer, who at age 19 when the media came calling, Chris was true to who he is instead of waiting to announce (that he's gay) at 40 when it doesn't matter," Murphy said. "This show is about arts education and inclusion, and we are using the show in a great way.

"Chris' character will never be the victim," said Murphy, who noted that next year the out character "will have a boyfriend, and they are going to be prom kings and be popular."

I may not have mentioned this yet, but I love Glee. No, really, I LOVE Glee. If you could marry a TV show, I'd be down on one knee with a ring. I also love everyone involved with it. It's one of those perfect combinations of talent that are so rare that they just create magic.