Everything's Coming Up Kurt

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.

It'sThat Time of Year Again

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.

It Takes A Village

I was just reading on AfterElton that the incredibly talented, sexy, and openly gay Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson has been cast in a comedy pilot for ABC.

He's been very funny playing a recurring character on 30 Rock this season, but this new show sounds like it has much more potential for him to shine. The title is It Takes A Village and it's about a divorced couple raising their fifteen year old son with the help of their new significant others.

Cheyenne would be playing the boyfriend of the newly out father, who in turn will be played by James Patrick Stuart.

What a hot couple they'll make!















Let's just hope that it gets picked up and that the writing for the show is strong. It could be a really fantastic, funny look at a 21st century family. Plus, I'd root for anything that keeps Cheyenne Jackson on my TV screen on a weekly basis, and in a gay role no less!

AfterElton's Hot 100

AfterElton's Hot 100 has finally been revealed! I've been anticipating this ever since I submitted my own choices for this year's list and now that I've seen the full list, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. A lot of my favorite guys made the list this year, far too many to mention all of them here, in fact. But I will call out a few that I was particularly happy about.

First of all, of course, is Adam Lambert. I think out of everyone I voted for, I was most interested to see if/where he'd place on the list. As it turned out, he did very well, coming in at number 16! An excellent showing for a guy who not very many people had even heard of just a few months ago. Cutie Kris Allen was the only other American Idol contestant to make the list, at number 98.

Another guy I was interested in was Van Hansis. Last year, he was number 7 on the list, but this year he fell to number 20! I blame the As the World Turns writers for this, mostly because I think they're responsible for all the world's ills. Still, no other American soap star made it any higher on the list. In fact, the only other American soap star on the list at all was Van's costar Jake Silbermann, who came in at number 22.

The German soaps stars, hottie Thore Scholermann and his adorable costar Jo Weil from Verboten Liebe, did better than their American counterparts, coming in at numbers 19 and 17 respectively.

Back in December, I made a list of my own, highlighting my picks for Top Five Out Hotties. I must have good taste, because all five made the AfterElton list: My pick for number five, Randy Harrison, came in at 33; My number four, Chad Allen, came in at 25; Luke MacFarlane, my number 3, came in at... number 3! Cheyenne Jackson, my number 2, was at 7; and my number one pick, Neil Patrick Harris, knocked Jake Gyllenhaal out of his two year reign at the top and came in at number one in this year's AfterElton Hot 100!

Check out the whole list, if for no other reason than to see 100 hot pictures of some very good looking men!

Obviously there are a lot of hot guys who were left off this year, but the most glaring absence for me is Ed Westwick from Gossip Girl. I truly think he's one of the hottest guys out there, especially with his British accent. His costar and roommate Chace Crawford made the list, but there apparently just wasn't enough love for Ed, even though he practically snogged a guy court side at a basketball game this year. What more does the man have to do?! Maybe a sex tape would help.

I'll be back later tonight for a look at today's Nuke scenes on As the World Turns.

A Few Reasons Why I Love AfterElton.com

There are a couple of things I want to share from AfterElton. First off, they have their readers vote each year for the Hot 100, a list of the hottest guys in the world, as selected by gay & bisexual men. This is my second year voting in the poll (which closes this Friday, so go vote if you haven't!) and I can't wait to see the results.

The reason I mention this is that today they shared Cheyenne Jackson's personal top 10 list for the poll. Cheyenne is one of my favorite guys (in fact, I do believe he was in my own top ten this year), so it's very interesting to see who he finds to be the hottest guys around.

The best part? Adam Lambert is Cheyenne's number 7 pick! You have to love that. Adam is the only guy that Cheyenne & I had in common on our lists, but I'm hoping that Adam is someone a lot of guys are voting for this year.

As if that wasn't enough of a treat, AfterElton also had some behind the scenes photos of Adam from last night's elimination on American Idol, one of which I'm borrowing, but all of which you should check out if you're a fan of Adam's. I think the best part is their picture of all the contestants mailboxes. Adam, unlike the others, needs two for all the fan mail.
Finally, they had an update on the upcoming Tales of the City musical, which I really want to see. As you know, I'm a huge fan of the books and given some of the people involved in the musical- Armistead Maupin himself, Jeff Whitty, and Jake Shears & John Garden of the Scissor Sisters- I think it's going to be incredible. It opens in July in New Haven, Connecticut, but will hopefully make it to Broadway. Maybe I'll finally make a trip to NYC and get a chance to see this.

Is it any wonder that AfterElton is usually the first place I go when I get online?

Cheyenne Talks Adam

AfterElton had a live chat with out Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson the other day that I totally missed out on. Why do I never find out about these things in time?

At any rate, the chat transcript is a fun read and Jackson seems like a really awesome guy. I also loved that, when someone asked what he thought about Adam Lambert, he had this to say:

"adam lambert is the shiz. he is a star and i think he is unbelievably talented. don't really dig anybody else. that cute kid is kind of good, and the gravvely voiced dude with the glasses is good too."

How cool is that? It would be fun to see Adam & Cheyenne work together at some point, on stage or TV or an album or just generally at all.

Jackson, Lambert, Westwick

I just saw the news that Glee, the upcoming Fox show that I'm already very excited about, just got even better: out hottie Cheyenne Jackson will be guest starring in an early episode. Excellent! The downside is that I was thinking the show would begin its run this spring and I found out that only the pilot will be airing this May, after American Idol. The series won't officially start until next fall.

Ah, well. I guess good things are worth waiting for, right?

Speaking of American Idol, I'm really looking forward to seeing Adam Lambert perform again tomorrow night! I'm glad that the Wild Card thing didn't take a whole week, like I'd thought, but just one night last week. I'm excited to see what Adam does next.

I was going to mention, by the way, that Entertainment Weekly online had a Q&A with the Top 13 (they added an extra singer, so it's no longer the Top 12) and asked Adam Lambert if he was ready for people digging into his past (a polite way to reference the photos of him kissing another guy). Adam's response:

"I feel fine. I know who I am. I'm an honest guy, and I'm just going to keep singing."

I love this man!

Another guy I love, if you'll recall, is Ed Westwick. Not enough to watch his show, I admit, but enough to love seeing pictures of him online and to scour YouTube for clips of him speaking in his real life sexy as hell British accent.

Anyway, there have been rumors before about Ed and his co-star/roommate, Chace Crawford, being romantically involved. In fact, Joy Behar on The View even asked about it a couple of months ago and interestingly enough, the guys just sort of laughed but never said one way or another if it was true or not. (They have, though, said in other interviews that they are straight).

The reason I bring this up is that Ed has caused quite the stir by getting very friendly with a male companion at a Knicks game. From what I was just reading, Howard Stern (who was at the same game) even mentioned it on his radio show.

So, of course, I had to see the pictorial evidence.
They do look pretty cozy together. Even if there's nothing going on with them beyond friendship, I'd love to be pals with Ed if that's how he treats his buddies!

Honestly, though, it's really nice to see two guys being so affectionate together in public. Yes, of course it raises all sorts of speculation (and gets a lot of peoples hopes up!), but so what? It's not Ed or his friend's fault that most guys are too uptight to display any emotion except anger towards another man.

I almost kind of hope Ed is completely straight, because then I'd love him even more for being so awesome. Only almost, though, because who wouldn't want Ed playing for their team?

Idol & Broadway Backwards

I just finished watching tonight's American Idol (how weird does it feel writing that?!) and I'm glad to say that my guy, Adam Lambert, was sent through to the next round.

They showed more singing tonight (as opposed to a lot of pointless drama and very little singing last week when I watched) and Adam was featured more, singing first out of everyone. He did a version of Cher's song 'Believe', which I thought was really good. A lot of people seemed to be choosing songs that ten other people were also singing, so I liked that Adam went with something that no one else picked and really made it his own. He's got a beautiful voice.

They were dividing the contestants into rooms where everyone in the room would either go forward or be eliminated. I felt pretty confident that Adam's room was safe, given that everyone in the room seemed to have done really well, Adam included, but it was still a long wait before they gave them the good news.

I don't know how I'm going to deal with the tension of this show! I always thought it was kind of silly, but when there's someone you really want to see move forward, you truly are on the edge of your seat until you know if they're safe or not. Its ridiculous!

In the preview for tomorrow's show, they arranged the footage to make it look like Adam will be cut, but I'm hoping that's just another trick. It seems like they'd want to shock people at the last moment if he was being cut, rather than reveal it the day before in a preview.

It still feels odd to actually be watching American Idol, but I have to say that a lot of the people I saw tonight had really great voices.

Speaking of great voices, yet another reason that I want to live in New York is that I'd be able to attend shows like Broadway Backwards. If you haven't heard of this before, it's an annual benefit for NYC's LGBT Community Center in which male stars perform songs usually done by women, and vice versa.

I first heard of this last year, when Neil Patrick Harris and his partner, David Burtka, did their own version of Maureen & Joanne's song 'Take Me Or Leave Me' from Rent. I've seen clips from their performance on YouTube, but never the the whole thing. It looked so good, though, and to top that off, Cheyenne Jackson & Anthony Rapp did 'Suddenly Seymour' from Little Shop of Horrors!

What I wouldn't have given to actually be there that night!

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that AfterElton has pictures from Broadway Backwards 4, which took place yesterday. It looks like it was another great show. I mean, you have Cheyenne Jackson and Sandra Bernhard performing 'You're the Top' together, Ugly Betty's Michael Urie and Becky Newton doing 'Getting Married Today' from Company, and Florence 'Mrs. Brady' Henderson groping a chorus boy! Whats not to love?

I really wish I could have seen this. If only they'd film these annual shows and sell the DVDs to benefit the Center! They'd make a ton of money that way and we poor non-New Yorkers would be able to enjoy the show, too.

Meanwhile, one of my best friends joked the other day, as I was enthusing over seeing Rent with Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal next summer, that I'm in danger of becoming a theatre queen. Hmmm. I'm not sure where she got that impression!

Top Five Out Hotties

I'm in a light mood tonight, so I thought I'd do something fun. After toying with a couple of different ideas, I settled on something that's sure to be a joy for the whole family! Behold, my list of the top five hottest out gay celebrities!


Number Five:
Randy Harrison. I'll always have a place in my heart for Queer as Folk's blond twink Justin Taylor, and for Randy, the openly gay actor who played him. Of course, if his onscreen love interest Gale Harold was gay, he'd be number one on this list! One of my all time favorite Queer as Folk moments was in the first season when Justin's mom takes him to a therapist after she figures out he's gay. Justin's response when asked by the shrink if he had anything to say: "I like dick." It goes on from there, but you get the idea. Randy does mostly theatre now, but hopefully he'll do something onscreen again soon.


Number Four:

Chad Allen. Chad most recently starred on General Hospital: Night Shift as one half of its gay love story. He also has made several film versions of the Donald Strachey mysteries about a gay P.I. He has been out for over a decade now and is quite a hottie. (Picture borrowed from Superherofan)

Number Three:
Luke MacFarlane. Luke, who came out earlier this year, plays Scotty, my favorite male character on Brothers & Sisters. Luke makes Scotty's scenes one of the only reasons to enjoy Brothers & Sisters this season. I find him to be both incredibly sexy and adorable all at once.



Number Two: Cheyenne Jackson. This guy is just breathtakingly hot. He's probably one of the top ten reasons I wish I lived in NYC, so that I could see him live on Broadway. He's also been completely open about his sexuality from the beginning of his career, which I think is incredible.


And finally, the Number One Hottest out gay celebrity:Neil Patrick Harris. With Neil, it's more than just his good looks and hot body that makes me love him. It's his whole personality. He's the total package: funny, intelligent, sexy. His partner, David Burtka, is one very lucky man! (Picture borrowed from Superherofan)

Maybe sometime soon I'll do a list of the top five male celebrities I just wish were openly gay!