Hart

I have to admit that when the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver kicked off over a week or so ago, I was fired up to watch. (However, I was not impressed with Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams.) Now; not so much.

America is kicking some serious butt and taking Canada's montra—which bronzed Bob Costas loves to repeat every time he is on the air—of "owning the podium" to new heights. We watched Lindsey Vonn push through injury to finally win a gold medal. Although afterwards she gloated by saying "I worked so hard for this. I deserve it." But hey, she is apparently very confident. Another confident... I mean really cocky... skiier is superr-hot Bode Miller. He finally wins a medal—I mean three—including gold. He basically cooled down the verbage and is actually showing the world how good he really is. And then there's snowboarding's "flying tomato" Shaun White who basically wins every compitition he enters. One of the best moments thus far—even though it's not for a medal—is when Team USA in the 1980 throwback jerseys beat Canada in ice hockey. (I know that you all know this because it was all over the news, but this picture of Canadian fans is priceless.)

Of course the Games are not without controversy surrounding sports that many gays love... ice skating. Before I get into the elaborately fabulous Johnny Weir, what the hell are the Russian ice dancers wearing? Their costumes are the toned down version of the original Aboriginal costumes they wore during the European Ice Dancing championships last year! Regardless of pissing off the Aussies (like our transplant writer Cam Buckingham), anyone with any sort of fashion sense knows that this is just bad costuming. I simply just don't get ice dancing. I was discussing this with a friend of mine last night. It's not that I don't think ice dancers are athletes; rather, I expect some triple salchow and triple toe loops and such. But I digress...

On to Johnny Weir! I really think that he gave the performance of his life and was absolutely robbed because of his flamboyant lifestyle. I am not coming out and saying the guy is gay because the champion will not say whether he is or not. Labels are soo last decade anyway and such labels have nothing to do with his impeccable routine on the ice. That is except for a couple of pompous, French-speaking broadcasters who decided to make slanderous remarks. But why is Johnny Weir considered controversial? He is a vastly intellegent, talented athlete who has no problem saying what he thinks and skating how he feels... flare and all.

I guess I will keep watching, but honestly I need some more conflict to keep this homo interested... or I could just watch the Sex Olympics.

I never was a big fan of the mash-up—mixing various songs that are tied together with a slightly different score—especially when someone actually thought that mixing the legendary rock band Kiss with Popstar diva Kylie Minogue was a good idea. But then Fox came along with the award-winning, smash-hit TV show Glee (Golden Globe® for Best Comedy Series and SAG Award® for Best Ensemble Cast) that perked up our ears and captured our hearts. The storyline centers around high school geeks rising to the top, but not without tangling with the cantankerous Sue Sylvester—played by the wickedly talented, openly gay actor Jane Lynch—who wants to banish the glee club forever.

America may have finally learn her name from the TV show, but she has been starring in some of the most successful Hollywood hits like Julie & Julia and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I look at it as she is finally getting the recognition she deserves. We (the diehard gay and lesbian contingency) first fell in love with her as the lesbian dog trainer in Best in Show. What is truly remarkable about Ms Lynch is that she has never been in the closet and thus acted in many, many independent gay and lesbian productions including both short and feature films.

Hell, I could go on and on about her, but we have an interview for you! A year or so ago when HOMOPOP was just a wee-babe, we were given the opportunity to interview Jane, but we didn't really have Mike, Robby O... or any of the other boys yet. I couldn't pass up this fabulous opportunity so I convinced the only person available for the day Spock BUCKTON (he even has a t-shirt) from our sister site POPPORN.com (Don't be alarmed people. Yes, they are heterosexuals, but they are funny as hell.) to do the interview for me and well... let's just say I had to pay him in "favors", but that's for another time.

Unless you live under a rock or a giant snow pile like some of us on the East Coast, Valentine's Day or is this Sunday Feb. 14th (which coincides with Chinese New Year by the way.)

Ahh to be in love during a bitter cold weekend. I remember the most romantic Valentine's weekend I had was a few years ago. I was dating this hot little prep who had the tightest ass and was a kinky s.o.b. to boot. He surprised me this year with a weekend getaway! Romantic and raunchy? I struck gold! We drove up to Boston and stayed at the fabulous gay bed and breakfast. All I really remember from the trip is it was like -10°F and we fucked... a lot. The relationship lasted about a year where we broke up and got back together around the same time at an orgy similar to this one. Soon we realized we were not meant to be—mainly because I moved on.

Why the hell am I tell you this story? I always reminisce of this fun time I had when Valentine's Day rolls around and even though I am very happy not having to deal with the romantic obligation; some of you don't feel the same way I do. Some get depressed thta they are alone while others get pissed that they have to try and purchase that "special gift" that says "I love you". So because of this I want to show you all how special you are to HOMOPOP. And to be quite honest, I would not being doing my name justice if I didn't have a gift for you.

I have a handful of G-PASSES for 30 FREE minutes to TLAgay.com's VOD site. As much as I want to think you are all innocent fuckers and are going to check out our gay cinema VOD site (which you should because it has the largest selection of gay independent films available for streaming); I know you are going straight for the porn (Yeah, I would too.) All you have to do is leave a comment and tell us your best Valentine's Day story or why you HEART HOMOPOP. Once you leave a comment shoot me an email at khart@homopop.com and I will send you the code for your free minutes. It's that simple... and the special gify is only good until Feb. 14th.

Let's recap: leave comment + email khart@homopop.com = 30 FREE Minutes on TLAGAY.COM's VOD site

Whether you love football or not, the Super Bowl is an annual event that gathers people from all walks of life just for the mere fact of watching the commericals. Hell, my mom even sits down to watch football once a year. Ok, she really reads during the game and then puts the book down during the commercials. It boggles my mind that corporate America spends gazillions of dollars (where they get this money is beyond me) for a 30 second or 60 second commercial, but then again when this viewing even draw so many eyeballs it must be worth it right? There has been some incredible commercials over the years. One of my favorite was last year's Thrillalicious when Naomi Campbell dances to Michael Jackson's Thriller with sassy lizzards in toe. I don't remember what product it was for, but it was a damn fine commercial.

The advertising for this year's Super Bowl is swarming with controversy and is actually getting more attention then the teams playing the big game—Indianapolis Colts lead by Mr. All-American quarterback Peyton Manning vs. the New Orleans Saints who will be hoisted on the shoulders of fast and furious running back Reggie Bush. First there is the debate over the commercial featuring Florida University's hunky quarterback Tim Tebow and his mom as they star in a Focus on the Family ad touting their pro-life sentiments. But apparently there is another ad sparking nervousness at CBS. The owners of gay male dating site called ManCrunch.com submitted their ad for approval on Jan. 18th and when they checked back a few days later they were told that all spots were sold out. Aw-shucks, right? But why did CBS then tell conservative news organization Fox News—of all places—that they are considering the ad yesterday (Jan. 28th)?

I can't wait to see how this all plays out on Super Bowl Sunday—and the game actually—but until then we have included the actually commercial in question. And if you are hot and bothered about football players or athletes in general; feel free to check out our selection that might help you blow off some steam.

I could write a verbose article about all of the antics and chaos that ensued in 2009, but that would just deter us all from watching the MASH-UP Video.

HAPPY HOMO NEW YEAR from HOMOPOP! Peace on Earth ya'll. Thank you to all of our loyal supporters for following us throughout the year. 2010 is already shaping up to be balls-out fabulous. Here's a sneak preview: Queer Idol (Dwayne and Al think they are on the show of American Idol with Adam Lambert), MORE of Matthew Montgomery and an exclusive interview with............... JANE LYNCH! And that's just in January.

Love ya. Mean it!

It's no lie that one of our favorite celebs is Lady Gaga. Say what you will about her crazy antics and outlandish costumes, the little Italian girl from NY has talent. She recently met the Queen of jolly ol' England (where our illustrious Cam Buckingham resides), has been nominated for a few Grammys® and MTV named her Woman of the Year. Hell, I am bestowing her Queen of Homopop for 2009 right now!

Ss you know, our new Queen (Madge will forever be the Queen of the Universe for us) is currently hitting the road on her Monster Ball Tour... As a side note, if you can get me a couple of tickets, I will hook you up with something from Homopop. But I digress. If you are lucky to to see her wild show; you might possible get to see the fantabulous emerging band Semi Precious Weapons. We got a sneak peak of with a free download and let me tell you, this gender-bending quartet kicks ass. It's like listening to the Scissor Sisters fused glam rock of Ziggy Stardust and toss in a little edge-rock like The Kills. All of this pretty much equal awesome in our book. Front man Justin Tranter is ruggedly glam, which doesn't seem possible to be rugged AND glam at the same time, but trust me he is. So why should you care about Semi Precious Weapons?

A.) They are fabulous homos.
B.) They are the first band under the Haus of Gaga label where Madame Gaga and Vince Herbert (who produced some amazing R&B artists including Lady Gaga, New Kids on the Block, Toni Braxton, Debra Cox and Babyface) are Executive Producers.
C.) Opening act on Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour worldwide through 2010
D.) Um, hello... we said so.

Lastly, because you have all being such wonderful followers, here's a little gift for you... FREE DOWNLOAD from SWP!!

Remember when GAY was the new BLACK? Well now, it's turquoise. Seems very gay to me. This soothing blue/greenish tint is the color of the year according to Pantone, LLC who is apparently the world authority on color and decides such things.

But this whole deciding the "color of the year" thing facinates me though. How does Pantone choose the lucky one is? (BTW last year it was mimosa yellow. Also resembling a whole-lotta-gay since we homos love to brunch on the weekend and love mimosas!) Anyway, why is the color of the Carribean ocean "in" for 2010? Heinz has been using turquoise as the color of their Baked Beans cans since 1901. And of course Andy Warhol used the color in his iconic pop art when he painted Turquoise Marilyn and Turquoise Liz. Incidently Hugh Grant (notice the bluish/green tint on a lot of the boxes here) owned Turquoise Liz and sold it a year or so ago for some nice chump change. You can certainly find this vibrant hue on various porn boxes too like one of our favorite titles is Trunks 3. Hell you can even buy a leotard in the 2010 color of the year.

In the realm of fashion though, this bold and beautiful shade will certainly pop. It has been said that women can wear the the color as is, but men should go with a pale tone or one that has more blue in it. I say whatever to that. Gay men can wear whatever shade they want to! Why just today when I was getting my haircut, a cute little fag boy was rockin' bright turquoise pants and put some of the same color in his hair too. And our favorite singer/songwriter Aiden James just posted a pic of himself this morning on facebook wearing a turquoise kitty with lazer eyes. (He is soooo cute!) So in celebration of the 2010 Color of the Year, we are changing our logo... just for this post.

When did the gay or lesbian subplot become cool on daytime TV? I remember being conflicted when I was a wee lad home sick from school and had to stay at my grandmother's house because she was the only one available to take care of me. On one hand I loved being out of school, but on the other hand I dreaded it because I knew I had to watch soaps after Bob Barker wrapped up the"Showcase Showdown" on the Price Is Right. As much as I fought it, I was out of luck. I either went upstairs and took a nap or I was forced to watch sappy hetero love on shows like "The Bold & The Beautiful", "The Young & the Restless" and of course "General Hospital".

Needless to say there was nothing that interesting to me. I thought the leading men where too over-the-top for me to really be attracted them. At some point in the last decade, more and more shows are having a gay or lesbian characters. One of the most memorable ones is in the early 90s when cutie-pie Ryan Phillipe's character came out on "On Live to Live". Clearly this was the impetus for all gay men everywhere to fall in love with this future hunk. All My Children seems to be the most progressive of daytime TV. In the mid 90's Michael Delaney told his students he was gay, which split the town in an uproar. Erica Kane (Susan Lucci who is like a drag queen anyway) has a lesbian daughter and AMC also introduced the first transgendered character.

Recently though "One Life to Live" has been leading the charge with blonde-hair, blue-eyed Officer Oliver Fish (Scott Evans) who is an way-out policeman (hot!) But let's not stop at that bit of news because the double whammy is that Evans is actually an out actor! I am tickled pink with all of this gayness. Honestly though I don't think anyone else could pull this off. Scott, has a very supportive family including being the brother of Hollywood hunk Chris Evans who starred in Fantastic Four and son of actress Lisa Evans (who plays his mother on OLTL.) He recognizes the importance of being true to his character because he knows that many of the LGBT viewers do not have supportive families like he does. In my opinion, there really isn't a better character in a leading man. Why couldn't all of this homosexual tendencies were happening when I was growing up? I am certainly delighted that the networks realize that there is more to life than a heterosexual world... at least in daytime TV that is.

Minds out of the gutter. I don't know what sparks it, but I can sometimes be a softy... and not THAT kind of softy please!

The holiday season is upon us and it's time to celebrate. If you are like me you will be traveling to spend time with your family over Thanksgiving. Sure you may have to listening to grandpa or your crazy uncle tell the same war story, roll mini meatballs for the soup, but you can drinking LOTS of cocktails. Even though some of you might think this is a torturous time of the year, please just remember that there are many people out there in the world.

I can't help but reflect back to the first time I met Mike (Subsequently is going to kill me for talking about this.) I was shooting a commercial for the mighty fine folks at the GLBT organization Delaware Valley Legacy Fund. Every year they put on an annual TOY drive. My producer basically cast all non-actors and I was thinking, "Oh great this is going to be a long day." But then this large cup of manliness walked in the house. I asked if anyone had any acting experience and thankfully Mr. Mike did. A couple of months later when the stud muffin showed up a party, I immediately thought he would be a prefect match for us... and he sure is!

So who cares right? If it wasn't for the generocity of everyone involved that day we never would have made the commercial for TOY!, which is an event that raises money and collects gifts for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. We generally don't like to talk about regional things, but I think this one's worth it; don't you? Sick kids in the hospital during the holiday season SUCKS. We all have to do our part this year to help those who needs it most. Hell, look at Paula Deen. She was helping pass ham hocks that were being loaded onto a truck heading to a food bank when someone tossed one too soon and it smacked Deen in the head. She laughed it off, but it just goes to show that even TV stars take one for the team.

TOY! is being held on Friday, December 4, 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM at the Marketplace Design Center (2400 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA.) Or just go online right here to buy advance tickets.

Be safe everyone and have a Happy Thanksgiving. I doubt we will be posting anything, but you never know when Keeneye Reeves pops up around here because he has a bad habit of working too much!

Ok I admit it, I am not a big reader. Never was and probably never will be. So many times I am in a gaggle of people and they all start talking about the latest novel they read. I usually discretely back out of the conversation and head to the bar or I stand there with glazed eyes—similar to what Paula Abdul looked like on American Idol.

So why the hell am I writing about books? Two reasons actually. First off, I'm weird that I don't read. But besides that, I grew up as a bi-product of TV—although I thoroughly enjoyed Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series that played in its entirity on the boob tube a few years back. Secondly, and way more importantly; the oldest LGBT bookstore Giovanni's Room (named after the classic gay novel by James Baldwin) is in dire need of our help. The building that has houses Giovanni's Room for over 30 years has structural damage. See Philadelphia ripped up Pine Street, which the oldest gay book store resides on, but in the process of fixing the street the building got damaged. Ed Hermance, owner of Giovanni's Room, cannot afford to shut down the business to get the building restored properly (it is a historic building too) and the business cannot have any loss of revenues either. If they do then this landmark establishment might have to close it's doors forever.

Locking the doors forever would be a travesty and one more nail in the coffin for the gay-written word. Earlier this year the previous title-holder for the oldes bookstore Oscar Wilde Bookstore closed up shop. But what is even more upsetting is that earlier this week it was announced that some gay publications such as the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, and David Atlanta are all washed up too. And are you ready for this... The Advocate, yes The Advocate printed it's last issue forever. That's right; you read the previous sentence correctly. The owners of The Advocate decided to fold the most pinnacle publication that has every been printed for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, queers and intesexed people is now being folded into Out Magazine. Apparently we like our fluff more than our prose, which is utterly ridiculous in my opinion.

So what does this all mean? It means that we are not reading enough folks! And I am so guilty of that, but I will tell you what I am going to do. I am going to support this fantastic fundraiser this Saturday Nov. 21st for Giovanni's Room! Our very own contributing editor Scott Cranin in association with the Lambda Literary Foundation has organized a fabulous read-a-thon where the two floors of this historic store will be filled to the brim with LGBT authors including: Steve Berman, S. Renee Bess, Perry Brass, Tim Brough, Victoria Brownworth, Rob Byrnes, David Carter, Mark Hardy, Ken Harvey, Bill Konigsberg, Livia Lllewellyn, Malinda Lo, Bobbi Marolt, Mark Merlis, Thom Nickles, Radclyffe, Paul Russell, Scott Sherman and Bob Smith. (Instead of me linking to every single author just go here or here to browse their work!)

We asked Scott a couple of questions about the event and here's what he had to say. READ MORE