Sword Says

Mario Testino photographed Ashton Kutcher for the Spring/Summer cover of V MAN Magazine as part of a spread curiously entitled “I’M NOT REAL.” Is it just us, or is that Ashton’s symmetrically optimized bulge talking? We know that Calvin Klein hasn’t started to make padded, shape-enhancing briefs for men, but since this sci-fi scene takes place in a fashion world overrun by Photoshop and special effects makeup, we’re wondering if the bulge that has blogs abuzz might be the result of a snugly-placed set prop. 

In a move reminiscent of daytime soaps, the prime-time WB drama Gossip Girl is spreading rumors that one of its teenage male characters is going to come out as gay in an upcoming episode.  By golly, which one of these prim, pouty, semi-effeminate butt pirates could it possibly be?  Commenters on AfterElton.com (a crew we fear is about hair’s breadth from becoming cat-collecting shut-ins who listen to Derek & Romaine while they drink Razzmatazz and write stalky emails to Hugh Jackman) concur that it’s probably Erik van der Woodsen, Serena’s suicidal younger brother.

Ryan Seacrest tops Details Magazine’s “Mavericks List” in the April 2008 issue. According to a press release (since we haven’t read Details since the 80s), the Mavericks List showcases “22 big thinkers shaping your life,” and includes names such as Diablo Cody, DJ Mark Ronson, and the creator of Guitar Hero, prompting us to wonder who the magazine’s target audience is and why we’re supposed to be impressed by these people and, as the article begs, by Seacrest because “[although] he wasn’t the first person to think of doing a show with the Kardashians… he was able to sign them.”

Wait a minute! We thought “Beef Dip” already happened this year! It turns out that while Hugh “Jacked Up” Jackman and friends are in Sydney, Australia shooting the new film in the X-Men franchise, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they’ve been hitting the beach (and the gym) in their downtime. First we noticed these head-turning photos of ripped hunk Hugh Jackman frolicking with his son on the beach, and now we see that co-stars Liev Schreiber and Simon Baker hit up Bondi Beach right after him like complete copycats, sporting less fur than the leading man but still looking like genuine bears for the role. Liev’s beard and love handles are especially Lazy Bear Weekend-ready.

The New York Times published a lengthy editorial in its Sports section yesterday about the Mean Girls-style rivalry brewing between U.S. men’s figure skating champions Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek. “One skates with precision and adrenalized power, wants figure skating in the X Games and wears several days of stubble during competitions,” the piece reads of heterosexual Lysacek. “The other adores skating’s operatic performances, is asked if his eyelashes are real and announces that they are.” The feud has evidently grown to become a debate about the merits of masculinity over sensitivity, and ultimately, straight versus gay.

Skating announcer Mark Lund, who’s openly gay, even went so far as to broadcast his preference for the former. “I don’t think he’s representative of the community I want to be a part of,” he mused of Weir during a broadcast, evidently forgetting that he himself is a figure skating announcer. “I don’t need to see a prima ballerina on the ice,” and then issued praise for Lysacek’s masculinity.

While it would seem that there’s room enough in the rink for both competitors, we have a feeling this is all going to end in a Showgirls-style shove down a staircase and a trail of glitter-stained tears. Go Team Weir!

R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe comes clean about his crystal clear gayness in this month’s SPIN Magazine, telling the music rag “Now I recognize that to have public figures be very open about their sexuality helps some kid somewhere out there.”
 
It’s like Stipe’s closet door must keep slamming shut each time he opens it. He was willing to tell the obscure American publication Time Magazine in 2001 that he was a “queer artist” who at that point had been “in a relationship with an amazing man” for three years. Three years later, following an interview in BUTT Magazine, Stipe talked about the value of the pink dollar and the terrific sex he’d had with men (and women) with totally-not-gay-magazine Instinct.

Of course, his stalkers will tell you that he’s been preaching the gospel of fluid sexuality for ages. “I’ve always felt that sexuality is a really slippery thing,” Stipe once mused, “In this day and age, it tends to get categorized and labeled, and I think labels are for food. Canned food.” Almost-out-of-the-closet-fans are fond of quoting his “I’m not homosexual, I’m not heterosexual, I’m just sexual” admission from even earlier back.

Try as the non-homo might, we suspect he’ll have to come out some more before we believe that a butch fella like him could have buttsex. We’ll break the news again next year.

If your relationship is on shaky ground, maybe introducing Erik Rhodes into the romance as a third party might not be the best idea. Considering his violent mood swings, outspoken self-loathing, and tendency to relapse, the purported bickering between Marc Jacobs and former rentboy Jason Preston might not be healed with a heaping, bulging dose of one of Falcon’s hottest messes. This hasn’t prevented them, however, from sleeping with him. According to Gawker, Preston was seen out on the arm of our bipolar hulk icon at a gay lounge event last night, while the New York Post reported trouble in paradise for Preston and Jacobs while on their trip to Turks and Caicos (they returned to New York in separate jets!). 

With so many queens running around the set of Gus Van Sant’s Milk biopic about slain gay political leader Harvey Milk, one of them was bound to betray the director’s trust and leak details from the shoot in an act of desperate self-promotion. Enter Mark Martinez, aka “Flava”, stage left. Martinez, sporting a half-hard boner from her run-in with the film’s star, Sean Penn, breathlessly gushed to E!’s Planet Gossip about a scene in which he and the actor swap spit. In the film portraying legendary cross-dressing disco singer Sylvester, Martinez is prominently featured in a scene in the film based on one of Harvey’s birthday parties.

Tom Judson-the retired gay porn star formerly known as Gus Mattox-has picked perhaps the worst time in history to jump on the house-flipping bandwagon. But The New York Times, who profiles Tom in today’s Home & Garden section, seems a bit more preoccupied with his former “career in entertainment” than with his dubious career move.  We jest! (Gus Mattox was crowned “Performer of the Year” at the 2006 GayVNs, but he’s performer of the century in our hearts!)

By now we’ve all learned that much like spandex, high-waisted denim, and black lipstick, Photoshop is a privilege-not a right. Intended for the occasional editorial brush-up and perfect for getting rid of red-eye, dark circles, or God forbid acne, Photoshop is routinely toyed with by amateurs and misappropriated for evil. Some of these instances, such as Mariah Carey’s Beyoncified album art for her Emancipation of Mimi LP, are forgivable. Despite obvious tweaking of her body and skin tone,

Flagship chronicle of all things crucial and totally true, In Touch Weekly, reports in its issue hitting newsstands today that our favorite gay-vague TV persona-okay, our second favorite-Ryan Seacrest is dating fellow E!-tard Holly Huddleston of reality program Sunset Tan (more well-known as one half of the show’s “Olly Girls”). While this reportage wreaks of convenience and is rife with PR orchestration, we can’t help but wonder: what if Ryan Seacrest really is an actual straight man? Not only does this news come out of the clear blue marketing offices of E! Entertainment Television, slapping us in the face like a big pair of boobs, but also conveniently, there are other recent developments that point to his straighthood as well. For example, when asked point blank by Perez Hilton whether or not he’s a ‘mo on his radio program, Ryan denied the gay rumor and claimed he’d recently been with a woman for twelve entire hours. Not only this, but In Touch also spoke to Ryan’s ex-girlfriend who confirmed that he is, indeed, straight.

-Apparently, she means South Beach. Three and a half years after tying the knot with broker Al Reynolds in a largely criticized New York charade rife with product placement, it seems the former View co-host is facing the ironic fact that no one’s buying into her fake marriage and it’s futile for her to keep pretending. Capping off a year of abject career failure for Jones-Reynolds (her talk show on Court TV was canceled after five months) the move may signify that she’s ready to cut her losses and start over from scratch. Hounded by rumors of Al’s gay lifestyle and their relationship as a beard marriage from the get-go, we’re curious as to what set Star over the edge. There were the times Al dressed up as a male stripper for Halloween in a white speedo and a bathrobe, and “as Bam Bam from the Flintstones” in an outing to Fire Island; those freqent “business trips” out of town and late nights out at “Lotus” with his guy pals; and the infamous time his neighbors were woken up by one of Al’s tricks at 4am who rang the wrong buzzer, which each sounded like a good reason for Star to get her lawyer on the phone at the time.