When one hears the phrase "coming out" nowadays, typically an image of a flambouyant teen pops into mind, but that certainly isn't always the case. Take for instance the story of Loranine Barr, from Laguna Woods in Florida, who's essay entitled, ""My Turn", is printed in the September 3 issue of Newsweek.

Loraine was partnered with Mary Frances Piercey for 44 years. They came close to coming out once but the topic changed course over dinner with friends one night and they never got the courage to bring it back. The two grew up in an era when things like this "weren't discussed" which was partially why the couple felt compelled to keep up the separate bedrooms illusion to keep from raising suspicions. Mary died in 1998 of liver cancer and Loraine hasn't been in a relationship since. She says her "heart always will belong to Mary Frances Piercey."

The story is touching - if not a little sad - including when an 81 year old man, from Salt Lake City, called Loraine after reading the essay and said, "It brought tears to my eyes, and I congratulate you."

I guess it is never too late to be honest about yourself and come out. Too bad some politicians can't figure this out before their "wide stance" gets them into hot water.

Fall seems to be the time when everyone wants to compile lists. Everywhere I turn I see another party compiling the "Best of..." list. My favorite is the list compiled by the Shepherd Express. Some of my usual stomping grounds can be found there such as Beans & Barley, the Oriental Theatre, and Harry W. Schwartz Bookstore.

But, I'm always surprised by some of the winners. Especially some of the winners from the Shepherd. Boston Store won best Female Clothing store!?! Are you for real? Boston Store! Of all the options for women's clothing and a big box store wins?!?! What about Ma Jolie, Fred, Fashion Ninja, or Lela? I wish I had as many choices when it came to quality men's clothing....

Anyways, back to my topic. So, WISN Channel 12 is also compiling their "Best of" list which they are calling the A-List. I can only imagine who some of the winners will be. My predictions are it will go something like this:
Best Restaurant: TGI Friday's
Best Mexican: Spicy Chicken Snackwrap from McDonald's
Best Men's Clothing Store: Wal-Mart
Best Watering Hole: Orange Julius
Best "Alternative Lifestyle" Establishment: Milwaukee Art Museum

With all the list compiling going on I thought I'd just do one of my own. Feel free to add some of your additions.

Best Place to Get Pulled Over for "Driving While Black": Glendale
Best Place to Get Robbed: A Bayview establishment on KK / Booth & Center on the first nice days of summer [Tie]
Best Place to Get A Loogie in Your Sandwich: Judy's Red Hots on Holton
Best Place to Get Gay Bashed: Axel's on Oakland
Best Business to Be Ignored by the Sales Staff: BBC Lighting

PSA's - or Public Service Announcements - for those of you that are acronym-challenged have been popping up all over this week. Two new campaigns are bringing attention to the LGBT (that's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community. Tylenol PM has partnered with the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center and the Ali Forney Center in NYC to make some noise about homeless queer youth. Tylenol PM has made a donation to both organizations and a portion of sales from Tylenol PM will go back to the significant work that each organization is doing on opposite ends of the country. One of my first ever gay role models is featured in the ad - Wilson Cruz. Cruz played Rickie on MTV's My So Called Life who was a homeless gay high school student. I remember running as fast as I could from school everyday to make it home before the show started. After seeing the show I realized there was hope for me. Now, let's hope that parents realize it is never acceptable to kick out your child simply because they are not heterosexual or defy your notions of gender. If you can't support these two organizations - or an alternative org in your area - make sure to pick up Tylenol PM for your next sleepless night.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has teamed up with celebrities to launch their "Be An Ally & A Friend." PSA Campaign. The campaign features such stars as Ugly Betty's sexy Eric Mabius, former boyband -now Broadway - Lance Bass, West Hollywood diva Wilson Cruz, Jerry O'Connell, Six Feet Under's entertaining - yet slightly crazy - Rachel Griffiths, newly out T. R. Knight, and lesbian tennis star Martina Navratilova amongst a slew of others. A new video will be released every two weeks starring a new batch of homo-friendly celebs.

Here's to PSA's - the new tool for world peace? Or at least the cure for good ole homophobia...

The uber hottie Jake Gyllenhaal took some time away from the Toronto International Film Festival to catch some of the US Open with "long-time friend" Chris Fischer (if you know your gay code: that translates to boyfriend).

(image source)

A few weeks ago I got wind that a "famous celebrity" was going to be outed. Internet gossip was pointing the finger at Jake Gyllenhaal (duh!). Nothing new came forward but The Sydney Morning Herald ran an article on September 4 that alluded to Jake's impending coming out. Also featured in the article were Spice Girl Mel B - and her string of same-sex threesomes - Dannii Minogue's infatuation with a London stripper's breasts; and Wentworth Miller and his budding homosexual relationship with gay Canadian actor - Luke MacFarlane. It was quite the eventful article and if we can get Wentworth or Jake to come out I'll be elated!

Chris is everywhere with Jake - from LA to NYC in Europe in Cape Cod. Check out some of these snapshots of them.... Together in LA. Running a marathon in Martha's Vineyard. Shopping in NYC. Sorry ladies, I do believe that Jake plays for our team....

BRTNEY SPEARS’ 2007 VMA PERFORMANCE: Poor Britney Spears. Her devoted fans were hoping she’d have an amazing performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards on September 9th but instead they got a big belly flop. She looks terribly uncomfortable and doesn’t move. Gazing into my crystal ball all signs point to “Murky Future.”

LOLLIPOP: One of Mika’s hits from his recent album, Lollipop, gets a little help from some college guys with A.) too much time on their hands, B.) a new video camera, or C.) latent homosexuality needing to be expressed. (Thanks to Justin for sending me this one!)

PARIS IN JAIL: The folks over at OMovies.com created this funny video of Paris Hilton in jail – dubbed to the tune of Paris’ Stars Are Blind. The song was directed by Allan Murray & Sean Haine.

HOMECOMING QUEENS GOT A GUN: This music video got a recent resurrection from the 80’s closet. Julie Brown should seriously be a lot more famous than she is. Who’s Johnny? Answer me Debbie. Who’s Johnny? It’s priceless…(Props to Justin for this heads up 2!)

CRUISING CODE: Is he tapping his foot because he's anxious or is my stall neighbor looking for a quickie? It's tough to read between the lines nowadays. Our friends over at Gawker have given us a little help. Now you can cruise guys without all that messing confusion.....

TOM FORD'S "VAGINAL" COLOGNE?: Tom Ford has a new cologne on the market with a troubling ad campaign. The ads show the cologne precisely placed in front of a sweaty model's hairless vagina. What exactly does this cologne smell like? Sweaty supermodel vagina? Yum.

GAY REPUBLICAN SCANDALS: It sure has been a tough year for self loathing closet case Republicans. How many Republican politicians can you fit in the closet? ALL OF THEM! Ted Haggard, Mark Foley amongst others are featured in the Top 5 Republican Gay Sex Scandals (in the past 12 months!).

MARC JACOBS' BOYTOY ROCKS DEAD MOUSE BROOCH: Jason Preston - who is Marc' new on-again, off-again boy toy - took to the streets of NYC wearing a hideous dead mouse brooch. Apparently it was a gift from Courtney Love. Nuf said....

HIV RATES ON THE RISE FOR GAY NYC MEN: A recent study has shown an very alarming trend in HIV rates for young gay and bisexual men in NYC. The reports shows that "over the past six years, the total number of new HIV diagnoses among gay men under 30 has risen 33%." The report shows that gay/bisexual men over 30 showed a decrease in HIV rates by 22.2%. The greatest burden continues to be on young Black and Hispanic men who continue to test at higher rates for HIV.

AMERICAN EAGLE SUPPORTING HOMOPHOBIC ADS?: A new ad campaign by American Eagle, It's a Mall World, has caught the ire of many LGBT activists. The ads - which can be seen on the AE website and shown during MTV's The Real World: Sydney - feature a "stereotypical gay man" in a recent episode. Check out the video and decide for yourself. Some say it's shameful and others say it is no different than Perez Hilton or William Sledd (who both got shows for their apparent gay personalities).

The Advocate - the nation's largest LGBT news magazine - ran a piece in their September 25th issue entitled, "Out With the Mayors." The story centers around University of Toronto business professor Richard Florida's best-selling book The Rise of the Creative Class where he argues that a large gay presence helps a city's economic performance. Five mayors were asked: "Why should young gay professionals move to your city?"

Milwaukee's very own, Mayor Tom Barrett, along with the mayor's from Dallas, Kansas City, MO, Newark, and Portland, OR all answered the question.

Milwaukee's LGBT community should be pretty depressed by the TERRIBLE answer that Mayor Barrett gave. Notice how he doesn't even mention the word "gay" or even the acronym "LGBT". What's up with that Mayor Barrett???

Mayor Mark Funkhouser (Kansas City, MO) probably gave the best answer and he even used a clever reference to The Wizard of Oz. Mayor Tom Leppert of Dallas gave an almost equally bad answer to Barrett's but he at least mentioned GLBT. Leppert beat the openly gay candidate, Ed Oakley, in June 2007 in what supporters hoped would become the largest city with an openly gay mayor in the US.

Mayor Barrett certainly needs to work on catering to Milwaukee's thriving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Let's ask him to begin by saying the right words.

It's been 28 hours since I arrived in New York City and still no sign of Jake Gyllenhaal. So far I've almost fallen into a basement; narrowly missed being struck down by a car; and scarcely averted drenching my shoes in a puddle all due to my incessant staring at every "potential" Jake passerby! And still no sign of my future ex-boyfriend.

Jakey-Poo was in NYC last week - where could he be hiding? The lovely SoHo apartment that I've been staying at is allegedly in his neighborhood but try as I might to scream his name up and down the sidewalk he's nowhere in sight.

I tried finding him at Mr. Black last night but to my surprise the police shut it down! (A police raid a few weeks ago rounded up 17 employees and 15 patrons!) Strolling down Houston Street I peeked into Moss to no avail. My morning Jake Watch Walk was rendered short because of the rain so I scurried down the street to the Film Forum to catch "Forever". I figured that 1. Jake does movies; 2. Jake probably likes watching movies plus it's raining outside = Jake is probably going to see the movie too!

Turns out I guess he doesn't like movies that much because he wasn't there. The movie was worth it though....

After pulling myself together from the emotional film about Père Lachaise cemetery, I strolled down Broadway hoping my luck had turned around. While I found fantastic shopping I struck out on finding the Gyllenaator. I thought perhaps he might be shopping at Uniqlo so I combed through racks and racks of clothes hoping I'd find him hiding between the sweaters and underwear but he was a really good hider. I bought some clothes to cheer me up and get me back in the mood to continue my search....

Armani Exchange - more commonly referred to as A/X - has launched a new underwear ad campaign utilizing the many "talents" of hottie model Clint Mauro.

As I was strolling down Houston Street in NYC last week I couldn't help but lose my breathe staring at the collosal banners hanging on this building. Unfortantely I'll never see ads like this in Milwaukee...

Clint hails from Indiana. I guess it's true that corn-fed country boys are the hottest! Clint is 21 years old (of course!), an Aries, and stands at 6'2". When asked about his favorite things he answered: "I love sandwiches, watching movies, going to the grocery store and the ladies." Sure.

For your added enjoyment I'm posting two videos featuring Clint. Enjoy!