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Deep Inside Hollywood: Torchwood, Seacrest, Vito Russo

By Romeo San Vicente

The Cast of 'Torchwood.' Via BBC.

Torchwood touches down stateside

Don't panic, Torchwood fans: News of a possible American version of the series for Fox probably won't result in a shoddy, gutless, copycat disappointment. Instead, creator of the Doctor Who-inspired spinoff, Russell T. Davies, is on board for the pilot and he wants to import his cast to the U.S. as well. This is good news for diehard devotees, the cult audience who'll be the show's built-in numbers-getters. And it's even better news for Davies, whose idiosyncratic approach hasn't always translated well overseas when left to the Americans to interpret (compare Davies's witty U.K. Queer As Folk to its strident, soapy U.S. version). No word yet on which Brit cast members will cross the Atlantic or when we might see a finished product. How does "sometime in the not too distant future" grab you?

Ryan Seacrest goes Gaga for E! dance show

Because network television had not yet scheduled a dance-themed show into every time slot of every single day and night of the week, it was clearly necessary for Ryan Seacrest to help fill in those glaring dead spots and satisfy the global hunger for more and more dance routines by producing his own series. And produce he will, with his reality show for E! that's currently in development featuring Lady Gaga's choreographer, Laurie Ann Gibson. Gibson developed the dance moves for Gaga's "Paparazzi" and "Telephone" videos, and the show would focus on her and a group of choreographers and dancers as they navigate their careers in Hollywood. The pilot is untitled at the moment, so that will be a highly anticipated reveal. But let's talk about what's really important: When do we get a Paula Abdul appearance?

Celluloid Closet author's next movie move

Author and activist Vito Russo wrote The Celluloid Closet, a groundbreaking study of the depiction of homosexuality in film, but didn't live to see his work become a critically acclaimed documentary feature (he died of AIDS in 1990 at age 44). But now another documentary is in the works, this one focusing on Russo himself. Activist: The Times of Vito Russo, from prolific documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz (Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story) will examine Russo's life, work and impact on gay filmmakers and writers two decades later. Still in production, the doc will feature dozens of interview subjects, from those who knew the man personally to those who were simply challenged and changed by his writing, people like Armistead Maupin, Michael Musto, B. Ruby Rich, Larry Kramer and a list that takes up more space than an IMDB.com page can hold. Look for Activist in 2011 at film festivals and eventual cable TV airdates. In the meantime, if you're more than a casual film fan, do yourself a favor and read Celluloid Closet.

Tom Colicchio's bear Pride

Attention all bears: Top Chef host Tom Colicchio wants to be your friend. In fact, he's a little hurt that you didn't come courting him sooner. When recently asked by Bravo's Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens about what it was like for him to be a bear icon, the stocky, shaved-headed and heterosexual Colicchio jokingly responded that he was unhappy that no bear group had ever asked him to be on a gay Pride float. The response from bear groups was apparently so swift and enthusiastic that Colicchio is now booked to ride on a bear-themed float at Los Angeles's Pride parade in 2011. Out of towners upset that the parade isn't televised can content themselves with watching it on YouTube within minutes of the actual event. But did anyone explain to the celebrity chef that he'll be expected to bring enough food to feed every guy riding that flatbed truck with him? This could get complicated.

Romeo San Vicente knows exactly how important it is to feed the bears. He can be reached care of this publication or at DeepInsideHollywood@qsyndicate.com. His column appears weekly in OFC Extra!

HEALTHursday: Six sunburn solutions

By Dr. Rina Shinn

Dr. Rina Shinn

While it's quite common in today's society for people to responsibly apply sunscreen, the occasional sunburn does occur. Here are six sunburn solutions that can help heal your singed skin.

1. Before you lather on the lotion, cool the skin. Take a cool bath or shower and/or apply cold packs.

2. Apply aloe which has many benefits for sunburn: Aloe doesn't contain oils or other substances that can clog pores and irritate burns. It's also an antiseptic and antibiotic, and increases oxygenation of the skin.

3. Take aspirin or ibuprofen for pain relief.

4. Banish skin redness on days you spent a little too much time soaking up the sun. Conceal and heal the burn with gloRedness relief powder which contains soothing ingredients for red, irritated and rosacea-prone skin like caffeine, licorice and green tea extract.

5. Apply a hydrating spray to moisten, soothe and calm skin. glotherapeutics gloRefreshing Mist is a blend of antioxidants and anti-aging benefits in a mist that hydrates instantly. Spritz the skin before or after makeup application and to refresh the skin throughout the day. Use when skin feels dry, when exposed to dry climate conditions or when skin needs an instant burst of hydration.

6. As we all know, prevention is the best sunburn strategy. glotherapeutics gloProtecting SPF 30 is a broad spectrum UV protection in a light moisturizing base that can be comfortably worn by virtually all skin types. It has multiple functions, including hydration and sun protection in one product. For all skin types; well-suited for oily skin types and general preventative care. If the stickiness of thickly applied sunscreen is not to your liking, there is a newer class of powder based sunscreen, which has zinc oxide and titanium oxide as well as iron oxide ad titanium dioxide with an excellent broad spectrum coverage. The product Sunforgettable (by Colorescience) is endorsed by the American Cancer Society for its effective powder-based sun protection.

Dr. Rina Shinn is a board-certified General Surgeon and a Fellow of American College of Surgeons who has been in a general surgery practice since 1997. In 2008, Dr. Shinn decided to expand her expertise in laser aesthetic fields. Because of her extensive background in general surgery, Dr. Shinn has a thorough knowledge of facial and body anatomy and physiology. She is also well-versed in the specific medical and cosmetic issues facing the gay and lesbian community. Dr. Shinn has performed various "traditional" forms of cosmetic procedures, as well as new, innovative ones. She is credited with being the first surgeon to bring Body-Jet, an innovative water-assisted liposuction technique, to Colorado.

Dr. Shinn is currently the practicing Medical Director at Adonis Aesthetics in Pueblo, Colorado, where she is committed to helping her patients improve their lives. For more information, please visit www.adonisaesthetics.com.

Creep of the Week: National Organization for Marriage

By D'Anne Witkowski

If you've been hearing air raid sirens ever since July 8, they're likely coming from National Organization for Marriage HQ where everybody is freaking out about the Defense of Marriage Act being ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

"As irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest, this court must hold that Section 3 of DOMA as applied to Plaintiffs violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution," declared U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro.

Obviously, Tauro hates marriage and wants to ruin it for everybody, but the bigger issue for anti-gay marriage foes is the fact that the case was lost in the first place. After all, the case in favor of DOMA was argued by the Department of Justice. Yes, Obama's DOJ, which, not incidentally, includes Solicitor General Elena Kagan. You know, the Supreme Court nominee? Hoo boy, if you thought anti-gay conservatives opposed her before this ruling, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

This all means, of course, that the Obama administration intentionally lost the case in order to make everyone in the country get gay-married. Besides, everyone knows that Obama is only in office to serve the radical "homosexual agenda."

At least that's how the folks at the National Organization for Marriage see things.

"Under the guidance of Elena Kagan's brief that she filed when she was solicitor general, Obama's justice department deliberately sabotaged this case," shrieked NOM President Brian Brown.

That's right: sabotage. Why, Kagan might as well be a Russian spy. And how did she sabotage it? By including in the DOJ briefs that "this Administration does not support DOMA as a matter of policy, believes that it is discriminatory and supports its repeal." Oh, snap!

The way NOM sees it, poor little DOMA was all alone with nobody to protect it.

"Only an incompetent defense could have lost this case," said NOM's Maggie Gallagher.

"With only Obama to defend DOMA, this federal judge has taken the extraordinary step of overturning a law passed by huge bipartisan majorities and signed into law by Pres. Clinton in 1996," Brown lamented. "A single federal judge in Boston has no moral right to decide the definition of marriage for the people of the United States."

Last time I checked, law wasn't based on Brown's definition of morality, but hey, I'm not a legal scholar. Also, quit acting like Bill Clinton is your BFF.

And need I mention that 1996 was 14 years ago? That's ages in the fight for lesbian and gay rights. We've come a long way, baby. Fewer and fewer people hate gays because they recognize that gay folks are human beings. Which means it's harder for groups like NOM to make convincing arguments that homos are coming after marriage on a search-and-destroy mission.

In fact, it appears to be the other way around. "Does this federal judge want to start another culture war?" threatened Gallagher. "Does he really want another Roe. v. Wade?"

She's right, of course. The whole "gay marriage" thing hasn't ever been a controversial issue until this ruling. Besides, as Gallagher helpfully points out, judges should make rulings solely to pacify right-wingers who want the right to dictate the personal lives of others in the name of Jesus.

Gallagher vowed that NOM will prevail in higher courts. We'll see. One thing is for certain: this fight isn't even close to over.

D'Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She's a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she's not taking on the creeps of the world she reviews rock 'n' roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister. Her column appears weekly in OFC Extra!

Book Marks: Missouri, Do Not Disturb

By Richard Labonte

Missouri, by Christine Wunnicke, translated by David Miller. Arsenal Pulp Press, 134 pages, $12.95 paper.

In a literary landscape littered with daunting doorstops, it's a tonic to come across a short novel - a novella, really - that packs an expansive story into just a few poetic pages. Wunnicke's atmospheric account of improbable romance was published to acclaim in Germany in 2006; Miller's translation, though occasionally rhythmically clumsy, captures the quirkily flat but compelling affect of a foreigner writing about a place and a time more wholly imagined than deeply researched - though there's a squirming authenticity to the writer's description of head lice plaguing two men as they warily confront mutual lust. Douglas Fortescue is a vaunted British poet and aesthete forced to flee to mid-1800s America with his brother after an Oscar Wildean scandal; orphaned Joshua Jenkyns is a wild-lad outlaw terrorizing the Midwest while carrying in his saddlebags Fortescue's collections of poetry - enigmatic words that speak to the boy's unarticulated sexual longings. Wunnicke's depiction of their doomed love, beautifully bleak and emotionally astute, is a most uncommon gay romance.

Featured Excerpt

Joshua wanted many things and everything at once. He wanted to hold Douglas and he wanted Douglas to hold him. He wanted to close his eyes yet didn't want to be blind. He wanted to stand and fall, fight and surrender, he wanted the terror, the delight, the pain he had already sampled, and the ecstasy he had hitherto only glimpsed, he wanted all of this immediately and yet he wanted it to last for minutes, hours, until the end of the world - the desires of Joshua Jenkyns were mightily confused...


Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, by Bill Clegg. Little, Brown, 222 pages, $23.99 hardcover.

The moral redemption at the core of Clegg's relentless memoir about hapless addiction is likely as psychically searing for the reader as it was for the writer. This is a book of self-flagellating intensity and palpable paranoia, exhausting to embrace but impossible to put down. Clegg, young and handsome and in love and at the top of the literary management game in Manhattan, was everyone's ideal - until he encountered crack, at first an occasional high, soon a monster sucking away the essence of his life. The author ignored phone calls from long-suffering lover Noah, holed up in swanky hotel rooms for weeks-long binges, and eventually hit bottom, reduced to walking city streets in filthy clothes, shunned at hotel registration desks. Clegg braids his story of a heart-wrenching downward spiral with flashbacks to his college days and his family traumas, hinting that both nature and nurture contributed to his addictive persona - but at the same time taking full responsibility for his failings. The harsh truth contained in this book is both hellish and illuminating.

Do Not Disturb, by Carsen Taite. Bold Strokes Books, 236 pages, $16.95 paper.

Ainsley Faraday is on the executive fast track, a rising star at the Steel Hotel chain, assigned to bring a new property in Santa Fe up to snuff. Greer Davis is a hard-partying pop star who flees notoriety - disguised with a fiery red wig - when a clean-cut country songstress is found dead of an overdose on her bathroom floor. A first-class flight from Chicago brings the opposites together, and the sexual attraction is vivid and immediate. There are complications: Ainsley is taking over a faded hotel owned until recently by the family that raised Greer and now managed by her cousin Drew; Greer is concerned that Ainsley will recognize her despite her disguise; and Ainsley's not really smitten by redheads anyway. But love will find a way, despite Drew's antipathy toward the takeover and Greer's spoiled-star personality. Taite's tale of sexual tension is entertaining in itself, but a number of secondary characters - including Ainsley's mendacious sister, Drew's wise father with stubborn cancer and Greer's flitty best friend Ethan - add substantial color to romantic inevitability.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan. Dutton, 310 pages, $17.99 hardcover.

One Will is straight, his best friend is gay - which is often an embarrassment - and he just can't get along with an acerbic girl who hangs with them. The other Will is gay, and - except for an exquisitely intense online romance - is mostly a sullen, sarcastic loner. High school students living in Chicago suburbs distant from each other, they're fated to meet one evening at a midtown porn shop. What connects them? That would be flamboyant Tiny Cooper, first Will's queer pal, out and proud, at once a musical show queen and a hulking football player. In this young adult novel's alternating chapters, co-authors Levithan (gay Will) and Green (straight Will) capture with rollicking prose the angst of teen yearning. And the anguish: gay Will's online fellow was fabricated by a female friend, a discovery that shatters the boy, until, that night in Chicago, he encounters a compassionate Tiny. Though cheerfully hyperbolic, this jaunty novel delivers simple truths about love and friendship. And, in the last chapter, fabulous singing and dancing.

Richard Labonte has been reading, editing, selling, and writing about queer literature since the mid-'70s. He can be reached in care of this publication or at BookMarks@qsyndicate.com.

Queeries: Sex as a guest, snooping girlfriends, separation strategy

By Steven Petrow

Q: My boyfriend "Alexander" and I are going to be visiting some close friends at their summer house next weekend. He really likes the idea of getting hot and heavy while we're there; I think it's rude to have sex at someone's house when you're a guest. What do you think?

A: Although some think it's disrespectful to one's hosts to have a private pleasure-fest in your room, I think it's fine as long as you're able to keep it completely secret. No moaning, no screaming, no running through the house naked. Lock the door, and use a towel to avoid stains or other tell-tale signs. If you bring toys, make sure you pack them up on departure. And definitely don't mention it at breakfast, even in the most general or cute way - although your hosts may pick something up from the looks on your faces.

I do suggest, however, that you save your more complicated rites and rituals for the privacy of your own home, or for a hotel.

Q: My partner and I have been living together for a couple of months now and I suddenly realized that she's going through my personal papers and reading my email. I actually don't have anything to hide, but I feel like she's invading my privacy and don't like that one bit. When I called her on this behavior, she said, "That's what lesbian couples do." Is it?

A: No, lesbian couples don't do that. Nor do couples of other kinds - if they want their relationship to last. And you're quite right that it's irrelevant whether or not you have anything to hide. There is a fine, but important, distinction between "looking" and "snooping." It's just looking when there's a bank statement or personal letter on the table or a racy photo on the wall, but it becomes snooping when you take some action, like opening the letter, looking through papers, opening a photo album or visiting an online account.

To start, I suggest changing your password, getting a file cabinet that locks and telling your partner that her prying is not acceptable to you. The larger issue here may be one of trust, however; she doesn't seem to trust you, but is also apparently not trustworthy herself. But I'm only a manners expert, not a therapist, so I'll stop here.

Q: Jane and I were together for more than 10 years and after lots of couples counseling and a trial separation, we've decided to call it quits. How do we tell our friends, some of whom know of our difficulties and some who, blissfully, don't? Is a mass email okay for this?

A: No, email is not a good medium for this. While spamming your friends is useful when you're hosting a yard sale or declaring your support for a political candidate, news about your breakup is a bad use of the technology because the communication is too impersonal and too likely to be reforwarded. Also, as much as you may think you're sending an entirely unemotional announcement, sometimes hurt feelings or resentments creep into these things. I've known a friend or two who have taken this route and come to regret what they wrote.

Sure, email is efficient and egalitarian and would save you the heartbreak of having to tell and retell your story of woe, but you're better off speaking directly to close friends and family about what has happened. Of course, word will get around soon enough on its own.

Later on in this process, when you've both really begun to move on, go ahead and send a mass email letting friends know of a new address, email or phone number - along with anything personal, such as perhaps that things are now going well for you. That note just shouldn't be the first they're hearing of your separation.

Q: I was in such a state of shock after my husband died that I had no idea his brother and sister were preparing an obit. It was bad enough that they didn't show it to me, but to make matters worse they didn't even include me as a survivor. What should I do now?

A: Until you lose someone close to you, it's hard to see the importance of obituaries; the truth is that they carry a great deal of symbolism, so I can understand why you're upset. Take aside the former in-law you are closest to and explain your feelings with as little rancor as you can. You could say, for instance: "After spending ten years as your brother's husband and best friend, I can't tell you how hurt I was not to be mentioned as his survivor." In the meantime, prepare your own notice and pay for its placement. Or, if too much time has gone by, consider placing an "In Memoriam" notice on the anniversary of your partner's death, on his birthday or on the date of your wedding anniversary.

Steven Petrow can be found online at www.gayandlesbianmanners.com. He's the author of "The Essential Guide to Gay Manners & Etiquette" and blogs regularly on Huffington Post. His manners column appears monthly on OFC Extra!