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Anderson Cooper used his Yale commencement speech to bolster his studliness. "The only thing about high school I remember is my senior prom," the CNN anchor said. "If what I remember is true, it is very possible that some of you are my children, especially you with the blue eyes and freakishly gray hair"
That wily Anderson, always craving the poonanny. Uh huh.
Given the sparkly bent of our genetic code, it goes without saying that we here at Malcontent are big fans of Kathy Griffin. Whenever a commercial airs promoting the upcoming June premiere of her Bravo show, My Life on the D-List, we're given to deep sighs and daydreams of one day earning an invitation to become one of her gays.
As a taste of things to come, everyone's favorite fagnet hits the boards with her latest stand-up special, Kathy Griffin: Strong Black Woman. In these highlights, Kathy dishes about her rapid pink-slipping from the E! Red Carpet Special, celebrity rehab, her feud with Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise's meltdown, who us gay folk lust after, Anderson Cooper, and the greatest things about Oprah.
Catching the entire show on Bravo is highly, highly recommended, if only for her total re-enactment of being locked out of a hotel room without any pants, and a backstage session with Celine Dion that includes autographs, photos, and light petting.
[Watch video – 11:57, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 11:57, WMV format, low bandwidth]
Returning both to his roots and the story that made him a household name, Anderson Cooper once again graced Oprah's Court this morning in a quasi-reunion with fellow Channel One alumn Lisa Ling. The pair followed up on the victims of Hurricane Katrina six months after the storm, finding people living in conditions little better than Third World refugee camps.
Here, Anderson has wisely decided on solid reporting that speaks for itself, rather than the unmuted hysteria and rumor-mongering of his original, error-filled Katrina freak outs - where unchecked emotionalism became the new objectivity in national media circles.
It's a depressing, poignant piece of cross-marketing (hey, folks may be homeless, but the boy does have a book to sell, people).
The second half of this clip is a bit of Malcovision schizophrenia. I was busy tapping away at work while recording, and I inadvertantly caught the intro to today's View. Look, it's a bunch of Chippendales dancers prancing around in Vegas. Enjoy the beefcake as a tonic for the soul destroying Katrina footage.
As Star Jones and the others tease producer Bill about his stripper credentials, I couldn't help but wonder if her questions might better be directed towards her nominally hetero hubby, Al "The Stallion" Reynolds.
Video clips deleted at demand of Jeffrey Friedman, attorney for Oprah Winfrey
And a Happy Valentine's Day to you too:
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[H/T: John] (UPDATE: I should have guessed that Gawker had this too.)
The Official Anchorman of Gay America dropped by Oprah yesterday, a program that in recent days has also seen Her Worshipfulness grant her imprimatur to rose-stemming cowboys and cross-dressers.
I got the sense that Anderson Cooper was there at least partly in an attempt to out-compassion Oprah herself. Even when she tried to steer the discussion to his personal life, he immediately spun things right back into funereal sobriety.
The result was a relatively staid affair that I had hoped to post in its entirety but instead have hacked down to the barest of essentials. Of at least mild interest was footage of an already-graying 23-year-old Cooper covering the Balkans War for Channel One.
I'm pretty immune to cults of personality, so I never quite understood Cooper's incredible following in the gay community. Maybe it is as simple as, "One of our own makes good."
I deeply admire his dedication to overlooked causes like the plight of the African continent and his Everyman anchor persona. But his leaden self-seriousness and carpet-bomb overexposure make it seem that Cooper is a man who is beginning to believe his own press.
What I was hoping for, if not a Coming-Out moment, was at least some of his trademark ruminations on nail-biting or the bath he is taking on his condo sale. But what I got instead was a hearty helping of "Anderson Cooper, Crusader."
Video clips deleted at demand of Jeffrey Friedman, attorney for Oprah Winfrey
Is he sad? Contemplative? Erotically preoccupied? CNN has chosen a strange promotional strategy for everyone's favorite wink-nudge gay anchor. What is Anderson doing?
Speaking of strange. Do you know what my blog partner immediately thought of upon seeing this?
Ambien + India = Odd Mal
In what must be one of the gayest moments in CNN history, Ryan Seacrest, subbing for Larry King, took another major step in putting the "out" in "Seacrest out."
He appeared to pitch some serious woo Anderson Cooper's way when Anderson came on to promo his 10 p.m. show. The two went practically ga-ga for each other. I'm surprised digits were not exchanged on the air.
But they did, however, talk about the long pink appendage dangling from Ryan, as well as "taking a pounding."
Cruising this serious is usually reserved for dimly lit parks, not television screens across America.
[Hello to readers of A Socialite's Life, Reality Blurred, Jossip, Gawker, Towleroad, Queerty, Dlisted, Hollywood Rag, Perez Hilton, Just Jared and Media Bistro. Bookmark or RSS us for plenty more videos, updated often!]
[Watch video – 1:02, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 1:02, WMV format, low bandwidth]
Outing - when is it ok? When there is a hypocrisy? Who defines the hypocrisy? Is the hypocrisy justification enough, or must there be an underlying purpose? To benefit the community? Who decides what does and does not benefit the community? What are the standards of violating privacy? Who is entitled to privacy?
For a long time within the gay community, an understanding existed, one intended to respect the privacy and personal lives of other homosexuals. Our bedrooms were intended to be a sanctuary, inviolate to the state and the people unless we chose to make it so. We advocated choice in sexual and personal disclosure.
Under the rubric of political partisanship, some in the gay community began chipping away at sexual privacy under the justification of political expediency masquerading under the catch-all "hypocrisy" explanation.
Now, the focus shifts to celebrities:
The Anderson Cooper cult of personality must end. [...]
CNN, looking to exploit the post-Katrina face of caring, personal, passionate, youthful, hip, modern and really good looking journalism, has now further marginalized Aaron Brown and nearly ruined Brown's show, "News-Night," by throwing Cooper into the mix.
Ummm, methinks what is ruining Aaron Brown's show is ... Aaron Brown, the boring, smug, bizarre prima donna of cable news.
And don't rag on our boy!
"Someone was staring at Anderson Cooper a little too closely when the CNN anchor was in Crawford, Texas last week -- and then they caught this on camera..." [from MediaBistro]
When I was on the long, slippery road to Gay Town but still grasping at any discernible straw of heterosexuality, I would pass the time on long plane flights by reading magazines like GQ, Details and Esquire. If the sight of boobies held greater than usual appeal, I would even slum it with a copy of FHM, Stuff or Maxim. And if I were feeling really daring, I might sneak aboard with an Entertainment Weekly or People, although I would fold the cover back on itself so that no one could easily spot my nelly love of celebs and gossip.
Now that I more fully embrace my gayness, I have made it a hobby of sorts to gently help escort the queer or questioning from the dark, unfriendly recesses of the closet. It is good for the cause, and the more heteros who know we walk in their midst, the better.
Which is why it is long past time for Details magazine to come out. I don’t just mean the next issue, I mean come out.
It is hardly novel to wink coyly about the true sexual predilections of Details. But what does seem new is that Details isn’t just stepping perilously close to the gay line anymore; it has sashayed, tap-danced and strutted its stuff so far beyond the line that the line is barely visible to it anymore.
