Morning Meme: Gareth Thomas Is The Bravest, "Iron Man 2" Soars, Virginia Is For Prudes, and Evan Lysacek Apologizes

Talking bisexual vampires with Charlaine Harris, Dark Knight 3 gets a date, Secretary Gates oversteps, Gargamel stalks the East Village, and Heather makes me Glee-ful.

Bill Condon took to Facebook to try and win over the Twilight fans to the idea of him directing Breaking Dawn. I’m probably not going to be able to keep myself from mocking the entire Twilight phenomenon relentlessly now that we have a reason to cover it. And indeed, if one of his biggest justifications on why he’ll treat it right is that “a corner of my office is starting to look like Hot Topic” I think western civilization is doomed.

Alec Baldwin told the press at Nerd Prom (White House Correspondents Dinner) that he was going to host the season finale of Saturday Night Live. I’m trying to remember his other hosting gigs and I can’t, which is probably a bad sign.

Freddy’s back. Well, sort of. Nightmare on Elm Street did manage to come in first over the weekend at the box office with $32.2 million. The bad news is that the thriller took in less money on Saturday than it did on Friday, which means word of mouth must be awful.

Overseas, Iron Man 2 managed to dominate the box office with $100.2 million in ticket sales. Success varied wildly, with it hitting only 51% of what the first film did in the UK, but 179% of what the first film opened to in South Korea. Still, being #1 in 52 out of 53 markets it opened in is nothing to sneeze at.

EDGE takes a look at how being out has affected the careers of different actors including Neil Patrick Harris, Wilson Cruz, Gerald McCullouch and more. Most notably, it seems to provide a positive outlook for the future of Hollywood for four pages, then allows Julie Goldman of The Big Gay Sketch Show to contradict it all on the last page. Maybe she can go hang out with Rupert Everett?

Over at E!, The Answer Bitch talks about how “legal” it is for contracts to restrict an actor coming out, or doing anything “gay” in public. No one would go on the record as having seen such a contract, but everyone said such contracts existed. Unless I’m horribly mistaken, the article seems to have gotten noticeably shorter since the first time I read it.

I will warn you that this gallery of the 20 Dirtiest Muppet Photos probably qualifies as NSFW. That doesn’t make it less funny. I chose an entry point in the middle that isn’t bad.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is a little scary at times. He’s told universities that gays can’t be protected under nondiscrimination policies and fought his own governor on the subject. But the fact that he’s passing out lapel pins of the Virginia state seal that have been edited to not show Roman goddess Virtus' exposed breast may take the cake.

Scientists have figured out that pain in the body is caused by a substance we produce that’s almost identical to capsaicin (what makes peppers hot). Now they’ve figured out how to block that with a non addictive substance to replace ordinary painkillers. 

After having called Johnny Weir not talented enough for the Stars On Ice Tour, then getting called a “slore” by Johnny for it, Evan Lysacek seems to be backpedaling, saying Johnny “is an accomplished and talented skater."

A retired 74-year-old teacher has been fined €14,000 for repeated Arschbomben in a public swimming pool. For those who wonder precisely what that is, the translation is fairly literal, though we’d call it a cannonball.

In British Columbia, a judge has declared an attack on Jordan Smith nearly two years ago to have been a hate crime and sentenced the 22-year-old to 17 months in prison.

The Washington Times, which published a hate-filled, anti-gay editorial last week, is up for sale. The Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s church cut off the right-wing paper’s $35 million annual subsidy, and it's now so deep in the red it’s actively seeking a buyer.

In a profile of Charlaine Harris, the woman behind the Sookie Stackhouse books that became True Blood, the New York Times asks how a married woman with three children who lives in small-town Arkansas got so interested in bisexual vampires. Her answer is more common sense than one would think.

The third Dark Knight film is going to be released July 20, 2012, whether they finish a script or film the first frame.

Disney is going to try and turn the book Lemonade Mouth into the next High School Musical franchise, except with more ukuleles.

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates busted out a letter demanding Congress not repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell before they were done studying it for the 2,488,398 time, I was stunned. The last time I checked, that wasn’t his job. His job is to implement the President of the United States’ will, and President Obama has asked Congress to repeal it. Of course, if President Obama had meant that, he would be demanding Secretary Gate’s resignation instead of staying quiet.

We told you last week that Sports Illustrated had a massive interview with out rugby star and Welsh national hero Gareth Thomas. I know I'd personally wondered if SI was going to make it the cover story, and though they didn't, he is right up there at the top under "The World's Bravest Athlete." Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports that away games feature some hateful chants directed at the star player while they were kicking everyone tails.

I didn't think SI was going to use a cover for a sport we don't generally watch in the U.S.

We shared the Cagelle's performance (and Regis in drag) last week, but we just found this picture of all of the Cagelles with Regis pre-or-post-makeup.

They are all disturbingly handsome, but who's the tall one in back?

Somebody's sleepy.

On Friday in Briefs we showed you Neil Patrick Harris hopping out of a cab in the East Village as part of the filming for Smurfs. Now we can show you Hank Azaria in full Gargamel drag.

The red shoes pull the look together.

This is pretty close to pure joy.

From Twitter, I'm assuming this is the photo for the next single from Adam Lambert's album.

I've been in four grocery stores and can't confirm these are real, but I want some.

The Kentucky Derby was this past weekend, which meant mint juleps and big hats. Probably some horses were involved, too. A couple local men of discussion were in attendence.

Johnny Weir decided that the ladies weren't the only ones who could wear big hats.

Bravo's Andy Cohen and Dino Manzo make the scene.

I'm glad that season two of Glee is going to feature more Brittany and Santana, but mostly for Brittany. The deadpan way she delivers lines, from worrying about her cat reading her diary to this, really makes my day.

This clip has been described as Grand Theft Auto meets Google Maps, which is as good a description as any for what's going on here.

Anyone who saw our Twitter feed Saturday night knows I was watching the White House Correspondents Dinner (also known as "nerd prom"). Generally you take incredibly important politicians, put them in the room with incredibly important journalists who cover them, sprinkle with Hollywood celebrities, and then a comedian and the President of the United States each do a monologue mocking everyone in the room. This year it was Jay Leno vs. President Obama (last year Wanda Sykes was deemed to have cut too deep). Jay was a snoozefest, but President Obama had some zingers.

I think I had mentioned Piranha 3D before as something SyFy would make for a Saturday night, but with more money. The new trailer adds on to the beginning of what you've already seen to explain how you suddenly have piranha appear where piranha have never been before.