Michael Jensen's blog

Brendan and Brian Burke

In truly sad news, it was reported late Friday night that that twenty-one-year old Brendan Burke, son of Toronto Maple Leafs' general manager Brian Burke, was killed in a car accident in Indiana. According to a statement released by the team, Burke "succumbed to injuries he suffered in an auto accident earlier (Friday) in Indiana. The family asks for privacy at this difficult time."

Reports say the accident occurred in Wayne County, Indiana a black Jeep slid into the opposite land and hit another vehicle head on. Weather, including heavy snows, were cited as the cause. 

Brendan made headlines when his coming out story was made public last year on ESPN.

The UK website MailOnline.com is reporting that Torchwood star John Barrowman is going to appearing in several episodes of the ABC hit dramedy Desperate Housewives. AfterElton.com just confirmed with ABC that Barrowman will be on the show in a yet to be determined number of episodes. The network also said Barrowman's storyline will be part of the show's end of the season mystery and that his first appearance date has also not yet been determined.

The MailOnline article says DH creator Marc Cherry first became interested in Barrowman after seeing him on Torchwood, that Barrowman will be playing a villain and that he will fly to L.A. in March to film episodes to appear in May or June. Stay tuned for further details. 

Any guesses as to what John's storyline might be? 

On Thursday it was reported that CBS was considering an ad from gay dating site ManCrunch.com for possible broadcast during the upcoming Super Bowl.

Now ManCrunch.com is charging that the network is discriminating against them in regards to their ad which shows two men watching the Super Bowl, accidentally touching hands and then kissing passionately. Spokesperson Dominic Friesen tells AfterElton.com the network is not treating them fairly.

Says Friesen, "There are two parts to the whole situation. After nearly two weeks, CBS broadcasting standards, which reviews Super Bowl ad submissions, has yet to approve or reject our Super Bowl ad. This is clearly a stall tactic. And in turn, they've been lying to us all along and telling us there is no ad space available for sale. And, as of three hours ago, our CBS sales rep told us the exact same thing."

This conflicts with reports by Fox News who says a representative for Pop Tarts told them that CBS had ad spaces still available. AfterElton.com contacted CBS and was told there were still possibly a few units available and that other advertisers were interested. 

CBS declined to comment on Friesen's charges, nor would a CBS spokseperson explain how the ad approval process works. The network's only official response was that the ManCrunch.com ad was still being considered.  

Friesen says ManCrunch.com isn't buying that. "It's an abnormal time frame and clearly they are hoping it would go away, but it's not. We really wanted to run this ad during the Super Bowl. We didn't think it would be problem. It's not inflammatory. It's kind of come out of left field that we're being discriminated against so heavily by CBS. We honestly did not anticipate this."

ManCrunch.com is a website most people are not familiar with and only launched this month. Super Bowl ads are notoriously expensive, but when asked if the start-up dating site actually has the the money for the ad, Friesen is emphatic that they do and are serious. 

"The ballpark figure is about $3 million. We went through a pre-approval process [with CBS] to prove we can actually pay for the ad and then the review process for the ad itself."

More than one commenter has suggested the controversy is a public relations ploy to generate publicity for ManCrunch.com, but Friesen says that isn't the case.

"Our dating obviously site targets gay men.The reason we chose the Super Bowl is that it has an audience of 90 million. It's primarily a male driven audience. We did budget in our overall marketing campaign for a Super Bowl ad. It made good marketing sense to reach that many men at one time. It's the only advertising venue to reach that many men. For us, we're getting more bang for our buck."

Friesen added, "This whole chain of events is a blatant case of discrimination. It's anti-gay by CBS and I think it's very indicative of where we really are in America right now. It really represents a lot of change that needs to be done right here."

Friesen provided AfterElton.com with the contact information for the sales representative working with ManCrunch.com, but the sales rep never responded to a request for comment. 

The network has been under scrutiny from many in the gay community ever since the network announced that they were accepting an anti-abortion ad from the anti-gay group Focus on the Family. After questions were raised how airing such an ad didn't violate the network's own policy against running advocacy ads, CBS announced they had revised their policy and would now accept advocacy ads.

George Clooney

Who would have thought that Sandra Bullock would be a serious contender for an Oscar, like, ever? And who would have thought a low-key film like George Clooney's Up in the Air would get folks so excited about awards-y stuff? So many questions…

Yes, Liz Dahmen and John Polly are back with more Oscar-season discussions. Plus, they give you some fashion forecasting, a re-enactment of a scene (sort of) from Up in the Air, and some ruminations on the acting agility of Sandra Bullock.

And what are the best airport/airplane movies over? “Pardon me Stewardess, I speak jive…”

What's a Slayer if she can't kick a little vampire ass? What's better than a witch on a rampage? Nothing, that's what. Dara and Daniel go toe-to-toe on the best Buffy fight scenes ever.

Check back tomorrow for another Slayer School and watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer weeknights at 6/5 p.m. central on Logo.

Now that CBS has changed their minds on running advocacy ads, we all know that the network is going to run an ad from the anti-gay Focus on the Family. Now the question is whether or not they'll accept this commercial from gay dating site ManCrunch.com. The network currently has it under review although there are conflicting reports as to whether the network has sold out all the ad space already.

Either way, ManCrunch.com is certain to score a lot of publicity out of this. 

Dara and Daniel deconstruct love gone awry on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Angel and Buffy, Willow and Oz, Willow and Tara, Buffy and Spike — when isn't it a love disaster on Buffy?

Check back tomorrow for another Slayer School and watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer weeknights at 6/5 pm central on Logo.

In the first episode of a new vlog series about all things Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy expert Dara Nai and newbie Daniel Leary dissect Logo's picks for the "Best of Buffy." I know we already have a ton of Buffy fans on the site, but if you're new to the show, here is your perfect chance to get up to speed!

Check back next week for another Slayer School and watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer weeknights at 6/5 pm central on Logo.

When I interviewed Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore back in October of 2008 about the lack of gay visibility in science fiction programming, Moore was pretty frank with me, saying:

We’ve just failed at it. It’s not been something we’ve successfully done. At Star Trek we used to have all these stock answers for why we didn’t do it. The truth is it was not really a priority for any of us on the staff so it wasn’t really something that was strong on anybody’s radar.

I have to confess that when it comes to online activities/gimmicks used to promote new shows, I usually look the other way because A) I'm usually too busy and B) not impressed with the gimmick. But when Ed Kennedy sent me a photo showing what he would look like as a drag queen as created by the Dragulator, I was curious enough to check it out.

The Dragulator is from Logo (AfterElton.com's parent company) and promotes the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race which returns early next month. Not only was the Dragulator shockingly easy to use, it was actually quite fun and the end results were hilarious. Naturally, we cranked the whole staff through and here are the results.

I forgot to come up with a drag name even though I think I look pretty fabuous and by fabulous, I mean I look like a clown from hell. Any suggestions for a name? (Be nice!)