Lyle Masaki's blog

While the 4th of July weekend is normally not a time for gathering in front of the TV (unless there's a real need to get away from the heat) it does offer Thom Bierdz's big return to Genoa City on The Young and the Restless as well as the debut of Margaret Cho's new concert film Beautiful.

And for you Next Food Network Star fans, this weekend offers a double dip thanks to The Rachael Ray Show.

How did you first hear about Simon Rex? Did you know about him as an MTV host or did you first hear about him when his "adult movie" past was discovered?

He's revisiting that first moment of notoriety with Rex, a comedy pilot that sees his adult video as a publicity stunt to make him famous, the work of a "controversy consultant" who helps engineer tabloid scandals.

With his career sluggish once more, Simon returns to his controversy consultant, Jeffrey. The plan to get his career back on track leads to Simon to have dinner with Lance Bass and clumsily trying to hit on him, saying "I just became gay yesterday."

You can find instructions on how to watch the pilot online by visiting the Rex Facebook page (warning the video contains plenty of NSFW language). Read further to discuss the pilot including my thoughts.

While Kyle has been getting plenty of screen time, lately, it's been a while since we've seen Fish. That changes today, as One Life to Live delivers another Kish prelude. And we'll be following the action with our first OLTL liveblog, so be sure to join us starting at 2PM Eastern!

And tonight sees the remaining designers take a Tarot reading and more on a special Wednesday night episode of The Fashion Show.

Michael Urie and Thomas Jay Ryan from The Temperamentals

New York magazine's Vulture Blog recently got to chat with Ugly Betty scene-stealer Michael Urie and the discussion eventually took a turn to his sexual orientation, which has been a matter of speculation and a topic that Urie has avoided in the past.

However, as the interview notes, on his own website Urie described himself as "a member of the LGBT community" and asks about the disparity:

Well, that's my M.O. I'm interested in keeping — you know, actors have to be able to do lots of different things, and while I'd say there's an ongoing theme [to the parts I play], I'm also not interested in having any real publicity about who I am and what my private life is and things like that. I'm an actor and I don't want to be a [fill-in-the-] blank actor.

Does that mean that he'd rather not discuss being gay, fearing it means he'll only be offered gay roles? Not really, he says he'd just rather be talking about his work than himself:

This week, TNT's crime drama The Closer took a look at the disappearance of a gay man in a case that that had Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson working with her FBI Special Agent husband Fritz.

Generally, I'm not a fan of police procedurals, so I'm not very familiar with The Closer but if this episode is typical for the show, I'm pretty impressed by it all. Read below for the details, watch out for the SPOILERS:

Anderson Cooper returns to the guest-host seat on today's Live with Regis and Kelly, which means I've got my fingers crossed for another report on the state of cable reality shows.

And then, will gay BFF Stephan and the other hopefuls face some jail time as the competition to become Paris Hilton's New BFF continues?

Comics writer Peter David has a pretty gay-inclusive history. His original run on X-Factor is partially remembered for how used the status of mutantkind to explore gay issues, in 1999 he won a GLAAD media award for his work on Supergirl and his Madrox mini-series suggested that some of Jamie Madrox's selves were exploring his bisexual side.

With his return to X-Factor gay fans have been wondering where he would take the series and, indeed, he gave them quite a teaser at the end of the most recent issue.

But watch out for SPOILERS before you read any further:

It's another triple-soap day today as things heat up between Rafe and Adam on The Young and the Restless, Kyle has to pick who he will betray on One Life to Live, while Noah faces a tough choice on As the World Turns. And be sure to join us when we liveblog the action on Y&R starting at 12:30 PM Eastern! Oh, and we're also going to liveblog As the World Turns at 2 PM Eastern! It's a Monday doubleshot, our treat!

And that's not all on a night that includes the return of Det. Roy Till on Weeds and Kathy Griffin turning to Paris Hilton for help in getting off the D-List

It's a busy weekend of gay TV as all three gay-inclusive soaps (The Young and the Restless, One Life to Live and As the World Turns) have the guys in the spotlight, Fox debuts the gay-inclusive sci-fi special Virtuality and BBC America debuts the first of Russell T. Davies' final Doctor Who specials.

With Adam hoping to make use of Rafe in his plans today and big moments for Luke and Noah, we'll be following the action with two liveblogs. Be sure to join us starting at 12:30 PM and 2:00 PM Eastern!

Full weekend listings continue below... 

This week, gossip blogger and "queen of all media" Perez Hilton was allegedly assaulted. The situation may have started as a he said/he said story in the media, but it changed when TMZ released video of the incident, which included the gossip blogger calling will.i.am a "faggot". Hilton's use of the gay slur was criticized by GLAAD and yesterday it looked like a war of the words was brewing between the blogger and the media watchdog group, but Hilton has offered an apology for his use of the slur.

Due to the voice he takes on his gossip site, the incident inspired many to react with a bit of schadenfreude, along with comments that someone should have acted on the urge to hit him sooner. His polarizing personality led to some media coverage that truly belongs in a hall of shame, as well as some that didn't quite work for me. Here are the highlights: