AfterElton Briefs: "Big Love" Goes Gay, Plus Soap Hunks, "Real World DC"'s Bisexual, Lady GaGa Goes NSFW, and more.

Happy Solstice

Following this assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear. Yes, we're serious.

• It's the shortest day of the year, so for all you folks who aren't kept in the Blungeon™ (I owe snicks a royalty for that), starting tomorrow you get more seconds of precious sunlight. Happy Solstice, to those who celebrate it.

• Lady GaGa was photographed by David LaChapelle for a booklet in a special, limited edition of Fame Monster. Most of the pictures are actually NSFW, so we won't be printing them here, but she has lovely taste in bodies to be strewn at her feet.

• In the teaser photo on the front page, you see The Bold & The Beautiful's Brandon Beemer, who won basically every category in the Soap Hunks voting I asked you to go participate in a couple weeks ago. Gays won nada. You folks make lousy evil minions for my Gay Agenda if you won't go stare at hot men when commanded.

• The Spurf™over at Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Starz is so confident they have a hit in Spartacus: Blood and Sand that they've renewed it for a second season before it even starts airing next month. This is good, since we know they have a gay character, and there's so much male nudity they have prosthetics to make everybody feel "big."

Too many clothes in this picture for my taste.

• Over at io9.com the've got a re-edit of Zachary Quinto reading the audio book for Star Trek novelization that fulfills any slash writer's most graphic fantasies. The link is fine, but if you press play on the video, it is soooo NSFW.

• Out has an article about the Gayest Video Games, and they failed to include a single video game with any actual gay content. No idea if they just felt like a walk down 8-bit memory lane or what.

• HBO's Big Love is promising big things for closet case Alby this year, and here we've got a video teaser for the new season.

• The New York Post has voting up for a favorite front page from the 2000s from their Top 50, and there is a gay entry - #14 is about former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey resigning as part of a gay blackmail scandal. Of the remaining front pages, 48 of them are Tiger Woods. Just kidding. But seriously, go vote for a heterosexual scandal to win this one.

• Happy Anniversary to David Furnish and Sir Elton John married/civil partnered four years ago today. For the 4th, the traditional gift is "fruit" (backing away from the joke slowly) and the modern gift is "appliances" (backing away from the joke quickly). All the best to them.

David Furnish and Sir Elton make a handsome couple.

• Michael Cudlitz, who plays Officer Cooper on TNT's Southland, will be making a promotional appearance for the show in Washington, D.C. January 7th at the Hyatt Park Hotel at 6pm. It is open to the public, but you need to RSVP.

• The New York Times has put out their Buzzwords of 2009 list, and they included "gay-marry" in the literal and, well, stupid sense. Seriously, with all due respect to the Gray Lady, if you're doing stuff like this, you are not helping to raise the level of discourse in the country.

That's actually the image the "paper of record" chose for the term?

• Speaking of aged news you have to kill trees to get, Martha Stewart Weddings included their first same-sex marriage, Jeremy Hooper and Andrew Shulman of the Good As You blog. Martha didn't feel the need to call it out as two dudes getting "gay-married" nor compare it to love for your iPhone. She just called it a "wedding."

• I'm going to borrow some language from AddisonDewitt a little here. Colin Farrell's brother Eamon Farrell was legally married earlier this year in Canada, but he's about to be wedded to his husband in Ireland with family and friends this weekend.

Colin and Eamon Farrell together in 2003/Photo: Getty Images

• MTV has announced that The Real World DC is going to premiere December 30 at 10pm. If you recall, we mentioned that a casting director had sold their soul to get bisexual-Christian-jock Mike on the series. Meet Mike:

• Newsweek Magazine has issued their predictions for 2010, and among them is that President Obama "does nada on gay rights." Finally, something Newsweek and I agree on. But did it have to be this?

• Ricky Martin published a really sweet statement on human rights, and moving beyond tolerance to acceptance for things like sexual orientation. I am going to stop typing right there.

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