Afternoon Meme: Remembering Ryan White, MTV Likes Ladies Kissing, Colin Farrell Made Me Cry, and Spider-Man Is a Jerk

Plus, Sarah Jessica Parker falls under Andy Cohen's spell, meet the "retrosexual," is Hollywood gay enough, and how you can get big red balls.

Voting is open for the MTV Movie Awards nominees. I was poking around the “Best Kiss” category and saw two girl-girl choices, one alien-hybrid choice, and one human-Vulcan choice amongst 22 choices. Evidently no men kissed in any movies last year.

David Cross says despite all the other stories claiming the Arrested Development movie is on, it’s not.

Sarah Jessica Parker is producing a Project Runway-like show for artists, to air on Bravo. Because art happens on demand all the time.

You know how Family Guy’s Peter Griffin looks like he has balls on his chin? That’s the premise for a live-action short starring Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman.

Someone in the New York City Parks Department thought putting shiny metal domes on a playground was a good idea. Instead, the domes are slick, causing kids to slide and fall. Plus, they heat up in the sunlight and cause second degree burns. Even Amy Poehler knows better than that.

We’ve lived through metrosexuals, bromances, no-homo, and now we’re all going to endure “retrosexuals” as a fad. You can blame Mad Men for men going to the barbershop for shaves, wearing hats, and opening doors for women while devaluing them behind closed doors. 

CNN continues damage control with “Is Hollywood ‘gay’ Enough” which despite talking to all sorts of actual beloved homosexuals maintains a nasty tone, particularly to lesbians. Maybe it’s best you just stop talking at this point, ‘k?

Colin Farrell made me cry, talking about his big brother Eamon’s life as a child, getting beaten up for being who he was. It’s part of the STAND UP! campaign against homophobia in schools, and it’s worth reading the whole piece, but he does distill a very personal tale down to the basic fact:  “Intolerance is not genetically encoded – it is taught.”

The Massachusetts challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act is scheduled to begin arguments on May 6^th. The very name of that law bugs the heck out of me, like there are barbarian hordes of homosexuals storming the gates. That’s nonsense – we’d at least call ahead, and probably send a “save the date” card.

Remember me complaining about Spirit Air adding a fee for checked bags? At least they aren’t going to require you have exact change to pee like Ryanair is trying to move towards.

Taylor Kitsch is going to star in the ridiculous board game adaption of Battleship as some sort of Navy commander. So he’s going to go from high school to in charge of a billion dollar naval ship? Only in Hollywood. At least he'll have to get a haircut.

Buried down in the Spurf™’s weekly column of spoilers is a note that Marshall on The United States of Tara is coming out next week. To who? Astronauts on the space station who might have missed it?

I’d put these pictures of dogs and cats in costumes down in the photo section, but people are threatening to call PETA on me, so you can just click over to see these undignified pets on your own. Poor little guys – note #12 bears a striking resemblance to Whoopi Goldberg.

ABC has released the schedule of summer programming and my favorite guilty pleasure, Wipeout breaks out the big balls June 1. On a side note, I can’t find the embeddable video anywhere, but on Facebook you can see the trailer for Wipeout for the Wii, which I’m totally buying.

Find out how Rufus Wainwright is repurposing Shakespeare for a musical confection with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

The clouds have rolled in, the spring sunshine is gone, and I'm feeling a little bit of ennui. Evidently I'm not alone.

He's a cat, at least his eyes are open.

This one is more energetic.

This is a real product you can buy for the Star Wars nerd living his mother's basement. Odds are he's still afraid of the dark.

Let it die already.

I'm not sure if this is real, but shouldn't it be blue?

Much like a bumblebee, I'm not sure how this is going to take flight.

On a serious note, today marks 20 years since the death of Ryan White, the young man who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion and gave a face to the disease. His name graces the federal program that provides lifesaving medications to millions in the United States living with the disease. His story led to friendships with Michael Jackson, and most notably Sir Elton John, and inspired the founding of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised millions for research and treatment.

This video of 8-bit creatures invading New York City made me giggle when I found it early this morning.

Stephen Colbert took on the Hello Kitty wine that I told you about last week, and proposed several other children's cartoon alcoholic beverages. As there are Sesame Street Muppets involved, I have to share – particularly since those Muppets are Count von Count (scary to 3-year-old me) and Oscar the Grouch (my favorite!). It's doubly full of goodness.

This video puts forth the theory that Spider Man may have powers nearly as useless as Aquaman, and on top of it, he's a bit of a jerk about it.