Morning Meme: Defending Tracy Morgan, Small Town Pride, and "From Dollywood To Hollywood"

We largely covered the Tony Awards last night, but here’s a list of Neil Patrick Harris’ best jokes. He had a lot of them. When can we elect him our leader?

In news that seems to surprise some, but not me, the “Gay Girl In Damascus” lesbian blogger rumored to have been kidnapped never existed. It was a 40-year-old American man.

Ron Nyswaner, the gay writer behind Philadelphia, is currently producing a movie with Jesse Eisenberg and Tracy Morgan. He attempts the most insulting apologist piece about Morgan to date. There were tears? You bet there were tears, but Morgan’s don’t interest me.

Author Anna Quindlen gave the commencement address at Grinnell College, and what she said doesn’t distill well. But the heart of it seems to be that the baby boomers have destroyed America by focusing on money, but today’s youth can rebuild it. It’s a good read, and I expect Fox News to denounce her in 3-2-1.

Act of Valour is a Navy SEALs movie that had no major names and little studio interest. That was before SEAL Team 6 took out Osama bin Laden.  Now Relativity is paying $13 million for the movie and guaranteeing a $30 million advertising budget. They hope to have it in theaters for 9/11/11. I feel like I need a shower after writing that.

E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons has suffered a stroke. It’s not known how badly it’s affected him, but Rolling Stone calls it serious.

I’ve always been a fan or R.L. Stine’s, and I’ve recently become a fan of Richard Harmon through Tower Prep and Judas Kiss (I hear The Killing is amazing as well). So it’s great news that he won a Leo award for his role in The Haunting Hour.

Seth Meyers thinks people are so passionate about hating Saturday Night Live because they have ownership of the show. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that the show just isn’t funny anymore.

Sean Chapin, fresh from having gotten the San Francisco Giants to make an It Gets Better video, has set his sights on getting NBC to dump Tracy Morgan.

Dustin Lance Black has initiated the DLB Video Challenge, asking GLBT folks to submit their stories. But he’s especially after stories from his once-home of Texas. It doesn’t have to be coming out, it can be marriage, break up, marching – just your story.

The BBC has been so under pressure about showing two men in bed together on EastEnders they’ve finally issued a statement. But that’s not the fun part. The fun part is The Guardian responding to the idiots that park their children in front of an adult soap and yet find two men in bed beside each other more objectionable than the drugs, murder and straight sex that happens on that show every day. They just eviscerate the small-minded fools. It’s a must read.

Super 8 dominated the box office, earning a cool $38 million. Pretty good for a movie for which all signs pointed to a disappointing opening. X-Men: First Class held relatively strong with another $25 million for second place.

The AP takes a look at the curious trend of religious conservatives to try and brand gays as bullies for simply asking that they stop bashing us.

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